Page 74 of A Baby to Seal the Duke’s Fate

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.”