Free A Duke for Christmas by Cynthia Bailey Pratt Page B

will.”
    “How horrible. To talk philosophy at such a moment. It’s inhuman.”
    “I don’t think he meant to be cruel. Or perhaps he did but only to make as clean and sharp a break as possible. Perhaps he thought it would be less painful that way.”
    “You are far too forgiving. How can you even bring yourself to consider his feelings? It’s absurd.”
    She lifted her hands and let them fall. “He’s dead, Maris. Whatever crimes he committed against me, he is absolved.”
    “By you, if you like. But I am older than you and can hold a grudge for much longer. I shall pray tonight that God will let me forgive him, eventually.”
    Sophie slipped her hand free from her sister’s grasp and returned to braiding her hair, changing the subject abruptly. “I’ve so looked forward to sleeping on a really good mattress. My bed in Rome was straw-stuffed and slung on ropes. Old ropes.”
    “You stayed at some very good inns, if I know Dominic. He isn’t one to suffer from the inconveniences of inexpensive inns.”
    “To tell the truth, I’m quite glad the trip is over. I was in a fair way to becoming the most hideously spoiled child. If you’d sent a fairy godfather to look after me, I couldn’t have been more spoiled.”
    Maris traced around the line of white knots that made up the pattern in the coverlet. “Do you ... I mean you do like Dominic, don’t you?”
    “Naturally. I’ve always liked him. That is, for as long as I’ve known Mm, I’ve liked him. He has the rare quality of silence. He is almost dangerously easy to talk to. Now, why are you smiling?”
    “He is Kenton’s dearest friend. Of course I wish for you to like him.”
    “Then you have your wish,” Sophie said lightly.
    “And if I wished... never mind.”
    “Don’t worry about me. You have more than enough to concern yourself with right now.”
    “True, but that will be over soon. I can go on worrying about you even after two more weeks pass.”
    “Then you’ll have a baby to worry over. You concentrate on her.”
    “Her? Do you know something that I do not?”
    “Wouldn’t you like a girl? Honestly, now. Wouldn’t you?”
    “Between the two of us, and with the door closed, I’ll tell you.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I do not know what I should do with a boy.”
    “I remember how terrible we thought all boys were when you and I were children.”
    “Dreadful, noisy things. Always covered in dirt. In truth, men are very little different than boys. Of course, I should love it no matter what. A nice little girl, though, as nice as we were ...”
    “You were nice, Maris, and still are, though I seem to remember a girl falling off a horse and coming in covered with dirt and straw. And I wasn’t much better. Do you remember when I fell out of the big oak and you carried me home because both my knees were bleeding?”
    “Are you trying to tell me that my daughter will be a horrible little hoyden just as we were?”
    “Just reminding you that not all little girls are prim princesses who sit happily sewing samplers.”
    “Heavens no, I forgot what a wretched hellion I was.” Maris laughed. “Father liked us to be quite, quite fearless and we were, weren’t we?”
    “Yes, we were fearless ... then.”
    They fell silent for a moment, each busy with thoughts that ranged over both past and future. Maris spoke first, with determined lightness. “I always thought it very brave of you, Sophie, to marry and live in a foreign country. Now that I know how often you were alone, I have even more respect for you.”
    “I was never afraid, not even after he left me. Well, afraid that nothing would ever change. But not afraid of poverty or of the strangers I’d meet. What had I that anyone could steal? That is why it was so strange ...”
    “What?”
    “A few days before I left, my rooms were broken into. ‘Broken into’ indeed. They yanked out the drawers, ripped up the cushions, even tore the pictures off the walls.”
    “My