“St. Clement’s is a house of God,” the older woman said. “Not a foundling ward. I will not have the order disrupted by the consequences of another woman’s choices.”
“She is a baby. She has made no choices.”
Mother Superior’s eyes moved to Lizzie with the cool assessment of a woman pricing livestock at a fair. Rose held still under it.
“You are a novice,” she said. “You have no means, no standing, and no authority to make promises on behalf of this house.” She paused. “And you may not always be here to keep them.”
“Then I will stay here,” Rose said. “As long as she needs me. I will never abandon my work or my duties here. Please… let me be there for this child.”
The clock measured out the silence between them. Mother Superior looked at the child once more, then at Rose, then at some fixed point above both their heads, as though consulting something neither of them could see.
“Very well.” Her voice carried no warmth. “But understand me: she is your responsibility entirely. If she disrupts the order, if she draws complaint, if she costs this house more than we can account for, she goes. No debate. No appeals. No second audience with me on the matter.”
Rose bit back her frustration and nodded. Although the Mother Superior’s coldness made her blood simmer with indignation, a profound relief soon took over, filling her chest. She lifted Lizzie from the basket, tucking her into the crook of her arm. The warmth of the little body against her own was more comforting than she expected. It was an anchor.
“Go, then,” Mother Superior gestured toward the door. “See to your work—and to her.”
Rose hoisted in her arms, pressed to her heart, and for the first time in years, felt the stirrings of something like hope. She paused for a moment in the office’s threshold, bobbing the baby up and down in her arms. Her eyelids fluttered, then settled into the half-closed bliss of an infant who knew she was held and safe.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
Then, silence fractured. Firm, distinctly masculine footsteps echoed down the corridor, forcing Rose to stiffen, place one hand on Lizzie’s head, and look up.
A man’s silhouette filled the office door. He was still draped in a gray overcoat. His vivid green eyes shone as he directed his gaze right at Rose.
She knew those eyes, had seen their echo in the baby’s face.
The man was Felix Greycliff, Duke of Carden.
“You…” she whispered.
Felix surveyed her. “That child,” he said, not as a question but as an accusation. “Is not going anywhere. She is mine.”
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.
