Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish (13 page)

“They cry.” Westhaven's smile faded.

“You are fretting about Maggie. It's thankless, that. She'll come calling with a copy of the financial pages in her hand, and every time you try to turn the conversation to a handsome single fellow who doesn't want to be leg-shackled to a simpering twit from the schoolroom, Mags will start nattering on about some shipping venture.”

“I listen when she natters on, I hope you do likewise. I strongly suspect Worth Kettering listens to her, as well.”

“Kettering has no sisters. I don't mind giving him the loan of one of ours.”

Westhaven was quiet for a moment, sealing up his letter, and replacing the cork in the inkwell, but Westhaven's silences were always the considering sort, so Val kept his peace, as well. “I worry about Maggie,” Westhaven said quietly, “but lately I've started worrying about Sophie too.”

“You find this worrying enjoyable, then. Nobody worries about Sophie. She's the salt of the earth and the only thing keeping the ducal household sane when Her Grace abdicates the duty. We don't worry because Sophie is on hand.”

“She's not at Morelands as we speak, is she?”

That was a fact. Westhaven was a fiend for pouncing on bothersome little facts—the man had read law, being a younger son who'd expected to make his own way in the world. This had permanently deranged a portion of the fellow's otherwise excellent mind.

“Sophie is entitled to socialize on occasion,” Val said, but it bothered him: why would Sophie be socializing with neighbors who lived directly across the square when she could be in the country with her entire family? What Val recalled of the Chattell sisters wasn't so endearing as to explain Sophie's decision.

“She socializes with perfect grace, as do all our sisters.” Westhaven started tapping his missive on the desk, first one edge of the folded paper, a ninety-degree turn, then another edge. “But I don't like her remaining behind when she might be out in the country, singing carols, decking the hall, and keeping an eye on the rest of the family. Sophie's a mother hen at heart.”

“So we'll collect her and get her to Morelands, and you'll see we have nothing to worry over where Sophie's concerned. Not one damned thing. Now if you're done with that desk, I think I'll be writing a short epistle to my wife.”

“It's late,” Westhaven said, rising. “You could write to her tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow we strike out for London, though I think it will be slow going the closer we get to Town.”

“But we're in no real hurry,” Westhaven said, stretching languidly. “Not unless you count the burning desire to be reunited with our wives once we've seen to this errand.”

“Right,” Val said, uncorking the ink bottle. “No damned hurry at all.”

***

Vim glanced down at the cradle only to see two not-very-sleepy blue eyes peering back up at him.

Babies did not go to sleep when it would suit others for them to do so. This was probably The First Law of Babyhood, the close corollary being that they didn't stay dry or tidy when it suited others, either.

The feel of Sophie Windham's fingers tracing the shape of Vim's ear would be enough to keep him awake for some while, as well. He did not allow himself to watch her getting ready for bed, though the sheer domesticity of it was riveting.

One glimpse of her hair unbound, a dark, silky fall of feminine beauty cascading right down to her hips, and he was remaining in his seat only so he might not embarrass himself with evidence of his arousal.

The entire situation made no sense whatsoever. Sophie had indicated her willingness to accommodate his lust—though nothing more than that—as genteelly as a woman could, and Vim had no doubt he desired her.

Desired her on a level new and not wholly comfortable to contemplate.

And because he desired her so, he was wary of what she offered. Anything that seemed too good to be true generally was too good to be true. Father Christmas did not exist except in the hearts of innocent children; rainbows did not sport pots of gold where they touched the earth.

And Sophie Windham wasn't meant to be a man's casual Christmas romp.

And yet… He did not want to disappoint her.

Vim glanced over to see the baby had finally, thank ye gods, gone to sleep. He adjusted the blankets around the cherubic little form and rose to tuck the hearth screen closer to the fire.

He moved over to the bed and stood in silent indecision for a long moment. There would be no recrimination in the morning if he joined Sophie in that bed, none if he merely spent the night in slumber beside her, none if they again took turns getting up with the baby.

And
none
if
they
made
passionate
love
in
the
dark
of
night.

“Did you close these curtains to indicate I would not be welcome in there with you, Sophie?”

He kept his voice just above a whisper, allowing her to feign sleep if she wanted to spare them both embarrassment. In the moment that followed, a procession of emotions tumbled through him: hope, anticipation, desire… and when Sophie made no reply, a disappointment that had precious little of relief in it. Perhaps he'd misread the situation, or perhaps Sophie wasn't—

The curtain moved, revealing Sophie sitting up in the shadowy interior. “You are welcome.”

He couldn't read her expression, and there was nothing particularly welcoming in her tone.

“I'll be right back, then.” He drew the curtain closed and moved as quickly as he could without making a sound. He lifted the cradle, baby and all, and moved down the darkened corridor to his room, which was warm enough to serve as the child's temporary quarters.

Vim's clothes landed in a heap on the floor, his ablutions were made with cold water, and his use of the tooth powder was particularly thorough. As he pulled on the brocade dressing gown, he glanced at the cradle.

“If you know what's good for you and good for Miss Sophie's spirits, you will endeavor to sleep for at least the next hour. Two would be more gentlemanly. I'll see to it you get a pony just as soon as you learn your letters if you'll accommodate me on this.”

He slipped into the corridor, leaving the door cracked just an inch—not enough to let in a draft, but enough to let a baby's cries be heard two doors down.

And when he quietly closed Sophie's door behind him, eagerness turned to something… less certain.

Perhaps he should have brought himself off first…

Perhaps this wasn't wise. Assuming Sophie's welcome was a sexual overture—and that
was
an assumption, regardless of how she kissed him—no matter what precautions were taken, there was always a chance of consequences…

He pushed the bed curtains aside, appallingly willing to take on such consequences if taking on Sophie were part of the bargain, as well. Sophie didn't roll over as Vim shed his dressing gown, which had him pausing, one knee on the mattress, one foot on the floor.

She reached behind her and flipped the covers up. Vim scooted into their warmth and arranged himself along the lovely, feminine curve of Sophie's back. She was in her nightgown, which he took for a minimal boon to his self-control, until he heard a funny hitch in her breathing.

Had
she
been
crying
while
he
was
plotting
seduction?

“You did not want to speak of your brothers,” he said, drawing his hand down the elegant length of her spine and feeling remorse twist in his gut where arousal had been just moments before.

“We don't, generally.”

“When my father died, I was a small child. I did not understand grieving in silence, but my mother seemed to need it. Fortunately, my aunt and uncle understood I needed to speak of my papa. Uncle had sketches of Papa hung in the schoolroom, which had a salubrious impact on my studies.”

She craned her neck to peer at him over her shoulder. “I think that's the first positive thing you've said about anyone or anything associated with your home.”

“It's a lovely place, settled, comfortable, and…”

“Yes?” She subsided, which meant he couldn't see her face—and she couldn't see him.

“Come here, Sophie Windham. If you're to interrogate me, at least let us be comfortable while you do.” He tucked her close enough that she had to be aware of the remains of his erection snug against her backside.

“Mr. Charpentier, you are without clothing.”

“And soon you will be too, if you want to be.”

“Tell me about Sidling.”

It was to be slow torture, then, unless he'd mistaken her invitation entirely. No matter, it was the loveliest form of torture, and he would do his utmost to make sure it was mutual.

“Sidling goes back nearly to the days of the Conqueror, at least to hear my grandfather tell it. We've a Norman ruin that was likely a watchtower of some sort. The land rolls, but not so you can't get a crop in. There's a drive about a half-mile in length, oaks on both sides, some of them huge. We had a big windstorm when I was a boy, and one toppled. I stopped counting the tree rings at four hundred, and in the middle, where the rings were almost too small to count, my grandfather said those were the hard, cold years.”

“Cold makes for solid wood. My brother has studied violin construction and says northern wood is preferred for that reason.”

“These brothers of yours are an interesting lot.” Her hip was interesting too. A smooth, beautiful conjunction of leg, derriere, and woman that fit beneath his palm perfectly.

“Tell me of your uncle and aunt.”

Had she sighed a little with that question? He leaned over and kissed her cheek to investigate. When he resumed speaking, he kept his cheek against her hair.

“Uncle is a tough old boot. He was the spare, the oldest son having died before I was born. My father was an afterthought produced to secure the succession, but I'm told he was never very healthy. Grandfather was a force of nature, on his fourth wife when he died. He had every confidence he'd have more sons of that one too.”

“You come from fierce stock, then.”

Fierce. This was an apt description for the sensation pooling in his groin. He brought his attention to the conversation with effort.

“Uncle is fierce, in his way, so is my aunt. Proud, independent. They've let me wander half my life away rather than ask me for anything.”

His hand stilled on her flank as it occurred to him some of his feelings toward Sidling were explained by guilt. Not disgust for the events in his past, nor resentment, nor impatience… Guilt, for having turned his back on not just some bad memories—his worst memories, really—but on people who'd loved him since he was Kit's age.

Sophie caught his hand in hers and brought it around her waist. “And you're worried about them now, worried you've left them too long alone.”

“Yes.” She said it better than he could have. Vim wrapped her close and just held her for a long, thoughtful moment. He could visit and discuss and flirt the night away, or he could gather his courage in both hands and do the woman the courtesy of asking her a simple question.

“Shall I pleasure you, Sophie?”

There was a vocabulary between men and women, one Sophie had never needed to understand. It included glances, sly innuendo, subtle movements of the fan, and even particular flowers combined into bouquets and presented at certain angles. It was a different and darker vocabulary than she'd learned in the drawing rooms and ballrooms, one more fraught with meaning and emotion.

So the precise implication of a single, quiet question—“Shall I pleasure you, Sophie?”—was not entirely obvious to her mind, but her body was clear enough on its meaning.

That velvet baritone promised he would kiss her, hold her, and very likely join his body to hers.

“We shall pleasure each other,” she said, lying in the circle of his arm. She'd made her decision not in the heat of their passionate kisses but rather in quiet moments, watching him tickle the baby, listening to him read poetry, or watching him shovel a walkway to the privy in the freezing wind and snow.

“Then the nightgown will have to go.” He set his hand on her shoulder, and Sophie's heart started hammering in her chest. It was dark behind the bed curtains, cozy, and warm, but she covered his hand with her own.

His fingers trailed down her arm. “Eventually,” he said. “It can go eventually. Let me hold you.”

Not a question this time, and yet Sophie was certain if she announced she'd changed her mind and decided to excuse Vim from the bed, he'd sigh, flop the covers back—likely kiss her nose—and leave for his own room.

In the morning, he'd be pleasant and considerate, affectionate even, and then he'd be gone.

Gone
.

Sophie rearranged herself on her back. She couldn't ask questions, lest he fathom the degree of her ignorance, so she kissed him. Leaned up and pressed her lips to his, cradling his jaw with her hand.

A man's jaw at the end of the day was a rough, scratchy thing. She reveled in this realization, a little detail that was the stuff of adult intimacy. He'd used his tooth powder too, and probably washed off with bergamot-scented soap.

He turned his face into her palm. “You must tell me what pleases you, Sophie.”

“Such words are not always easy to say.” Particularly when the feel of him—his jaw, his lips, his nose, his hair, the exact shape of the back of his skull against her palm—was so absorbing.

“Then show me. Put my hands where you want them to go, touch me where it pleases you to touch me.”

“All over. I want to touch you all over.”

He might have chuckled a little, or growled with pleasure at her words, though she'd spoken only the simple truth. Vim was a healthy, naked male in his prime, and she wished she'd had the courage to leave a candle burning and the curtains drawn back.

But no matter, she'd see him with her hands. While he lay quietly beside her, she explored the terrain of his chest, a warm, smooth plane of bone, muscle, and beating heart. When she grazed her palm over one small male nipple, she heard him inhale.

“It's the same for me as for you,” he said, moving his hand to cover one breast. “There's sensitivity in certain places. Marvelous sensitivity.”

Marvelous, indeed. Through the fabric of her nightgown, the weight of his hand covering her breast spread a lovely warmth through her middle. Her back arched into the contact without Sophie's volition, and when he closed his fingers gently over her nipple, her breath caught in her throat.

“The same, you see.” Vim stroked her breast through the fabric then lowered his head and used his teeth to apply the same gentle, arousing pressure.

She had to do something, lest his attentions destroy her reason, so she found his nipple and emulated his caress.

“Like that,” he said, barely lifting his mouth from her. He'd wet the fabric of her nightgown with his mouth, a maddening, frustrating, altogether pleasurable sensation that had heat coursing out through Sophie's body.

Did he want her mouth on him in the same way?

“Stop trying to think, Sophie.” He lifted his head from her breast and shifted to fuse his mouth to hers.

Marvelous, lovely, spectacular… She winnowed her hand through his hair and gave herself up to the sheer glory of being kissed by a man who knew exactly what he was about. His onslaught was delicate and voracious at once, tasting her, enticing her tongue with his own, and inspiring Sophie to hike her leg over his hips in a bid to draw him closer.

Ah, God, she wanted this to go on forever. She wanted him to show her all there was to know and then forge new ground with her, ground unique to the two of them. And God bless the man, while he was storming her very reason with his kisses, his hand, his wonderful, warm hand, settled back over her breast.

“Vim…”

“Tell me if you like it.” He closed his hand around her breast, drawing a little on her nipple. “
I
like it. I like the feel of you in my arms, Sophie. I like the way you taste, I like how your hands feel on my naked body.”

“Naked.” Naked was wonderful too. She slid her hand down over his flank to grab him by his derriere and try to pull him closer. “I like that you're naked. I like it a lot.”

He closed his mouth over hers, and Sophie just barely registered the sensation of her nightgown being slowly, slowly eased up her thigh.

Naked was wonderful, and she wanted to be naked too. This burning, searing closeness was another part of what she'd wished for, lighting bonfires in all the places her mind and body had been growing steadily colder for years. She put her hand over his where it was stealing up her leg.

“Let me take this off.” She said the words right against his mouth and was thus able to feel him smile. He shifted back just a few inches.

“Be quick about it, lest I aid you and shred the thing to bits.”

And that had her smiling too, to think of him literally tearing her clothes off. She wrestled the nightgown over her head and tossed it to the foot of the bed.

“I'm naked.” It didn't seem like a foolish thing to say; it seemed like the most brave, delightful sentence ever uttered. She was naked, he was naked in the same bed, and her body was humming and tapping its figurative toe to the tune of some lovely new music.

“And now what shall I do with you in your naked state?” he mused. “What shall you do with me?”

He settled on his back, leaving Sophie momentarily puzzled.

“You were doing quite nicely a moment ago,” she said, drawing the covers up around her.

“And I could kiss and pet you forever, love, but we must indulge
your
desires if I'm to consider myself properly acquitted in this bed.”

“How can you sound so damnably composed?” The question came out all of its own, leaving Sophie to realize that parting with her clothes was creating other vulnerabilities and exposures completely beyond her experience.

His shifted so his hands could close on her shoulders. “Iron self-discipline alone keeps me from tossing the covers aside and rutting on you like a satyr.”

A thread of darkness in his declaration suggested he was telling the truth.

“Satyrs seem like such happy creatures.” Sophie made this observation as Vim shifted her over him, until she realized he wanted her to straddle him.

Good God, was this why ladies never rode astride? The very position, with him laid out beneath her like a banquet, her knees pressed to his hips, left her feeling naughty and bold.

“The satyrs likely expired from an excess of pleasure. Come here, Sophie, and kiss me.”

With the shift in position, Vim had changed the game. Sophie perceived this at the level of instinct, but it took gazing down at him for a moment before she understood the nature of the change.

“You want me to make love to you.” She trailed her hand over his chest. “When I was on my back, you were making love to me.”

His hand closed over hers on his chest, and he brought her fingers to his lips. “We make love to each other, Sophie.” No teasing, no flirting, but rather a quiet gravity infused his voice. “I am here for the sole purpose of giving you pleasure, and that will give me pleasure long after this night has passed.”

She folded down onto his chest, abruptly needing to hide her face against his throat. His arms closed around her, and the game changed yet again.

It was no longer a game at all. He'd leave in the morning, and Sophie would let him go. That was how matters would conclude, no matter what joy or pleasure they wrung from the night.

She spent a long, sweet moment curled against him, his hands making slow patterns on her back. Against her belly, she felt the length of his erection—firm, warm, and undeniable, but passive.

“I will miss you, Vim Charpentier.”

“This comforts me a little, Sophie, though I'd never want to cause you upset. I will miss you too.”

They'd said the same words just a few hours ago, but here in the dark, nothing between them at all, the sentiments took on a different, more poignant weight. Sophie pushed his hair off his forehead, and with her hand on his crown, set her lips to his.

She put as much longing and wishing into her kiss as she knew how, but as he tasted her in return, she felt Vim shift the kiss to something deeper, closer. His hand moved slowly on her bare back, mapping bone, muscle, and sinew.

Sophie had the sense he was memorizing the feel of her even as his tongue traced the shape of her lips.

“Go easy, Sophie.” He murmured the words against her neck. Sophie felt his nose grazing her ear, then he was levering her up so she hung over him. That same nose nuzzled at her breast.

“Vim… I want…”

“Yes.” He closed his mouth over her nipple, drawing in a slow, wicked rhythm that ignited all manner of need deep in Sophie's body.

In her womb. She cradled the back of his head in her palm, holding him to her as she tried to adjust to what cascaded through her.

Tenderness certainly, unbearable tenderness for the man giving her such pleasure, but also desire. Hot, needy, unfamiliar, and for the first time,
welcome
.

“Move on me, Sophie. Pleasure yourself.”

He arched up, snugging the length of his erection right against her sex.

Move
on
me, Sophie
.

She wanted to move; she wanted to grind herself down on him, to consume him bodily, to have him—to
have
him—deep inside her body.

“Like this.” Vim's hands settled on her hips, and he guided her along his length, a slow, wet sweep and return that had Sophie groaning softly.

It wasn't tidy, but it was… God in heaven… It was beyond words.

When she'd found a rhythm, his hands glided away, one to her breast, one to wrap around her lower back. He guided her, and yet he exerted no demands at all.

“Take your time.” The words were just above a whisper, sinking into Sophie's brain through a haze of pleasure and growing bewilderment. “Take all night if you need to.”

This was not copulation. Sophie had been raised with five brothers, she'd spent plenty of time in the barns and stables and mews at her family's various holdings. This was not copulation.

She could not think beyond that, for her body was beginning to throb with a low, hot want that connected Vim's fingers on her nipples with his mouth on hers and with the hard length of his arousal tight against her sex.

She desperately tried to keep the sensations separate, to be catalogued and savored one body part and memory at a time, but her boundaries were collapsing.

“Vim, I can't… I'm not…” She couldn't think, couldn't seize words from the maelstrom Vim's male body was brewing in hers.

“Let go, Sophie. Fly, soar—I'll catch you.”

He touched her, used his thumb on a part of her Sophie did not know what to call, a small scrap of flesh at the apex of her sex that abruptly commanded every bit of her attention.

“What are you…?”

“Hush, Sophie, my love. I'll catch you…”

That simple, knowing caress of his thumb had Sophie catapulting right out of her body into a cataclysm of pleasure and wonder and light that went on and on. She heard herself making some sort of sound—a sigh, a groan, a wordless plea—but Vim did not cease his attentions until she was panting and limp where she hung above him, braced on her arms.

“My… Goodness. Oh, my goodness.”

She had flown, she had soared; in his arms she had broken free of every earthly weight—sorrow, loneliness, propriety, familial expectations, her own body. Past, present, and future had all dissolved in the blinding pleasure of his embrace.

“Hold me tight, Sophie.” The words were a hoarse whisper against her throat.

She mustered wits enough to anchor her arm under his neck, abruptly aware that while she had endured unimaginable pleasure, he had not.

This was still not copulation, but he moved against her as if it were, used the slick friction of her sex on his rigid length to pelt her body with aftershocks of sensation that made clinging to him not merely possible, but as necessary as breath. She felt the same blinding pleasure gathering again even as Vim's hand at the base of her spine anchored her tightly to him.

“God in heaven, Sophie…”

Damp heat spread between them as Sophie was again seized with convulsions low in her body—shorter, sharper, and if anything, more intense than the previous bout. He kept their bodies seamed tightly until Sophie was panting against his neck, reeling and dizzy even as a part of her still floated in a cloud of pleasure.

“You.” Vim kissed her cheek, leaving Sophie to wonder what exactly she'd heard in his voice: Affection, most definitely, a little wonder, and maybe something else—regret?

She snuggled in closer, wanting nothing except to hold him to her and be held by him.

“You soared for me, Sophie Windham. Soared high, if I'm not mistaken.”

“So high I could no longer see the earth.”