Page 126 of A Baby to Seal the Duke’s Fate

Leopold reached out and touched the baby’s cheek. Cecily leaned toward him. Honora watched them.

There was no question now. This child had found her family.

They traveled the rest of the way in silence. When Belgrave finally appeared beyond the trees, it was fully dark. The house stood against the night with its windows glowing warmly.

Honora looked at it and felt something inside her loosen. They had made it back, and they were safe.

Leopold’s hand rested beside hers on the seat. Neither of them spoke.

The carriage rolled to a stop, and the door opened. Leopold stepped down first and then offered his hand to Honora. She took it. Together they walked toward the side entrance.

Martha was waiting in the kitchen doorway. She looked at Honora, then at Cecily, then at Leopold. Her eyes filled briefly.

She said nothing, only turned toward the stove.

Then she put the kettle on.

Chapter 25

After the warm milk and tea Martha had served the night before, everyone had been too exhausted for a proper reunion. Everyone, including Leopold, had retired before the tea was finished.

Yet despite the fatigue that still plagued him, Leopold had been awake since before dawn. The house was still quiet, but the quiet no longer felt like the emptiness of the days when Honora and Cecily were gone.

Now it felt temporary. He knew they were back, that Cecily was safe, and that Honora was upstairs, sleeping if she had managed it. That knowledge had changed the way Belgrave sounded to him. However, there was still a great deal of work to do.

He dipped his pen into the ink and looked down at the first letter he set out to write.

The magistrate.

His hand moved steadily as he wrote the formal complaint against Lady Isolde Carrington for the abduction of Honora and Cecily. He set out what had happened without embellishment.

The carriage arranged under false pretenses, the women removed from the expected route, two men holding them at the house outside Alton. Isolde had arranged the removal, then failed to pay the men what she promised them.

Leopold did not write that he wanted her punished. He did not need to. The facts would do that for him.

He signed the letter and set it aside.

The second was for the Earl of Penmere. That one was more difficult. Not only had his father been friends with the earl, Leopold himself had worked with him on a few occasions. The earl was a respectable man, enough so that the late duke had been delighted to arrange a marriage between Leopold and Isolde many years prior.

It would have been a perfect match, at least in the eyes of their noble peers. But Leopold could see then that Isolde was no woman he would ever wish to marry, and he was glad that the arrangement had not come to pass. Still, he had great respect for the earl. Telling the nobleman what his daughter had done was almost as difficult for Leopold as he knew it would be for the earl to read.

My lord,

Your daughter has been implicated in the abduction of a young woman and an infant from Belgrave.

He stopped. The sentence looked too mild. He crumpled the letter and tossed it into the nearby bin and began again on a fresh piece of paper.

My lord,

I write to regretfully inform you that Isolde arranged for the removal of Miss Honora Bellamy and the infant, Cecily, from my estate. They were subsequently held against their will at a house outside Alton.

He paused, biting the inside of his cheek. It felt wrong to deliver such news in a letter. He was not even sure whether he should involve the earl. But he thought about the gossip column in the newspaper, and he imagined the horror of such a reputable man learning about his daughter’s crimes the same way all of London would.

Once Leopold had finished with his letters, the truth would quickly be made public whether he wanted it to be or not.

Better that it comes from me first, Leopold thought, not without sadness.

He closed the letter efficiently, simply stating that he had written to the magistrate, that legal proceedings would ensue soon, and that he intended to see that Isolde was held culpable for what she had done.