Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,43
suited to a puppy. Jock would find Essie where they always found her, sitting on some dusty old tack trunk, a cat or two in her lap, her expression serene despite the fact that of late she was wandering without gloves, bonnet, scarf, or—and this was truly worrisome—even a cloak.
Essie had always had her own kind of sense, which was fortunate when their daughters and granddaughters suffered an egregious lack of same.
But lately…
“My lady?” Rothgreb tottered into the barn aisle, leaning on his cane for a moment while his eyes adjusted to the gloom—he was not catching his breath, for God’s sake, the stables being only a quarter mile from the manor.
“Rothgreb?” Essie rose from her perch, gently displacing a worthless excuse for a mouser as she did. “My lord, you are without gloves and scarf. This is not well advised.”
“My lady, you are without a cloak, gloves, or scarf yourself.”
He said it as gently as he could, but the woman was haring around in a dress and shawl, and at her age, lung fever could be the end of her. She patted snow white hair braided neatly into a coronet.
“Why so I am. What an awkward state. Come say hello to Drusilla as long as you’re here.”
She glided away, drawing Rothgreb along by the hand. They stopped outside the stall of an elegant gray mare—Dutch’s Daughter was the only mare the viscount continued to breed, because her foals were nothing short of spectacular, just as her granddame Drusilla’s foals had been.
“Such a pretty girl,” Essie crooned, taking a lump of carrot from her pocket. The mare sidled over to the half door and craned her neck to take the treat from Essie’s hand.
“She is pretty,” the viscount said, watching as his wife of more than fifty years stroked her hand down the horse’s furry neck. “She’s beautiful, in fact, and she always will be. But we mustn’t spoil her, my dear. May I escort you back to the house?”
She gave the horse one more pat and turned to regard her husband sternly. “You certainly shall. I do not know what you were thinking, coming out in this weather without your gloves. I should spank that hound of yours for allowing it.”
“Yes, you should, but luncheon is long past, and I missed you, Essie.” He offered her his arm and sent up a prayer that they made it back to the house before spring—or before death claimed them.
“Have we heard from Vim?” She took his arm, but he leaned on her as much as she leaned on him. Essie’s wits might be wandering, though she was yet wonderfully spry.
“Beg your pardon, my dear?”
“Vim,” she said, speaking a little more loudly. “Wilhelm Lucifer Charpentier, our nephew and your heir.”
“No word yet, but I do expect him.”
They tottered along in silence for a good long way, uneven ground being something neither of them negotiated carelessly anymore. The dog sniffed about here and there but never let them get very far from his notice.
“He’ll come,” Essie said quietly as they reached the back gardens. “Vim is a good boy; he’s just sad, as Christopher was.”
“Christopher was a damned sight worse off than sad,” Rothgreb said. Stairs were the very devil when there was even a dusting of snow involved. “Essie, what say you beat me at a hand of cards?”
“Chess would make the time go faster—assuming we can locate your chess set?”
Rothgreb glanced away. For all she was growing quite vague about a few things, he had the sense his wife was more astute than ever about others.
“If we can’t find the Italian set, we can play cribbage or checkers.”
She snorted as she swept up the steps ahead of him. “Not checkers. For heaven’s sake, Rothgreb. That is a game for dodderers who can no longer tell a pawn from a knight.”
“So it is.” He ascended the steps more slowly than she and took her hand when they reached the terrace. Her hand was warm, while his—an old man’s gnarled paw—was cold.
“Come along, Rothgreb. I feel like giving your pride a trouncing.”
She smiled the smile of a much younger wife, and Rothgreb followed her into the house. They did not find the Italian chess set—he’d known they wouldn’t, and he suspected Essie had known they wouldn’t, as well—but she beat him soundly using the everyday pieces left about for the servants to use.
Trounced him handily, as she had been doing for decades whenever the notion struck her.