Page 25 of The Duchess Debt

“Verity made certain Alice had the best wet nurse in the county and brought the woman to Grangely to live in the nursery with her,” he explained.

“You didn’t send Alice to live with the nurse?”

“No.” He knew most families of means did just that, sending their children away to live with nurses for the first two or so years of their lives until they were weened, and some longer than that. So Helena’s question wasn’t a surprise. What struck him, though, was that she cared so much about a child she barely knew. “I kept hoping Clarissa would miss her baby and come home.” She never did…until she needed money or had to flee scandal. Then she would come scurrying back, until the debts had been settled or the gossip had died down, then leave again without so much as a parting wave. “Eventually, Nanny Potts was hired. But Verity raised Alice the same that she had my brother and me when we were boys, after we lost our parents.” His lips curled faintly. “After all that Adam and I put her through, I think she was relieved to have a girl.”

“Girls aren’t always less trouble than boys,” Helena commented with the wisdom of being one of four sisters.

As if on cue, Alice lost her balance and nearly fell into the river, at the last moment landing on the grass with a thump, square on her bottom. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers, her little mouth forming a surprisedO.

“I’m beginning to realize that,” Gabe mumbled as he watched Alice climb to her feet and go right back to pushing out leaves into the current as if nothing had happened. The girl was resilient, he had to admit.

“And what plans do you have for her future?”

The quiet question jolted him. Helena had asked it innocuously enough, as if it were just another natural digress in their conversation, yet he knew the true meaning behind it. In other words…What role am I to have in raising my stepchild?

“I have none,” he admitted, resting back on his elbow. “I’ve never considered it before.” When he saw surprise grip her face, he added with a pointed brow, “She’s only four, you realize. We have a goodly while before we can move her out of the nursery, let alone plan out the rest of her life.”

That answer did little to mollify her, he could tell. He knew this woman better than anyone else in the world, and he knew exactly what she thought of that convenient shirking of his parental duties.

To her credit, though, she didn’t challenge him directly and instead asked, “Well, then, what does Verity think we should consider for her?”

With a soft chuckle, he reached out for the plate of biscuits and offered them to her. “You mean beyond what every aunt wants for her great-niece—the best governesses and tutors, the finest schools…eventually becoming head of King’s College and marrying a foreign prince?”

She selected a biscuit and said, deadpan, “Beyond those basic expectations, yes.”

Yet he saw the shine in her eyes at his exaggeration and knew from her reaction that his list most likely wasn’t all that different from what Helena herself dreamed for Alice.

He set down the plate. “And if Alice somehow doesn’t become the first lady president of the Royal Society or Her Most Serene Highness of Monaco, I suppose Verity hopes she will simply find a kind and loving husband from a well-respected aristocratic family and will use her position to help the less fortunate.”

“That sounds like a very fine life to me,” Helena said quietly.

“Hmm.”

She cocked her head. “Itis, Gabe.” Yet the resolve in her voice couldn’t prevent a furrow of doubt from formingbetween her brows. “What’s bothering you? She’s going to have a wonderful life. You and I will make certain of it.”

He sat up, placing his weight on his hip and resting his forearm over his bent knee. He kept his gaze firmly on Alice. “What if her life could be better?” he murmured.

“Better than being a duke’s daughter married to the love of her life, with her own home, family, and purpose? I’m not her certain life could be better than that even if she did marry a prince.”

Not smiling at that teasing, he squinted grimly into the sun. “She has a whole other family she’s never seen. Perhaps it’s time she got to know them.”

“What do you mean?” Gabe knew without having to look that Helena’s frowning brows would have been drawn together so deeply they were most likely touching.

“James Wentworth has been writing recently,” he informed her quietly, “as the new earl and Wentworth family patriarch. Apparently, Wentworth has become a scion of respectable society. Can you believe that?”

“No, I can’t.” Her voice came so flat that the anger suppressed behind it echoed loud and clear.

“He’s been sending letters,” Gabe started again, “asking after Alice and offering to provide whatever assistance I might need.” He paused. “And wondering when I’m going to bring her to London to let her meet her Wentworth family.”

“They haven’t been to Grangely yet to see her?”

“No.” He could feel the tension radiating from her. Helena disliked the Wentworths as much as he did. He plucked a blade of grass at the edge of the blanket and studied it. “Wentworth and his new wife have no children of their own yet, but they’ve settled down now after their marriage, splitting their time between London and their estate in Hertfordshire, and hope to be expecting their own child before the end of the year. His oldersister already has two of her own and a third on the way. They’ve been too distracted with their own families to bother with Alice.” He threw the grass away. “Until recently. When they’ve invited her to stay with them at their London townhouse next season.”

Helena guessed, “Because they’re cementing their newly established position in society and want to make certain everyone knows their family is still connected to the most influential dukedom in the empire, if only through a little girl?”

When he looked at her, he saw the arched brow he’d expected. “Something like that.”

“Exactlylike that, I’d wager.” She gave a long sigh. “I know they’re her family, but they don’t have the right to use her for their own gain.”