Reed really should be, if not here at Rutherford Place, in London, at the very least. As their only remaining brother, it was his duty to prevent disreputable rogues from taking advantage of his sisters. If he were here, their mother wouldn’t gush over every man remotely linked to a title. She might view them, even, with a smidge of healthy suspicion.
Furthermore, they shouldn’t be having conversations like this for at least another year. Josie was too young.
And that brought a stab of guilt, because their mother wouldn’t be pressuring Josie at all if Melanie was willing to participate in the marriage mart this spring.
Only… she couldn’t.
“You’ve had enough syllabub for now, Josephine. We need to prepare for this evening’s festivities.” Their mother gestured, and Kenny stepped forward to assist Lady Roland, and then Josie, out of their chairs.
Later that evening, long after Josephine and their mother had left for the ball—without so much as a word of farewell, which wasn’t surprising—the house fell quiet again.
Melanie sat in her bedchamber, the stillness pressing down around her. She wasn’t sure what was more unsettling—the absence of her family’s chatter, or the sound that did manage to break the silence.
She stilled, straining to hear it again. There it was—a distant, plaintive cry, high-pitched and unmistakable. A baby.
Rising from her chair, Melanie crossed to her window and pulled back the curtain. Her gaze fixed on the residence across the way—the duke’s home, Preston Hall.
The house, usually dark and quiet at this hour, was alive with flickering lights spilling from an upstairs window that had always been, as far as she’d known, firmly shuttered. She pressed her forehead to the cool glass, peering closer.
There. A shadow crossed the room.
And then it moved again.
Back and forth.
The shadow of a man.
The duke, she knew, would be at his club, that notorious place... theDomus Emporium. So who was it? One of the manservants, perhaps?
But where was the nurse? Was the child being properly cared for? Was the baby safe?
And then she heard it again—the faint, heartbreaking cry of an infant. When she cracked the window open, those cries sounded unusually close.
But as startling as that was, she was even more shocked when she got a glimpse of the face of the man holding that baby.
For itwas, in fact,the duke.
He wasn’t nearly as composed as he had been earlier, and as a result, looked… almost approachable. As he crossed to the window, long strands of his dark hair, which had been so neatly combed back before, now tumbled forward, framing his chiseled cheekbones. Obviously frustrated, the sharp lines of his face seemed more striking, accentuated by the deep scowl etched across his brow.
Melanie’s breath hitched as her eyes trailed down.
The duke had shed his tailored black jacket, and the sight of his rolled-up shirtsleeves caught her off guard.
There was a rough elegance to him now, something raw beneath the polished exterior she'd seen earlier. He had one elegant hand supporting the baby’s tiny bottom, the other cradling its head with surprising gentleness.
Even from a distance, clear bewilderment shone from his eyes, and this unexpected juxtaposition released a fluttering sensation low in her belly.
Although the baby had been left at the duke’s home, Melanie would never, not in a million years, have expected the duke to have anything to do with its actual care.
And with good reason, because he didn’t seem to be having much success.
The baby inhaled, going silent for an amount of time that seemed far too long, and then let out the loudest cry so far.
The look on the duke’s face was nearly as alarming as the sounds coming from the infant in his arms.
Before she could duck behind the drapes, the duke lifted his gaze, and although their eyes only met for a few seconds, Melanie saw something unexpected.
Uncertainty.
