“There was something more I wanted to tell you, Sophie, about things at Sidling.”

She paused in the act of passing him a plate piled high was sandwiches. “This doesn’t sound like we’re about to have a cheerful conversation.”

“It isn’t cheerful, but it isn’t that remarkable, either. I’m my uncle’s heir, you see, and I’m expected to marry sooner rather than later.” And why she needed to understand this when he would not see her after tomorrow, Vim could not say.

She lifted the top off a sandwich of her own and added a dollop of butter. “I forgot to put on the butter, though there’s mustard enough.” The small silver knife looked elegant in her hand as she made neat little passes over the bread, spreading the butter just so.

“My uncle has three daughters, and each of them has at least two daughters,” Vim went on. He didn’t pick up his sandwich—his mouth for some reason had abruptly become dry. “I have seven of these cousins of some remove. At least two are old enough to marry, possibly more by now.”

“Are you inclined to marry one of them?”

She was fussing the baby’s blankets, folding over the satin binding around the edge of the blanket and smoothing her palm along its length.

“Sophie, I hardly know these women, but I’m responsible for them. At the very least, I need to dower them. My aunt and uncle hint strongly that it’s time I settled down, though the thought fills me with…”

He trailed off, trying to put a name to the heavy, anxious feeling in his gut. The conversation wasn’t going in the direction he might have intended, if he’d used enough forethought to have intentions about it.

“Yes?”

“Dread, the idea of dealing with those twittering, fluttering young girls fills me with dread.” He lifted his sandwich in one hand but did not take a bite. “Have you ever considered marriage, Sophie?”

“Not seriously.”

And she wasn’t considering it seriously now, either. That much was evident from her casual tone and the way she didn’t meet his eyes. His careful hinting around was getting him a clear response from her, just not the response he’d hoped for. Whatever she wanted from him, it was going to be temporary and quickly forgotten.

On her part.

“Eat your sandwich,” Vim said. “You can see why I need to be on my way. The situation in Kent is troubling from many angles, and it’s the very last place I want to be over the holidays.”

She made no reply but ate her sandwich in silence while the fire burned merrily and the baby figured out how to put his toes in his mouth.

Eight

Sophie got through the evening with a sort of bewildered resignation. She had waited her entire adult life and much of her girlhood, as well, to feel a certain spark, a lightening of her heart when a particular man walked into the room.

Vim was that man, but he wasn’t the right man. For once in her life, Sophie wished she had an older brother on hand to explain to her how it was with men.

How could Vim kiss her like that and speak of marrying a stranger—or possibly a cousin—in the next breath?

How could life finally introduce her to the man she’d been hoping she’d meet, only to limit her time with him so terribly?

How could she endure another Christmas watching her family lark about in high spirits, graciously entertaining hordes of neighbors in equally high spirits, while Sophie’s spirits were anything but high?

And how—how in the name of God—was she going to part with Kit when the time came?

“You’re not listening, Sophie Windham.” Vim brushed his thumb along her cheekbone. “Shall I put His Highness to bed?”

Sophie glanced down at the child nestled in her arms. “He’s almost asleep.”

She sat beside Vim on the worn sofa in the servants’ parlor while he read Wordsworth by the firelight. His arm wasn’t around her, and she knew why: those cousins in Kent, that aunt and uncle in Kent, that dread Vim had of marriage, those travels he’d undertaken for most of his life.

“Sophie, is something amiss?”

The concern in his voice nearly undid her.

“I do not want to part from this child, Vim. I wanted a few days to myself in this house because the good cheer others take in the season deserted me several years ago. I planned and schemed to have some time alone because I thought solitude would yield some peace, but it has yielded something else entirely.”

That much was honest. Kit let out a little baby-yawn and stuck his two middle fingers in his mouth as if aware of the weariness plaguing Sophie’s spirit. He was such a wonderful baby.

“I will travel on in the morning, Sophie, and I doubt our paths will cross again, but if you need money for the child, I will happily…”

She shook her head. The last thing she needed or wanted from him was money.

“Let’s get this baby into his bed, shall we?” She rose off the sofa, Kit cradled against her heart. Vim tidied up the blankets and folded them into the cradle, letting Sophie precede him up the main stairs, through the freezing hallways and into her bedroom.

In just a few days, they’d fallen into a routine around the child as if Kit had been theirs since birth. It comforted and it hurt terribly to feel that silent sense of synchrony with a man she wanted so much from.

Vim lit the candle by Sophie’s bed using a taper from the glowing coals in the hearth, then built up her fire and turned to regard her as she laid Kit in the cradle.

“Will you be able to sleep? I’m at sixes and sevens myself, having slept late and napped substantially. I expect women in their childbearing years get used to such disruptions of schedule.”

It struck Sophie that Vim didn’t want to leave her room.

“I’m tired, and tomorrow will come soon enough.” She wanted him gone, and she wanted him to hold her close, as he had in his bed that very afternoon. But more than that, she wanted him to want her in his arms.

So much wanting and wishing.

Vim sank into a chair by the fire. “I’ll wait until His Highness has dropped into the arms of Morpheus. Come sit, Sophie, and tell me about your brothers.”

She took the rocking chair near the cradle, though the topic was hardly cheering.

For a moment she rocked in silence, listening to the soft roar of the fire and the sound of the baby slurping on his fingers. “Bartholomew fought under Wellington. My brother Devlin went with him, though each had his own command. Still, they kept an eye on each other, and Dev was there when Bart died. The Iron Duke himself sent a note of condolence. He commended Bart’s bravery, his devotion to duty.”

“But you are a woman, a sister, and you wish your brother hadn’t been so brave.”

“I wish he hadn’t been such an idiot. My mother was spared the details, but Devlin was honest with his siblings: Bart approached a woman he thought was available for his pleasure. His command of the language was so poor he did not understand he was insulting a lady until pistols were drawn. It’s a surpassingly stupid way to die but entirely in keeping with Bart’s nature.”

“And you are angry with him for dying like that.”

Vim’s words, quietly spoken, no blame or censure in them at all, had the ring of truth. “I am angry with him for dying, simply for dying. Bart was the oldest, the one groomed for leadership, and he would have made a magnificent patriarch.”

“Was he a magnificent brother?”

Had he been? What was a magnificent brother?

“He was. He could be awful—he threatened to chase me around with earthworms until Maggie told me to threaten to put horse droppings in his favorite pair of riding boots. I have a deathly horror of slimy things.”

“All sisters do.” He slid off his seat and took the place on the floor beside Sophie’s rocking chair, sparing a glance for the baby. “He’s not getting to sleep as quickly as I thought he would.”