“My dear,” Rothgreb said softly from his wing chair.

“Not now, Aethelbert. I want to hear from your buffle-brained, stubborn, idiot, errant nephew just where his home might be if it isn’t here with the people who love him and pray for him every night? Where must you wander off to next, Wilhelm? I need to know where to send the letter that tells you you’ve missed the last opportunity to ride these acres with your uncle. I want to know what godforsaken heathen port you’ll be in when I have to run the death notice. Tell me, and then hope a merciful God sustains me in my grief long enough to post the blessed thing.”

She swished out of the parlor, the door latch closing with a definitive click in her wake.

And now it was Vim who didn’t want to meet his uncle’s gaze.

A silence started up while Rothgreb scooted to the edge of his chair, braced his hands on the padded arms, and pushed himself to his feet. “Don’t worry. At breakfast tomorrow she’ll be apologizing and cramming strawberry crepes down your gullet.” He knelt to poke up the fire while Vim stood there, his aunt’s tirade ringing in his ears.

“You did ask me to come home, didn’t you?”

His uncle paused, the poker across his bony knee where he genuflected before the hearth. “A time or two. I don’t want Essie to be alone if anything should happen to me. She’s probably reasoning along the same lines. Your cousins will be some comfort, but they won’t manage the place as it should be managed.”

Rothgreb rose, teetered, and caught the mantel to finish pulling himself erect. “Your aunt is a dear, dear woman, but she is protective of me.”

“Don’t apologize for her when she was merely stating a few home truths.”

“Apologize? I was explaining.” Rothgreb peered at him. “She has a knack for walloping a man between the eyes on those rare occasions when she gets her dander up. Makes marriage to her a lively proposition.”

Vim turned to stare out the window at the late afternoon landscape. “I don’t suppose you want to take that ride now?”

“Ah, youth. If you want to freeze your arse off tooling about the shire in this weather, be my guest. Talk to me about riding out come spring, and I might take you up on the offer. I’m going to find your aunt and assure her you’ll still speak to her when next she meets you.” He frowned. “You will, won’t you?”

Rothgreb was gruff, irascible, cantankerous, and sometimes even cussed, but in Vim’s experience, his uncle was never, ever uncertain.

“Of course I will, and if she’s not careful, I’ll be sure we meet up under the mistletoe.”

Rothgreb nodded slowly. “Not a bad approach. Puts the ladies in a fine humor when they get their regular share of kisses. Enjoy your ride.”

He shuffled out, looking to Vim for the first time like a very old man. A very old and very dear man.

Nineteen

“He’s not coming.” Valentine kept his voice down and his smile in place, even managing to nod at some little pretty across the room who apparently hadn’t gotten word he’d recently acquired a wife.

“He’ll be here.” Westhaven smiled, as well, as if Val had just said something amusing.

“I could always go fetch him.” St. Just wasn’t smiling. He was looking thoughtful, which generally did not bode well for somebody.

“We should send Her Grace,” Val said. “She’d sort the bugger out in a hurry.”

St. Just glanced at him. “She’s too busy dispensing good cheer to every yeoman and goodwife ever to pass through the village.”

“Sophie’s being even more gracious than our mother.” Westhaven did not sound happy about this in the least.

Maggie glided up to them, looking striking in a green velvet dress. “I thought you three said you had Sindal under control. Sophie’s smiling so hard her jaw must hurt, and he’s nowhere in sight.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Westhaven sounded most displeased. “Evie just switched her glass of wassail for Deene’s, and the idiot man didn’t even notice.”

Maggie’s brows knit. “Why does that matter?”

“Because,” St. Just said as Westhaven moved off, “Deene’s is spiked with a dose of the loveliest white rum ever to knock a grown man on his arse.”

Maggie took a little sip of her drink. “So’s mine.”

Val reached over and plucked her glass from her hand. “Then you’d better share, sister dear, or I’m going to go fetch Sindal here myself.”

* * *

A summer evening could be quiet, peaceful even, but it could never compete with the utter stillness of a winter night. No birds flitted from branch to branch; no insects sang to their mates; no soft breezes stirred leafy green boughs.

As Vim let his horse trot down the Sidling drive, all was still, and a fat moon was about to crest the horizon. The silence was as dense as the air was cold, but for the life of him, Vim could not have remained indoors with his silly young cousins, his fuming aunt, his oddly quiet uncle, and the aging retainers on every hand.

As the horse loosened up at a ground-eating trot beneath him, Vim started composing a note in his head to Lady Sophia Windham.

He was sorry—more sorry than he could say—that their paths were diverging.

Except that wasn’t an apology, and he owed her an apology. He’d leapt to convenient conclusions, made mad, passionate love for what felt like the first time in his life, then bungled the aftermath badly. He should have gone down on his damn bended knee, should have made her heart tremble, or whatever that word was Windham had used.

At the foot of the drive, he turned the horse toward the village and started his note over: Dear Sophie…

My dear Sophie…

Dearest Sophie…

Sophie, my love…

The horse’s ears swiveled forward, and Vim drew the beast up. The last thing he needed was to land on his arse on the cold, hard ground because some damned fox was out hunting his dinner.

“What is it?” He smoothed a hand down the gelding’s neck and let the horse walk on. “You hear some hound baying at the moon?”

But as they approached the village, Vim heard it too: a baby crying.

He halted the horse and simply listened. This was the sound that had drawn his path to Sophie’s, a purely unhappy, discontent sound, but unmistakably human.

Kit, and he wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t tired, either; this was his lonely cry, the lament he sent out when he needed to be held and cuddled and reassured. This was the simplest and most sincere form of a human being demanding to be loved.

The boy wanted Sophie, and he didn’t second-guess his entitlement to her, didn’t stop to fret about long-ago insults and innuendos and violins, didn’t worry about titles or any other damned thing that stood between him and what he needed to be happy.

Mercifully, the crying ceased.

Before Vim could change his mind, he wheeled the horse in the direction of Morelands and set the beast to a brisk canter.

* * *

“Her Grace dispatched me to figure out what has you lot glowering like a matched set of gargoyles.” Percival, the Duke of Moreland, surveyed his three sons, all of whom were clutching their drinks with the grim resignation of grown men being sociable under duress. This was odd, since all of his children were more than comfortable in social settings.

“We’re that obvious?” Valentine asked.

“To Her Grace, all is transparent when it comes to her family. I suppose we’re waiting for Sophie’s swain to come to his senses and gallop up the drive on his white charger?”

St. Just stood by the window, peering through a crack in the drapes. “It’s a bay, actually, and the idiot man is finally here. Somebody needs to warn Sophie.”

“Not just yet,” His Grace said. “I’m to have a word with Sindal first, Her Grace’s orders. You three look after your sister, and for God’s sake, find somebody to dance with Evie before she drags Deene under the mistletoe by his hair. She holds his liquor better than he does.”

He left his sons to deal with their sisters while he moved to receive his latest guest.

“Sindal, glad you could join us.” He passed the man’s greatcoat to a footman and noted that Sindal’s expression was wary and his cheeks were flushed, as if he’d galloped the entire distance from Sidling. “Stop peering around to see if Sophie’s here. I assure you she’s about somewhere.”

Sindal passed his gloves and hat to the footman and waited until the servant had bustled away. “And you would not object to my socializing with Lady Sophia?”

“Such a bold fellow you have become.” Emboldened by love, apparently, which made the situation both simpler and more delicate. “You would not give a tinker’s damn if I objected, would you?”

Sindal’s lips quirked. “I would not, Your Grace, but Sophie would.”

“Thank God for small favors, then. Are we to stand around here in this draft and exchange innuendos, or will you let me get you a glass of punch?”

And still, Sindal’s gaze was darting surreptitiously into every corner of the vast entrance hall. “No punch for me, thank you, Your Grace.”

Oh, for God’s sake. His Grace leveled a look at his guest that wasn’t the least congenial. Love made young men daft—old men too, though that didn’t signify at the moment.

“Perhaps a small glass,” Sindal allowed.

And just when His Grace was certain they were going to gain the privacy of the men’s punch bowl, who should come wafting by but dear little Sophia herself ?

“Lord Sindal?” She stopped, her gaze fixed on Sindal’s face.

“I’m fetching him a glass of punch, Sophie.” His Grace took Sindal by the arm. “I believe Her Grace said something about Westhaven decimating the marzipan trays. You might want to have a look, hmm?”

He had to drag the boy away bodily. “You can lurk under the mistletoe later, Sindal. I want no more than five minutes of your time.” And grandchildren. He most assuredly wanted grandchildren, though based on the way Sophie and her swain made eyes at each other, this happy outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Legitimate grandchildren would be a shade easier to explain to Her Grace.

“To your health.” He passed a glass of spiked punch to Sindal. “Drink up, sir. I have a hunch you’ll need the fortification.”

Sindal took a sip of his drink, his eyes going to the door and the entrance hall beyond. “And your health, as well, Your Grace. Now if you’re done demonstrating your ducal forbearance, I’ve something to say to your daughter that can’t—”

His Grace plucked the glass from Sindal’s hand. “You will listen to me first, young fellow.” He saw his wife glide past the door and understood that she’d ensure they had a measure of privacy. “You have been notably absent from our Christmas gatherings in years past.”

“I’ve been notably absent from England, but I don’t foresee that being necessary in future.”

“Glad to hear it. Stop that infernal mooning for Sophie and take a look at the woman standing at the foot of the stairs.”

Sindal did stop scanning the environs long enough to shoot his host a look mixing irritation with vague curiosity. “The heavyset, older woman?”

“The one standing next to the bald fellow leaning on his cane.” The woman obligingly turned, which ought to confirm, even to Sindal’s preoccupied and besotted eyes, that she wasn’t just heavyset, she’d graduated from matronly to something less flattering two stone ago.

“Do you recognize her?”

“She looks vaguely familiar, as does the older fellow with her.”

“There is your thwarted dream, Sindal. Why don’t you stand under the mistletoe and ambush her for old times’ sake? Horton can barely stand on his own now, so bad is his gout and so seldom is he sober. I suppose if you called him out now, you could arm wrestle.”

To his credit, Sindal did not gape.

“Then again”—His Grace paused to take a sip of his drink—“if I had six little heifers the likes of his to dower and launch, I might be driven to drink myself.”

Sindal swung his gaze back to meet His Grace’s. “Her present situation does not excuse your interfering with a man’s defense of her honor and his own years ago, Your Grace.”

“No, they do not.” His Grace set his drink down. “But her oldest daughter? Born perhaps six and a half months after the wedding.” He spoke very quietly—there was no need to bruit the woman’s folly about again after all these years. “Your grandfather lamented the situation to me over many a brandy, Sindal. She was leading you about by the… nose and had her eye on the more highly titled prize the entire time. She even cornered my son Bartholomew a time or two, but he was a canny sort and not about to be taken advantage of. If it’s any consolation, Horton was more effectively manipulated than you were.”