She gave him another visual inspection. “Was this declaration made after your heart was broken?”
“Shall we move on? The older portraits are over here.”
Sophie crossed the room with him and took a seat beside him when he lowered himself to one of the padded benches between paintings.
“I never liked this room,” he said, shifting so Kit sat on his lap. “Never liked the sense the eyes of the past are upon me.”
“Some of the people in this room loved you, I should hope.” She reached over and loaned Kit her finger to wrestle into his mouth.
“And I loved them, but they’re dead all the same.” He paused to take a breath and marshal his composure. “It wasn’t my heart that was damaged so much as it was my pride, and on the occasion of a gathering attended by the entire neighborhood. A young lady made it dramatically apparent she preferred another, and I did not handle the situation well. In hindsight, I made far too much of the entire matter. Would you like to hold the baby?”
As gambits went to change the subject, it ought to have been foolproof, but Sophie shifted to look out over the room, taking her finger from Kit’s maw.
“He’s comfortable where he is, and if I’m dreading my leave-taking from him, you can’t be looking forward to losing him, either. Are you still in love with your young lady?”
“For God’s sake, Sophie.” He set the baby, blankets and all, in her lap and rose, pacing off a half-dozen feet. “I haven’t seen the woman in years, and she preferred another. No sane man would allow himself to hold on to tender feelings under such circumstances.”
“We’re not necessarily sane when we’re in love.” Her smile was wistful, as if recalling her own first love.
“Then I’m happy the condition has since not befallen me. Shall we go? I’m sure I heard the first bell for luncheon, and we don’t want Kit taking a chill.”
She looked peevish, as if she might argue with him, which was about what he deserved for being so short-tempered. Fortuitously, the baby started bouncing in her lap and carrying on in baby-language about God knew what.
“Come.” Vim scooped the child up and extended a hand to Sophie. “We’ll bring him to the table and entertain your brothers with his singing. Aunt will be delighted, and Uncle will start telling stories again.”
“Do you know, Percy, my eyes are not what they used to be.” Esther, the Duchess of Moreland, kept her tone mild, but her spouse was no fool. After more than thirty years of marriage, he could sniff out an uxorial interrogation just in the way she said his name, and she could tell from his very posture he was already maneuvering charm into place to avoid it.
“Your eyes are as lovely as ever, my dear. Hold a minute.” He pointed upward, to where a fat sprig—nigh a sheave—of mistletoe was suspended from the rafters over the Morelands main entrance. She smiled while he bussed her cheek.
“Your behavior is wonderfully decorous, husband. I don’t know whether I approve.”
“The girls are all underfoot, save Sophie. It doesn’t do to set a bad example. I wish you could have seen young Deene’s expression when he realized he was going to have to kiss four Windham sisters in succession if he wanted to leave the house with his reputation intact.”
“And did you treat him to a ducal glower?”
“Permit me my entertainments, my love, but I could hardly glower when the girls were the ones who ambushed him under the kissing bough.”
And as distractions went, the image of four of Esther’s daughters kissing the handsome Marquis of Deene ought to have sufficed—except Esther did not allow it to.
“What else did Westhaven have to say?” She tucked her arm through her husband’s, lest he try to nip into his study for something he’d forgotten or pop down to the kitchen to snitch a crème cake or go on some other ducal frolic and detour.
“Westhaven?”
“Yes, you know. Earl of, also known as Gayle Windham, your heir and our son. He sent you another little epistle this morning from Sidling.”
His Grace paused outside the door to Esther’s personal parlor. “How do you know these things, Esther? The children swear you have eyes in the back of your head, but I suspect it’s supernatural powers.”
“I saw the Sidling groom coming up from the stables. The man isn’t young, and his progress took some time. Perhaps the note wasn’t from Westhaven.”
“It was from Westhaven. He said old Rothgreb was pressing them to stay an extra day, claiming his viscountess hasn’t been so animated since Sindal’s last visit. St. Just is negotiating the sale of that mare Rothgreb is so proud of, our very own Mozart is tuning their piano, and Sophie might be taking notice of young Sindal.”
“Sindal is a bit older than St. Just.”
“A veritable relic, though still barely half my age. Would you mind if she took an interest in him?”
In the studied casualness of her husband’s inquiry, Esther understood very clearly that His Grace would not mind. His Grace was encouraging the association, in fact. Esther passed into the cozy little parlor overlooking the wintry landscape of Morelands’ park, waited until her husband had joined her, and closed the door behind him.
“This room always smells lovely,” he said, glancing around. “Flowers in summer and spring, and spices in the fall and winter. How do you do it?”
Now that they were behind closed doors, his arms slipped around her, and she leaned against him.
“It’s a secret. Do you want to know what was in the viscountess’s note to me?”
He rested his chin against her hair. “I wasn’t going to pry.”
Nothing wrong with His Grace’s eyesight. “It seems our Sophie has become enamored of a foundling. The tweenie did not catch her coach for Portsmouth, but left the child in Sophie’s care and hasn’t been heard from since. Esmerelda gleaned this from things Rothgreb winkled from his nephew over port. She is concerned Sophie is too smitten with the baby to realize she’s made a conquest of young Wilhelm.”
“Oh my.” His Grace stepped back and went to the sideboard, lifting a quilted cozy from the teapot. “It seems we have an intrigue going on, my love. The temptation to meddle is very strong.”
She crossed her arms and considered her husband, the man she loved, the father of her children, and a man who would never have enough grandchildren. “My very thought, Percival. Perhaps we should sit down and discuss the situation.”
“No ‘perhaps’ about it.”
Already, after only a handful of days and nights, Vim knew her. Half asleep, deep in the night, without even touching her, he knew she was there.
“Sophie, what are you doing in my bedroom?”
The shadows beside his bed shifted, and he felt a weight beside him on the mattress.
“I don’t want to talk.”
“Sophie, this is not in the least wise. You’re leaving tomorrow—” Two soft, rose-scented fingers settled over his mouth then slowly moved up along his jaw to caress the outer contour of his ear.
“You can send me away.” Her weight came closer on the expanse of the mattress. “I wish you would not, because you’re right. Tomorrow, I will leave.”
There was such desolation in three words, desolation that echoed in the very chambers of Vim’s own heart. She’d turned down a lifetime with him but was apparently willing to steal another hour in the dead of night. Then too, in the morning, she would give up the child.
“This is not wise, Sophie.”
She kissed him. Her lips connected first with his cheek, then wandered over to the corner of his mouth, then grazed the edge of his jaw.
“My dear, where is Kit?”