“Once with you lot is enough,” the old man barked. “Shoo.” They departed amid more giggles.

Sindal looked disgruntled. “You made that look easy.”

“I have daughters, and I’m half Irish. It was easy, also fun. Rothgreb, can we repair somewhere private to transact a little business?”

“What? Business? Sindal can deal with those details. I’m going to find my viscountess and tell her she missed a chance to kiss Moreland’s war hero.”

Sindal passed St. Just the tumbler. “It helps if you’re as half seas over as the rest of the household. I have never longed more ardently for sunset. Uncle has set himself up as the Lord of Misrule until then.”

“And you’re not feeling the seasonal cheer?”

“Bah, to quote my uncle.” An odd smile flitted across Sindal’s face. “Among others. Let’s repair to the study. There’s a bill of sale and a decanter—and no damned mistletoe.”

“I rather like mistletoe.”

“I rather like a fine brandy.”

They dealt with the documents quickly, but Sindal had to hunt up the sand with which to blot them. “It should be in here some damned where. The old fellow is nothing if not—” He fell silent, peering into a low cupboard behind the estate desk.

“Something amiss?”

Sindal straightened, a divided serving dish in his hands. “What would an olive dish be doing secreted in my uncle’s study?”

St. Just sipped at his brandy while Sindal withdrew a ceremonial sword, a carved chess set of ivory and onyx, an ivory-inlaid cribbage board, an antique pair of dueling pistols, a small crossbow, and several other curiosities from the same low cupboard.

“Is somebody putting away the valuables while company’s underfoot?”

Sindal shot him a look, a speculating, cogitating sort of look. “Would a woman growing vague and easily disoriented know to stop by the kitchen for carrots and sugar before she wandered off toward the stables?”

The question made no sense and had no discernible context. “Sindal, have you spent a little too much time at the punch bowl fortifying yourself for the kissing bough?”

“There is no adequate fortification for such an ordeal. It’s enough to make a man repair to heathen climes permanently.” He set the contents of the cupboard out on Rothgreb’s estate desk, came around the desk, and took the seat beside St. Just. “I have been manipulated by a pair of old schemers. The question is why?”

“Finish your drink.” St. Just pushed a glass closer to his host. “You are not going to remove to distant parts, but I gather you divine some sort of conspiracy from what’s here?”

“My aunt’s letters suggested Rothgreb was misplacing valuables; his letters informed me my aunt had started wandering.”

“And you came home to investigate?”

“Exactly. I suppose that was the point, though one wonders if they were conspiring with each other or intriguing individually.”

“And until you come home to stay, the old guard will not retire nor step aside for any younger replacements. Your uncle’s regiment has decided they’re going to fight this battle as a team.”

“One suspected such faulty reasoning was at work.”

They fell into a companionable silence while St. Just tried to formulate a question that would pique but not quite offend. “I’ve wondered something.”

Sindal turned to regard him. “If you’re going to invite me to Her Grace’s Christmas party, spare your breath. That is the very last place I’d seek to spend time.”

“Yes, but one wonders why. If His Grace did you a disservice by preventing you from dueling with Horton all those years ago, then why not take the opportunity to read the old boy the Riot Act? Why not beard the lion in his very own den?”

“The old boy is one of the most powerful men in the Lords, the highest title in the shire, and the father of the woman I happen to l—”

St. Just went on as if he hadn’t heard the very thing no man ever admitted to another. “And every year that you dodge and skulk about, avoiding His Grace’s hospitality, you enlarge the magnitude of what was not intended to do you any harm whatsoever. I was there, Sindal, and I saw exactly what happened. Come over tomorrow night, have a cup of eggnog, smile, and hang about in your finery under the mistletoe until Sophie comes swanning down the steps. You need a chance to make a grand exit with your head held high.”

Sindal scrubbed a hand over his face and stared at his drink. “What do you mean, there was no intent to do me harm? The lady and I had an understanding, and half the shire knew it. His Grace might have handled the thing a thousand different ways that didn’t involve making me a laughingstock. I regretted the loss of the lady’s hand at the time, but more I bitterly resented that Moreland prevented me from defending my own honor.”

The man believed he’d simply been elbowed aside by the collective papas of the shire for the better title, which would have been a bitter blow indeed, had that been the case.

“So demonstrate your backbone and make a short social call. You deserve the chance to put your own conclusion to the matter. Then too, Horton is afflicted with gout. He can no longer even stand up with his own lady.”

Sindal rose and went to stand facing the window. “I need a chance to apologize to your sister for a small misunderstanding, but I fail to see why a note won’t suffice.”

A fellow was not a coward who sought to avoid armed confrontation in the enemy camp. St. Just didn’t judge his host, but he wasn’t about to fail his sister, either.

“I kissed all seven of your cousins, including the fair Cynthia Louise. Are you saying you can’t abide the thought of kissing five of my sisters, at least one of whom has already succumbed to your dubious charms?”

“For God’s sake, St. Just, this isn’t a schoolyard rivalry. I have no confidence whatsoever Sophie won’t run from the sight of me. She thinks…”

“She thinks her swain capable of a less than gallant proposition,” St. Just said, rising to stand by his host. “But here’s what will happen if you fail to speak up. Today, the ladies are busy with preparations at Morelands, and they are not receiving. Tomorrow is the Christmas Party—an excellent opportunity to set matters to rights with His Grace, and your only real opportunity to sort things out with Sophie.

“Christmas Day will be spent at services, opening a few gifts, and starting on the Boxing Day rounds. We have too many tenants to distribute all the baskets in a single day, but on the following day, I will depart for Yorkshire, and I intend that Sophie accompany me.”

Sindal turned to scowl at him. “You’d make her travel north at this time of year?”

“Nobody makes Sophia Windham do anything. I’ve extended the invitation because my womenfolk would love to have her for a long stay, and there are lots of lonely bachelors in the north who’d give their left testicle to stand up with a duke’s daughter as pretty and well dowered as my sister. Then too, Sophie’s associations with the holidays will soon be as miserable as your own, unless you clear the air with her. I bid you good day and extend one final invitation to the party.”

St. Just picked up the bill of sale and left Sindal staring out the window, the family heirlooms in a dusty jumble on the desk behind him.

* * *

“That style is quite becoming on you, my dear.” The duchess advanced into Sophie’s room, eyeing her daughter in Christmas party finery. Her very quiet, grown daughter. “You should start wearing your hair like that more often.”

“Hello, Your Grace.” Sophie frowned in her mirror at a coiffure that was half up, half tumbling down around her shoulders, a splendid compliment to the red velvet of her dress. “This is an experiment.”

Esther’s sons called her mama when they wanted to flatter, wheedle, or comfort, but her daughters were far less in the habit. How had that happened?

“It’s a pretty experiment, but I have to wonder if experimentation hasn’t become something of a new pastime with you, Sophia.”

It was slight, but Sophie squared her shoulders before she turned to face her mother. “Can you be more specific, Your Grace?”

“I received correspondence from the Chattells, Sophia. You manipulated events to be alone without servants or chaperone in Town and then found yourself caring for that baby into the bargain. Your brothers assure me there will be no breath of scandal attached to this… departure from good sense, but I am left to wonder.”

Sophie’s face gave away nothing, not guilt nor remorse, not chagrin, not even defiance. “I wanted to be alone.”

“I see.” Except she didn’t, exactly. When had this child become a mystery to her own mother?

“Why?”

Sophie glanced at herself in the mirror, and Esther could only hope her daughter saw the truth: a lovely, poised woman—intelligent, caring, well dowered, and deserving of more than a stolen interlude with a convenient stranger and an inconvenient baby—Sophie’s brothers’ assurances notwithstanding.

“I am lonely, that’s why.” Sophie’s posture relaxed with this pronouncement, but Esther’s consternation only increased.

“How can you be lonely when you’re surrounded by loving family, for pity’s sake? Your father and I, your sisters, your brothers, even Uncle Tony and your cousins—we’re your family, Sophia.”

She nodded, a sad smile playing around her lips that to Esther’s eyes made her daughter look positively beautiful. “You’re the family I was born with, and I love you too, but I’m still lonely, Your Grace. I’ve wished and wished for my own family, for children of my own, for a husband, not just a marital partner…”

“You had many offers.” Esther spoke gently, because in Sophie’s words, in her calm, in her use of the present tense—“I am lonely”—there was an insight to be had.

“Those offers weren’t from the right man.”

“Was Baron Sindal the right man?” It was a chance arrow, but a woman who had raised ten children owned a store of maternal instinct.

Sophie’s chin dropped, and she sighed. “I thought he was the right man, but it wasn’t the right offer, or perhaps it was, but I couldn’t hear it as such. And then there was the baby… It wouldn’t be the right marriage.”

Esther took her courage in both hands and advanced on her daughter—her sensible daughter—and slipped an arm around Sophie’s waist. “Tell me about this baby. I’ve heard all manner of rumors about him, but you’ve said not one word.”

She meant to walk Sophie over to the vanity, so she might drape Oma’s pearls around Sophie’s neck, but Sophie closed her eyes and stiffened.

“He’s a good baby. He’s a wonderful baby, and I sent him away. Oh, Mama, I sent my baby away…”

And then, for the first time in years, sensible Lady Sophia Windham cried on her mother’s shoulder as if she herself were once again a little, inconsolable baby.

* * *

“What I don’t understand is why you didn’t simply ask me to come back to Sidling?” Vim shifted his gaze from his uncle to his aunt and back to his uncle. He’d waited a day to let his temper cool, but if anything, he was angrier than ever. They were looking at each other, though, and not at him, leaving Vim with the sense volumes were passing between them unsaid.

“I’d like to speak with your aunt in private.” Rothgreb’s tone was tired, quiet, and completely out of character.

“So the two of you can plot and scheme and get your stories straight?”

His aunt looked at him then. It took Vim a moment to decipher the emotion banked in her pale blue eyes: disappointment.

In him. He shifted his gaze back to Rothgreb.

“No, young man, I do not want to plot and scheme with your aunt. I want to apologize to her for trying to plot and scheme without her assistance.” The viscount aimed a small smile at Aunt Essie. “Though I suspect she was getting up to tricks quite nicely on her own, weren’t you, my dear?”

Aunt Esmerelda rose from her chair and began to stalk around the cozy parlor. “I was not managing quite nicely, but I was trying to do something to stop your nephew from charging off to God knows where yet again. Wilhelm, we have tried asking you to come home.”

Vim’s rejoinder was automatic, if a bit unkind. “Sidling is not my—”

“Not your home,” she interrupted him. “Oh, we know it’s not your home, except you were born here, you’re going to inherit the place, and except for three rackety half siblings, your entire family is here in Kent. Your father and mother are buried here, your grandfather and all four of his wives. Your uncle, and very likely you will be buried here, as well, but for some stupid, known-only-to-your-pigheaded-self reason, this is not your home. I have a question for you, Wilhelm Lucifer Charpentier.”