Chapter 13 #2
She had changed since morning. Her hair was still neat, though a few strands had escaped. She wore a plain gown and no shawl, and the baby in her arms looked bright-eyed and awake, her small hands opening and closing at the sight of new faces.
Phoebe’s expression was composed, but Leopold noticed at once the moment she realized Sabina was there.
Sabina, for her part, took in Phoebe with one glance and did not waste time pretending she was less observant than she was.
Leopold crossed the room. “Thank you.”
Phoebe nodded once. “She was settled enough to come down.”
Cecily made a cheerful sound and reached toward Leopold before he had even finished speaking.
He took her at once.
The baby settled against him easily, one hand going to his collar. Leopold shifted her higher with practiced care and turned slightly so she could see the others in the room.
Sabina laughed softly. “Well. There is no denying the household has become interesting.”
Barnaby’s expression remained neutral. “That depends on what one finds interesting.”
Sabina ignored him and held out a hand to Cecily. “And this is the famous child.”
Cecily regarded her seriously for a moment, then kicked her leg once in the air.
Leopold looked down at her. “That is a favorable sign, I think.”
Sabina’s smile softened just a little as she stepped closer. “May I?”
He glanced at Phoebe, who gave a brief nod.
Sabina took the baby with surprising ease, holding her as if she had done it before. Cecily, having made an instant judgment, rested one hand against Sabina’s shoulder and looked up at her with solemn curiosity.
Sabina laughed under her breath. “She has a face that will cause problems in about eighteen years.”
Barnaby’s brows lifted slightly. “That seems premature.”
“It is not,” Sabina said. “I have seen enough to know.”
Leopold watched Cecily in Sabina’s arms and felt a curious, quiet satisfaction at the ease with which the child accepted being handed around. She was no longer startled by everyone. No longer suspicious of every new voice. It should have been a good thing.
It was a good thing.
And yet he could not quite rid himself of the odd sensation that the house was making room for the child in ways no one had asked permission for.
Sabina shifted Cecily with practiced confidence and looked back to Phoebe. “She is very calm.”
“She has opinions,” Phoebe said. “She only voices them differently.”
Sabina’s mouth curved. “That sounds familiar.”
Barnaby made a sound that was almost a cough.
Leopold looked at him, then back at Sabina, and chose not to pursue whatever had just gone unspoken.
The discussion returned to the maps. Barnaby and Sabina argued over a point near the eastern boundary while Leopold stood near the table with Cecily when she returned to him and found, to his mild surprise, that he was still listening more to the room than to the papers.
Leopold said nothing.
Sabina gave him a look of quick amusement and then turned toward Leopold again. “I should leave before the weather turns. Tell your mother I did not come to argue with her, only with the county.”
Leopold, who had already decided that she probably meant the same thing, nodded. “She will be disappointed to have missed you.”
“I am sure.”
Sabina looked once more at Cecily, then at Phoebe. Her expression did not change much, but something in it had gone more thoughtful than it had been when she entered.
Then she went out.
Leopold walked her to the hall himself.
At the door she paused, one gloved hand resting lightly against the frame, and looked at him with a quietness that was less teasing than before.
“Your nursemaid holds that baby like a mother,” she said, again too softly for the others to hear. “Not like hired help.”
Leopold did not answer.
Sabina’s eyes stayed on his for a moment, then moved to Barnaby, who had come into the hall behind him. “I will bring the survey maps next week.”
Barnaby looked at her. “That will not be necessary.”
“I was not asking.”
And then she was gone, riding out into the afternoon with her horse’s hooves striking the drive in a steady rhythm that vanished too quickly.
Leopold stood in the doorway a moment longer than he intended.
Barnaby came up beside him. “She is very good at being inconvenient.”
Leopold looked out after Sabina. “That is one way to put it.”
Barnaby glanced at him. “The other is that she notices things.”
Leopold gave him a flat look. “You say that as if I had not already gathered it.”
Barnaby’s expression remained pleasantly unreadable. “Just making sure.”
***
That evening Leopold sat in the study longer than he meant to.
The fire had burned low, the papers on the desk were tidied away, and the house was quiet enough that he could hear the faint movement of servants in distant rooms. He had a glass of brandy untouched at his elbow and no desire to drink it.
Instead, he sat with one hand on the arm of the chair and thought about the day.
Barnaby on horseback.
Barnaby’s warning.
Sabina in the library, arguing without retreat.
Sabina’s voice in the hall, low and certain.
Your nursemaid holds that baby like a mother and not like hired help.
It was not the first time someone had said something that rang too true for comfort.
Leopold looked toward the dark window and saw his reflection dimly against the glass.
Barnaby had said that what was happening in the nursery would not end well for a duke and a servant.
Sabina had said Phoebe held Cecily like a mother.
Those two comments, separate as they were, seemed to point in the same direction: that there was more to the nursemaid than anyone had yet to see.