Page 70 of A Baby to Seal the Duke’s Fate

She hesitated over the next line and then wrote it anyway.

I came here to take Cecily.

The pen paused in her hand. She looked at the words and felt the truth of them like a weight.

Then she finished the sentence.

And now I am no longer sure that is the right thing to do.

Honora sat still after that, listening to the quiet of the room and the small, steady sounds of the house beyond it.

She folded the letter carefully.

Then she took the little strip of paper and tucked it into the lining of her bag with the others.

For a long moment, she remained seated there, one hand resting on the bag, the other still warm from the pen.

She had no idea whether she meant it as a confession or a promise.

Only that it was true.

Chapter 13

Leopold rode out with Barnaby that morning because staying in the house felt, for once, more troublesome than the weather.

The sky was low and colorless, and the ground beyond the drive still held the damp from the night. The horses moved easily over the lane, their breath pale in the cold air.

Barnaby kept his reins loose, and his posture relaxed in the way of a man who had clearly decided that if the world insisted on becoming complicated, he would at least remain comfortable while observing it.

Leopold was less successful.

He had spent the better part of the morning trying not to think about the nursery, which only meant that he thought about it constantly, and he’d spent a good portion of breakfast rereading accounts he had already read twice.

It was easier to deal with figures than with what his mother had said, or with the fact that Phoebe had looked up at him the previous evening with that expression she sometimes wore when she was thinking too hard.

Barnaby glanced at him as they crossed the lower field. “You are unusually quiet.”

Leopold kept his eyes on the track ahead. “I am riding.”

“That is not the same as being quiet.”

“It is for me.”

Barnaby’s mouth twitched. “A useful distinction.”

They rode on for several minutes in silence. Beyond the hedgerow, the estate stretched in pale winter lines: the far boundary, the low rise toward the east, the fields that would need attention before spring. Leopold listened to the horses and to the small sounds of the morning and tried to let the movement settle him.

Barnaby, as ever, did not allow that to last.

“We should speak of the north pasture,” he said.

Leopold glanced at him. “Must we?”

“Yes. Because if we ignore it another week, your steward will write in capital letters.”

Leopold huffed once. “He already does.”

Barnaby smiled. “Then he will write more of them.”