Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,23
Kit stared at the large male hand that had produced such a startling new sensation.
“He wants you to do it again.”
“You do it.” Mr. Charpentier straightened and grabbed a cloth to dry his hand, the baby’s gaze on him the entire time.
Sophie regarded the baby making a happy tempest in the middle of the washtub. A duke’s daughter did not engage in tomfoolery… but she wasn’t a duke’s daughter at that moment. She was a woman with a baby to bathe.
“Kit.” She trailed a hand through the water. “You are having entirely too much fun in there. Perhaps it’s time we got down to business.” She dribbled water down the child’s chubby arm, and got heartily splashed as Kit expressed his approval of this new game. By damp fits and starts, Sophie got him bathed, got the entire front of her old dress wet, and only realized Mr. Charpentier was largely dry when the man handed her a clean blanket to wrap the wet, wiggling baby in.
“You were no help at all, Vim Charpentier. You left me stranded at sea.”
“You managed quite well with just your own oars, Sophie Windham. Kit looks to be considering a career in the Navy.” He tucked the blanket up over the child’s damp head. “Watch he doesn’t catch a chill now. Some people think bathing unhealthy, though I can’t agree. At Kit’s age, it’s fun too.”
“But somehow, as older children, we get the idea a bath is not fun.” She used the blanket to pat gently at Kit’s face and hands then laid him blanket and all on the worktable.
Vim stood back, watching her as she put a clean nappy on the baby, dodging little feet and hands as she worked. She’d had some practice with this through the night—more practice than any tired woman wanted.
“What’s not fun,” Vim said, trailing a finger down the baby’s cheek, “is being told what to do, whether it’s a bath, sums, or Latin vocabulary. You’re getting better at this.”
“You’re distracting him, which helps a great deal. Is someone telling you what to do?” She didn’t look at him as she posed the question. His mood had been a trifle distant, though he’d been perfectly polite since joining her in the kitchen more than an hour ago. Polite but preoccupied.
“This storm is telling me what to do. It’s telling me I won’t be making any progress toward my family seat today.”
She couldn’t help it. She smiled at him, letting both relief and pleasure show plainly. “I was rather hoping you’d reach that conclusion.”
His answering smile appeared reluctant, lifting one corner of his mouth then working its way to the other. “But you weren’t about to lecture or nag or bully me. You just fed me an enormous breakfast then let Master Kit work his wiles on me.” The smile faded. “I don’t like to think of you here alone with him in this weather. What if you should need a doctor? What if you should burn your hand?”
“Worrying is seldom productive,” she said, quoting her mother and sounding—to her horror—exactly like Her Grace. She sat Kit on the table amid his blankets and started working a clean dress over his head.
Vim tidied up the little makeshift bath, hanging the now damp towels on nails in the rafters near the hearth. “You didn’t worry every time you got up with Kit in the middle of the night?”
“How did you know we were awake?”
He shot her a peculiar look from across the kitchen then went back to hanging towels. “You have a pretty voice, Sophie.”
It made no sense, but his compliment had her blushing. She’d received compliments before, on her attire, her mare, her embroidery, but her voice wasn’t something she’d purchased or made, it was part of her.
“My mother thought we should all learn an instrument,” she said. “I tried piano, but my next oldest brother is so astoundingly good at it, I put him to use as my accompanist from time to time. My whole family likes to sing, except my father. He cannot, as they say, carry a tune in a bucket.”
She finished bundling the child up, her gaze drawn to the way muscles bunched and moved under the skin of Vim Charpentier’s forearms as he worked. “What awaits you at home, Mr. Charpentier?”
“Why do you ask?” He hung the last towel on a hook and crossed to the table. “Are we reusing this water, or should I dump it?”