Page 8 of A Baby for the Duke

“Between courses,” Leonora added. “If it isn’t a trouble.”

The Duke put down his glass. “It isn’t,” he said. “We’ll begin with the study.”

He walked half a pace behind her, which meant she could not see him, which she was certain he had chosen on purpose. Mrs. Pike followed after them at a distance of ten yards, her cane tapping on the floorboards, chaperone enough for the letter of the thing.

The corridor was long and lined with doors, and none of them was a study. Her own slippers sounded enormous. Every time the boards took his weight behind her, something went up the back of her neck, and she found she had begun to count the doors so that she would not have to think about how many were left.

She got as far as a window and a suit of armor, when she could no longer bear one more step and turned around.

“I am terribly sorry, Your Grace.”

The Duke stopped.

“I know I should never have done it,” she continued, her eyes flicking to the third button of his waistcoat because she could not muster the courage to look at his face. “It was thoughtless and silly, and I have wished it undone a hundred times. If you will only tell me what you want of me, I’ll do it, and my father need never know about it.”

“Wished it undone.” His voice was very quiet. “Have you?”

“Every day since.”

“I can’t believe you would do this.”

“I know.”

“To leave a child at a stranger’s door,” he added.

Leonora’s head snapped up. “A child?”

“Six months old. In a basket. Before it was light.” He did not raise his voice, and that was somehow far worse than shouting. “You might have knocked, my lady. Somebody would have opened the door.”

“Your Grace, how dare you!”

“How dare I?”

“I have never.” Her face was burning. Her stutter returned out of nowhere the way it always did, and she hated it. Still, she pushed through it. “I have n-never had a child. I have never b-been alone with a m-man in my life. I have never s-so much as—I do not even know your b-brother. I have never been introduced to your b-brother.”

“Then it’s a great pity you wrote to him.”

Her hand was up before she knew it had moved.

He caught her wrist in the air effortlessly and held it, not hard, six inches from his face. Up close, he was very warm and smelled of sawdust, and his eye was the color of ice at the edge of a pond.

Leonora’s heart was beating so fast that she felt it in her throat.

“Careful,” he warned. “I’m not my brother.”

“I wouldn’t know. I hadn’t met either of you until this evening.”

Something moved at the corner of his mouth, but it was gone just as quickly. He let go of her wrist, reached into his coat, produced two pieces of paper, and held them out. One was a folded sheet with a broken seal of red wax. The other had a single word written in the middle of it.

For a moment, Leonora looked at the letter she had sent six months ago. Then she took it, turned it over, and saw half of her father’s crest in the wax.

“Oh,” she murmured.

“Yes.”

“It was a joke.” She heard how thin it sounded and made herself say it anyway. “There was a list and a dare. I wrote it, but I changed my hand so that it wouldn’t be recognized. I never expected your brother to read it, and I certainly never expected him to keep it.”

“He kept all of them.”