“I always expected to marry,” he said slowly. His uncle certainly expected him to marry—ten or twelve years ago would have suited the old man nicely. “I suppose I haven’t met the right lady. You?”
“What girl doesn’t expect to marry? There was a time when my fondest wish was to marry and have a family of my own. Not a very original wish, I’m afraid.” She shifted the baby and reached across the table to pour them each a cup of tea. As long as she’d let it steep, Vim could smell the pungent fragrance of the steam curling up from his cup.
“Darjeeling?”
“One of my brothers favors it. How do you take your tea, Mr. Charpentier?”
“My friends call me Vim, and I will be fixing the tea for you, Miss Windham, seeing as your friend is yet asleep in your arms.”
She frowned, but it was a thoughtful expression, not disapproving. “My friends call me Sophie, and my siblings do. You may call me that if you like.”
It wasn’t a good idea, this exchange of Christian names. Watching some subtle emotion play across Miss Windham’s—Sophie’s—face, Vim had the sense she allowed few to address her so familiarly. He wouldn’t have made the gesture if he weren’t soon to be leaving, never to see this good lady again.
“Sophie, then. Miss Sophie. Will you eat now? I can hold Kit.”
“You’re sure you’ve had enough?”
“I have eaten every crumb, so yes.” He rose and came around the table, reaching down to retrieve the baby. She didn’t hand him up, though, so when Vim reached for the child, his arm extended a little too far, to the point where his hand slid a few inches down Miss Windham’s breastbone before he could get a decent grip on the child.
Down her breastbone and along the side of one full breast.
The contact lasted not even a second and involved the back of his hand and her bodice, nothing more, but Vim had to work to keep the frisson of lust that shot through him from showing on his face—a moment of sexual awareness as surprising as it was intense.
The lady, for her part, took a sip of her tea, looking not the least discomposed.
“Best eat quickly,” Vim said, settling the child in his arms. “You never know when My Lord Baby will rouse, and then the needs of everyone else can go hang. It was a very good omelet.”
“Is there such a thing as a bad omelet?” She ate daintily but steadily, not even glancing up at him while she spoke.
“Yes, there is, but we won’t discuss it further while you eat.” He resumed his seat across from her, the weight of the baby a warm comfort against his middle. Avis and Alex could both be carrying already, a thought that sent another pang of that unnameable sentiment through him.
“What else can you tell me about caring for Kit, Mr. Char—” She paused and smiled slightly. “Vim. What else can you tell me, Vim?”
“I can tell you it’s fairly simple, Miss Sophie: you feed him when he’s hungry, change him when he’s wet, and cuddle him when he’s fretful.”
She set down her utensils and gazed at the baby. “But how do you tell the difference between hungry and fretful?”
Her expression was so earnest, Vim had to smile. “You cuddle him, and if his fussing subsides, then he wasn’t hungry, he was just lonely. If he keeps fussing, you offer him some nourishment, and so on. He’ll tell you what’s amiss.”
“But that other business, at the coaching inn. You knew he was uncomfortable, and to me it wasn’t in the least obvious what the trouble was.”
“And now you know he needs to be burped when he’s filled his tummy. Your tea will get cold.”
She took a sip, but he didn’t think she tasted it, so fixed was she on the mystery of communicating with a baby. She continued to pepper him with questions as she finished her meal and tended to the dishes, not untying her apron until the kitchen was once again spotless.
By that point, Vim had been making slow circuits of the kitchen with the child in his arms. He had less than an hour of light left, and it really was time to be going.
“I thank you for the meal, Miss Sophie, and I will recall your cooking with fondness as I continue my travels. If you’ll take Kit, I’ll fetch my coat from the parlor and wish you good day.”
He passed her the baby, making very sure that this time his hand came nowhere near her person.
He was leaving.
This realization provoked something close to panic in Sophie’s usually composed mind. She told herself she was merely concerned for the baby, being left in the care of a woman who had still—still!—never changed a single nappy.
But there was a little more to it than that. More she was not about to dwell on. Mature women of nearly seven-and-twenty did not need to belabor the obvious when they fell prey to unbecoming infatuations and fancies.
“I wish you’d stay.” The words were out before she could censor herself.
“I beg your pardon?” He paused in the act of rolling his cuffs down muscular forearms dusted with sandy, golden hair. How could a man have beautiful forearms?
She bent her head to kiss the baby on his soft, fuzzy little crown. “I have no notion how to go on with this child, Mr. Charpentier, and those old fellows in the carriage house likely have even less. I realize I ought not to ask it of you, but I am quite alone in this house.”
“Which is the very reason I cannot stay, madam. Surely you comprehend that?”
He spoke gently, quietly, and Sophie understood the point he was making. Gentlemen and ladies never stayed under the same roof unchaperoned.
Except with him—with Vim Charpentier—she wasn’t Lady Sophia Windham. She’d made that decision at the coaching inn, where announcing her titled status would have served no point except to get her pocket picked. Higgins was old enough to address her as Miss Sophie, and being Miss Sophie was proving oddly appealing. A housekeeper or companion could be Miss Sophie; a duke’s daughter could not.
“This weather will be making all manner of strange bedfellows, Mr. Charpentier. And if we’re alone, who is to know if propriety hasn’t been strictly observed?”
“This is not a good idea, Miss Windham.”
“Going out in that storm is a better idea?”
She let the question dangle between his gentlemanly concerns about propriety and the commonsense needs of a woman newly burdened with a small baby. When he turned to stand near the window, Sophie sent up a little prayer that common sense was going win out over gentlemanly scruples. The baby whimpered in his sleep, which had Mr. Charpentier sending her a thoughtful look.
“I can stay, but just for one night, and I’ll be off at first light. There is some urgency about the balance of my journey.”
“Thank you. Kit and I both thank you.” She had the oddest urge to kiss his cheek.
She kissed the baby instead. “Come along, and I can show you to a guest room.”
He retrieved his haversack from the back hallway and followed along behind her, a big, silent presence. She could feel him taking in the trappings of a duke’s Town residence but hoped he saw the little things that made it a home too.
The servants had decorated before leaving for the season—pine boughs scented the mantels, red ribbons decorated tall beeswax candles that would have been lit at the New Year and on Twelfth Night were the family in residence. Cinnamon sachets and clove-studded oranges hung in the hallways, and wreaths graced the windows facing the street.
“Their Graces must take their holidays seriously,” Mr. Charpentier observed. “Is that a Christmas tree?”
Sophie paused outside the half-open door of one of the smaller parlors. “Her Grace’s mother was German, like much of the old king’s court. The Christmas trees were originally for Oma, so she wouldn’t be as lonely for her homeland.”