Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,29

took to it easily, slurping away like he’d been doing it since birth.

Which he might have been, though Sophie couldn’t recall seeing anybody feed the child except Joleen, and that not often.

“It’s my turn to do a nappy,” Vim said. “You burp him, and I’ll bring his cradle down here then tend to his wardrobe, so to speak.”

“You think he’ll sleep in the kitchen?”

“It’s warm, and you’ll be here puttering about. He should sleep easily enough now that we’ve tired him out.”

Sophie watched Vim disappear up the back steps, wondering how she’d cope when he wasn’t on hand to discuss every little decision with her.

To add mashed apples or not?

To take the child outside or keep him in the house?

To put the cradle in the parlor down the hall or set it in the kitchen?

There had been a moment out by the back gate, when she’d been trying to explain about Elizabeth’s name, and the kindness had come back into Vim’s eyes. She’d wanted to trespass on that kindness, to beg the man to stay one more day. She could honestly say she wanted his help with the child, but the truth was, she’d almost gone up on her toes and kissed his cheek.

Or his mouth. She found the idea of kissing his mouth increasingly hard to ignore, as was the idea of running her hands over the muscles of his chest, or the thought of his bare skin under her fingertips.

She hadn’t kissed him, because he’d be kind about that, as well. Then too, several other homes backed up to the alley, and at least two had a clear view to the Windhams’ garden gate. Bad enough Sophie could be seen coming and going from the house on the arm of a strange man. How much worse if she’d been observed kissing him in broad daylight?

“The snow is trying to make up its mind,” Vim said, bumping down the back stairs with the cradle held under one long arm. “It’s coming down in fits and starts now, not as steadily as it did yesterday.”

“Then it’s sure to taper off soon.” Sophie injected as much false cheer into her voice as she could. Not only would she have to say good-bye to Vim Charpentier when the snow stopped, she’d have to accept her brothers’ escort out to Morelands and very likely turn Kit over the care of a foster family.

“What has put that look on your face, Sophie?”

“What look?” She laid the child in the cradle where Vim had set it near the hearth.

“Like you just lost your best friend.”

“I was thinking of fostering Kit.” And just like that, she was blinking back tears. She tugged the blankets up around the baby, who immediately set about kicking them away. “Naughty baby,” she whispered. “You’ll catch a chill.”

“Sophie?” A large male hand landed on her shoulder. “Sophie, look at me.”

She shook her head and tried again to secure Kit’s blankets.

“My dear, you are crying.” Another hand settled on the opposite shoulder, and now the kindness was palpable in his voice. Vim turned her gently into his embrace and wrapped both arms around her.

It wasn’t a careful, tentative hug. It was a secure embrace. He wasn’t offering her a fleeting little squeeze to buck her up, he was holding her, his chin propped on her crown, the entire solid length of his body available to her for warmth and support.

Which had the disastrous effect of turning a trickle of tears into a deluge.

“I can’t keep him.” She managed four words around the lump in her throat. “To think of him being passed again into the keeping of strangers… I can’t…”

“Hush.” He held a hanky up to her nose, one laden with the bergamot scent she already associated with him. For long minutes, Sophie struggled to regain her equilibrium while Vim stroked his hand slowly over her back.

“Babies do this,” Vim said quietly. “They wear you out physically and pluck at your heartstrings and coo and babble and wend their way into your heart, and there’s nothing you can do stop it. Nobody is asking you to give the child up now.”

“They won’t have to ask. In my position, I can’t be keeping somebody else’s castoff—” She stopped, hating the hysterical note that had crept into her voice and hating that she might have just prompted the man to whom she was clinging to ask her what exactly her position was.

“Kit is not a castoff. He’s yours, and you’re keeping him. Maybe you