Page 46 of A Baby to Seal the Duke’s Fate

She did not know if her guilt and paranoia were making her crazy, or if her lie was slowly beginning to unravel. And suddenly, all Honora wanted to do was flee before anyone got the chance to find out.

Chapter 9

Two weeks had passed since Cecily arrived, and Leopold had begun measuring the days by the small routines forming around her. The realization irritated him, especially when he saw how thoroughly his own habits had become entangled with the child abandoned on his doorstep.

He went to the nursery every morning before breakfast, telling himself it was merely to check on Cecily. A duke could surely look in on a child left on his doorstep, make certain the nursery was in order, and learn whether she was eating, sleeping, and causing fewer domestic disasters than expected.

All perfectly reasonable. It had nothing to do with the fact that he had begun looking forward to those moments before breakfast more than most meetings in his study. And it certainly had nothing to do with the lovely, enigmatic nursemaid who cared for the stray child.

That morning, he found the nursery door open and heard a woman’s voice before he crossed the threshold. Phoebe was seated in the chair by the window with Cecily in her lap and a book open in her hands.

The baby pulled at the lower corner of the pages with both fists, making determined little noises of protest, and Phoebe kept reading as if that were entirely normal.

Leopold stopped in the doorway. She was reading aloud from a book on English gardens. Her voice was confident, clear, and well-paced. She read as though she knew exactly where every sentence was going and expected the listener to keep up. Cecily tugged at the page again. Phoebe turned it around her fists without pausing.

Leopold watched for several seconds before stepping inside. She did not look up right away, leaving him free to notice the curve of her jaw, the tilt of her nose, and the auburn curl that slipped down her cheek before she brushed it behind one ear. If his heartbeat quickened, it was only because her voice had made even English gardens sound worth hearing.

He crossed to the chair by the window and sat down quietly, more because he had decided to listen than because he intended to interrupt. Cecily was absorbed in the book as though it was a far more interesting object than the world. Phoebe turned another page, then another, and continued reading in the same calm voice.

The room was warm, the fire banked low, the curtains drawn partway back to let in a cool strip of morning light, and the smell of milk and paper and clean linen hung faintly in the air. Leopold listened.

She read well, he thought. Better than well. Her voice warmed whenever she forgot he was there, easing into the rhythm of the sentences until even the duller passages seemed intentional. It was the least guarded he had ever seen her, and for one unsettling moment, he felt as though he were meeting her properly for the first time.

Leopold knew the instant she noticed him. The warmth withdrew from her voice, leaving it cool and wary. Her eyes lifted from the page, met his for one brief second, and then she settled back into composure.

“Good morning, Your Grace,” she said with a polite smile.

“You are already at work, I see,” he said, suddenly sheepish about his silent observation.

Cecily looked up from the book, saw him, and immediately gave a pleased little sound.

Leopold inclined his head toward the child. “She approves of the reading.”

Phoebe’s mouth moved slightly. “She approves of the pictures more than the reading.”

“That seems fair.”

“She is easily entertained by destruction.”

Leopold glanced at the baby. “Then she is well suited to the family.”

That earned him a quick look from Phoebe, brief but sharp enough to suggest she had understood the joke and was deciding whether to approve of it. Cecily squirmed then, and Phoebe looked down to readjust her, grateful for the interruption.

He gestured toward the book. “What are you reading?”

She held it up slightly. “A book on gardens.”

“So I see.”

“I found it in the library.”

His brows rose. “You went to the library?”

“Yes, my lord. I do hope that is permitted.”

Leopold looked at her a moment, his heart squeezing. She had been unsure whether he would approve of her use of the library. Did he give her the impression that he was an ogre of an employer? He thought about his mother and groaned inwardly.

Perhaps I did not, but perhaps the esteemed dowager duchess did, he thought, hoping his concern was unfounded.