Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,116
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.”
As they watched, Horton staggered a little, sloshing some of his drink on his wife’s sleeve. A silence spread and spread, underlain with the genial sounds of the party and a piano thumping out a Christmas tune somewhere in the house.
“I have been made a fool of, but not by you, Your Grace.” Sindal spoke quietly too. His Grace put the man’s drink back in his hand.
“No more so than most other young men can be made fools of. I had a few close calls myself before Her Grace took me in hand.”
But it appeared Sindal wasn’t even listening. He continued to watch as Horton’s lady tried to look like she was enjoying herself, though all the while, her expression was pinched with fatigue, anxiety, and what looked to His Grace like a suppressed fury at her lot in life.
“She looks at least ten years older than she should.”
“I don’t think her situation has been easy. She’s received—Her Grace saw to that—but her indiscretion is common knowledge. Some mathematical calculations are easy to recall. Your grandfather assured me the child could not have been yours.”
“How could he have known such a thing? I was devoted to that woman for a span of several months.” And still, Sindal did not take his eyes off the unfortunate woman and her sorry spouse.
“He knew you.” The duke spoke not as the wealthy, titled aristocrat he was, nor even as Sindal’s neighbor and a friend to his late grandfather. He spoke as a father, and most particularly as Sophie’s father.
“I owe you an apology, Your Grace.” Sindal extended his hand, and they shook, which put a curious little sense of unfinished business to rest in His Grace’s mind.
“None needed, to me at least. St. Just said something about you owing Sophie an apology, though. Might want to be about that posthaste, hmm?”
Sindal put his drink down, nodded once, and strode off like a man very determined on his mission, while His Grace went to the door of the small parlor. Across their crowded main hall, he found his wife’s gaze, noted the slight anxiety in her eyes, and eased it with a small, private smile intended just for her.
***
“He walked right past me.” Sophie turned before the harpsichord, skirts swishing, and paced back to Val’s side. “He barely looked at me, Valentine. Am I not even worth a glance?”