But God, to have her looking at him like he was some holiday treat… He’d dealt with himself swiftly once he had the privacy to do so, but it hadn’t helped much.
When he got to his guest room, he made short work of packing. His quarters had been commodious in the extreme, providing every comfort a weary traveler might long for. He hung the brocade dressing gown back on a hook in the wardrobe and sat on the unmade bed.
He needed a catnap before he tried to take on winter travel at its worst. Just forty winks, one more little taste of luxury and comfort before he froze his testicles to the size of raisins trying to reach a place he’d never enjoyed being.
Vim toed off his boots and lay back on the bed. His last thought was that he ought to ask Sophie to wake him in another thirty minutes.
He arose to consciousness three and a half hours later, still thinking he ought to ask Sophie to wake him in another thirty minutes.
* * *
“What have you done with our baby brother?” Gayle Windham, Earl of Westhaven, put the question casually as he passed St. Just—never was a belted earl more reluctant to use his title—a mug of ale.
“We’re not partaking of the local wassail?” St. Just studied the mug as he settled in beside his brother on the sofa of their private parlor.
“Your damned punch gave me a pounding headache that faded only after an entire pot of strong tea, which tea required a half dozen trips to the blasted freezing privy, each trip specifically designed to make man appreciate another tot of hot grog. All in all, I’d have to say your one day of waiting out the weather has been a trial and a half.”
St. Just set the ale aside untasted. “You’re worried about Anna?”
“Anna and the baby, who, I can assure you, are not worried about me.”
“Westhaven, are you pouting?”
Westhaven glanced over to see his brother smiling, but it was a commiserating sort of smile. “Yes. Care to join me?”
The commiserating smile became the signature St. Just Black Irish piratical grin. “Only until Valentine joins us. He’s so eager to get under way, we’ll let him break the trail when we depart in the morning.”
“Where is he? I thought you were just going out to the stables to check on your babies.”
“They’re horses, Westhaven. I do know the difference.”
“You know it much differently than you knew it a year ago. Anna reports you sing your daughter to sleep more nights than not.”
Two very large booted feet thunked onto the coffee table. “Do I take it your wife has been corresponding with my wife?”
“And your daughter with my wife, and on and on.” Westhaven did not glance at his brother but, rather, kept his graze trained on St. Just’s feet. Devlin could exude great good cheer among his familiars, but he was at heart a very private man.
“The Royal Mail would go bankrupt if women were forbidden to correspond with each other.” St. Just’s tone was grumpy. “Does your wife let you read her mail in order that my personal marital business may now be known to all and sundry?”
“I am not all and sundry,” Westhaven said. “I am your brother, and no, I do not read Anna’s mail. It will astound you to know this, but on occasion, say on days ending in y, I am known to talk with my very own wife. Not at all fashionable, but one must occasionally buck trends. I daresay you and Emmie indulge in the same eccentricity.”
St. Just was silent for a moment while the fire hissed and popped in the hearth. “So I like to sing to my daughters. Emmie bears so much of the burden, it’s little enough I can do to look after my own children.”
“You love them all more than you ever thought possible, and you’re scared witless,” Westhaven said, feeling a pang of gratitude to be able to offer the simple comfort of a shared truth. “I believe we’re just getting started on that part. With every child, we’ll fret more for our ladies, more for the children, for the ones we have, the one to come.”
“You’re such a wonderful help to a man, Westhaven. Perhaps I’ll lock you in that nice cozy privy next time nature calls.”
Which in the peculiar dialect known only to brothers, Westhaven took as thanks for service rendered. The door behind them banged open on a draft of cold air.
“That old bugger in the stables says he knows where there’s a Guarneri, a del Gesù, not five miles from this stinking inn.” Valentine tossed gloves, hat, and scarf on the table as he spoke. “I’ve only seen a couple Guarneris, and by God they are beautiful. One was a viola, by the old master, but this is supposed to be by Bartolomeo Guiseppe Guarneri himself.”
“Guarneri sounds like a dessert.” St. Just passed his ale up to Val, who was making a circuit of the small parlor. “I favor good English apple tarts, myself.”
“It’s a violin,” Westhaven said. “Valentine, are you suggesting you met some instrument dealer in the stables?”
“I’m not suggesting. I’m telling you the old man offered to take me to see this thing and even hinted it might be for sale.”
Westhaven kept his silence, because some things—like older brothers—were occasionally gratifyingly predictable.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Valentine,” St. Just said, “but wasn’t it you who was cursing and stomping about here last night because I suggested we wait one day to see what the weather was going to do?”
“I wasn’t cursing. Ellen frowns on it, and one needs to get out of the habit if one is going to have children underfoot.”
“Doesn’t exactly work that way,” Westhaven muttered. “I’m willing to tarry a day if you’re asking us to, Val. Devlin?”
“The horses can use the rest.”
Val looked momentarily nonplussed at having won his battle without firing a shot then dropped down onto a sofa. “So, Westhaven, are you saying children don’t inspire a man to stop cursing?”
“They most assuredly do not,” Westhaven said, rising. “His Grace and I are agreed on this, which is frightening of and by itself. Let me order some toddies, and we can discuss exactly how the arrival of children changes an otherwise happily married man’s vocabulary.”
Seven
“There are few consolations in my present state—do not piss on the mounting block, for God’s sake. How many times must I tell you?” Aethelbert Charpentier, Eighth Viscount Rothgreb, nudged his dog’s backside with the end of a stout oak cane. Talking to old Jock—not Jacques—was one of those consolations, and one could hardly indulge in it if the dog was off in a snit somewhere for having been too harshly reprimanded.
Jock lifted his head from giving the sight of his last indiscretion a good sniff and trotted obediently to the viscount’s side.
“As I was saying, there are few enough consolations in my life at present, you being one of them, such as you are, her ladyship’s predictability being another.”
The dog sneezed.
“Meaning no insult, old boy, but we’re neither of us what we used to be.”
Jock sidled over to the snow-dusted remains of a chrysanthemum and lifted his leg, his expression blasé while he heeded nature’s call.
“Piss on it, you say? Handy enough sentiment.” The viscount scanned the sky while he waited for the dog—nothing wrong with Jock’s bladder, no matter the canine was older in dog years than the viscount in human years.
“Nasty weather up toward Town,” the viscount remarked as they resumed their progress. “Must be why my nephew has yet to make an appearance. He cuts the holidays closer and closer in those years when he deigns to show up at all. Some people don’t know the meaning of family loyalty, even if they can be counted on not to toss up their accounts on her ladyship’s best carpets.”
If this slight reference to a previous lapse made any impression, Jock was not inclined to acknowledge it when the frosty ground was so full of interesting scents.
The trip to the stables seemed to take longer each season, but when a man felt the cold wheeze of eighty years breathing down his neck, he was grateful to be making the distanc
e on his own two legs at any speed.
“Then again, perhaps Wilhelm has been detained in the North, or his life lost at sea. The boy can’t be bothered to write, but for his damned quarterly accountings.”
Jock stopped to water another bush—the dog’s abilities were still prodigious in some regards—and came quietly to heel as the viscount paused at the bottom of the swale upon which the Sidling stables sat in aging splendor.
“Noble hound, my ass,” Rothgreb said, stroking his hand over the dog’s head. There would be hell to pay for not putting on gloves before leaving the manor, but Essie had gone wandering again. With the weather threatening to turn miserable, retrieving her from the stables became urgent.
“Go find her ladyship,” Rothgreb said, moving one hand toward the stables. “Go find Essie, Jock.”
The beast bounded up the hill, ears flapping with an eagerness better 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.
* * *
Sophie awoke to silence and near darkness, the warmth of Vim’s length blanketing her back.
“You’re awake.” Vim spoke very quietly, likely in deference to the baby sleeping in his cradle near the hearth.
“I’ll be back.” He patted her arm, and Sophie felt the mattress bouncing. She really should be getting up herself, but she heard Vim behind the privacy screen and decided to stay put. When he came back to the bed, he sat on the opposite side then scooted under the covers.
“You tried to wake me,” he said, still nearly whispering. “Budge up, Sophie. We’ll both be warmer.” Because neither one of them was going to risk making a racket building up the fire, not while My Lord Baby was still napping peacefully.
“I tried waking you twice then built up your fire enough so you wouldn’t catch a chill,” Sophie said. “When I realized Kit was taking his nap, I climbed in here to avoid moving him to my room and having to make up another fire.”
As if he’d believe that.
His arm came around her middle. “One more day won’t make a difference.”
She heard that he was trying to convince himself, but she needed no convincing. A weight on her heart eased, though it couldn’t lift entirely. Tomorrow would come all too soon.
“Vim?”
“Sweetheart?”
The whispered endearment spoken with sleepy sensuality had Sophie’s insides fluttering. Was this what married people did? Cuddled and talked in shadowed rooms, gave each other bodily warmth as they exchanged confidences?
“What troubles you about going home?”
He was quiet for a long moment, his breath fanning across her neck. Sophie felt him considering his words, weighing what to tell her, if anything.
“I’m not sure exactly what’s amiss, and that’s part of the problem, but my associations with the place are not at all pleasant, either.”
Was that…? His lips? The glancing caress to her nape made Sophie shiver despite the cocoon of blankets.
“What do you think is wrong there?”
Another kiss, more definite this time.
“My aunt and uncle are quite elderly, though Uncle Bert and Aunt Essie seem the type to live forever. I’ve counted on them living forever. You even taste like flowers.”
Ah, God, his tongue… a slow, warm, wet swipe of his tongue below her ear, like a cat, but smoother than a cat, more deliberate.
“Nobody lives forever.”
The nuzzling stopped. “This is lamentably so. My aunt writes to me that a number of family heirlooms have gone missing, some valuable in terms of coin, some in terms of sentiment.”
His teeth closed gently on the curve of her ear.
What was this? He w
asn’t kissing her, exactly, nor fondling the parts other men had tried to grope in dark corners—though Sophie wished he might try some fondling.
“Do you think you might have a thief among the servants?”
He slipped her earlobe into his mouth and drew on it briefly. “Perhaps, though the staff generally dates back to before the Flood. We pay excellent wages; we pension those who seek retirement, those few who seek retirement.”
“Is some sneak thief in the neighborhood preying on your relations, then?”
It was becoming nearly impossible to remain passively lying on her side. She wanted to be on her back, kissing him, touching his hair, his face, his chest…
“Or has some doughty old retainer merely misplaced some of the silver?” Vim muttered right next to her ear.
“You’ll sort it out.” Sophie did shift then, as quietly as she could. She lay on her back right next to Vim, while he remained on his side, peering down at her in the gloom.
“We ought to leave this bed, Sophie.” The warmth of his palm stole across her midriff, a slow, sumptuous caress that, even through the fabric of her old house dress, left Sophie wanting so much more.
“Kiss me.” She twined her arms around his neck, hitched a leg over his hips, and pulled herself snug against him. “Please.”
“God help me.”
He growled this prayer against her neck as he drew her flush against him, his arm lashing around her back. When his mouth fused to hers, Sophie was glad she was lying down, because the sensations were that dizzying.
Vim, all around her, his hand cupping her derriere to drag her more tightly against his rising erection. The taste of him flooding her mouth, the feel of his heat and strength all along her body.
The sound of him groaning quietly as Sophie ran her tongue along his lower lip.
She anchored a hand in his hair, trying to quell any fool notion he might have about leaving the bed.
Leaving her life, yes, she was prepared to accept that—but not yet.
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