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.