Fox pressed his advantage. “Please consider leaving Madeline in our care, Your Grace. A child can have grandparents while still retaining a mother and father—”
“My granddaughter willnotbe raised in the wilds of Scotland,” the duke boomed.
Fox feared the duke’s voice only came in one volume—boom.
“Besides,” the man continued, “though you are a gentleman, Captain, you are hardly of the same social station as my granddaughter. She must be reared among her own.”
Fox swallowed back his temper. Anger would solve nothing. “My sister was a lady, and as her only living family member, I merit a say in my niece’s life. Your son’s actions rendered her illegitimate. That is hardly the behavior of a gentleman.”
“I agree,” the duke thundered. “And I have already had the promise of the Archbishop that all will be settled favorably in the Court of Arches. You may rest assured that I will not have my granddaughter branded with the taint of illegitimacy, particularly when it is so clearly unwarranted.”
“And,” the duchess offered, “you will most certainly be welcome to visit Madeline whenever you wish.”
As if that were the same thing at all.
Fox wanted Madeline here. With himself and Leah.
Their wee family had only just been formed. He wasn’t prepared to forfeit it so soon.
Fox opened his mouth to argue further.
Snick.
The door behind him opened. Fox rose and turned around as Leah and Madeline entered the room.
Leah looked pale but composed, dressed in somber black with a lavender and gray shawl around her shoulders, her eyes red-rimmed and shadow-filled. She held Madeline’s hand in a firm grasp.
Dimly, he was aware of the duke and duchess rising behind him.
“Madeline,” the duchess breathed on a soft, reverential gasp.
Fox’s heart sank.
Madeline was spring personified in a light blue frock that perfectly matched her eyes and caught the shimmery highlights in her blond curls. Fox was torn between appreciation that his niece appeared so adorable and frustration that, when turned out to such advantage, she was shockingly easy to love on sight.
The girl’s eyes skimmed past Fox to the people arranged behind him. She blushed and ducked her head behind Leah’s skirts.
“Your Graces, may I present my wife, Mrs. Carnegie, and my niece, Miss Madeline Battleton,” Fox said.
The Duke and Duchess nodded their heads.
Leah bobbed a curtsy.
“Who are these people, Mamma?” Madeline’s whisper carried through the room.
Leah met Fox’s eyes. He recognized the agony in them, as it reflected his own.
“They are the Duke and Duchess of Westhampton,” Leah replied simply, pulling on Madeline’s hand and coaxing her to come out from behind her skirts. “Ye should curtsy tae them like a proper lady. Like I taught ye.”
Madeline poked her head out, looked up at Leah, and then back at the duchess. Swallowing, she stepped out from behind Leah and bobbed a decidedly credible, if a bit wobbly, curtsy.
“The lady looks very fine,” Madeline whispered up to Leah. “Was she the princess in the fancy carriage?”
Fox darted a glance back at the duchess. The lady hadtearson her cheeks, for heaven’s sake, and gazed at Madeline with open adoration.
He closed his eyes, a hard lump rising in his throat.
His hope had already been a tenuous thing. But now he tasted despair.
