Текст книги "Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish"
Автор книги: Grace Burrowes
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Sindal turned to regard him. “If you’re going to invite me to Her Grace’s Christmas party, spare your breath. That is the very last place I’d seek to spend time.”
“Yes, but one wonders why. If His Grace did you a disservice by preventing you from dueling with Horton all those years ago, then why not take the opportunity to read the old boy the Riot Act? Why not beard the lion in his very own den?”
“The old boyis one of the most powerful men in the Lords, the highest title in the shire, and the father of the woman I happen to l—”
St. Just went on as if he hadn’t heard the very thing no man ever admitted to another. “And every year that you dodge and skulk about, avoiding His Grace’s hospitality, you enlarge the magnitude of what was not intended to do you any harm whatsoever. I was there, Sindal, and I saw exactly what happened. Come over tomorrow night, have a cup of eggnog, smile, and hang about in your finery under the mistletoe until Sophie comes swanning down the steps. You need a chance to make a grand exit with your head held high.”
Sindal scrubbed a hand over his face and stared at his drink. “What do you mean, there was no intent to do me harm? The lady and I had an understanding, and half the shire knew it. His Grace might have handled the thing a thousand different ways that didn’t involve making me a laughingstock. I regretted the loss of the lady’s hand at the time, but more I bitterly resented that Moreland prevented me from defending my own honor.”
The man believed he’d simply been elbowed aside by the collective papas of the shire for the better title, which would have been a bitter blow indeed, had that been the case.
“So demonstrate your backbone and make a short social call. You deserve the chance to put your own conclusion to the matter. Then too, Horton is afflicted with gout. He can no longer even stand up with his own lady.”
Sindal rose and went to stand facing the window. “I need a chance to apologize to your sister for a small misunderstanding, but I fail to see why a note won’t suffice.”
A fellow was not a coward who sought to avoid armed confrontation in the enemy camp. St. Just didn’t judge his host, but he wasn’t about to fail his sister, either.
“I kissed all seven of your cousins, including the fair Cynthia Louise. Are you saying you can’t abide the thought of kissing five of my sisters, at least one of whom has already succumbed to your dubious charms?”
“For God’s sake, St. Just, this isn’t a schoolyard rivalry. I have no confidence whatsoever Sophie won’t run from the sight of me. She thinks…”
“She thinks her swain capable of a less than gallant proposition,” St. Just said, rising to stand by his host. “But here’s what will happen if you fail to speak up. Today, the ladies are busy with preparations at Morelands, and they are not receiving. Tomorrow is the Christmas Party—an excellent opportunity to set matters to rights with His Grace, and your only real opportunity to sort things out with Sophie.
“Christmas Day will be spent at services, opening a few gifts, and starting on the Boxing Day rounds. We have too many tenants to distribute all the baskets in a single day, but on the following day, I will depart for Yorkshire, and I intend that Sophie accompany me.”
Sindal turned to scowl at him. “You’d make her travel north at this time of year?”
“Nobody makes Sophia Windham do anything. I’ve extended the invitation because my womenfolk would love to have her for a long stay, and there are lots of lonely bachelors in the north who’d give their left testicle to stand up with a duke’s daughter as pretty and well dowered as my sister. Then too, Sophie’s associations with the holidays will soon be as miserable as your own, unless you clear the air with her. I bid you good day and extend one final invitation to the party.”
St. Just picked up the bill of sale and left Sindal staring out the window, the family heirlooms in a dusty jumble on the desk behind him.
* * *
“That style is quite becoming on you, my dear.” The duchess advanced into Sophie’s room, eyeing her daughter in Christmas party finery. Her very quiet, grown daughter. “You should start wearing your hair like that more often.”
“Hello, Your Grace.” Sophie frowned in her mirror at a coiffure that was half up, half tumbling down around her shoulders, a splendid compliment to the red velvet of her dress. “This is an experiment.”
Esther’s sons called her mama when they wanted to flatter, wheedle, or comfort, but her daughters were far less in the habit. How had that happened?
“It’s a pretty experiment, but I have to wonder if experimentation hasn’t become something of a new pastime with you, Sophia.”
It was slight, but Sophie squared her shoulders before she turned to face her mother. “Can you be more specific, Your Grace?”
“I received correspondence from the Chattells, Sophia. You manipulated events to be alone without servants or chaperone in Town and then found yourself caring for that baby into the bargain. Your brothers assure me there will be no breath of scandal attached to this… departure from good sense, but I am left to wonder.”
Sophie’s face gave away nothing, not guilt nor remorse, not chagrin, not even defiance. “I wanted to be alone.”
“I see.” Except she didn’t, exactly. When had this child become a mystery to her own mother?
“Why?”
Sophie glanced at herself in the mirror, and Esther could only hope her daughter saw the truth: a lovely, poised woman—intelligent, caring, well dowered, and deserving of more than a stolen interlude with a convenient stranger and an inconvenient baby—Sophie’s brothers’ assurances notwithstanding.
“I am lonely, that’s why.” Sophie’s posture relaxed with this pronouncement, but Esther’s consternation only increased.
“How can you be lonely when you’re surrounded by loving family, for pity’s sake? Your father and I, your sisters, your brothers, even Uncle Tony and your cousins—we’re your family, Sophia.”
She nodded, a sad smile playing around her lips that to Esther’s eyes made her daughter look positively beautiful. “You’re the family I was born with, and I love you too, but I’m still lonely, Your Grace. I’ve wished and wished for my own family, for children of my own, for a husband, not just a marital partner…”
“You had many offers.” Esther spoke gently, because in Sophie’s words, in her calm, in her use of the present tense—“I am lonely”—there was an insight to be had.
“Those offers weren’t from the right man.”
“Was Baron Sindal the right man?” It was a chance arrow, but a woman who had raised ten children owned a store of maternal instinct.
Sophie’s chin dropped, and she sighed. “I thought he was the right man, but it wasn’t the right offer, or perhaps it was, but I couldn’t hear it as such. And then there was the baby… It wouldn’t be the right marriage.”
Esther took her courage in both hands and advanced on her daughter—her sensible daughter—and slipped an arm around Sophie’s waist. “Tell me about this baby. I’ve heard all manner of rumors about him, but you’ve said not one word.”
She meant to walk Sophie over to the vanity, so she might drape Oma’s pearls around Sophie’s neck, but Sophie closed her eyes and stiffened.
“He’s a good baby. He’s a wonderful baby, and I sent him away. Oh, Mama, I sent my baby away…”
And then, for the first time in years, sensible Lady Sophia Windham cried on her mother’s shoulder as if she herself were once again a little, inconsolable baby.
* * *
“What I don’t understand is why you didn’t simply ask me to come back to Sidling?” Vim shifted his gaze from his uncle to his aunt and back to his uncle. He’d waited a day to let his temper cool, but if anything, he was angrier than ever. They were looking at each other, though, and not at him, leaving Vim with the sense volumes were passing between them unsaid.
“I’d like to speak with your aunt in private.” Rothgreb’s tone was tired, quiet, and completely out of character.
“So the two of you can plot and scheme and get your stories straight?”
His aunt looked at him then. It took Vim a moment to decipher the emotion banked in her pale blue eyes: disappointment.
In him. He shifted his gaze back to Rothgreb.
“No, young man, I do not want to plot and scheme with your aunt. I want to apologize to her for trying to plot and scheme without her assistance.” The viscount aimed a small smile at Aunt Essie. “Though I suspect she was getting up to tricks quite nicely on her own, weren’t you, my dear?”
Aunt Esmerelda rose from her chair and began to stalk around the cozy parlor. “I was not managing quite nicely, but I was trying to do somethingto stop your nephew from charging off to God knows where yet again. Wilhelm, we have triedasking you to come home.”
Vim’s rejoinder was automatic, if a bit unkind. “Sidling is not my—”
“Not your home,” she interrupted him. “Oh, we know it’s not your home, except you were born here, you’re going to inherit the place, and except for three rackety half siblings, your entire family is here in Kent. Your father and mother are buried here, your grandfather and all four of his wives. Your uncle, and very likely youwill be buried here, as well, but for some stupid, known-only-to-your-pigheaded-self reason, this is not your home. I have a question for you, Wilhelm Lucifer Charpentier.”
“My dear,” Rothgreb said softly from his wing chair.
“ Not now, Aethelbert. I want to hear from your buffle-brained, stubborn, idiot, errant nephew just where his home might be if it isn’t here with the people who love him and pray for him every night? Where must you wander off to next, Wilhelm? I need to know where to send the letter that tells you you’ve missed the last opportunity to ride these acres with your uncle. I want to know what godforsaken heathen port you’ll be in when I have to run the death notice. Tell me, and then hope a merciful God sustains me in my grief long enough to post the blessed thing.”
She swished out of the parlor, the door latch closing with a definitive click in her wake.
And now it was Vim who didn’t want to meet his uncle’s gaze.
A silence started up while Rothgreb scooted to the edge of his chair, braced his hands on the padded arms, and pushed himself to his feet. “Don’t worry. At breakfast tomorrow she’ll be apologizing and cramming strawberry crepes down your gullet.” He knelt to poke up the fire while Vim stood there, his aunt’s tirade ringing in his ears.
“You did ask me to come home, didn’t you?”
His uncle paused, the poker across his bony knee where he genuflected before the hearth. “A time or two. I don’t want Essie to be alone if anything should happen to me. She’s probably reasoning along the same lines. Your cousins will be some comfort, but they won’t manage the place as it should be managed.”
Rothgreb rose, teetered, and caught the mantel to finish pulling himself erect. “Your aunt is a dear, dear woman, but she is protective of me.”
“Don’t apologize for her when she was merely stating a few home truths.”
“Apologize? I was explaining.” Rothgreb peered at him. “She has a knack for walloping a man between the eyes on those rare occasions when she gets her dander up. Makes marriage to her a lively proposition.”
Vim turned to stare out the window at the late afternoon landscape. “I don’t suppose you want to take that ride now?”
“Ah, youth. If you want to freeze your arse off tooling about the shire in this weather, be my guest. Talk to me about riding out come spring, and I might take you up on the offer. I’m going to find your aunt and assure her you’ll still speak to her when next she meets you.” He frowned. “You will, won’t you?”
Rothgreb was gruff, irascible, cantankerous, and sometimes even cussed, but in Vim’s experience, his uncle was never, ever uncertain.
“Of course I will, and if she’s not careful, I’ll be sure we meet up under the mistletoe.”
Rothgreb nodded slowly. “Not a bad approach. Puts the ladies in a fine humor when they get their regular share of kisses. Enjoy your ride.”
He shuffled out, looking to Vim for the first time like a very old man. A very old and very dear man.
Nineteen
“He’s not coming.” Valentine kept his voice down and his smile in place, even managing to nod at some little pretty across the room who apparently hadn’t gotten word he’d recently acquired a wife.
“He’ll be here.” Westhaven smiled, as well, as if Val had just said something amusing.
“I could always go fetch him.” St. Just wasn’t smiling. He was looking thoughtful, which generally did not bode well for somebody.
“We should send Her Grace,” Val said. “She’d sort the bugger out in a hurry.”
St. Just glanced at him. “She’s too busy dispensing good cheer to every yeoman and goodwife ever to pass through the village.”
“Sophie’s being even more gracious than our mother.” Westhaven did not sound happy about this in the least.
Maggie glided up to them, looking striking in a green velvet dress. “I thought you three said you had Sindal under control. Sophie’s smiling so hard her jaw must hurt, and he’s nowhere in sight.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Westhaven sounded most displeased. “Evie just switched her glass of wassail for Deene’s, and the idiot man didn’t even notice.”
Maggie’s brows knit. “Why does that matter?”
“Because,” St. Just said as Westhaven moved off, “Deene’s is spiked with a dose of the loveliest white rum ever to knock a grown man on his arse.”
Maggie took a little sip of her drink. “So’s mine.”
Val reached over and plucked her glass from her hand. “Then you’d better share, sister dear, or I’m going to go fetch Sindal here myself.”
* * *
A summer evening could be quiet, peaceful even, but it could never compete with the utter stillness of a winter night. No birds flitted from branch to branch; no insects sang to their mates; no soft breezes stirred leafy green boughs.
As Vim let his horse trot down the Sidling drive, all was still, and a fat moon was about to crest the horizon. The silence was as dense as the air was cold, but for the life of him, Vim could not have remained indoors with his silly young cousins, his fuming aunt, his oddly quiet uncle, and the aging retainers on every hand.
As the horse loosened up at a ground-eating trot beneath him, Vim started composing a note in his head to Lady Sophia Windham.
He was sorry—more sorry than he could say—that their paths were diverging.
Except that wasn’t an apology, and he owed her an apology. He’d leapt to convenient conclusions, made mad, passionate love for what felt like the first time in his life, then bungled the aftermath badly. He should have gone down on his damn bended knee, should have made her heart tremble, or whatever that word was Windham had used.
At the foot of the drive, he turned the horse toward the village and started his note over: Dear Sophie…
My dear Sophie…
Dearest Sophie…
Sophie, my love…
The horse’s ears swiveled forward, and Vim drew the beast up. The last thing he needed was to land on his arse on the cold, hard ground because some damned fox was out hunting his dinner.
“What is it?” He smoothed a hand down the gelding’s neck and let the horse walk on. “You hear some hound baying at the moon?”
But as they approached the village, Vim heard it too: a baby crying.
He halted the horse and simply listened. This was the sound that had drawn his path to Sophie’s, a purely unhappy, discontent sound, but unmistakably human.
Kit, and he wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t tired, either; this was his lonely cry, the lament he sent out when he needed to be held and cuddled and reassured. This was the simplest and most sincere form of a human being demanding to be loved.
The boy wanted Sophie, and he didn’t second-guess his entitlement to her, didn’t stop to fret about long-ago insults and innuendos and violins, didn’t worry about titles or any other damned thing that stood between him and what he needed to be happy.
Mercifully, the crying ceased.
Before Vim could change his mind, he wheeled the horse in the direction of Morelands and set the beast to a brisk canter.
* * *
“Her Grace dispatched me to figure out what has you lot glowering like a matched set of gargoyles.” Percival, the Duke of Moreland, surveyed his three sons, all of whom were clutching their drinks with the grim resignation of grown men being sociable under duress. This was odd, since all of his children were more than comfortable in social settings.
“We’re that obvious?” Valentine asked.
“To Her Grace, all is transparent when it comes to her family. I suppose we’re waiting for Sophie’s swain to come to his senses and gallop up the drive on his white charger?”
St. Just stood by the window, peering through a crack in the drapes. “It’s a bay, actually, and the idiot man is finally here. Somebody needs to warn Sophie.”
“Not just yet,” His Grace said. “I’m to have a word with Sindal first, Her Grace’s orders. You three look after your sister, and for God’s sake, find somebody to dance with Evie before she drags Deene under the mistletoe by his hair. She holds his liquor better than he does.”
He left his sons to deal with their sisters while he moved to receive his latest guest.
“Sindal, glad you could join us.” He passed the man’s greatcoat to a footman and noted that Sindal’s expression was wary and his cheeks were flushed, as if he’d galloped the entire distance from Sidling. “Stop peering around to see if Sophie’s here. I assure you she’s about somewhere.”
Sindal passed his gloves and hat to the footman and waited until the servant had bustled away. “And you would not object to my socializing with Lady Sophia?”
“Such a bold fellow you have become.” Emboldened by love, apparently, which made the situation both simpler and more delicate. “You would not give a tinker’s damn if I objected, would you?”
Sindal’s lips quirked. “I would not, Your Grace, but Sophie would.”
“Thank God for small favors, then. Are we to stand around here in this draft and exchange innuendos, or will you let me get you a glass of punch?”
And still, Sindal’s gaze was darting surreptitiously into every corner of the vast entrance hall. “No punch for me, thank you, Your Grace.”
Oh, for God’s sake. His Grace leveled a look at his guest that wasn’t the least congenial. Love made young men daft—old men too, though that didn’t signify at the moment.
“Perhaps a small glass,” Sindal allowed.
And just when His Grace was certain they were going to gain the privacy of the men’s punch bowl, who should come wafting by but dear little Sophia herself ?
“Lord Sindal?” She stopped, her gaze fixed on Sindal’s face.
“I’m fetching him a glass of punch, Sophie.” His Grace took Sindal by the arm. “I believe Her Grace said something about Westhaven decimating the marzipan trays. You might want to have a look, hmm?”
He had to drag the boy away bodily. “You can lurk under the mistletoe later, Sindal. I want no more than five minutes of your time.” And grandchildren. He most assuredly wanted grandchildren, though based on the way Sophie and her swain made eyes at each other, this happy outcome was a foregone conclusion.
Legitimate grandchildren would be a shade easier to explain to Her Grace.
“To your health.” He passed a glass of spiked punch to Sindal. “Drink up, sir. I have a hunch you’ll need the fortification.”
Sindal took a sip of his drink, his eyes going to the door and the entrance hall beyond. “And your health, as well, Your Grace. Now if you’re done demonstrating your ducal forbearance, I’ve something to say to your daughter that can’t—”
His Grace plucked the glass from Sindal’s hand. “You will listen to me first, young fellow.” He saw his wife glide past the door and understood that she’d ensure they had a measure of privacy. “You have been notably absent from our Christmas gatherings in years past.”
“I’ve been notably absent from England, but I don’t foresee that being necessary in future.”
“Glad to hear it. Stop that infernal mooning for Sophie and take a look at the woman standing at the foot of the stairs.”
Sindal did stop scanning the environs long enough to shoot his host a look mixing irritation with vague curiosity. “The heavyset, older woman?”
“The one standing next to the bald fellow leaning on his cane.” The woman obligingly turned, which ought to confirm, even to Sindal’s preoccupied and besotted eyes, that she wasn’t just heavyset, she’d graduated from matronly to something less flattering two stone ago.
“Do you recognize her?”
“She looks vaguely familiar, as does the older fellow with her.”
“There is your thwarted dream, Sindal. Why don’t you stand under the mistletoe and ambush her for old times’ sake? Horton can barely stand on his own now, so bad is his gout and so seldom is he sober. I suppose if you called him out now, you could arm wrestle.”
To his credit, Sindal did not gape.
“Then again”—His Grace paused to take a sip of his drink—“if I had six little heifers the likes of his to dower and launch, I might be driven to drink myself.”
Sindal swung his gaze back to meet His Grace’s. “Her present situation does not excuse your interfering with a man’s defense of her honor and his own years ago, Your Grace.”
“No, they do not.” His Grace set his drink down. “But her oldest daughter? Born perhaps six and a half months after the wedding.” He spoke very quietly—there was no need to bruit the woman’s folly about again after all these years. “Your grandfather lamented the situation to me over many a brandy, Sindal. She was leading you about by the… noseand had her eye on the more highly titled prize the entire time. She even cornered my son Bartholomew a time or two, but he was a canny sort and not about to be taken advantage of. If it’s any consolation, Horton was more effectively manipulated than you were.”
As they watched, Horton staggered a little, sloshing some of his drink on his wife’s sleeve. A silence spread and spread, underlain with the genial sounds of the party and a piano thumping out a Christmas tune somewhere in the house.
“I have been made a fool of, but not by you, Your Grace.” Sindal spoke quietly too. His Grace put the man’s drink back in his hand.
“No more so than most other young men can be made fools of. I had a few close calls myself before Her Grace took me in hand.”
But it appeared Sindal wasn’t even listening. He continued to watch as Horton’s lady tried to look like she was enjoying herself, though all the while, her expression was pinched with fatigue, anxiety, and what looked to His Grace like a suppressed fury at her lot in life.
“She looks at least ten years older than she should.”
“I don’t think her situation has been easy. She’s received—Her Grace saw to that—but her indiscretion is common knowledge. Some mathematical calculations are easy to recall. Your grandfather assured me the child could not have been yours.”
“How could he have known such a thing? I was devoted to that woman for a span of several months.” And still, Sindal did not take his eyes off the unfortunate woman and her sorry spouse.
“He knew you.” The duke spoke not as the wealthy, titled aristocrat he was, nor even as Sindal’s neighbor and a friend to his late grandfather. He spoke as a father, and most particularly as Sophie’s father.
“I owe you an apology, Your Grace.” Sindal extended his hand, and they shook, which put a curious little sense of unfinished business to rest in His Grace’s mind.
“None needed, to me at least. St. Just said something about you owing Sophie an apology, though. Might want to be about that posthaste, hmm?”
Sindal put his drink down, nodded once, and strode off like a man very determined on his mission, while His Grace went to the door of the small parlor. Across their crowded main hall, he found his wife’s gaze, noted the slight anxiety in her eyes, and eased it with a small, private smile intended just for her.
* * *
“He walked right past me.” Sophie turned before the harpsichord, skirts swishing, and paced back to Val’s side. “He barely looked at me, Valentine. Am I not even worth a glance?”
She veered off and marched over to the great harp. “Maggie offered to poison his drink. What has the blessed punch bowl got that I haven’t got? What is that?”
“Your cloak. Some fresh air will settle you down, Soph.”
“I don’t want to settle down!”
He held her gaze, thinking his wife would be proud of him. Only a brave—or perhaps very foolish man—tried to console a woman with a heart in the process of breaking. “I rather think you do want to settle down, preferably with Sindal and a brace of offspring.”
Her head came up, and Valentine was grateful he’d be leaving in a couple days. Much more of this drama, and he’d be swearing off family holidays for the next decade.
“I tossed aside a perfectly good baby. A wonderful baby,” she said. “Placed him with strangers.”
“That dratted baby has nothing to do with Sindal cutting you.” He draped her cloak over her shoulders, even risking a small hug while he did. “Let’s go for a little walk, Soph. It will put the roses back in your cheeks.”
When he pulled away, she clung. He felt the instant when her ire turned to sorrow, felt her spine sag with impending grief. “I tossed away the baby, but Valentine, I’m beginning to wonder if I didn’t toss away the man, as well. I never really explained to him what I was about—I didn’t know what I was about.”
“And I’m not sure I wantto know. Come along, Soph. We can amble down to the church and make sure the curmudgeon hasn’t gone rogue on me. The damned weather is hard on the old soldiers.”
“You and your blessed pianos.” But she let him tug her through the French doors to the terrace. St. Just was still keeping vigil by the windows, and he started when Val pulled Sophie along on the terrace. Val just shook his head when St. Just beckoned them back inside, all without Sophie noticing a thing in her increasing upset.
“He’s a good baby,” she was saying. “And the Harrads are good people, but Kit is special, he’s unique, and they’ve raised only girls.”
“You spent two weeks with the infant, and you know him better than an experienced mother of three would?”
She turned to glare at him in the moonlight. “You are a blockhead, Valentine Windham. Just wait until Ellen presents you with a baby. Vim knew exactly what to do with Kit. Exactly. It has nothing to do with time or experience.”
He knew he was taking a risk, but Val opted for goading her rather than comforting her. “Vim knew what he was doing with you too, sister dear. The question is, what are the two of you going to do about it now? I’m told he’s leaving for the Americas again, and that is some distance from merry olde England.”
“I hate you.”
“Dear heart, I know this.”
She stomped along beside him then stopped abruptly, dropped his arm and drew in a shuddery breath. Well, hell. He put his arms around her and silently vowed to give up his career as a charming escort. “What hurts the worst, Soph? Tell me.”
“You’ll bear tales to Her Grace and to our odious brothers.”
“I’m your only odious brother.”
She nodded. “You’re the worst of a bad lot.” She was stalling, but a lady was entitled when her heart was breaking. “I love him.”
“Sindal hasn’t earned that honor—” He fell abruptly silent when Sophie drew back and rolled her eyes at him.
“I meant I love Kit, though I love Vim, as well.”
Val dropped his arms, feeling the last of his fraternal patience slipping its leash. “It’s no wonder Sindal is uncertain of his reception with you, Sophie Windham, for I’m beyond confused myself. Have you told the man you love him?”
“Of course not.”
Val resumed their walk. “Then how is he to know?”
“Because I’m going to insist he take Kit.” Sophie followed after Val at a brisk pace. “Vim needs somebody to love, and to love him, and he’s perfect with Kit. He said he’d consider fostering him at Sidling. The viscountess doted on Kit, and I think old Rothgreb was fond of him too.”
Val kept on walking. “You have taken leave of your senses. Sindal is off to parts unknown. He can’t be dragging your dratted baby with him.”
“All manner of children are born on shipboard. Most merchant captains who can afford to take their wives and children with them do so. Then too, if Kit is at Sidling, Vim will have an excellent reason to be home more frequently. Rothgreb and his lady will like that.”
“Sophie, I love you, but this plan has nothing to recommend it, except that it puts the two fellows you seem to love with your whole heart where they’re either gallivanting about the globe without you or right under your nose where you can look but not touch.”
She just shook her head and kept moving along with him.
“All right, then, go visit your Holy Terror and explain to the Harrads that no, you’ll be haring off in a different direction now, playing skittles with a child’s life while you completely ignore your own needs. I’m going to have a sane argument with a piano while I can still reason.”
He marched off—he was notretreating—and left Sophie in the middle of the village green, her fists clenched at her sides while the sounds of the Christmas party drifted around in the frigid night air.
* * *
A man could not aspire to the status of man at all unless he admitted to himself he’d been mistaken.
And Sophie had apparently known this. She’d known Vim had spent more than a dozen years racketing around the world, laying up treasures on earth, all in the mistaken belief His Grace had treated him shabbily, when all the while…
“I beg your pardon.” The very object of his youthful folly stepped back and peered at him through tired eyes. Louise Holderness Horton smiled tentatively. “I know you, sir, or I believe I do.”
He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “It’s Sindal, Louise. Wilhelm Charpentier. Happy Christmas.” He bowed and left her standing there under the mistletoe, her hand to her a cheek and a ghost of her old smile on her lips.
And now to deal with what really mattered. He took a quick leave of his hostess, whose serene mature beauty reminded him all too strongly of Sophie.
Sophie, who was discreetly maintaining an absence when he’d come expressly to mend his fences with her. He gave the place one more visual inspection and didn’t see her anywhere, so he signaled for his hat and coat.
