Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,86

the head drover. What do you say?”

“I’m the head nothing,” Lord Valentine interjected, nudging his horse up beside Vim’s. “I say we get out of this weather as soon as we can. Sophie’s lips are blue, and I don’t like the look of that sky.”

St. Just looked up from where he’d been adjusting his greatcoat. “I say we move on and make that decision when Sindal’s fork in the road appears. The baby seems fine, though the damned clouds look loaded with more snow.”

“It’s my turn to take him.” Vim shifted his horse to pull up beside St. Just.

“The lad’s fine where he is.” St. Just spoke mildly, while Vim endured a spike of frustration. He might be seeing the last of the child in the next two hours; the least St. Just could do was let a man have some—

“Unless you’d rather?” St. Just quirked a dark eyebrow. Vim was tempted to refuse on general principles, but something in St. Just’s green eyes… not pity. A retired officer wouldn’t offer insult like that, but maybe… understanding. “I have a stepdaughter, Sindal. Less than a day in her company, and I would have cheerfully cut out my heart for her. My younger daughter wasn’t even born before I was making lists of reasons to reject her potential suitors.”

He spoke quietly enough that his brothers could pretend they hadn’t heard him. Vim accepted the child and ensconced the bundle of infant inside his greatcoat.

“Why are we stopping?” Sophie’s cheeks were not pink; they were red. As her great beast trudged into their midst, Vim was relieved to see her lips were not truly blue, though they no doubt felt blue.

“Reconnoitering,” Westhaven said. “The baron has offered us shelter before we travel the last few miles to Morelands.”

“Is Kit managing?”

Four men spoke as one: “He’s fine.”

“Well, then.” She urged her horse forward. “If we’re to beat the next storm, we’d best be moving on.”

She rode past Vim without turning her head. Even mounted on one of her pet mastodons, she looked elegant and composed, for all the cold had to be chilling her to the bone. He regretted mentioning his aversion to holiday gatherings, suspecting she’d spoken of it to her brothers and gleaned the details of his youthful folly.

For years, he’d tried to refer to it that way, my youthful folly, but completely losing one’s dignity before every title and tattle in the shire—and Kent was rife with both—was more than folly. It was enough to send a man traveling around the world for years, enough to cost him his sense of home and connection with the people who’d known him and loved him since birth.

“In my head, I’m composing a new piece of music.”

Vim turned to see Lord Val riding along beside him. “It will be called, ‘Lament for a Promising Young Composer Who Died of a Frozen Bum-Fiddle.’ I’ll do something creative with the violins and double basses—a bit of humor for my final work. It will be published posthumously, of course, and bring me rave reviews from all my critics. ‘A tragic loss,’ they’ll all say. It could bring frozen bum-fiddles into fashion.”

“You haven’t any critics.” St. Just spoke over his shoulder, having abdicated the lead position to his sister. “Ellen won’t allow it, more’s the pity.”

“My wife is ever wise—”

“Oh, famous.” Westhaven’s muttered imprecation interrupted his idiot younger brother.

Lord Val leaned over toward Vim. “There’s another word, a word that alliterates with famous, that his-lordship-my-brother-the-heir has eschewed since becoming a father. Famous is his attempt at compromise.”

“I’ll say it, then.” St. Just sighed as another flurry drifted down from the sky. “Fuck. It’s going to snow again. Beg sincere pardon for my language, Sophie.”

She did not so much as shrug to acknowledge this exchange.

They got the horses moving at a faster shuffle, but it occurred to Vim as they trudged and struggled and cursed their way toward Sidling, that Sophie’s brothers—passing him the baby, making inane small talk with him, and even in their silences—had been offering him some sort of encouragement.

Would that her ladyship might do the same.

Inside Vim’s coat, Kit gave a particularly hearty kick, connecting with the rib under Vim’s heart.

While the snow started to come down in earnest.

***

From a distance, Sidling looked to be in decent repair. The oaks were in their appointed locations, lining the long, curving driveway; the fences appeared to be in adequate condition; the half-timbered house with its many mullioned windows sat at the end of the drive, looking