Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,27
dotin’ on them buggers.”
“Where does she find them?”
Higgins hitched his britches up and frowned. “She just does. She come upon Sampson at the smithy when they was blinding him for work at the mill. Miss Sophie wouldn’t have none of that, no matter the colonel tried to explain to her a half-blind horse is worse than one with no sight at all.”
“A horse that size could turn the millstone handily.”
“Not if he’s got sight in one eye, he can’t. He’d fall down dizzy after an hour in the traces.”
“Who’s the colonel?”
“Her oldest brother. Good fellow with a horse. Was in the cavalry all acrost Spain and at Waterloo.”
Sophie was making every bit as big a fuss over the second horse as she had the first. She held the baby up on the side of the horse’s good eye and spoke quietly to horse and baby both.
“Why did she name her tom cat Elizabeth?” It was a silly question, but some part of Vim wanted to know this detail.
“Ye’d have to ask her. It’s something Frenchified.”
She knew French, and she had a brother who’d made the rank of colonel—not an easy or inexpensive feat.
“Mr. Sharp-an-tee-air?”
Vim glanced down at the little man standing beside him. “Mr. Higgins?”
“I know Miss Sophie has took the nipper in, and that’s a sizeable task for any woman, much less one what hasn’t got any nippers of her own.”
Ah, the stable gnome was working up to a lecture. Sophie didn’t need to lecture Vim, she had minions assigned to the task. “She’s managing quite well, and it’s mostly common sense.”
“And lord knows, the girl has got common sense.” Higgins’s frown became more focused. “About most things, that is.”
“Spit it out, Higgins. Once she’s done petting that bedraggled cat, she’ll turn her attention on you and start ordering you to consume all those buns and refrain from shoveling snow and so on.”
“All I’m saying is her family sets great store by her, and they’d take it amiss did any mischief befall our Miss Sophie.”
“I’m coming to set great store by the lady too, Higgins. But for her, I’d be cooling my heels in some taproom, nothing to occupy me but watered ale, cards, and occasional trips to a privy as malodorous as it was cold.”
“Then you’ll be moving along here directly, won’t you, sir? Wouldn’t want the girl’s family to come to troublesome mis-conclusions, would we?”
Higgins’s rheumy blue eyes promised a world of retribution if Vim attempted to argue.
“Settle your feathers, Higgins. I stayed only at the lady’s express request in order to acquaint her with some basics regarding care and feeding of an infant. If you’re equipped to step in, please do, because I’m on my way as soon as the weather permits—tomorrow at first light, if at all possible.”
And he wanted to go. He just didn’t relish the idea of hours in a mail coach trying to slog its way through the drifts. Hours of cold, hours of the wheezing, coughing companionship of other travelers…
His gaze fell on Sophie where she was crouched in the aisle having some sort of conversation with the bedraggled little cat and the baby.
“Her hems will never come clean.”
He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud until Higgins snorted quietly. “And she’ll never care a whit if they do, either. That is one smart bebby, that Kit. He’s made a good trade.”
“You didn’t think much of the mother?” For God’s sake, the girl had been only sixteen years old.
“She set her cap for young Harry, Joleen did, and damn the consequences. Their Graces turned Harry out, but they give him a character, see? He kept coming around here on the sly, meeting with Joleen and whispering in her ear, if you know what I mean. Last I heard, he was taking passage for Boston.”
Higgins meant a pregnant girl couldn’t get any more pregnant, so an enterprising and conscienceless young man would keep swiving her for his own pleasure.
“I seen Harry prowling around last week, that girl about shivering herself to death waiting for him in the garden. She’s run off to her Harry and left little Kit to shift for hisself.”
“He’s shifting quite well. I’m not sure a baby ever found any better care than Kit is getting.”
“Because Miss Sophie has a soft heart. Her family thinks she’s sensible, but she’s like Westhaven. They’re sensible because somebody in the family has to be sensible, but neither of ’em is as sensible as all that.”
Vim tried to translate what was and wasn’t being said.