This was why her brothers had impressed Vim into coming with them: so Sophie could hand the child to him, not to the woman shivering at the bottom of her steps, trying to look anywhere but at Sophie or the baby.

She handed Kit down and looked away, off toward the rolling terrain of Morelands just outside the village. She forced herself to take in air, then expel it, take in air, then expel it.

She counted her breaths—four, five, six… while Vim passed the child into the waiting woman’s arms and out of Sophie’s life.

“I’ll ride to the Morelands gates with you.” Vim swung up and shifted his horse so he was alongside Sophie’s mount, but he kept his silence while they rode.

“You’ve made the best decision, Soph.” Valentine shot her a glance that held a world of understanding, and all Sophie could do was nod and stare straight ahead, lest her brother’s compassion destroy her composure. He seemed to comprehend how tenuous her nerves were, because he rode on, joining their brothers in the lead.

“I can tell you it will ease,” Vim said very quietly. “I pray for you that the hurt will ease, Sophie Windham. Some things just take a great deal of time.”

He didn’t castigate her, didn’t try to reason with her or cheer her up, but Sophie was grateful for his presence nonetheless. All too soon, they were at the Morelands gates, the wrought iron wings standing open in welcome.

Vim drew his mount to a halt. “I’ll turn back here and thank you all for both your companionship on the journey and your willingness to provide my relations their first houseguests in quite some time.”

He was leaving her now ? Now when there was no compulsion, no urgency whatsoever, and her heart was never going to mend? “You won’t come in for a cup of tea?”

“Sophie.” Westhaven sounded serious indeed. Val and St. Just looked equally grave. St. Just shook his head subtly, but the message was clear.

She was not to push Morelands hospitality on Baron Sindal.

Vim moved his horse right next to Sophie’s, leaned over, and there—before her three solemn brothers—gave her a lingering kiss on the cheek. “You will send to me if there’s need.” He spoke very quietly, and it was not a question. Then he turned his mount and steered it in the direction of Sidling.

While Sophie watched Vim walk out of her life, her brothers maneuvered so their horses were beside her, Valentine to her immediate right, Westhaven and St. Just to her left.

“Shall we?” St. Just kneed his horse forward, and Sophie’s mount walked on, as well. All too soon, they were ambling up the drive to Morelands, the house sitting in winter splendor just a hundred yards ahead.

“I don’t know how I’ll face Their Graces.”

Sophie realized she’d spoken aloud when all three brothers were looking at her with concern.

“A headache might do,” Westhaven said.

“Fatigue would be convincing,” St. Just added.

Valentine cocked his head, his expression hard to read. “You’re a grown woman. We’ll make your excuses, Soph. Just go to your room and leave orders you’re not to be disturbed until dinner.”

She realized as Val helped her dismount that her brothers had been right to suggest Vim avoid an encounter with Their Graces. Sophie’s parents were perceptive people, and who knew what innuendos and looks they might have picked up on between Sophie and the man who’d made half her wishes come true?

“Back so soon?” Rothgreb surveyed his nephew, not needing spectacles to see the boy was preoccupied.

Not a boy, a man grown, and a handsome—if somewhat thick-witted—man at that. Love made such fools of young people.

Vim slid into the chair across from his uncle’s desk. “The distance we covered wasn’t great. You have the ledger books out?”

“You just let that pretty filly go?”

Vim looked up, and Rothgreb could see him trying to balance respect for his elder with the urge to throttle an interfering old busybody.

“She refused my suit on more than one occasion, Uncle. I don’t suppose you’ve made a list of all the things that have gone missing?”

“Refused your suit! Did you go down on bended knee? Shower her with compliments and pretty baubles? Did you slay dragons for her and ride through drenching thunderstorms?”

“I changed dirty nappies for her, got up and down all night with the child, and offered her the rest of my life.”

“Dirty nappies? Bah! In my day, we knew how to court a woman.”

This provoked a sardonic smile. “In your day, you married for convenience and were free to chase any panniered shirt that caught your eye.”

“Little you know.” Rothgreb tossed his spectacles on the desk. “Your aunt would have had my parts fed to the hogs if I’d done more than the requisite flirting with the dowagers. And she knew better than to share her favors elsewhere too, b’gad.”

“About my aunt.” Vim sat up, his expression grim. “She does not seem in the least vague to me, Uncle. I must conclude your descriptions of her conditions were exaggerated, and I have to wonder for what purpose.”

Damn the boy. Love had made him stupid about some things, but not nearly stupid enough.

“She has good and bad days, and having people around seems to help. She’s particularly glad to see you and glad to see you’ve an interest in the Windham girl.” Let the young rascal chew on that. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to take Essie calling over at Morelands? These old bones don’t weather a chill like they used to.”

The truth of that admission didn’t make it any easier to state, and Vim didn’t look like he was taking the bait.

“If I never set foot on Moreland property again, it will be too soon.”

Oh, the boy had it bad. Rothgreb shoved to his feet, a shift too ponderous to have the requisite dramatic impact, but it did allow him to glower down at his beef-witted nephew. “For God’s sake, when are you going to let a youthful peccadillo go? The Holderness girl was a wrong turn, nothing more. We all make them, and most of us, thanks be to The Deity, get over them.”

“I’m over the girl,” Vim said, springing to his feet with enviable ease. “I was over the girl before the packet left Bristol, but I will never get over being refused the opportunity to seek satisfaction for the slur to her honor and mine. I’ll expect a list of missing items on my desk after dinner.”

He stomped out, all indignation and frustration, the picture of thwarted love. Rothgreb lowered himself into the chair and reached out a hand to the hound who’d come blinking awake at Vim’s departure.

“The boy is an ass. My wife would say he takes after me.”

The hound butted Rothgreb’s hand.

“Let’s go find Essie, shall we? We must do something, my friend. I’m not sure what, but we must do something.”

Seventeen

“You’d best come down to dinner, Soph.” Maggie’s green eyes held compassion and a hint of stubbornness too. “Her Grace is being patient, though I suspect that’s just because our brothers are charming her for all their worth.”

“I’m not hungry.” Sophie rose from her escritoire, where she’d been trying to write a list of Kit’s likes and dislikes for Mrs. Harrad, but this allowed Maggie to walk over to the desk and start snooping.

“Sophia Windham, when did you become an expert on changing an infant’s linen?”

“Vim showed me the way of it—quick and calm.”

“About this Vim…” Sophie realized her mistake too late, because Maggie had put the list down and was regarding Sophie very directly. “A dozen years ago—when you had barely begun wearing your hair up—I was introduced to him as Wilhelm Charpentier, a younger relation with more good looks than consequence. He danced well enough but disappeared without a word after some to-do at one of Her Grace’s Christmas parties.”