Page 65 of A Baby to Seal the Duke’s Fate

The thought made her uneasy.

It also made her sad.

At length Martha took up her cup again and said, “If you are waiting for permission to breathe, you may have it.”

Honora gave a short, helpless breath that almost became a laugh.

Martha’s mouth twitched once, though she tried to hide it behind the rim of her cup.

The quiet did not break. It simply changed shape.

Soon after, the house began to stir.

A maid crossed the hall outside with a basket of linens. Footsteps sounded on the stairs. A door opened upstairs and closed again. Somewhere near the front of the house, a bell rang once and was answered by another. The day had begun to gather itself.

Martha stood first, then went to the stove. Honora was finishing her tea when Mrs. Pritchard passed the kitchen doorway with her usual efficient stride and Wilfred in tow, a folded letter in his hand.

Honora barely looked up at first.

Then she heard Mrs. Pritchard say, in the clear practical tone she used for matters that could not be delayed, “Her Grace has written to the Earl of Penmere about his daughter. The household should prepare for a guest before the month is out.”

Wilfred made a small sound of acknowledgment and tucked the letter under his arm.

Honora’s fingers tightened once around her cup.

Lady Isolde Carrington, then.

The thought came with a strange little stab of something she did not care to name.

Mrs. Pritchard had already gone on. “Make sure the west rooms are aired. The blue parlor as well. His lordship will not want things left until the last minute.”

“Yes, Mrs. Pritchard,” Wilfred said.

They moved away down the corridor, speaking in lower voices she could no longer hear.

Honora sat very still.

A guest before the month was out, a daughter of Penmere, a match being discussed in the quiet corners of the house while Cecily was still too small to know she was at the center of a life no one had yet explained to her.

Honora looked down into her tea.

She could not pretend she had not felt the sting of that conversation, even from the doorway. The dowager was arranging things. People. Futures. A respectable path for Leopold that did not include a foundling baby or a nursemaid who spoke too carefully.

Honora should have been relieved.

Instead she felt unsettled.

And not only because of Cecily.

By the time she reached the nursery, the morning light had grown stronger.

She had not expected Leopold to be there already.

He was.

Honora stopped in the doorway and looked in.

Cecily was on the floor with him, though “with him” was perhaps too gentle a description. The baby had managed, by some determined combination of balance and outrage, to pull herself up using Leopold’s arm and was now standing with the full weight of her tiny body braced against his wrist.