Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,109

serve some purpose other than to delight your tailor with your excellent turnout.”

“I delight my wife even in the absence of any raiment whatsoever.”

“For God’s sake, Windham—”

“My sisters talk to me,” Windham resumed, “and as a male, I am always torn by the question: why are they telling me such things? Am I supposed to offer to thrash a fellow or lecture a shopkeeper, or am I merely to listen and make sympathetic noises?”

“Your capacity for making noise is documented by all and sundry.”

Green eyes without a hint of humor narrowed on Vim. “Do not insult my music, Sindal.”

“I wasn’t. I was insulting your talent for roundaboutation.”

“Oh. Quite. In any case, I’ve concluded that in the instant case, I am not to offer to do something nor to make sympathetic noises. I am to act. Don’t neglect your drink.”

“At the moment, it would serve me best emptied over your head.”

The half smile was back, and thus Vim didn’t see the verbal blow coming. “Sophie thinks you were offering her a less than honorable proposition before we came to collect her, and modified your proposal only when her station became apparent.”

Windham took a casual sip of his drink while Vim’s brain fumbled for a coherent thought. “She thinks what ?”

“She thinks you offered to set her up as your mistress and changed your tune, so to speak, when it became apparent you were both titled. I know she is in error in this regard.”

Vim cocked his head. “How could you know such a thing?”

“Because if you propositioned my sister with such an arrangement, it’s your skull I’d be using that splitting ax on.”

“If Sophie thinks this, then she is mistaken.” Windham remained silent, reinforcing Vim’s sense the man was shrewd in the extreme. “You will please disabuse her of her error.”

Windham shook his head slowly, right to left, left to right. “It isn’t my error, and it isn’t Sophie’s error. She’s nothing if not bright, and you were probably nothing if not cautious in offering your suit. The situation calls for derring-do, old sport. Bended knee, flowers, tremolo in the strings, that sort of thing.” He gestured as if stroking a bow over a violin, a lyrical, dramatic rendering that ought to have looked foolish but was instead casually beautiful.

“Tremolo in the strings?”

“To match the trembling of her heart. A fellow learns to listen for these things.” Windham set his mug down with a thump and speared Vim with a look. “I’m off to do battle with the treble register. Wish me luck, because failure on my part will be apparent every Sunday between now and Judgment Day.”

“Windham, for God’s sake, you don’t just accuse a man of such a miscalculation and then saunter off to twist piano wires.” Much less make references to failure being eternally apparent.

“Rather thought I was twisting your heart strings. Must be losing my touch.”

Vim watched as Windham tossed a coin on the table. “It makes no difference, you know, that your sister is mistaken. I did offer for her subsequently. She understood clearly I was offering marriage, and she turned me down.”

Windham glanced around the common then met Vim’s gaze. “As far as she’s concerned, you offered her insult before you offered her marriage. An apology is in order at the very least, and Her Grace’s Christmas party seems to be the perfect time to render it.”

And then he did saunter off, and the blighted, bedamned, cheeky bastard was whistling “Greensleeves.”

***

Westhaven’s subtlety had failed, Valentine’s bullying charm had met with indifferent success, so Devlin St. Just, Colonel Lord Rosecroft, saddled up and rode into battle on his sister’s behalf.

“I’ll collect the mare when I’ve signed the appropriate documents up at the manor,” he said, stroking a hand down the horse’s long face. The wizened little groom scrubbing out a wooden bucket showed no sign of having heard him, so St. Just repeated himself, speaking more slowly and more loudly.

“Oh, aye. Be gone with ye, then. I’ll make me farewells to the lady and get her blanketed proper while ye and their lordships congratulate each other.” The groom’s eyes went to the mare, the last of Rothgreb’s breeding stock, and in the opinion of many, the best.

“May I ask you something?” St. Just knew better than to watch the man’s good-byes to the horse. He directed his gaze to the tidy manor a quarter mile away.

“Ask, your lordship.”

“Why is there no young stock among the servants here? Why is everybody working well past the time when