“Yes?”
He looked at her then—truly looked at her in the candlelight, this woman who had become his wife through scandal and necessity, who managed their household with quiet competence, who cared for a child not her own with the devotion of a mother.
This woman he was absolutely not supposed to think about.
“Nothing,” he said roughly. “I merely wanted to ensure Rose was well.”
Her expression softened. “She is. Thanks in no small part to you.”
The praise should not affect him. Yet it did, settling warm and unwelcome into the spaces he had spent years keeping empty.
He needed to leave. Needed to retreat before she saw too much, before his face betrayed the riot of emotion he could barely contain.
“Goodnight, Penelope.”
He turned toward the door, desperate for escape, for distance, for anything that might restore the careful equilibrium he had maintained.
“Alastair?”
Her voice stopped him. He glanced back despite every instinct screaming at him to keep walking.
Penelope stood beside the cradle, backlit by candlelight, her expression uncertain and hopeful and far too nerve-wracking for his peace of mind.
“Caroline was right,” she said quietly. “We do understand one another well. Better than I expected.”
The confession hung between them, honest and terrifying.
And Alastair realised with devastating clarity that he had been lying to everyone—William, Edward, Caroline.
Most of all, to himself.
Because somewhere between midnight vigils and whispered arguments, between shared meals and accidental tenderness, he had stopped simply managing an inconvenient arrangement. He had started caring.
CHAPTER 12
Penelope pressed her palm more firmly against Rose’s forehead, ignoring the way her pulse jumped beneath her skin. Perhaps she was imagining it. Perhaps the nursery fire had simply been stoked too high, or Rose had become overheated beneath her blankets.
“She feels warm.” She could not keep the worry out of her voice.
But when she lifted her hand away, Rose whimpered and turned her head, seeking comfort that Penelope could not seem to provide.
“Lottie?” Penelope kept her voice level, though alarm crept up her spine like cold fingers. “How long has she been fussy?”
The nurse looked up from where she was folding linens, her weathered face creasing with concern. “Only this past hour, Your Grace. Nothing I could not manage. Babies have their difficult days.”
“Yes. Of course.” Penelope bent over the cradle again, studying Rose’s flushed cheeks. “I am being foolish.”
“Not foolish.” Lottie joined her, placing a hand on Rose’s forehead with the confidence of thirty years’ experience. Her expression shifted. “She is running a touch warm, though. Nothing alarming yet, but I shall keep watch through the evening.”
Nothing alarming yet.The qualification did nothing to ease the knot forming beneath Penelope’s breastbone.
“I shall stay as well,” she heard herself say.
Lottie opened her mouth—likely to protest, to remind Penelope that duchesses did not spend their nights in nurseries when perfectly capable nurses were employed for precisely this purpose. But whatever she saw in Penelope’s face made her close it again.
“As you wish, Your Grace.”
The evening crept past with agonising slowness. Penelope tried to read, then abandoned the book when she realised she had been staring at the same page for twenty minutes. She attempted needlework and stabbed her finger badly enough to draw blood. Finally, she gave up all pretence and simply sat beside the cradle, watching Rose’s restless sleep.