“You’ll need a proper name, for one thing.”
His voice carried through the cracked door, soft and conspiratorial, as though he and Rose were negotiating terms only the two of them could understand. The rocking chair creaked its slow rhythm.
“Rose is perfectly lovely, mind you. Your guardian chose well. But you’ll want a middle name, I think. Something with weight. Something that tells the world you belong somewhere.”
Penelope’s bare feet were cold against the stone floor. She should go back to bed. Should retreat down the corridor and leave him to this private moment that was never meant for her. She had already heard too much—already felt the damage of it lodged beneath her ribs like a swallowed stone.
She stepped into the doorway instead.
The nursery was washed in the amber glow of a single candle, the shadows soft and deep. Alastair sat in the rocking chair with Rose cradled against his chest, the baby’s dark head tucked beneath his chin. He’d shed his coat and waistcoat at some point during the evening. His shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbow, his hair falling across his forehead in the unruly way it did when he stopped thinking about appearances.
He looked up at the creak of the floorboard.
For one unguarded second, before he could assemble the familiar mask of charm and deflection, she saw him clearly. Not the Duke. Not the rake. Just a man holding a child in the dark, wearing an expression so raw it bordered on fear.
“Caught,” he said. His smile was a poor imitation of his usual one. “I suppose you’ll mock me for this.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” She moved into the room, pulling her wrapper tighter around her shoulders. The distance between the door and the rocking chair felt immeasurable. “She was fussing?”
“Not especially. I couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d check on her.” He glanced down at Rose, whose fist had curled around a fold of his shirt. “She was wide awake. Staring at the ceiling with the sort of philosophical intensity that suggested she was contemplating the meaning of existence. We’ve been having a very productive discussion.”
Penelope lowered herself onto the small stool beside the cradle. Close enough to see the candlelight catch the fine dark hairs on his forearms. Close enough to smell soap and brandy and that enveloped him.
“What have you concluded?” she asked. “About existence?”
“That it’s vastly overrated, but the company improves it.” Rose sighed against his chest and his hand shifted on her back—broad palm, gentle pressure, the kind of instinctive tenderness that couldn’t be taught or faked. “She’s getting heavier.”
“She’s growing.” Penelope watched his hand move in slow circles. “Lottie says she’ll be sitting up properly within the month.”
“Sitting up. Good God.” He shook his head, a quiet disbelief softening his features. “Next she’ll be walking. Then talking. Then refusing to eat her pear mush and staging tiny rebellions against household authority.”
“She already refuses the pear mush.”
“A girl of discernment.” His mouth curved, but the humour didn’t quite reach the rest of his face. He was looking at Rose with a concentration Penelope had never seen him direct at anything—not cards, not conversation, not even her. As though the baby in his arms were a puzzle he was determined to solve, and the answer mattered more than any wager he’d ever placed.
“What will happen to her?” Penelope asked.
The question came out before she’d decided to ask it. It was the question that lived beneath every feeding and every lullaby and every midnight vigil—the one they both carried and neither spoke aloud. Rose was not theirs. She belonged to someone they didn’t know, left on a doorstep with a letter and a prayer. The world they lived in did not look kindly on children without clear parentage, without name or fortune or the protection of blood.
Alastair’s hand stilled on Rose’s back.
“What do you mean?”
“When we find who she belongs to. Or if we don’t.” Penelope folded her hands together in her lap, pressing hard enough to feel bone. “She cannot stay in this limbo forever. Society will demand answers. Your family will have opinions. Eventually someone will ask questions we cannot deflect with charm and scandal, and Rose will be?—”
“Rose will be fine.” The words came out fast and fierce, a blade drawn in the dark. His arms tightened around the baby.
“You cannot promise that.”
“Watch me.”
Silence. The candle flickered. Rose’s breathing remained steady—the deep, trusting rhythm of an infant who had never known a reason to be afraid.
“She deserves better than what we can give her,” Penelope said quietly. “A proper family. Parents who chose her. A name that doesn’t come with a scandal attached.”
“She deserves to be safe.” Alastair’s jaw had set into a hardness that belonged to a man drawing a line he would not allow to be crossed. “She deserves to be wanted. Not managed. Not handed off to some institution that will raise her to be grateful for charity and silent about her origins. She deserves someone who looks at her and sees aperson, not a problem to be resolved.”
His voice had dropped. The rawness in it scraped against her heart with ferocity.