“Your Grace.” Penelope cut through his uncharacteristic rambling, her voice admirably steady.
“You said this was urgent. I am here. What is this about?”
He opened his mouth, closed it, then seemed to struggle with where to begin. Finally, he simply gestured to something beside the desk.
Something she had not noticed in her initial survey of the room.
A wicker basket, lined with soft blankets.
Penelope moved closer, confusion mounting. Why would the Duke summon her in the middle of the night to show her a?—
The sound reached her ears before her mind could complete the thought.
A cry.
Thin, querulous, unmistakably infant.
A baby’s cry.
Her eyes flew to the basket, then to the Duke, then back to the basket as her heart seized in her chest.
“Your Grace,” she whispered, her voice barely audible above the increasing wails. “What have you done?”
“I…” He hesitated. “I have notdoneanything,” he insisted. “This… was dropped at my manor, and the note included your name. But… Since your opinion of me could not be lower, I suggest you take leave and forget you saw anything.”
With that, he left—taking the basket with him, and leaving her alone in the empty room.
CHAPTER 4
“You should not be here again.”
Alastair’s voice carried none of its usual languid amusement as he stared at Penelope from behind his desk. He looked surprised, though he ought not. He should have known that once she had gotten over the surprise, she would return. This time, not under the cloak of night—but with the break of dawn.
Penelope remained still in the doorway with her cloak still fastened at her throat, her maid hovering anxiously in the corridor beyond.
“I could not stay away,” she said, her voice steadier than the frantic beating of her heart. “Not after... not without understanding.”
“There is nothing to understand.” He turned away, bracing his hands against the desk as though it were the only thingpreventing his collapse. “You should forget what you saw last night. Forget you were ever here.”
“Forget?” The word came out sharper than she intended. She stepped fully into the room, letting the door fall shut behind her despite Annie’s small sound of protest. “You summon me in the middle of the night, show me a child—a baby, Your Grace—and expect me to simply forget?”
“Yes.” His shoulders drew tight beneath his rumpled shirt. “That would be considerably easier for both of us.”
“Easier.” She moved closer, drawn by concern. “Is that what matters to you? Ease?”
He laughed, a sound scraped raw. “You have no idea what matters to me, Miss Hartwell.”
“Then explain it to me.” She stopped on the opposite side of his desk, her fingers curling against her palms. The basket caught her peripheral vision, and her chest constricted. “Whose child is that?”
Alastair’ sighed deeply. For a long moment, he said nothing, and in that silence Penelope’s mind began constructing explanations with the cold efficiency of arithmetic. A duke. A notorious rake. A baby appearing without warning.
The conclusion was inevitable.
“Yours,” she whispered, and the word felt like swallowing glass. “The baby is yours.”
His head snapped up, eyes meeting hers with horror or both. “What?”
“Do not insult me by denying it.” Her voice gained strength even as her stomach turned. “You are known throughout London for your... dalliances. It was only a matter of time before one of them produced consequences.”