“What do you like, Sophie? How do you want me to love you?”
She blinked in the candlelight. “You were doing quite nicely a moment ago.”
“I was about to go up in flames a moment ago.” He crouched over her and brushed her hair back from her forehead. “I think you were getting a bit enthusiastic too.”
“Is that bad?”
“God in heaven.” He tucked himself closer but kept his cock from grazing her belly. “You do not dally often, do you, Sophie Windham?”
Her hand stroked over his hair slowly. “Not often at all. Then everybody assumes you are not interested in dallying, and the opportunities stop presenting themselves. Pretty soon it doesn’t matter that you might be interested, because no one’s going to ask.”
And she was not designed to ask for what she wanted, for what she needed. He became determined to give it to her, to see that for once Sophie Windham’s every wish came true.
“You have me for this night, Sophie, and I have you.” He started over with the kissing, taking his time as if they’d never kissed before. He kissed her brow, finding that despite her bath, her hair still bore the faint scents of vanilla and cinnamon underscored with gingerbread. He kissed the tender spot below her ear; he kissed the juncture of her neck and shoulder, hearing her draw a slow inhale as he did.
“My love, you like that.”
“I like it.”
So he treasured her with his mouth for long, long moments, until he could detect the pulse in her throat beating more rapidly and feel some tension in the hand she had fisted in his hair.
He trailed his mouth lower, settling his lips over one puckered nipple then the other. She wrapped her legs around his back and used her fingers to trace his ears.
“I like that, what you’re doing with my ears.”
“You have lovely ears.”
He smiled against her breast until she tugged on his earlobe, which created a resonating tug in his groin.
“Sophie?”
“Hmm?”
He went still above her. “I want you.”
The words weren’t said with any mad passion. He’d stated a simple, stark, undeniable reality, one more pressing by the instant.
“I want you too, Vim.”
She brushed a hand down his chest and wrapped her fingers around the length of his cock. “I want this part of you to join us together. I want to feel you inside me.” She squeezed him a little, and Vim felt it in all manner of wonderful places.
“Guide me, Sophie.”
She frowned and made no move to join them.
“Show me where you want me, love.” And then she seated him snugly against the damp, hot opening to her body, her hand falling away, her body still.
“You’re ready for me.”
“I have waited a long time for you, Vim Charpentier. Don’t make me wait any longer.”
Words to make love by. Vim flexed his hips forward just a bit, just enough to effect that first, lush sensation of penetration.
“God in heaven, Sophie…” She was hot, wet, gloriously tight, and wise enough not to do anything to threaten his tenuous control. He advanced again and did not retreat, savoring the sensation of her body gloving his.
“You’re all right?”
She nodded and opened her teeth against his shoulder. She didn’t bite him, exactly, but the sensation helped keep him from completing their joining in one hard, luscious thrust.
He moved again, slowly, gaining just a little more depth, losing a little more of his sanity.
“More?”
Another nod, and the sensation of Sophie’s hand gripping his buttock hard. He managed it like that, a little advance then a mental inventory of Sophie’s reaction to it. She gripped his backside, then his hair, arched her breasts into his chest, ran her foot along the back of his knee.
And then, when he was just shy of his goal, she took a funny, hitching breath.
“Sophie? You’re all right?” He pressed his cheek to hers then drew back. “My dear, are you crying?”
“No, not like that.”
“Have I hurt you?” He could not stand it if he had. He started to withdraw, slowly, carefully, but she locked her legs around him.
“I didn’t know how it would be.”
He paused, keeping his cheek to hers. “How it would be?”
“I can’t… it’s wondrous. Sweet, dear, so intimate… glorious.”
Ah, God… He wrapped his hand around the back of her head and pressed her face to his shoulder. He could feel her crying, feel it with his body, because he was inside her and around her and pressed to her over much of his body.
So intimate, she’d said. Glorious.
“Move with me, love.”
He kept his pace slow, so she could follow his rhythm. Her focus was a palpable thing, gathering momentum as her body learned the give and take from his. When she was moving easily with him, the tempo picking up moment by moment, he dropped his head so his mouth was near her ear.
“Let it happen, Sophie. Take flight.”
He felt the instant she stopped focusing on timing and movement and fell helplessly under the onrush of sensation.
“Vim…” His name on her lips was a whispered plea, one that had him driving into her in tight, hard strokes while she shook and clung and convulsed around him. She gave herself up to it, keening against his shoulder, meeting him thrust for thrust until she was panting and spent beneath him.
When he felt her hands slips from his body, when her legs untwined to rest passively at his flanks, Vim levered up on his arms. By the light of the single candle, he could see a rosy flush on her cheek and tears yet leaving a sheen on her eyes.
She reached up and brushed his hair back. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You say, ‘Vim, give me a minute to recover my wits, and then do that again, please, only better.’”
She blinked, and then a slow, sweet smile bloomed on her lips. He lowered himself down onto her so they were chest to chest, as close as two people could be.
He felt her fingers stroking over the hair at his nape. “Vim, give me a minute to recover my wits, and then do that again, please, but if you do it any better, I won’t possess wits to recover ever again.”
“Then we shall both be loved witless.”
He gave her a minute, but just a minute.
* * *
Sophie watched as Vim climbed from the bed. He didn’t tuck the bed curtains closed, but rather, moved behind the privacy screen. She heard the sound of a cloth being wrung out over a basin and wished he were tending to himself where she could see him.
“Stay in that bed, Sophie Windham.” He spoke quietly as he emerged from the gloom and arranged the cloth on the hearth screen. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Naked, firelight gilding his skin, he left the room only to appear shortly thereafter with the cradle in his arms. He set the thing by the hearth, carefully, so it didn’t start rocking.
“Where was Kit?”
“Across the hall.” Vim advanced on the bed, cloth in hand. “Spread your legs, my love.”
“Why across the hall?”
“I can be loud, at certain times.”
“You growl softly, Mr. Vim Charpentier. I like it.”
He was thorough and gentle with her, finishing with a few passes directly over her intimate parts. “You growl too.” He leaned forward and bit her earlobe. “I adore it. Scoot over.”
He tossed the rag toward the hearth, missing the cradle by inches. Sophie scooted, much relieved they’d spend the balance of the night together.
Vim lay down beside her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and hiked her leg across his thighs. “You should have allowed me to withdraw, Sophie.” He cradled her foot in his large, warm hand as he spoke. It brought the oddest comfort.
“I am not fertile now. I didn’t want you to abandon me.”
She cringed at her own word choice, given that he’d be moving on in the morning once and f
or all. He made no reply, though, so Sophie turned her attention to collecting memories: the feel of Vim’s hard male chest rising and falling beneath her hand, the bergamot scent of his skin, the slightly salty taste of his shoulder, the transcendent sensation of him joining their bodies so very, very carefully…
“My business in Kent shouldn’t take but a few weeks,” he said, his tone thoughtful. His fingers smoothed her hair back, and Sophie understood exactly what he was working up to.
“You must not worry. I cannot conceive now, or I would not have been so… selfish.”
“You can’t be certain, Sophie. I’ll leave you my direction when I go.” There was just a hint of reproof in his voice, but he was wrong. Sophie was certain their paths needed to separate regardless of any unlikely consequences. She’d waltzed with his very own half brother, for heaven’s sake, and Benjamin Hazlit’s discreet assistance had been instrumental in keeping both Valentine’s and Westhaven’s wives safe from harm.
Vim would learn that—learn she was the daughter of a duke, no less—and think she’d been untruthful with him.
Which she had. He hadn’t asked any awkward questions yet, but it was hardly likely Lady Sophia Windham would have been all alone, unchaperoned, without servants or family in the ducal mansion. She had contrived mightily to make it so. He would feel deceived and manipulated, and it would ruin everything, even the memories.
“Your brain is turning on a greased wheel, Sophie.”
His voice was lazy in the darkness, as lazy as his hand stroking over her hair. If he’d been offering his direction in Kent out of something other than duty and guilt, she might have considered explaining the situation to him more fully.
“I am trying to recall each moment with you in this bed.”
“There could be more such moments. I’ll come back through Town when I’m done sorting out my relatives.”
Ah, damn him. “I have my position to consider.”
More silence, while in Sophie’s heart, the glow of a wonderful sexual initiation and shared intimacy grew chilled by encroaching regret.
“I could offer you another position, one of substantial duration and considerable standing. One I have never offered another woman worthy of such a consideration.”
She closed her eyes, lest more tears give her away. Vim was a good man, the kind of man wishes and dreams were made of, but she’d made such a tangle of things, he could never be the man for her, particularly not if all he was offering was a few years as his mistress between sea voyages.
And if he’d offered not a careful description of a discreet liaison, but marriage? No hope lay in that direction. Even if he proposed, when he learned she’d been dishonest with him about her position in the household and the world at large, the proposal would be withdrawn.
She fell asleep in his arms and did not recall her dreams in the morning.
* * *
Vim was learning to read Miss Sophie Windham, learning that despite appearing serene and even sanguine, she was hurting. She was going about her morning routine calmly, her expression pleasant while she tidied up her hair and used her vanity mirror to watch Vim dressing and putting her bed to rights. The heartache was there in her eyes, in her posture, in her silences.
Kit started to fuss but was still in the happy stages of greeting his own toes when Vim picked up the rag he’d tossed aside so casually the night before.
The rag that in the light of another brutally bright day was sporting definite streaks of pinkish brown.
“Sophie?”
“Hmm?”
“Do your courses approach?”
Her hands paused in twining her braid into a bun at her nape, but other than that, she showed no reaction. “They always approach, unless they’ve descended. My mother has a lot of unflattering things to say about The Almighty’s design in this regard. One’s only respite is to carry a child, and that is hardly a fair trade, considering what’s involved in birthing the child.”
In the back of Vim’s mind, he was recalling how very wonderfully snug Sophie’s body had been, how she’d bit his shoulder as he’d sunk into her damp heat, how artless her lovemaking had been. I didn’t know how it would be…
How virginal?
Twelve
It would change everything, if Sophie had been a virgin—and it would mean she’d misrepresented her circumstances.
“Are you sore this morning?” he asked, picking Kit up and holding the baby high above his head. “Good morning, My Lord Baby.”
“I am tired and hoping your journey to the countryside passes uneventfully.” She watched as he raised and lowered the baby, her expression a trifle guarded.
“Sophie, am I the first man you’ve allowed carnal intimacies?” He put the question casually, keeping his attention to appearances on the baby.
She frowned, just a flicker over her features. “I am not a virgin, if that’s what you’re asking.” It was exactly what he’d been asking, though her wording was in the present tense. “Does that child need his nappy changed?”
“He does.” Vim lowered the baby, still dissatisfied with Sophie’s answer but not knowing quite how to clarify matters without interrogating her very directly.
He was still uncomfortable when less than an hour later they stood in the aisle of the stable, Sophie holding a bundled-up Kit in her arms.
“Goliath will see you safely to Kent,” she said, stroking a hand down the beast’s neck. “He delights in romping through the snow, and I know you will let no harm befall him.”
Vim’s pockets held piping hot potatoes; his traveling satchel sported a considerable quantity of bread, cheese, stollen, and even a stash of marzipan Sophie had produced from one of her pantries. His feet were warm and dry and likely to stay that way, as she’d insisted he keep a pair of her brother’s marvelous wool stockings, and she’d even tucked a bottle of fine brandy among his belongings, as well.
And for all these comforts, his heart, which he’d long since considered beyond such nonsense, was aching. For her, for himself, for what was not going to be.
“This is the price we pay for our pleasures,” he said, keeping his voice down so Higgins and Merriweather wouldn’t overhear. “We part, and it’s… difficult.”
She nodded, her lips thinning in telltale self-discipline. Vim glanced over his shoulder and saw both grooms had taken themselves elsewhere. “Come here, Sophie Windham.”
She went into his arms, a perfect bundle of woman and baby and warmth, and everything Vim’s sojourning heart had ever wanted to come home to. She was home, she was…
Not interested in a permanent position as his wife. He’d almost considered asking her to be his mistress, but Sophie was too dear, too worthy of his respect for him to proffer such an arrangement.
“I’ll send the horse back as soon as the roads clear.”
Her shoulders dropped on a sigh. “Just send him over to Morelands.”
“Morelands?” It was a large property less than four miles from Sidling. The Duke and Duchess of Moreland had been legendary for their hospitality even in his youth, though Vim had been in the family home only once and was at pains to recall the family name.
And wasn’t it just divine irony that Sophie would be employed by the very family who’d hosted the scene of Vim’s worst nightmares all those years ago?
“It lies in Kent,” she said, resting her cheek against his chest. “You’ll not overtax yourself today? You’ll warm your feet before you do lasting damage to them?”
“I will warm my feet.” He kissed her cheek and stepped back, lest he fall to his knees and start begging her to reconsider his proposal of marriage. She’d made her position gently but firmly clear, preferring the independence of her employment over what a stranger might offer her on appallingly short acquaintance.
“Sophie, if you need anything, anything for you or Kit, you’ll send to me?”
She nodded but did not give him her word.
He would never hear from her again.
He kissed the top of the baby’s fuzzy head and turned to check the girth on the makeshift saddle adorning the massive horse’s back.
“Thank you.” Sophie kept her voice low and her features from view by virtue of nuzzling the baby.
“For?”
“I made some Christmas wishes, foolish, extravagant wishes. You have made many of them come true.”
“Then I am content.”
It was the most resoundingly false lie he’d ever told.
* * *
Down the barn aisle, Miss Sophie was pretending to groom her remaining precious, the one-eyed Sampson. What she was really doing was crying, crying like her heart would break, crying on the great beast’s smelly neck, and hiding it like she always hid it.
“Don’t pay no mind, nipper.” Higgins grinned at the baby in his arms. “Lady Sophie is due a few tears, unlike some wee people who have their every need met before it needs meeting. She’s spoiling you proper, she is.”
“Miss Sophie said the nipper has taken to crawling already,” Merriweather observed from where he was cleaning a muddy girth across the snug little tack room. “Best day of the lad’s life was when that worthless Joleen went haring off.”
“Spare the girl a prayer. That Harry was none too steady.”
“Horny bastard. Bet he had her breeding again, and the nipper not even a year.”
Which would explain why Joleen had taken the desperate and shrewd step of abandoning her child in Miss Sophie’s care.
“Miss Sophie will do right by the lad.”
Merriweather glanced up from the girth. “Be a bit of a surprise when her brothers show up and find her sporting a bebby on her hip.”
Higgins used a gnarled finger to chuck the baby’s wee chin. “Be some surprises all around before the sun sets this day. Mark me on this, nipper.”
Merriweather winked, and they shared a grin while Kit chortled gleefully and grabbed for Higgins’s nose.
* * *
“You’ve grown ominously silent,” Val observed.
Westhaven rode to his brother’s left, because it was St. Just’s turn to break the trail ahead. The merchants along The Strand had done what they could to clear a path, but with so much snow on the ground, there was simply nowhere to put it all. Two horses could pass comfortably most places, but not all.
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