Page 19 of A Baby to Seal the Duke’s Fate

“Several years.”

“With what ages?”

“Infants mostly.”

“And where?”

She hesitated just long enough to make him notice.

“First in Wiltshire,” she said. “Then near Winchester. Then with a family in the countryside outside Oxford.”

The names meant nothing to him. What mattered was that she answered cleanly, without drifting or over-explaining.

He studied her. “You are well spoken.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

Leopold glanced briefly at Barnaby, who watched the woman with mild curiosity.

“How long have you worked with children under one year old?”

“Since I was eighteen,” she said.

“And you have no objections to a difficult household?”

“No, Your Grace.”

“Nor to an irregular schedule?”

“No.”

“Nor to a child who cries for reasons no one can identify?”

Her expression changed, but not for long enough for Leopold to understand why. “No, Your Grace.”

Leopold looked at her hands again.

They were still steady. That mattered more than he cared to admit. Cecily had been crying for three days, and every nursemaid he had pictured had seemed too delicate, too likely to flinch at the first wakeful night. Miss Redmond did not look as if she would flinch. She looked as if she had come prepared for trouble. The exact kind of trouble that baby Cecily had been with everyone else.

Leopold folded the agency letter once and set it aside.

“Very well,” he said. “Come with me.”

Her brows lifted slightly. “Your Grace?”

“To the nursery.”

Her composure shifted, as if she suddenly had to work to suppress a new reaction. It seemed obvious only to him. But he saw the change in her breathing, the stone set of her face, the way something in her eyes seemed to lock into place and then shiver a little.

Miss Redmond had recovered by the time Leopold opened the study door, but he had seen enough to know the moment had mattered.

He led her down the corridor, past the portraits and the tall windows, toward the nursery.

Mrs. Pritchard appeared at the far end of the corridor.

“Lord Belgrave,” she said, “the child is awake.”

Leopold turned. “Good.”