“You’ll travel back here in time for dinner tonight?”
“Assuming Uncle permits me to leave the grounds. Now that he knows we’ll be residing primarily at Sidling, he’s come up with all manner of projects and ideas requiring lengthy discussion.”
And to Vim’s pleasure and surprise, those lengthy discussions were enjoyable.
“I’m looking forward to seeing your property in Surrey.” Sophie slipped her hand in his and started walking with him toward the stables. “The sky does not look very promising.”
When they gained the relative privacy of the barn aisle, Vim treated the horses to the sight of a man kissing his intended with almost desperate focus. When he managed to step back, the secretive smile playing about Sophie’s lips made a dip in an icy horse trough loom with desperate appeal.
“I will be back for dinner, and I’ll be back tomorrow morning to ride out with you. If the weather’s foul, we can bake bread or listen to your brother practice his pianoforte.”
Her smile faded while she rested her check against Vim’s chest. “They’ll be leaving soon, all three of them. They’ve promised their ladies to be home by Twelfth Night.”
“They’ll come for the wedding.” Vim hoped they would. Sophie hadn’t set a date, and he hadn’t pressed her to, though tomorrow would suit him admirably. That very afternoon would suit even better.
Sophie smoothed her hand down his chest. “You’d best be going. I have to rescue Kit from Papa, lest the two of them get to sampling the brandy. Mama will not forgive me if Kit is a bad influence on the duke.”
Kit was a wonderful influence on His Grace, but Vim took the hint. The sooner he got to Sidling, the sooner he could return to Morelands. He kissed his intended again, mounted up, and rode out into the chilly air.
When he got to Sidling, not just his uncle but also his aunt waited for him in the estate office. They had plans, it seemed, for a reception in the portrait gallery in recognition of Vim’s engagement. And while Vim eyed the clock and the lowering sky, and his Uncle prattled on about the next full moon or possibly the one following, pretty little snow flurries began to dance in the air.
* * *
“Your swain came to you despite the weather.” Evie Windham kept her voice down, which was a mercy, because with three brothers in residence and Sophie being the first sister to become engaged, the situation was ripe for teasing.
“I don’t expect he’ll stay long.” Though with the way the snow had picked up, Sophie wished he’d stay at least until morning.
Evie looked like she might be the first to begin the teasing, when His Grace approached his daughters.
“If I’m to lose my dear Sophie to the charms of Rothgreb’s heir, then I must at least insist on accompanying her into dinner, mustn’t I?”
Evie patted her father’s arm. “You must, and you must protect her from our brothers, who have taken to dispensing advice on how to raise boy children, though between them they have about a year’s experience at it themselves.”
His Grace smiled. “They get this propensity for dispensing unwarranted advice from their mother.”
“Of course they do, Papa.” Evie swanned off, leaving Sophie the perfect opportunity to put a few quiet questions to her dear papa, questions she made very, very certain nobody—not a brother, not a sister, not even a duchess—overheard.
And if her questions perturbed His Grace, it wasn’t evident at dinner. The duke presided over a genial family meal, while Sophie sat next to Vim and tried to ignore the urge to surreptitiously explore the exact contours of her intended’s lap.
“My love.” His Grace addressed his wife down the length of the table. “We must not be sending young Sindal out into the elements tonight. There’s been entirely too much of that sort of thing in his courtship of our Sophie for an old man’s peace of mind.”
“Baron?” Her Grace aimed a smile at Vim where he sat beside Sophie. “Can we prevail upon you to accept our hospitality? I wouldn’t want to tempt fate by asking you to travel yet again in a worsening storm.”
Sophie slid her hand up from where it had been resting on Vim’s muscular thigh beneath the table. She squeezed the burgeoning length of him gently but firmly.
“I’m pleased to accept such friendly overtures, Your Graces.” His voice sounded only a little strained, and that was probably because Sophie was listening attentively. “My aunt and uncle urged me to tarry here if the weather became challenging.”
He settled his hand over hers, giving her fingers—and thus himself—another little squeeze as he said the last word.
And then, damn and blast, Her Grace gave the signal for the ladies to rise and join her for tea in the parlor, while Sophie’s brothers started exchanging the kinds of grins that assured her Vim would not be retiring yet for hours.
Sophie kept her features placid, even when Evie winked at her, Maggie rolled her eyes, and Her Grace rang for the cordials instead of the teapot.
* * *
Just knowing Sophie was down the hall—Vim’s room was in the family wing—was both a torture and a pleasure. He wanted to go to her, but God knew which brother, sister, or parent Vim might meet in the corridor.
He sighed, and for the twentieth time since retiring, rolled over in the vast bed.
A slow creak came to his ears. The creak repeated itself—a door opening then closing.
A scent drifted to his nose, a flowery, clean fragrance he was coming to treasure.
“Sophia Windham, you have developed a lamentable penchant for sneaking into gentlemen’s bedrooms.”
“I’m going to sneak into your bed, as well,” she said, parting the bed curtains. “It’s chilly out here.”
Trying to formulate a stern lecture about propriety was an utter waste of time as Sophie unbelted her wrapper, tossed it to the foot of the bed, and drew her chemise over her head.
“Can’t have you catching your death.” He flipped up the covers and admonished himself to plead shamelessly for the wedding to be held sooner rather than later—much sooner. The Good Lord was going to bestow only so many providential snowstorms on a man and his bride.
“I would rather catch my prospective husband at his slumbers.” She tucked herself against Vim’s side, a warm, lovely bundle of female. His arm came around her shoulders to gather her closer, and she sighed.
“I suppose, being a woman in contemplation of matrimony, you came here to talk?” He tried not to sound long-suffering, but her brothers had lectured him at great length about the adult woman’s need for, and entitlement to, private conversation with her spouse.
Sophie’s hand drifted across his bare abdomen. “Of course I came to talk. I love talking with you.”
He’d work the conversation around to the wedding date, then. Work the situation to his advantage while he tried not to take advantage of Moreland’s hospitality. And then, who knew where the conversation might lead them?
Sophie’s hand trailed up across his chest then traced his sternum down to his navel. “I came here to talk, because snowstorms are not a very reliable means of acquiring time with one’s beloved.” Her hand moved south and closed gently around Vim’s straining erection. “But I didn’t come here merely to talk.”
* * *
“The snow has stopped.” His Grace dropped the curtain and turned back to regard his wife as she sat at her escritoire.
She set her pen down, her serene countenance giving little clue to her emotional state, though His Grace noted the shadows in her eyes. “Then I suppose the boys will be traveling on sooner rather than later.”
“And in spring, we can go on a progress.” He crossed the room and bent to poke up the fire. “We’ll inspect Sindal’s place in Surrey, drop in on Westhaven and Viscount Amery—wouldn’t want Rose to feel neglected by her grandparents—head up to Oxfordshire to see Val and Ellen, then toddle on to the West Riding, if you like.”
She nodded. A man offers to spend weeks jaunting about the countryside imposing on one child a
fter another, and his wife merely nods. “Esther, is something troubling you?”
“Not troubling me.” She rose and crossed to their bed, the bed where they’d conceived their children and made up after their increasingly rare fights. “Come sit with me, Husband.”
Husband. She rarely called him that, almost never before others. He sat with her and took her hand. “Tell me, Wife. I cannot have you troubled while I yet draw breath.”
“Our dear sensible Sophie, the daughter whom we never think to fret over—”
“We fret over every damned one of them, excuse my language.”
“—We do, but our Sophie, whom we don’t fret over so very much, that Sophie…” She turned and pressed her face to his shoulder, which caused His Grace to feel a frisson of unease. Esther was the kindest woman on God’s earth, but when it came to family, she was neither sentimental nor cowardly.
“Tell me about Sophie, Esther.”
“She cast up her accounts—as your sons would say—after breakfast. Again.”
His Grace put an arm around his wife’s shoulders and kissed her hair, mostly to hide his smile. “All will be well, Esther. You are not to worry. Sophie is a Windham. Of course she’d indulge in certain liberties with her intended. Probably got the tendency from her mother.”
Her Grace drew back, a frown creasing her pretty features. “You are not wroth? You’re not going to call Sindal out or ring a peal over their heads?”
“I am not, not when our own marriage began on similar terms—and look how well that turned out. Come to bed. If the weather has truly let up, then the rider should have no trouble getting back from Town posthaste.”
She climbed under the covers and curled into his arms, the same as she had almost every night of their married life. “What rider would that be?”
“The one procuring the special license Sophie asked me to obtain with all possible speed. Sent the poor messenger out in this weather with nothing less than my best bottle of whiskey to speed him on his way.”
His duchess sighed and snuggled closer. “Happy Christmas, Percival. I do love you.”
“Happy Christmas, Duchess, and I love you.”
* * *
“We’ll talk later, then.” Vim shifted so he was crouched over Sophie, his erection brushing her belly. “Now, we’ll anticipate marital privileges again, unless you march yourself right out that door this instant, Sophie Windham.”
“Your enthusiasm for these priv—gracious sakes!” She sighed as he kissed her, her hand landing in his hair, her hips tilting invitingly against him. Sophie already wore one of the heirloom Charpentier rings, and a part of Vim had half hoped with an official engagement, his hunger for his bride might abate to something closer to fondness, something that admitted of restraint and decorum, and of church services and family meals that didn’t feel like they lasted for days.
It was a vain, stupid hope. The more he loved her, the more he wanted to love her.
“Mr. Charpentier, why is it you locate your reserves of patience only when I am desperate for you to be impulsive?” Sophie purred her question into his ear, swiping at his lobe with her tongue then drawing it into her mouth and biting just firmly enough to tempt Vim to the impulsiveness she was trying to provoke.
“I am patient,” he growled while nudging at her sex with his cock, “because I am considerate of your pleasure, Sophie.”
“Such consideration usually has me yelling and moaning, and—” She grabbed his hair and used that to leverage her hips into a more accommodating angle. “I do love anticipating marriage to a considerate man.”
She loved making love with him, as well, something Vim had come to appreciate in their few though passionate encounters. Sophie Windham was every inch a lady, but also every inch a bride in love with her prospective husband.
He sank slowly into her willing heat, the pleasure of it nigh causing his ears to roar.
“Stop that, Sophie.” He slowed down more to make his point, but this just allowed her to use internal muscles to greater advantage. “For God’s sake, you’ll unman me.”
“For about ten minutes maybe.” She set up a rhythm that had Vim’s resolve crumbling and the old bed creaking. When she started to make a telltale little whimper in the back of her throat, he gave up and let passion consume them both. It wasn’t his imagination, either. As they became more familiar with each other as lovers, as each learned the other’s sensitivities and preferences, the pleasure became greater and greater. He’d come to expect the roaring in his ears and the boiling pleasure that exploded out from his vitals and tore through his body each and every time they made love.
When he hung over her, panting and sated, when her fingernails had left an imprint on his backside, he lifted his head to peer around the room. “You really must stop accosting me like this, Sophie. I’m going to have to insist on a New Year’s wedding, lest our next child be born prematurely.”
“New Year’s is a lovely holiday—or Twelfth Night.” She sounded so satisfied, Vim had to smile.
“Stay put. I’m going to hold you to a date, my lady, if I have to be found sharing a bed with you to do it.” He eased from her body, knowing her eyes would be on him as he climbed from beneath the covers.
When he came back to the bed as naked as God had made him, his intended had considerately obeyed him—for once—and remained on her back, a rosy flush fading from her cheeks.
“You are tired,” he observed, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I do believe you were dozing during Vicar’s sermon too.”
“My eyes were closed the better to revere the wisdom he was imparting. Do not tickle me, else I shall have to seek revenge on you.”
He swabbed delicately at her intimate parts, wishing he’d lit more candles. “I love it when you seek revenge, and did I hear you mention that you must wait ten minutes while I regain my manly vigor? Surely that was an exaggeration intended to provoke me.”
“To inspire you.” She held the covers up so he could rejoin her in the bed.
“You’re going to love the place in Surrey, Sophie. We won’t be far from Westhaven, but if he presumes to call before February, I’m going to sign his blasted sweet shop back over to him.”
Vim would not allow her to miss her brothers. It was badly done of them to neglect her, but now she had a husband who knew all about traveling the realm, though of course he and Sophie would make Sidling their base.
“Hold me, please.” She pulled his arm around her middle to emphasize her point, and Vim had to wonder if any pleasure on earth compared with cuddling with his very own Sophie.
“Will you fall asleep on me now, Miss Windham?”
“No, but I will avail myself of this fifteen-minute interval to speak with you privately.”
“Five minutes.” He palmed her breasts—her marvelously sensitive breasts—and heard her sigh with the pleasure of it.
He was not alarmed that she had something on her mind to discuss. When she’d accepted his heart into her keeping, Sophie Windham had earned his trust, as well—but he was curious.
“Why do we need privacy, my love?” He levered up on his elbow to watch as a predictable softness came over her features at the endearment. He used it with shameless frequency for his own pleasure, but also for hers.
“I have some questions for you.”
Serious, indeed. He brushed her hair back from her forehead with his thumb. “I will answer to the best of my ability.”
“You know about changing nappies.”
“I do.”
“You know about feeding babies.”
“Generally, yes.”
“You know about bathing them.”
“It isn’t complicated.”
She fell silent, and Vim’s curiosity grew when Sophie rolled to her back to regard him almost solemnly. “I asked Papa to procure us a special license.”
He’d wondered why the banns hadn’t been cried but hadn’t questioned Sophie’s decision. “I assumed that was to allow your b
rothers to attend the ceremony.”
“Them? Yes, I suppose.”
She was in a quiet, Sophie-style taking over something, so he slid his arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple. “Tell me, my love. If I can explain my youthful blunders to you over a glass of eggnog, then you can confide to me whatever is bothering you.”
She ducked her face against his shoulder. “Do you know the signs a woman is carrying?”
He tried to view it as a mere question, a factual inquiry. “Her menses likely cease, for one thing.”
Sophie took Vim’s hand and settled it over the wonderful fullness of her breast then shifted, arching into his touch. “What else?”
He thought back to his stepmother’s confinements, to what he’d learned on his travels. “From the outset, she might be tired at odd times,” he said slowly. “Her breasts might be tender, and she might have a need to visit the necessary more often than usual.”
She tucked her face against his chest and hooked her leg over his hips. “You are a very observant man, Mr. Charpentier.”
With a jolt of something like alarm—but not simply alarm—Vim thought back to Sophie’s dozing in church, her marvelously sensitive breasts, her abrupt departure from the room when they’d first gathered for dinner.
“And,” he said slowly, “some women are a bit queasy in the early weeks.”
She moved his hand, bringing it to her mouth to kiss his knuckles, then settling it low on her abdomen, over her womb. “A New Year’s wedding will serve quite nicely if we schedule it for the middle of the day. I’m told the queasiness passes in a few weeks, beloved.”
To Vim’s ears, there was a peculiar, awed quality to that single, soft endearment.
The feeling that came over him then was indescribable. Profound peace, profound awe, and profound gratitude coalesced into something so transcendent as to make “love”—even mad, passionate love—an inadequate description.
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