Chapter 2
“Who are you, sir, and what is your business here?” Mother Superior’s face twisted.
The old woman presided behind a battered desk, holding herself with a stillness that suggested she was not merely a vessel of the Lord, but perhaps His own bookkeeper.
Felix stood on the threshold for just a moment before he advanced, aware of how his presence filled the office. The air hung with the chill of the stone and a thread of candle wax, but none of that reached him.
He knew these places: their smallness, their piety, their sticky webs of hierarchy. He stepped toward the Mother Superior and let the silence thicken. These women likely expected him to apologize for his intrusion or arrange his face into some proper expression of humility.
A young woman in novice attire clung to the baby in the center of the room. It was a striking contrast: his own tailored green coat brushing his craftsman boots—polished to near-military luster, as always—versus the women in their habits, the drab-colored wool hiding any differentiating features.
The room held silence for the span of a heartbeat. Then, the door behind Felix bumped open. Two more nuns peered in, breathless and barely containing their curiosity.
Felix inclined his head. “Felix Greycliff, Your Reverence. Duke of Carden.” He paused to let the title land in its full weight. “My apologies for the intrusion.”
The younger nuns tittered, then retreated. Felix offered them a faint smile, then watched the door close and forced his eyes to the desk, the baby, and finally to the novice.
“I am here to take this baby with me. She is my responsibility,” he said.
Mother Superior was unamused.
The novice cut in. “I won’t surrender this child to you, Your Grace, no matter how illustrious your title may be.”
Felix studied her more closely. He noticed all her features from the precise angle of her cheekbones to the soft spill of her golden hair that the habit could not entirely conceal.
Only then did recognition strike with the force of a thrown candlestick, straight to his chest.
“Lady Rose?” he asked, his voice unsure.
“You didn’t even recognize me,” she scoffed.
The cut of her voice prickled.
“Lady Rose Whiteridge,” he said, his words surer a second time.
She met his eyes at last, and he felt his chest tighten. “I see your memory is as reliable as your sense of honor.”
“I didn’t expect to find you here,” he said. “With this child. At St. Clement’s.”
Lady Rose shrugged, her face all brittle edges. “Life is full of surprises. You may finish your business with the Mother Superior and be on your way.”
Mother Superior moved with measured authority, spine unbending as she interrupted.
“Your Grace,” she said. “You have caught us at a most delicate time. As you see, the child is well-cared for at the moment. Whatever matter of guardianship you wish to raise, I trust it can be resolved through the proper channels.”
Felix’s patience snapped. He crossed to the desk with a single stride and produced a small chamois-leather purse. It landed on the ledger with a weighty thunk.
“A gesture of goodwill. For the novices, or for roof repairs, or whatever needs it most,” he said.
Mother Superior pocketed the offering in a drawer and locked it with a swift, practiced motion. When she looked up, her smile was smoother. She tapped the desktop with two knuckles. “If the child belongs to you, I see no reason to keep her from you, Your Grace.”
Lady Rose’s mouth dropped open. “You cannot possibly—you told me she could stay.”
“I told you she could stay in your care,” Mother Superior said, with the serenity of someone who had never once contradicted herself in her own estimation. “His Grace presents a rather different set of circumstances.”
“His Grace,” Lady Rose said through clenched teeth, “presents himself without invitation and expects the world to reorganize accordingly. That is not a separate set of circumstances. That is a pattern of behavior.”
Felix had to stifle an amused laugh. “I assure you, Your Reverence, I mean no disruption to your nunnery.”
“Of course not.” Mother Superior smoothed the front of her habit. “A man of your station, naturally, would never seek to disrupt a place of calm and serenity. We are grateful for your concern for the child’s welfare.”
Lady Rose stared at her. “You cannot be serious.”
“Rose.” The older woman’s voice dropped to its administrative tone, the one that ended conversations. “You will mind yourself.”
“I am minding myself. I am minding myself considerably.” She turned to Felix, who was watching her with curiosity. “You walked in here ten minutes ago. You act as if you understand this situation fully, but I sincerely doubt you even know this child’s name.”
“Her mother called her Lizzie,” Felix retorted. “I know that much at least.”
He extended his hands, indicating he wanted Lady Rose to give him the child.
She stepped away from him hurriedly. “Don’t,” Lady Rose breathed as she shifted the bundle away from him, her knuckles whitening against the swaddling cloth.
Mother Superior rose from behind the desk with the deliberate motion of someone removing themselves from a problem they have already solved.
“Might I suggest, Your Grace, that a private word with Lady Rose may be the most efficient path forward. I find that women of strong feeling benefit from the opportunity to—”
“I am standing here,” Lady Rose said.
“To express themselves fully before reaching a sensible conclusion.” She moved toward the door with the unhurried authority. “I shall be just down the hall.”
The door clicked shut behind her.
“Well… I imagine,” Felix began. “…you’re not here of your own accord.”
She turned, her jaw set. “What does it matter?”
“I should have called,” he said, surprising even himself. “After our dance at the ball.”
“You should have done a great many things, Your Grace.”
He reached for the baby a second time. Lady Rose tensed, but did not turn away, instead allowing Lizzie to gurgle and blink up at Felix, batting his finger with a tiny fist.
“I want what’s best for her,” he breathed.
Lady Rose shook her head. “You want what’s best for yourself. That is why you’re here.”
He could have claimed otherwise, but the words would have rung false even to his own ears. Outside the window, the first hesitant flakes of snow began to fall. Felix turned back to Lady Rose and caught her eye.
“You cannot expect to keep her here,” he said. “This convent is no place for a child—they have no interest in illegitimate Greycliffs.”
“And you do?”
“I’m interested in paying for past mistakes.”
Rose studied him. “You want to take her with you? To your home, where she’ll grow up never knowing that someone loved her enough to fight—”
Felix interrupted, softly. “Would you rather she grew up here? Among the pious and the pitiless, believing herself to be an accident? My house is not without its ghosts, but it at least offers a name, a roof, and belonging.”
The words hung between them heavily.
Lady Rose looked down at Lizzie, and Felix did the same. The baby had somehow fallen asleep, her lips parted, one chubby hand wrapped in the coarse wool of Rose’s habit.
When Lady Rose finally spoke again, her voice was quiet. “What will you tell her? When she’s old enough to ask.”
Felix said nothing for a long while. Then, he sighed. “Whatever I must, I suppose.”
Lady Rose did not answer. She lingered a moment longer, staring at the snow through the warped glass. Then, her gaze landed on the desk drawer where the Mother Superior had stashed her new purse of gold, and her lips curled in a small, knowing sneer.
“So that’s how it’s done,” she whispered. “One sack of coins and suddenly the world is at your feet.”
Felix rolled his shoulders. He was losing his patience. He had come to St. Clement’s to handle a particular purpose, and now, he was ready to be gone from this wretched place. “Let’s get this over with. Hand her here.”
Lady Rose tightened her arms around Lizzie. “No.”
“Pardon?”
“You heard me.” She planted her feet shoulder’s width apart, a swordsman’s stance, and held the baby like a shield between them.
“You have no right,” he said. “That child is mine, and a claim lodged by you would never hold up in a court of law.”
“What are you insinuating?” she sneered.
Felix took a step forward. “Lady Rose. You forget yourself.”
“And you forget what you did. Or rather, what you failed to do.”
The baby woke up and began to fret. Felix reached out, one hand open to offer an exchange.
This time, Lady Rose fully recoiled.
“You are not going to take this child to a house where nobody cares about her,” she said and lifted Lizzie from her shoulder, tucking the baby into the basket on the desk, as if to say: come and take her if you dare.
Felix tamped down his anger. “What do you think will happen if you keep her here? Just look at the calluses on your hands. Do you want this child to become an overworked novice like you?”
Lady Rose didn’t deign to respond, instead producing a letter from within the folds of her habit.
“Look at this,” she said.
It was battered and stained, but the script was unmistakable even from a distance. He saw the name signed at the end: Julia.
Lady Rose laid it on the desk, fingers resting on it for a moment before sliding it forward. Felix snatched it up greedily, scanning the contents. All he could see were the last lines, going on about kindness and shadow and the wish that Lizzie might sometimes smile.
He dropped the letter as if burned. “This changes nothing.”
Lady Rose lifted her chin. “Doesn’t it?”
Felix forced composure. “The baby needs more than a nurse. If she is to have any chance in this world, she needs a title, a house, and a family name. Her chance lies with me.” He paused to breathe, surprised that he had become so worked up.
“If you cared for her, you’d realize that. She’ll be eaten alive otherwise.”
Lady Rose laughed harshly. “You think Mayfair will embrace a bastard?”
“You underestimate the strings I can pull, the influence I have,” Felix replied. “This child will have a place in society. A future.”
“A future?” Lady Rose leveled her gaze at him. “A future with a rake who does nothing but entertain dozens of women.”
At that, Felix let out a genuine, barking laugh. “You have more faith in my prowess than I do, Lady Rose.”
Her cheeks colored, but her eyes remained steady. “I only have faith in what I observe. You parade your mistresses like medals.”
His jaw tensed. “I have never once abandoned my responsibilities.”
Lady Rose looked down at the baby. “You most certainly abandoned Julia.”
His jaw worked, chewing her words.
Felix focused on Lizzie’s face, on her long lashes, on the dimple in her chin. He found nothing of himself in there, but something in the way her hand curled into a fist seemed familiar. Perhaps it was stubbornness, distilled and passed down.
He leaned in, his voice a whisper meant only for Lady Rose. “A proper house is better than a nunnery any day. She is my responsibility, my lady, and I won’t have her growing up in an orphanage.”
“No. You haven’t heard a word I’ve said,” she started, hair falling in pale wisps around her face. The words froze him in his tracks. “You cannot take her. Not today. Not like this.”
“I am not leaving without her,” Felix said, every syllable an iron link. “She is my family.”
Lady Rose closed the distance between them, fully intent. She was so close he could see the faint arch of her freckles and the breath shivering in her nostrils.
“Then you will have to walk over me,” she said, her chin tilting upward.
For a moment, the corridor shrank to that one point, as if there was no space between the duke and his opposition, both sides unwilling to surrender.
The baby began to cry in a thin, insistent wail, filling every crevice of the ancient stonework.
Lady Rose slid the baby into her arms with a deft motion, lifted Lizzie against her shoulder, and rocked her in a counterpoint to the infant’s distress. She hummed, low and tuneless, and within seconds the baby’s wails dissolved into hiccups, then to a cautious, gurgling peace.
Looking down at Lizzie, Lady Rose’s expression softened, and the tension left her spine. Felix cataloged every detail, standing with his arms empty, unsure of what to do with himself.
At last, he straightened his jacket, forcing his voice out in deliberate syllables. “Very well, then. You will come with me as well.”