“Of course not, but I took her idea, and for the first time in my life found myself among people who shared my passion for music. You cannot imagine what a comfort that was.”
Yes, he could. He could well imagine wandering for years without any sense of companionship or belonging, then finding it in perfect abundance.
Only to have it snatched away again.
“I suppose I’ll have to add my tuppence,” St. Just said. He didn’t look at anyone as he spoke, but stared at his empty plate. “I was not managing well when I came home from Waterloo.”
“When I dragged you home,” Lord Val interjected.
“Dragged me home kicking and screaming and clutching a bottle in each fist.”
Vim had to stare at his plate too, because St. Just was the last man he could picture losing his composure. Westhaven was polished, Lord Val casually elegant. St. Just was a gentleman and no fool, but the man was also had the bearing of one who was physically and emotionally tough.
“I was quite frankly a disgrace,” St. Just said. Westhaven looked pained at this summary but held his peace. “I’d left a brother buried in Portugal and seen more good men…” He took a sip of his ale, and Vim saw a hint of a tremor in the man’s hand.
“I went to ground.” He set his ale down carefully. “I holed up at my stud farm in Surrey, where I consumed more good liquor than should be legal. I could not sleep, yet I had no energy. I could not stand to be alone, I could not stand to be around people, I could not—”
“For God’s sake, Dev.” Lord Val glowered at the mug he cradled in his hands. “You don’t have to—”
“I do. I do have to. For Sophie. She came tooling down to Surrey after a few months of this and took in the situation at a glance. She rationed my liquor, and I suspect she put you two on notice, for you began to visit periodically, as well. She called in my man of business and chaperoned a meeting between him and me. She had a stern talk with my cook so I’d get some decent nutrition. I hated her for this, wanted to wring her pretty, interfering neck, and contemplated it at length.”
“Gads.” Westhaven ran a hand through his hair. “I hadn’t known.”
“She didn’t tell anybody. She was off visiting friends, supposedly, so you see there’s precedent for her little detours from the agreed-upon itinerary. She stayed two weeks, and when she judged I was sober enough to listen to her, she pointed out that I had five sisters who were all in want of decent mounts. I owned a stud farm, and did I think my business would prosper if my own sisters could not find decent horses in my stables?”
Westhaven looked intrigued. “She lectured you?”
“She bludgeoned me with common sense, and when I told her to have His Grace pick out something from Tatt’s she… she cried. Sophie hates to cry, but I made her cry. I was so ashamed I started selecting my training prospects that very afternoon.”
“You made her cry.” Westhaven smiled ruefully. “Rather like my shouting at our sisters.”
“Or hollering at His Grace over my music,” Lord Val observed. “I wanted to make beautiful sounds… and there I was, carrying on like a hung over fishwife.”
“And Sophie put you all to rights?” Vim had siblings, he’d had parents and a loving stepfather, a grandfather and several grandmothers, cousins, and an aunt and uncle. Family interactions were seldom quite this dramatically simple, but clearly, in the minds of Sophie’s brothers, the situation was not complicated at all.
“Sophie put us to rights,” Westhaven said, “and my guess is we’ve never thanked her. We’ve gone off and gotten married, started our families, and neglected to thank someone who contributed so generously to our happiness. We’re thanking Sophie now by not calling you out. If she wants you, Charpentier, then we’ll truss you up with a Christmas ribbon and leave you staked out under the nearest kissing bough.”
“And if she doesn’t want me?”
“She wanted you for something,” Lord Val said dryly. “I’d hazard it isn’t just because you’re a dab hand at a dirty nappy, either.”
Vim didn’t want to lie to these men, but neither was he about to admit he suspected Sophie Windham, for reasons he could not fathom, had gifted him with her virginity then sent him on his way.
“She lent you that great hulking beast of hers,” St. Just pointed out. “She’s very protective of those she cares for, and yet she let you go larking off with her darling precious—never to be seen again? I would not be so sure.”
Vim had wondered about the same thing, except if a woman as practical as Sophie were determined to be shut of a man, she might just lend the sorry bastard a horse, mightn’t she?
“I proposed to my wife, what was it, six times?” Westhaven said.
“At least seven,” Lord Val supplied.
St. Just sent Westhaven a wry smile. “I lost count after the second hangover, but Westhaven is the determined sort. He proposed a lot. It was pathetic.”
“Quite.” Westhaven’s ears might have turned just a bit red. “I had to say some magic words, cry on Papa’s shoulder, come bearing gifts, and I don’t know what all before Anna took pity on me, but I do know this: Sophie has been out for almost ten years, and she has never, not once, given a man a second look. You come along with that dratted baby, and she looks at you like a woman smitten.”
“He’s a wonderful baby.”
“He’s a baby,” Westhaven said, loading three words with worlds of meaning. “Sophie is attached to the infant, but it’s you she’s smitten with.”
All three of Sophie’s brothers speared him with a look, a look that expected him to do something.
“If you gentleman will excuse me, I’m going to offer to take the baby tonight for Sophie. She’s been the one to get up and down with him all night for better than a week, and that is wearing on a woman.”
He left the room at as dignified a pace as he could muster and considered it a mercy Lord Val hadn’t barked anything at him about leaving Sophie’s damned door open.
“That is just famous.” Westhaven scowled at the empty basket of rolls, wanting nothing so much as to summon Sindal back into the room—but for what?
“Yes,” Valentine said, though his expression was more puzzled than thunderous. “If Sophie and Sindal were in separate bedrooms several doors apart, how does he know she was getting up and down all night with the child? I slept in one of those bedrooms for years and never heard Sophie stirring around at night.”
St. Just smiled a little crookedly. “Because you sleep like the dead and snore accordingly. One wonders if Sindal has told Sophie about the debacle in his past. I don’t think the man’s forgotten it.”
“She wouldn’t hold it against him,” Val said, frowning. “We don’t hold it against him, do we?”
“His Grace thundered about it for weeks,” St. Just said. “You two were more concerned with getting back to school, but Sindal is only a couple years older than I am. It isn’t something a man would quickly forget.”
Westhaven got up and crossed the room to hunker near the fire. “Like we can’t forget he took liberties with our sister. His Grace will be calling for his dueling pistols if the truth should reach him.”
“I don’t think so.” Val kept to his seat and rearranged the cutlery on his empty plate. “I’ve come to realize His Grace picks up a lot more than we thought he did, and he chooses to overlook it.”
“Perhaps.” St. Just shifted in his chair and crossed his legs at the ankle. “That leaves us only with Her Grace to worry about.”
Westhaven rose from poking up the fire and regarded his brothers’ unhappy expressions. “’Tis the season, you lot. Cheer up. At least the man can change a dirty nappy. If he and Sophie have anticipated their vows, he’ll need to be handy in the nursery. Now, shall I beat you at cribbage seriatim or both at the same time?”