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 something to stop your nephew from charging off to God knows where yet again. Wilhelm, we have tried asking 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 you will 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.”