Read Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish for Free Online

paused and smiled slightly. “Vim. What else can you tell me, Vim?”
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œBut 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.”
    â€œAnd 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.
    â€œI 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.
    â€œI wish you’d stay.” The words were out before she could censor herself.
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œWhich 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.
    â€œThis 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?”
    â€œThis is not a good idea, Miss Windham.”
    â€œGoing 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