Page 6 of A Baby to Seal the Duke’s Fate

She opened one eye, regarded Barnaby briefly, and then closed it again with complete indifference.

Barnaby let out a breath. “Well. This is not good.”

“I had gathered that.”

“I mean it. Not good in the least.”

Leopold pressed his lips into a thin line. “What do you suggest?”

Barnaby was silent for a moment. “First, we do not let the house see us standing here like this for too long. The servants are already looking out the windows.”

Leopold glanced toward the front parlor. Two pairs of curtains shifted almost imperceptibly.

He muttered, “Excellent.”

Barnaby stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Second, I will begin tracing the shawl. If it really came from your family stores, I want to know how and when. There is no such thing as a baby on a doorstep without a reason.”

Leopold looked down at the child’s small hand still caught in his lapel. “There is no reason I can begin to imagine that would justify this.”

“No,” Barnaby said. “But it is a start, even if it is not justifiable.”

Leopold met his eyes. “And if there is no satisfactory explanation?”

Barnaby’s expression turned dry again, though the humor did not quite reach it. “Then you will be in possession of a foundling, your reputation will be under siege, and the county will be pretending not to look at you while looking at you constantly.”

Leopold gave him a flat stare. “You have a gift for comfort.”

“I know.”

Leopold looked down at the baby, whose breathing had become slow and even against his coat. “And if she wakes?”

Barnaby glanced at the infant, then at Leopold’s arms, then at Leopold’s face. “Then I suspect she will scream until someone better qualified intervenes.”

“I fail to see how that is helpful.”

“It is not meant to be helpful. It is meant to be honest.”

Leopold made a sound that might have been a laugh if he had not been so tired.

Barnaby looked at him a beat longer, then nodded toward the house. “Come inside. You are freezing, and the child has turned you into a statue.”

“I am not frozen.”

“You have not moved in five minutes.”

“That is because she is asleep.”

Barnaby’s mouth twitched again. “There. You see? Already a father.”

Leopold shot him a sharp look. “Do not start.”

Barnaby held up both hands. “I would not dream of it.”

But he was still smiling when he turned back toward the door.

Leopold stood on the steps for one more moment. The morning felt different now, though nothing about it ought to have changed. The cold still bit at his face. Frost was still clung to the stones. The basket still sat on the step with its pale lining and the ridiculous little booties.

And yet his arms no longer felt empty.