Page 79 of A Baby to Seal the Duke’s Fate

Sleep did not come. Instead, she lay awake in the darkness, turning the questions over and over until dawn seemed impossibly far away.

Somewhere in the house, two people had recognized that shawl immediately. One had been the Dowager Duchess. The other had been a butler who had served Belgrave for three decades. Neither of them had spoken.

And somehow Honora was certain that whatever they remembered would change everything.

Chapter 15

Phoebe asked to go to the village that morning for supplies the nursery needed.

She said it in the hallway outside the breakfast room, half to Mrs. Pritchard and half to the stack of linens in her hands, as if she were making a practical request and nothing more.

Leopold heard it before he saw her. He had been coming from the study with a memorandum in hand and paused on the landing just long enough to catch the last of the conversation.

Mrs. Pritchard looked thoughtful. “We can send for most of it.”

“I know,” Phoebe said. “But there are a few things I should like to choose myself.”

Leopold stepped into the corridor before he had quite decided to do it. Phoebe looked up at once.

He glanced at the list in her hand. “What do you need?”

She hesitated only briefly. “A few nursery things…a new brush, thread, more ribbon, a proper length of wool for the blanket I mean to mend. There are also supplies the kitchen asked me to remember.”

Leopold gave a nod. “I will come with you.”

Phoebe blinked. “My lord?”

Mrs. Pritchard’s expression moved by the smallest degree, the sort of shift that suggested she had already seen the shape of trouble and was not interested in interrupting it.

“You need not,” Phoebe said carefully.

“I know.”

Her eyes searched his face for a moment. “It is only the village.”

“That is precisely why I am coming.”

Phoebe looked as though she might object again, but before she could, Her Grace’s voice came from the breakfast room.

“If the two of you go together, the entire town will talk for a week.”

Leopold turned.

His mother stood in the doorway, her tea untouched in her hand and her expression already arranged into calm disapproval. She looked from him to Phoebe and back again.

“You may as well deliver the gossip yourself,” she said.

Leopold met her gaze. “Let them talk.”

His mother’s brows rose. “That is a careless answer.”

“It is an accurate one.”

“That is an invitation.”

He gave her a sharp look. “If the village wants to invent a story, it will do so whether I step outside or not.”

Her mouth flattened. “You are making no effort to help yourself.”