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“Because of his drinking?” He didn’t want to let her go, but they needed to talk and she needed space to do so. Taking her hand in his, he led her to the settee and sat beside her.

“That, si,” she began. “And because he is trouble. He will be trouble for you. Trouble for the Ansons.”

He nuzzled her foot with his. Not a caress, really, but her shoulders relaxed just the same. “Let Gabriel and I handle our own troubles. If you want Oliver to stay, then stay he shall. I’ll find a way to help him with his drinking.”

She dropped her head into her hands, curls tumbling to obscure her face. “You make it sound so simple, but he won’t want your help.”

Christopher bumped his shoulder against hers. “How fortuitous then that I have some experience with prickly Lionis. I wonder how Oliver feels about pear trees?”

She glared at him, but the glare held only a fraction of its usual acerbity. As if she was simply regaining the equilibrium she’d lost through tears and lust and vulnerability. It had the feeling of putting on a rain slicker but leaving it open for some of the water to seep in. There was warmth in her eyes as well, and he nearly shuddered at what the combination of her warmth and sauciness did to his body. To provide an occupation for his hands, Christopher reached for her glass from the side table and sniffed its contents.

“Scotch?”

“Amongst other things. It’s everything in one glass. They go down well enough.”

He drank the small amount that remained in the snifter and stood to refill it from a pitcher of water.

“I do not want that.”

He smiled at her stubborn expression.

“One glass of water for every one of those grotesque beverages you’ve consumed.” He held out the glass.

Her shoulders straightened. “You cannot manage me, Christopher Keene.”

“Well, someone ought to care enough to try.”

Wars had begun with less inflammatory words and with less volatile generals than Sofia Lioni. She plucked the snifter from his fingers, sloshing the water onto his boots, and strode towards the sideboard, promptly dumping the remaining water into an ice pail. She filled her glass with a splash too much of God-knows-what, then stilled, her back turned to Christopher. The longcase clock ticked loudly, its steady rhythm at odds with the swish of rustling leaves and the ping of plump raindrops outside. She didn’t drink, just cradled the glass between her hands, head bowed, revealing the long expanse of skin down her nape.

“Sofi, I⁠—”

“No. You have been nothing but kind and I am being churlish. You said nothing that isn’t true. Things are … a mess. And I do need help. Your help. I should be thanking you instead of ruining your boots.” She shivered. “Ironic that I am drinking to combat my upset at Oliver’s drinking, no? But the difference is that tomorrow, I will rise with the sun, make a plan to help him out of this foul mess he’s in, teach the children, and resume living. Whereas he will likely stumble out of bed, leaving a trail of blood across the expensive rugs, and try to find another bottle.”

Sofia reclaimed her seat beside him and stared into her drink like there were tea leaves and answers lurking at the bottom. “There was a time when he was a good brother. A little self-indulgent maybe, but nothing like the man you met.”

Christopher settled back on the settee and crossed one ankle over his knee. “I’ve seen what too much alcohol can do to a man. No one I was especially close to, but close enough to witness the destruction first hand. If you say he used to be a decent sort, Sofia, I believe you.”

She stared at him without expression.

Before coming to Northam Hall, Sofia had lost everything good in her life. And from what he could tell, she’d had very little good to begin with. She’d had a neglectful father who’d tried to marry her off to advance his career, a mother she had never mentioned—that did not bode well—and a trusted brother who’d left her to deal with that steaming pile of shite all on her own. It was no wonder she couldn’t recognise his offer to help as honourable rather than suspicious.

His intentions were honourable … mostly. The fact that a part of him wished Oliver would slip in a pile of horse manure and drown in a water trough could not be held against him. What kind of a man would he be if he didn’t hope for some cosmic retribution against the blighter whose every decision during the past three years had inflicted pain upon Sofia? But she needed to feel like someone was on her side. And if that meant taking her at her word that Oliver was not beyond redemption, he could do that for her.

He watched her fidget under his sympathetic gaze. She drained the contents of her glass then tucked a curl behind the shell of her ear. “I know what you’re thinking, and I do not want your pity. No one’s life is perfect and mine is no Shakespearean tragedy. A matched set of reliable parents, money, and station may shelter a child from some perils, but there are as many paths to perdition as there are stars in the sky.” She sighed, and it may have been the saddest sound Christopher had ever heard. “Fairy tales are for children.”

Christopher was beginning to think that Sofia had, in fact, never been a child. She had the kind of steel spine forged from a lifetime of carrying everyone else’s burdens. The kind that prevented the flexibility required to lean on another. In her mind, it was unreasonable to expect loyalty and protection from the people who were meant to love you. After all, if she started to believe in such fairy stories, she might come to believe in all manner of ridiculous things … things like love and commitment, for example. He imagined that a person denied such things might recoil at the mere possibility of their existence.

That realisation made sitting beside her listening to her share her woes feel like something fragile, almost miraculous. Never mind that it had required a minor catastrophe with a pint of blood loss and at least three glasses of … whatever it was in her snifter. And never mind that even with all that, still her initial impulse had been to distract him with lust rather than have a conversation. I won’t quibble over details.

Sofia’s body was beginning to list towards Christopher’s shoulder like a ship with too much cargo on one side. When he looked down, he found her studying his profile, her forehead creased as if she was working out a particularly complicated maths problem.

“You have pretty earlobes. I’ve never thought of ears as particularly attractive, but yours are. Sweet pink creases and soft curves.”

“And you, love, have officially had too much to drink.” He grinned and tried to rein in his body’s response to her uninhibited nearness.

When Christopher tried to remove the glass from her grasp, she giggled and raised the empty snifter to her lips, her tongue darting out to catch the last remaining drop. That lush, husky laugh went straight to his groin.

“I have had too much. But it’s nice. I feel like I might float away and all of my worries would be left behind. I feel like a cloud. No one can catch a cloud because it doesn’t really exist. It seems odd that there are things you can see but not touch. Clouds. Rainbows. I think I would like to be a cloud.” Her cheek landed heavily against his shoulder, snuggling into the fabric.