Chapter 9
“Your Grace has returned.”
Alastair handed his gloves to the footman without looking at the man, his shoulders tight from two days of fruitless searching and one particularly miserable journey back through rain-soaked roads.
Mrs. Keating stood in the entrance hall, her expression carefully blank in that way servants had perfected when they wished to convey deep disapproval without risking their positions.
“So I have.” He shrugged out of his greatcoat, scanning the hall with a practiced eye. Something had shifted in his absence, though he couldn’t immediately name what. The air felt different. Lighter, perhaps. “Where is Her Grace?”
“The nursery, Your Grace.” A pause, weighted with meaning. “She has been there most hours of the day and night.”
The nursery. Of course she had.
The corridor leading to the nursery wing smelled different. Lavender and beeswax where there had been mustiness and neglect. Fresh flowers, he realized, catching the scent as he approached the open doorway.
What he found there stopped him mid-stride.
The transformation was complete. Gone were the oppressive dark curtains and heavy furniture that had made these rooms feel like a mausoleum.
Afternoon light poured through windows he’d never noticed were quite so large, illuminating walls scrubbed clean until the pale blue paint showed through decades of grime.
The rocking chair from the attic—he recognized it dimly from his own childhood—sat restored in pride of place, its mahogany gleaming.
Muslin curtains fluttered in the breeze.
Fresh hothouse roses brightened the windowsill in cut crystal.
And kneeling beside the cradle, her day dress rumpled and marked with what appeared to be furniture polish, dark circles beneath her eyes sharp enough to cut glass—Penelope.
She looked exhausted. Utterly determined. And looking rather beautiful, though he was loathe to admit it.
The thought arrived unbidden, unwelcome, and he shoved it aside with the ease of long practice.
“You have been industrious,” he said.
She straightened so quickly she nearly lost her balance, one hand flying to steady herself against the cradle. Her hazel eyes found his, and for half a heartbeat, raw emotion flashed in her eyes.
“Your Grace.” She rose gracefully, brushing dust from her skirts in a gesture that somehow managed to convey both propriety and disdain. “We did not expect you quite so soon.”
We. As though she and the infant had formed some alliance in his absence, one that had no place for him whatsoever.
“I informed Mrs. Keating I would return within two days.” He stepped into the room, hyperaware of how his boots sounded against the freshly scrubbed floorboards. Of how out of place he felt in this space she’d claimed and transformed. “I am nothing if not a man of my word.”
“Are you?”
The question came soft as silk. Sharp as steel.
He lifted a brow, falling back into the armor of amused detachment that had served him so well for three decades. “You sound skeptical, Duchess.”
“Do I?” She moved to the window, her spine rigid beneath dusty fabric.
The late afternoon light caught in her hair, turning soft brown to amber and gold.
“Forgive me. I suppose I have grown unaccustomed to the concept of reliable gentlemen, having been married all of three days and spending two of them entirely alone.”
Ah. There it was.
“I sent word through Mrs. Keating that I would—”
“You sent word.” She turned from the window, unsuccessfully attempting to hide the frustration evident in the shaking of her hands.
“How thoughtful. A message delivered by your housekeeper whilst you fled back to London at first light, leaving me here with a newborn infant and a household of servants who look at me as though I’ve sprouted a second head. ”
“I did not flee—”
“What would you call it, then?” Her voice remained low, controlled, but her hands trembled where they gripped her skirts. “You promised this marriage would be a partnership, that we would face this situation together. And the very morning after our wedding, you ran from us.”
The accusation sent a jolt of irritation through him and he folded his arms. She had no right to… He’d known she would be angry—had anticipated it, even, during the long ride back—but hearing the words spoken aloud frustrated him even more than he thought it would.
“I had business in London,” he said, the words coming out coldly. “Important business, actually, if you would allow me to explain—”
“Business.” She laughed, the sound brittle and sharp. “Yes, I am certain your clubs and your mistresses and whatever other amusements you pursue could not possibly wait whilst your wife learned how to manage an estate she’d never seen before and care for a child neither of us knows how to raise.”
The mention of mistresses made him unbearably uncomfortable and he pressed his hand in his neck. He’d visited none, had barely thought of them at all, which was perhaps the most unsettling realization of the entire miserable trip.
“You think I was enjoying myself?” He took a step toward her, something hot and unfamiliar rising in his chest. “You believe I fled to London for entertainment whilst you were left here alone?”
“What else am I to think?” She held her ground, chin lifted in challenge.
“You made it abundantly clear this marriage is nothing more than a convenience to you. That I am nothing more than a solution to a scandal. Why should I expect you to behave as anything other than what you are—a rake who views responsibility as an inconvenience to be avoided at all costs?”
The words landed like blows, each one precisely aimed. And perhaps he deserved them. Perhaps he’d earned every bit of her contempt with his careless departure and his thoughtless assumptions.
But she was wrong about one thing.
“I was searching for the baby’s mother,” he said quietly.
She blinked, surprise breaking through her anger. “What?”
“The past two days, I have been in London attempting to discover any information about who left this child on my doorstep.” He moved to the window beside her, careful to maintain proper distance even as something in him wanted to close the gap entirely.
“I visited orphanages, spoke with matrons who handle such arrangements, made discreet inquiries amongst families who might have reason to hide an inconvenient birth. I called in every favour owed to me and a few that were not, all in an attempt to find some trace of who this infant belongs to and why we were named as guardians.”
The fight seemed to drain from her in increments. “And?”
“Nothing.” The admission tasted like failure.
“No one has heard anything. No families in crisis, no mysterious disappearances, no gossip about illegitimate births beyond the usual speculation. It is as though this child appeared from thin air, complete with a letter bearing our names and nothing else.”
Penelope turned back to the window, her profile sharp against the light. He watched her throat work as she swallowed, watched her fingers tighten and release against the windowsill.
“You might have told me,” she said at last, her voice barely above a whisper. “Before you left.”
“I might have,” he agreed. “I should have. I assumed—” He broke off, uncertain how to finish that sentence without revealing more than he intended.
“You assumed I would not care,” she supplied. “That I would be relieved to see you go.”
“I assumed,” he corrected, “that you would prefer not to endure my company any longer than absolutely necessary. Our wedding made it rather clear where we stand with one another.”
She flinched, just slightly, and he hated himself for noticing. For caring.
“I see,” she said. “Well. Your assumptions were noted, Your Grace. As was your absence.”
Before he could respond—before he could explain that his assumptions had been based on the careful distance she’d maintained throughout the rushed ceremony, the way she’d frozen when he’d leaned in for the expected kiss—a cry pierced the air.
Penelope moved immediately, crossing to the cradle swiftly. She lifted Rose carefully, checking for obvious distress even as the infant’s cries escalated.
“Hush, sweetheart,” she murmured, swaying gently. “You are quite all right. Simply hungry, I expect, or—”
The baby’s screams intensified, her tiny face scrunched and red with fury.
“Perhaps her nappy needs changing,” Alastair suggested, moving closer despite himself.
“I changed her not twenty minutes ago.” Penelope’s calm was fracturing, he could see it in the tightness around her mouth, the slight tremor in her hands. “And she fed less than an hour past. I do not understand what—”
“May I?”
The question surprised them both. Penelope’s eyes flew to his, wide with shock and a fraction of suspicion.
“You?”
“I have some small experience with infants,” he said, which was both true and completely inadequate to explain the certainty settling in his mind. “My cousin’s children, years ago. Before I became entirely useless.”
She hesitated, clearly torn between pride and desperation. The baby’s cries made the decision for her. She transferred Rose to his arms with visible reluctance, her fingers brushing his in a way that sent unexpected heat racing up his forearm.
He pushed the sensation aside and focused on the screaming infant.
Rose was tiny in his hands, impossibly fragile, and for a moment, panic threatened. He’d held his cousin’s children, yes, but that had been years ago, and he’d been half-drunk at the time, and surely he would drop her or injure her or—
The baby hiccupped, her cries faltering as she registered the change.
Muscle memory took over. He shifted her higher against his shoulder, one hand supporting her head whilst the other patted her back in a gentle, rhythmic motion.
He began to sway—not the tentative, uncertain movement Penelope had been using, but a steady, confident rock that spoke of practice rather than theory.