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Philippa’s lips tightened. “Only if people insist on giving them cow’s milk as a substitute.”

“Well, my point is that the child isn’t doing so well,” Betty said. “The coachman said that he’d dropped off a footman in Manchester who is supposed to round up nursemaids and doctors, as many as he can find.”

“They must be desperate,” Philippa said.

“The baby’s a prince. ’Course they’re desperate. He’ll inherit the castle someday, though not if he’s dead.”

It was that easy. Philippa packed a small bag with her plainest clothes, and wrote a note to her papa. Then she made her way to what passed for a high street in the village and paid the old drunk, Fettle, who lay around in back of the Biscuit and Plow, to drive her to Bigger Ha’penny.

There she covered up her hair, which was distinctively silver-colored and therefore annoyingly recognizable, and bought a coach ticket to London. She hopped off in a bustling inn-yard in Lower Pomeroy, reasonably certain that with all the milling passengers, no one would notice that she didn’t get back on the coach.

An hour or so later, she was standing at the foot of Pomeroy Castle.

Chapter Two

Pomeroy Castle

Lancashire

Mr. Jonas Berwick, known to his half brother Gabriel as Wick, and to the castle at large as Mr. Berwick, the majordomo to Prince Gabriel Albrecht-Frederick William von Aschenberg of Warl-Marburg-Baalsfeld, was never at a loss for an answer. Well, rarely.

“What am I going to do?” Gabriel demanded again. His hair was standing on end, and under his eyes were dark circles that looked like bruises. “The baby cries, and then she cries, and—” He turned away abruptly, but not before Wick saw the gleam of something that looked like tears.

“Aw, hell, Gabe,” he said, reaching out and pulling his brother into his arms. “Your son is going to make it. You named him after me, and that alone will give him the balls to push on through.”

“He’s suffering,” Gabriel said flatly. “He pulls up his legs and he cries so desperately that it would make you ill to hear it.”

Wick knew. He kept breaking off his duties to dash up the stairs, to walk past the nursery, silently begging, praying that he wouldn’t hear his namesake crying in that desperate, pain-filled wail. “How is Kate?”

“Kate is Kate,” Gabriel said wearily. “She holds him, and she walks, then she cries, but she keeps walking. I can’t get her to sleep properly, and I’m sure it’s affecting her milk. And yet she will not allow him to be nursed by anyone else, not after the time when he cried all day after we tried a wet nurse. She’s convinced that because the poor woman reeked of garlic, her milk didn’t agree with the baby.”

“What does the new nursemaid say about it?”

“I just sent her away,” Gabriel said.

Wick made a mental note. He’d have to find the woman and pay her a week’s wages.

“I was decent about it,” Gabriel said, wearily running a hand through his hair. “I know it’s not her fault. But she kept shaking her head, and she had such a sad look about her . . . I couldn’t stand it. Besides, Kate won’t put Jonas down anyway, not unless she gives him to me. I should go back up there.” Instead, he slumped into a chair.

“I’ll go,” Wick said. “I’m the boy’s uncle. You’ll have to force Kate to give him up. I’ll walk him while the two of you nap for a couple of hours. Tell her that. I will walk up and down in the portrait gallery.”

Gabriel looked up, his eyes heavy. “She’ll never accept it.”

Wick pulled him to his feet. “Assert yourself, Gabe. Remember, you’re the master of the house, the paterfamilias, king of the castle, and all the rest of that rubbish. Grab your son, hand him to me, and take your poor wife off to get some proper sleep. You’d better go to your old chambers up in the tower because she won’t be able to hear Jonas cry from there.”

When Wick let go of his arm, Gabriel actually tottered.

“How long has it been since you slept?” Wick demanded, taking hold of his arm again and hauling him along the corridor.

“Exactly how old is Jonas? I’ve lost track.”

“Not even a fortnight. You need to get yourself and Kate to sleep,” Wick said, pushing him through the nursery door. A moment later, he was holding his nephew.

“I’ll sleep for one hour, then I’ll be back,” his sister-in-law stated. She was a beautiful woman, but just at the moment she resembled one of those weird sisters in the Shakespeare play. Wick couldn’t remember which play it was, but there were three of them in the production he’d seen, and Kate would have fit right in. Her eyes were red, her face drawn, and grief and fear vibrated in the air around her. “He just had some milk . . . at least I think he did.”

“More than an hour,” Gabriel said firmly, pulling her toward the door.

She managed to stop her husband in the doorway. “Don’t let anyone else touch him,” she told Wick in a threatening tone.