She didn’t need him.
The thought should have been empowering.
Instead, it left her hollow.
“Your Grace.” Mrs. Keating appeared in the doorway, her lips slightly pursed. “A letter has arrived. From London.”
Penelope’s heart stuttered. “From His Grace?”
“No, Your Grace. From a Miss Hyacinth Fairleigh.”
Relief and disappointment warred within her. She took the letter with hands that trembled only slightly. “Thank you, Mrs. Keating.”
She waited until the housekeeper left before breaking the seal. Hyacinth’s familiar handwriting swam before her eyes.
My dearest Penelope,
I hope this letter finds you well settled at Blackmere. I confess I am desperately curious about everything—the house, the servants, the baby, and of course, your new husband...
Penelope stopped reading.
Your new husband.
Her new husband, who’d left her the morning after their wedding. Who’d promised her freedom and then demonstrated exactly how little she meant to him by fleeing back to London at the first opportunity.
She folded the letter carefully and moved to the window. Night was falling, turning the gardens to shadow. Somewhere in London, Alastair was doing whatever it was dissolute dukes did when freed from unwanted wives.
And here she was. Alone in a house that wasn’t home, caring for a child who wasn’t hers, married to a man who clearly had no intention of being a husband.
Rose began to cry again, her wails sharp with hunger or discomfort or simply the general injustice of being an infant.
Penelope crossed to the cradle and lifted her, swaying gently.
“It’s all right,” she murmured. “We’ll be all right. You and I. We don’t need him.”
The baby quieted against her shoulder.
And Penelope stood in the gathering darkness, holding someone else’s child, and tried very hard to believe her own words.
CHAPTER 9
“Your Grace has returned.”
Alastair handed his gloves to the footman without looking at the man, his shoulders tight from two days of fruitless searching and one particularly miserable journey back through rain-soaked roads. Mrs. Keating stood in the entrance hall, her expression carefully blank in that way servants had perfected when they wished to convey deep disapproval without risking their positions.
“So I have.” He shrugged out of his greatcoat, scanning the hall with a practiced eye. Something had shifted in his absence, though he couldn’t immediately name what. The air felt different. Lighter, perhaps. “Where is Her Grace?”
“The nursery, Your Grace.” A pause, weighted with meaning. “She has been there most hours of the day and night.”
The nursery. Of course she had.
The corridor leading to the nursery wing smelled different. Lavender and beeswax where there had been mustiness and neglect. Fresh flowers, he realized, catching the scent as he approached the open doorway.
What he found there stopped him mid-stride.
The transformation was complete. Gone were the oppressive dark curtains and heavy furniture that had made these rooms feel like a mausoleum. Afternoon light poured through windows he’d never noticed were quite so large, illuminating walls scrubbed clean until the pale blue paint showed through decades of grime. The rocking chair from the attic—he recognized it dimly from his own childhood—sat restored in pride of place, its mahogany gleaming. Muslin curtains fluttered in the breeze. Fresh hothouse roses brightened the windowsill in cut crystal.
And kneeling beside the cradle, her day dress rumpled and marked with what appeared to be furniture polish, dark circles beneath her eyes sharp enough to cut glass—Penelope.