Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,88

Westhaven’s voice was low and devoid of humor. “They fret I’ll become too much the duke. I won’t ever be too much the duke if it costs me my siblings’ friendship.”

Vim was puzzling out what reply to make to such a confidence when his uncle’s voice boomed from the main entrance. “Vim Charpentier, get yourself into this house this instant lest your aunt fly down these steps and break her fool neck welcoming you!”

“And you.” Vim’s aunt emerged from the house, wearing only a shawl to protect her from the elements. “You get back into this house, my lord, before you blow away in the next breeze. Come in, Wilhelm, and bring your friends.”

His aunt pronounced his name in Scandinavian fashion: Villum. It was a small thing, but others typically used the English version: Will-helm.

“Come along.” His uncle gestured to the assemblage. “Let’s get this pretty young lady ensconced before a fire so your aunt can quiz her properly. And you fellows can use a mug or two of wassail, I’ll warrant.”

His uncle sounded the same: bluff, gruff, and quite at home in his own demesne. When Aunt Essie presented her cheek for Vim to kiss, she bore the scent of lemon verbena, just as she had from his infancy.

Maybe things weren’t so bad.

“Merciful powers!” Aunt Essie took a half step back. “Who have you got there in your coat, Vim?”

Presenting Kit upstaged the introductions, but Aunt and Uncle assumed a neighborly familiarity with Sophie’s brothers, and even with Sophie herself.

By the time coats, hats, and gloves had been passed off to various footmen, Uncle Bert was holding the baby and bellowing for refreshments in the library. Kit nearly kicked the old man’s chin, while Aunt Essie surrendered her shawl to swaddle the cooing, chortling infant.

“He’ll need a change,” Sophie said quietly. “He’ll need to eat and romp, as well.”

And she was telling him, not conveying it to her host or hostess. “I’ll see to it.”

He felt a slight pressure to his hand, a brief warmth where Sophie’s fingers closed around his. She was smiling at his uncle, a gracious, soul-warming smile, but she’d kept her hand in Vim’s for a palpable moment.

The tightness in his chest that had started growing the moment he’d realized weeks ago he couldn’t avoid this trip eased a bit. Perhaps he might yet avoid disaster, despite the holiday season, despite the looming separation from Sophie and Kit, despite the disarray and trouble here at Sidling. Christmas was the season of miracles, after all.

***

That Sophie hadn’t done any of her brothers bodily injury was miraculous.

“They mean well, the lot of them,” Sophie fumed as she lifted a naked, happy Kit from a laundry tub of warm water.

“Gah-bu-bu!”

“They’re getting as meddlesome as His Grace, leaving me to ride by myself for most of the journey, dodging about so Vim must take me in to dinner, then shuffling around with the subtlety of elephants so he sits beside me, as well.” She rubbed noses with the baby. “The worst part was deciding to spend the night here when Morelands is just a few miles farther down the road, and all without consulting me, of course. And Vim, ever so polite through it all.”

“Ba-ba-ba.” Kit grinned, and as soon as Sophie laid him on a folded-up bath sheet, he started kicking and squirming.

“You are no help at all, but you want to romp, don’t you?”

Kit made no reply but applied himself assiduously to the task of rolling onto his stomach. Sophie’s sitting room was cozy and well appointed, though the curtains and carpet were both a trifle faded. Lady Rothgreb hadn’t batted an eye when Sophie had requested to keep the baby with her, but had directed one of the footmen to find a cradle among the furniture stored in the attic.

A soft tap on the door had Sophie hoping Vim was stopping by. It didn’t matter that he’d be coming to say good night to the baby; it mattered only that she missed him, and that every single word to come out of her mouth today had seemed the wrong thing to say if it was directed at Vim.

“Come in.”

“Just me,” the viscountess said. “Don’t get up, my dear. Those young fellows are lingering over their port, and Rothgreb is so glad to have company, he’s going to linger with them. How’s the lad?”

“Relieved to be somewhere he can stretch his legs, so to speak.”

Lady Rothgreb braced one hand on the arm of the settee and the