Chapter 7
The study was warm when Roman walked in after breakfast. The fire had already been lit, and the morning light streamed through the tall windows in pale gray stripes across the floor.
He had been up since six o’clock. He had eaten breakfast alone in the morning room, spent a full hour going over the estate accounts with Mr. Hodges, and thought about the woman he had asked to meet him there at nine o’clock during every single one of those minutes.
She is a nursemaid, he reminded himself firmly. You are simply checking on the baby. That is all this is.
He sat down behind his desk and waited.
The clock on the mantel ticked steadily. The fire crackled softly in the grate. Somewhere deeper in the house, a door opened and closed. Roman picked up a letter from the corner of his desk, stared at it without really seeing the words, and set it back down again.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and Miss Hartley stepped inside.
She wore the same plain gray dress she had worn every day since she arrived.
Her auburn hair was pinned back in its usual neat, practical knot.
She looked tired, he noticed immediately.
There were faint shadows under her eyes that had not been there the day before.
“Your Grace,” she said. “You asked to see me.”
“Yes. Please sit down.”
She took the chair across from his desk. Her back remained straight, her hands folded neatly in her lap, and her expression stayed carefully composed.
But Roman had been watching her for five days, and he had started to notice the small cracks in that composure. The way her fingers pressed together a little too tightly when she felt nervous. The way her eyes occasionally flicked toward the door, as though part of her wanted to leave.
“I wanted to check in on how things are going,” Roman began. “How is Liliana doing? Is she eating well?”
Miss Hartley nodded. “She is eating well enough, Your Grace. The teething makes her quite fussy, but she is still taking her milk regularly, and she has started accepting some solid foods. Patricia has been very kind about sending up porridge and mashed vegetables for her.”
“Patricia?” he asked, surprised.
“The cook, Your Grace. She has been very helpful.”
Roman made a mental note to thank the cook later. He had not realized she was taking extra care to send food up for the baby.
“And her sleep?” he continued. “Has that improved at all?”
Miss Hartley hesitated for a brief moment. He caught it—that tiny pause before she answered, the careful way she chose her words.
“She woke several times last night. The teething seems worse in the evenings. I walked her up and down the corridor for a while, and she eventually settled.”
“You walked her?”
“Yes, Your Grace. She seems to like the motion.”
Roman thought about that image. Miss Hartley was walking the long corridor in the middle of the night, carrying Liliana, trying to soothe her when nothing else worked.
She had only been there for five days, yet she already knew the baby’s preferences so well. She knew Liliana liked to be walked. She knew she liked motion. She knew a cold cloth helped her gums.
“You speak about her,” Roman said slowly, “the way a mother speaks about her own child.”
Miss Hartley went very still. “I have been caring for her for five days now, Your Grace. I have grown quite fond of her.”
“That is not what I meant.”
Her eyes met his directly. He watched her decide how to respond, the quiet calculation happening behind her expression.
“What did you mean, Your Grace?”
Roman leaned back in his chair. “You know her in a way that goes beyond what a nursemaid usually knows after only five days. You know her the way someone does when they have been caring for her much longer than that.”
The lie was right there, assembled and ready.
I have cared for many children. They are all similar at this age.
She had said it before. She could say it again.
It would come out perfectly smooth and perfectly hollow, and he would accept it or he wouldn't, and either way she would have managed another hour under this roof.
She hated that it was so easy.
Miss Hartley remained quiet for a moment. Then she said, “I have cared for many children over the years, Your Grace. They are all the same in their basic needs, even if their personalities differ.”
“That is not really an answer.”
“It is the only one I have.”
The silence stretched between them. The fire continued to crackle, and the clock kept ticking on the mantel.
“Have you cared for a child this young before?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Whose child?”
Miss Hartley’s hands tightened slightly in her lap. “A family in the country. I told you this when you first interviewed me.”
“You told me a name. You did not tell me whose child you were actually caring for.”
“The family’s child, Your Grace. That is usually how these positions work.”
Roman almost smiled. She was deflecting skillfully, and she was good at it. But he had spent years negotiating with far more experienced men who were much better at hiding the truth than a nursemaid from Somerset.
“The teething,” Miss Hartley said, changing the subject so smoothly he almost missed it. “I have been using a cold cloth on her gums. It seems to bring her some relief. Have you ever tried that with a teething baby?”
“No,” Roman replied. “I have never tried anything with a teething baby. I had never been around one at all until last week.”
Miss Hartley looked genuinely surprised. “Never?”
“My father was not the kind of man who welcomed children into the house. And I was abroad for six years. There were not many babies on the battlefield.”
“No,” she said quietly. “I imagine there were not.”
The silence that followed felt different this time. Softer. Less like an interrogation and more like two people who had simply run out of safe things to say and did not entirely mind the quiet.
“Liliana is lucky,” Miss Hartley said after a while. “To have you.”
Roman frowned. “She is not lucky. She was left on a doorstep.”
“She was left on the doorstep of a man who assembled an entire nursery for her overnight,” she replied.
“A man who asks about her feeding schedule and her sleep, and whether she is comfortable. A man who walks her up and down the corridor at two in the morning when she cannot settle. That is luckier than most children ever get.”
Roman did not know how to respond. He looked at her, at the shadows under her eyes and the careful way she held herself, and he thought again about how naturally she held Liliana. Like she had been doing it for years.
“Thank you,” he said finally. “That is kind of you to say.”
"It is not kind," she replied. "It is simply true."
The study door opened without warning, and his mother walked in before Roman could say anything else to Miss Hartley.
Miss Hartley stood up immediately, smoothing her hands down the front of her gray dress. “Your Grace.”
His mother looked at her. Her cool gray eyes moved slowly over Miss Hartley’s face, her plain dress, her clasped hands, and her posture. She said nothing for a long moment, letting the silence stretch until it became uncomfortable.
“You may go,” she said at last.
Miss Hartley glanced at Roman. He gave her a small nod. She dipped into a neat curtsy and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
She waited until the sound of Miss Hartley’s footsteps had completely faded down the corridor before she spoke.
“She is hiding something,” she said.
“Good morning to you, too, Mother.”
“Do not be flippant with me, Roman. I am quite serious.”
Roman leaned back in his chair and studied his mother. “What makes you think she is hiding something?”
“Everything about her,” his mother replied.
She crossed the room and stopped by the window, her back to him.
“The way she speaks. The way she answers questions. The way she looks at that baby. I asked her about her background. She gave me only vague answers. When I pressed her, she changed the subject entirely.”
“Perhaps she is simply a private person,” Roman suggested.
“Or perhaps she is lying.”
Roman stayed silent. He had thought the same thing more than once over the past five days.
Yet he had also watched Miss Hartley with Liliana.
He had seen the way the baby reached for her instantly, the way she held her with such natural confidence, the way the child seemed to calm the moment she was in Miss Hartley’s arms.
“If she is lying,” Roman said carefully, “she is doing an excellent job of caring for the child while she does it.”
His mother turned around to face him. “The baby needs to be sent away.”
“No.”
“The scandal is growing worse by the day, Roman. Every newspaper in London is writing about it. People are talking. People are whispering. Do you know what they are saying?”
“I can guess.”
“They are saying the baby is yours,” his mother continued, her voice rising.
“They are saying you fathered an illegitimate child and the mother left her on your doorstep because you refused to acknowledge her. They are saying you are hiding the truth to protect your reputation.” She took a sharp breath.
“They are destroying this family’s name, and you are letting them do it. ”
Roman stood up. He had not meant to rise so quickly, but the words came out before he could stop them.
“The child stays.”
“Roman—”
“The child stays until I know where she came from and who sent her here. I will not send an innocent infant to an orphanage just because of gossip. I will not be that kind of man.”
His mother stared at him. Her face had gone pale. Her hands were clenched tightly at her sides, and her gray eyes were bright with something that looked very much like fear.
“You may not like the answer,” she said quietly, “when you finally discover where she came from. You may not like it at all.”
Roman went very still. “What does that mean?”