Page 68 of A Baby to Seal the Duke’s Fate

She looked down at Cecily, who had now decided Leopold’s cuff button was the most interesting thing in the room. “Perhaps.”

Leopold’s gaze lingered on her a little longer than usual. “The garden needs replanting in the west bed.”

Honora frowned. “Does it?”

“It may.”

“I hear the east border is struggling too.”

“That too.”

Honora’s eyes returned to him. “You are discussing the grounds as if the matter concerns the child.”

“It does.”

She was quiet for a moment and then said, “You do know she cannot answer you.”

Leopold glanced down at Cecily. “That has not stopped her from having opinions.”

Honora let out a breath that might almost have been a laugh.

The sound changed the air in the room. Leopold noticed it too. She saw that much in the glance he gave her.

Cecily chose that moment to lose her balance again.

Leopold caught her before she could fall, one hand firm under her chest and the other steadying her hip. The baby gave a delighted sound, entirely unalarmed by the experience, and immediately began patting his sleeve.

Honora watched the ease of the rescue and the ease in the way he resumed talking as though nothing had happened.

He was not careless, not with the baby, not with her.

That was what troubled her.

A careless man would have made leaving easier.

Yet a good man was more difficult.

Much more difficult.

She looked at Leopold holding her sister’s baby on a Tuesday morning as though it were the most natural thing in the world and felt the shape of her own plan begin to loosen around the edges.

Northumberland.

Her aunt.

The bag under her bed, and the journey she had imagined as though it were inevitable.

And now this.

Cecily reaching for Leopold without fear.

Leopold listening, Leopold catching her when she fell.

Honora pressed her hands lightly together and looked away before her face gave her away.

She did not know when it had happened, exactly, but the question had shifted.

It was no longer only whether she could take Cecily away; it was whether she could justify it.