Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,118
frequently. Rothgreb and his lady will like that.”
“Sophie, I love you, but this plan has nothing to recommend it, except that it puts the two fellows you seem to love with your whole heart where they’re either gallivanting about the globe without you or right under your nose where you can look but not touch.”
She just shook her head and kept moving along with him.
“All right, then, go visit your Holy Terror and explain to the Harrads that no, you’ll be haring off in a different direction now, playing skittles with a child’s life while you completely ignore your own needs. I’m going to have a sane argument with a piano while I can still reason.”
He marched off—he was not retreating—and left Sophie in the middle of the village green, her fists clenched at her sides while the sounds of the Christmas party drifted around in the frigid night air.
***
A man could not aspire to the status of man at all unless he admitted to himself he’d been mistaken.
And Sophie had apparently known this. She’d known Vim had spent more than a dozen years racketing around the world, laying up treasures on earth, all in the mistaken belief His Grace had treated him shabbily, when all the while…
“I beg your pardon.” The very object of his youthful folly stepped back and peered at him through tired eyes. Louise Holderness Horton smiled tentatively. “I know you, sir, or I believe I do.”
He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “It’s Sindal, Louise. Wilhelm Charpentier. Happy Christmas.” He bowed and left her standing there under the mistletoe, her hand to her a cheek and a ghost of her old smile on her lips.
And now to deal with what really mattered. He took a quick leave of his hostess, whose serene mature beauty reminded him all too strongly of Sophie.
Sophie, who was discreetly maintaining an absence when he’d come expressly to mend his fences with her. He gave the place one more visual inspection and didn’t see her anywhere, so he signaled for his hat and coat.
“Where are you off to?” Westhaven was doing a poor job of masking a glower. “If I’m not mistaken, you haven’t made your bow to Sophie.”
“I have not, and if that’s how she wants it, that’s how it will be. Excuse me.”
“You’re really leaving.” The glower faded to puzzlement, though Westhaven’s hand stayed on Vim’s arm.
“I’m leaving for the curate’s house, if you must know, and then, if Sophie still won’t give me an audience, I am heading for Yorkshire, or wherever else you lot think you can secret her.”
“What’s at the curate’s house?”
“Not a what, a who. The love of Sophie’s life, who should at least be with her if she won’t allow me to be. Happy Christmas, Westhaven.”
He slipped out the door and didn’t bother retrieving his horse. It was a short walk down to the village, and he’d need the time to clear his head.
***
“Where was Sindal going?” St. Just growled.
“I’m not sure, but he mentioned the curate’s house.” Westhaven’s brow knit. “He sounded a bit like he’d gotten into Deene’s white rum, but he had only the one drink with His Grace.”
“His Grace is involved now?”
The brothers exchanged a look, and they spoke in unison. “Let’s go.”
***
Vim was composing a speech, having failed utterly with his note to Sophie. He sought a means of explaining to the Harrads that he’d like to have the baby back, thank you very much, because Sophie Windham loved the child, and she should have whom and what she loved.
And if he cleared that hurdle without landing on his arse, he might, apology in hand, point out to the lady that a growing boy could use a man’s influence.
It was a shaky plan, but it had the advantage of sparing one and all trips to the West Riding in the dead of winter. Surely she’d see the wisdom of that?
“Vim?”
He stopped dead in his tracks. There she stood in the middle of the green, not fifteen feet away, resplendent in moonlight and velvet.
Twenty
“Sophie. Why aren’t you at the Christmas revels?”
She stared at Vim for so long he thought perhaps she hadn’t heard him. But then a sigh went out of her, and she seemed to grow smaller where she stood.
“I’m fetching Kit to you.”
What? “Why would you do such a thing?”
Her smile was wan, not a smile he’d seen on her before, and it tore at his heart.
“It’s the right thing,” she said, rubbing her hands up and down