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“Exactly,” Philippa agreed. “If I were a man, I’d be a doctor, and no one could tell me what to do. I would choose—” She broke off.

“Oh, you did flee from someone awful,” the princess said, with evident delight. “Do you want to boil him in oil, or is it even worse than that?”

She was so charming that Philippa couldn’t help smiling back, but just then the princess gave a huge yawn.

“You really must sleep, Your Highness,” Philippa said. “Jonas is going to cry a great deal. Every time he’s fed, in fact, and much of the time in between, and that might go on for months. At the least, several more weeks, given his age. We must make certain that you eat and sleep sufficiently. I can hold Jonas, but I cannot feed him.”

“I’m Kate,” the princess said, yawning again.

“Oh, but I couldn’t—”

“Of course you can,” she said. “I want to hear all about the troll of a man you’re fleeing, but I think I will go to sleep for a bit. What did you say your name was?”

“Miss Damson,” Philippa said desperately.

“Really, Miss Damson, you and I just stood shoulder to shoulder and examined my son’s nappy. I’m Kate, and you’re—”

“Philippa,” she said, defeated. “But it just doesn’t seem appropriate.”

“Nonsense. We’re all strange birds here in the castle. There’s Wick, of course, and I was something of a maid-of-all-work to my stepmother for years before Gabriel came along and tried to make me into a princess.”

“Tried?” Philippa asked, just stopping herself from inquiring what Kate meant by There’s Wick, of course. “By all indications, you are a princess,” she pointed out.

“It didn’t take,” Kate said, with another huge yawn. “Princesses swan about in satin-lined carriages. What’s more, everyone knows that when a princess has a child, it has a rosebud mouth and sunny blue eyes. Whereas I have birthed the ugliest baby in all Christendom.”

“He’s not that ugly,” Philippa said, feeling defensive on behalf of poor little Jonas.

“Yes, he is,” his mother said, leaning back over the cradle. She put a finger on his nose. “A little potato here.” His eyes. “Currants are bigger than his eyes.” His mouth. “Well, his mouth isn’t bad. But have you ever seen a baby open his mouth wider or make such a frightful noise?”

“Never,” Phillipa said truthfully. “You return to bed, and I’ll bring you the baby after your nap.”

“But what about you? Shouldn’t you be getting settled? Oh no, what am I thinking? You’ll be sleeping right through this doorway, at least as long as you’re pretending to be a nursemaid. I’m too selfish to let you stop yet.”

Philippa smiled. “I’m happy to be a nursemaid, Your Highness. Truly, I love babies.”

“Kate,” Kate insisted, straightening up from the cradle. “I think it would be best if you brought Jonas to the dining room when he wakes up. We eat at eight, and I wouldn’t think he’ll be hungry again before then. You needn’t change, by the way.”

“I shan’t change,” Philippa said, shocked. “Nursemaids don’t eat in company.”

“Nursemaids don’t call their mistresses Kate, so you are obviously an exception.”

“What about the baby?” Philippa asked. “I wouldn’t want to leave him.”

“He will be with us, of course,” Kate said. “I don’t like to have him out of my sight.” And with a last touch of Jonas’s nose, she went out the door.

Chapter Four

Three hours later, Philippa was reconsidering her chosen profession. It seemed impossibly exhausting and boring. Jonas had woken, cried for an hour or so, taken some water, and gone back to sleep. Then he’d woken again, and cried again—but had fallen back to sleep just when she’d been trying to decide whether he was hungry.

She unpacked her tiny bag in the room next to the nursery, and, during one of Jonas’s quiet spells, brushed and re-brushed her hair, thinking all the while about Mr. Berwick. Wick, the princess had called him. He had lovely eyes, rather brooding, as if life wasn’t giving him what he wanted.

That had to be because he was a butler. He didn’t seem like a butler.

Jonas whimpered from the nursery, and she hastily pinned up her hair and went back into the room to soothe him.

She thought her uncle would be quite pleased with the way the baby now looked. The pinched look was gone, which meant that he had some water in him. What he needed now was more milk. And when she didn’t instantly produce it, he started crying again.

“I’m sorry, little scrap,” she murmured to him. “It’s going to hurt your tummy. But we just have to do it.”