Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish by Grace Burrowes

she’d almost gone up on her toes and kissed his cheek.
    Or his mouth. She found the idea of kissing his mouth increasingly hard to ignore, as was the idea of running her hands over the muscles of his chest, or the thought of his bare skin under her fingertips.
    She hadn’t kissed him, because he’d be kind about that, as well. Then too, several other homes backed up to the alley, and at least two had a clear view to the Windhams’ garden gate. Bad enough Sophie could be seen coming and going from the house on the arm of a strange man. How much worse if she’d been observed kissing him in broad daylight?
    â€œThe snow is trying to make up its mind,” Vim said, bumping down the back stairs with the cradle held under one long arm. “It’s coming down in fits and starts now, not as steadily as it did yesterday.”
    â€œThen it’s sure to taper off soon.” Sophie injected as much false cheer into her voice as she could. Not only would she have to say good-bye to Vim Charpentier when the snow stopped, she’d have to accept her brothers’ escort out to Morelands and very likely turn Kit over the care of a foster family.
    â€œWhat has put that look on your face, Sophie?”
    â€œWhat look?” She laid the child in the cradle where Vim had set it near the hearth.
    â€œLike you just lost your best friend.”
    â€œI was thinking of fostering Kit.” And just like that, she was blinking back tears. She tugged the blankets up around the baby, who immediately set about kicking them away. “Naughty baby,” she whispered. “You’ll catch a chill.”
    â€œSophie?” A large male hand landed on her shoulder. “Sophie, look at me.”
    She shook her head and tried again to secure Kit’s blankets.
    â€œMy dear, you are crying.” Another hand settled on the opposite shoulder, and now the kindness was palpable in his voice. Vim turned her gently into his embrace and wrapped both arms around her.
    It wasn’t a careful, tentative hug. It was a secure embrace. He wasn’t offering her a fleeting little squeeze to buck her up, he was holding her, his chin propped on her crown, the entire solid length of his body available to her for warmth and support.
    Which had the disastrous effect of turning a trickle of tears into a deluge.
    â€œI can’t keep him.” She managed four words around the lump in her throat. “To think of him being passed again into the keeping of strangers… I can’t…”
    â€œHush.” He held a hanky up to her nose, one laden with the bergamot scent she already associated with him. For long minutes, Sophie struggled to regain her equilibrium while Vim stroked his hand slowly over her back.
    â€œBabies do this,” Vim said quietly. “They wear you out physically and pluck at your heartstrings and coo and babble and wend their way into your heart, and there’s nothing you can do stop it. Nobody is asking you to give the child up now.”
    â€œThey won’t have to ask. In my position, I can’t be keeping somebody else’s castoff—” She stopped, hating the hysterical note that had crept into her voice and hating that she might have just prompted the man to whom she was clinging to ask her what exactly her position was.
    â€œKit is not a castoff. He’s yours, and you’re keeping him. Maybe you will foster him elsewhere for a time, but he’ll always be yours too.”
    She didn’t quite follow the words rumbling out of him. She focused instead on the feel of his arms around her, offering support and security while she parted company temporarily with her dignity.
    â€œYou are tired, and that baby has knocked you off your pins, Sophie Windham. You’re borrowing trouble if you try to sort out anything more complicated right now than what you’ll serve him for dinner.”
    She’d grown up with five brothers, and