But what Caroline was asking… It was impossible. If Melanie were to attendtonnishaffairs with her mother, people would look at her. If they looked at her, they would talk to her. They would ask questions. True, those questions would never go deeper than the weather or the latest fashions, but people would expect her to respond.
And…
Melanie shook her head, doing her best to blink away the stinging in the back of her eyes.
“I know you have this… thing, about not talking.” Caroline was nothing if not persistent. “But you need to overcome it. More than a year has passed. All you have to do is attend. Please, at least consider it? Will you try? Not for me, but for Reed?” But then Caroline whirled around and marched toward the window. “What on earth is the matter with that poor child?” she demanded, although she was likely more frustrated with Melanie than she was with the sounds coming from across Regent Street. “Can’t the nurse hear him?”
Caroline whipped the curtains open, hands on her hips.
And truth be told, despite her concerns that seeing a baby would bring up Caroline’s loss last year, Melanie was grateful for the disruption.
What would Caroline think if she learned Melanie had actually spoken with the Duke of Malum?
“Whose baby is it, anyway? Not the duke’s?” Caroline tapped her chin thoughtfully, and Melanie immediately sensed her sister scheming. If the Duke of Malum was suddenly a father, to a bastard child, no less, that might make for a good news story. And Caroline, who’d married not only the earl, but his newspapers as well, would consider the story even more interesting if it distracted thetonfrom their mother’s antics, which, in turn, would distract them from gossiping about Reed again.
Her sister’s blue eyes narrowed. “I’d go over there and ask myself if I wasn’t expected at the Gazette this afternoon.” She glanced towards the window again. “Honestly, I don’t know how they can stand all that crying. I hope the baby isn’t ill.”
Melanie straightened her shoulders. She hadn’t considered that possibility.
“Come on, Alfie.” Still frowning, Caroline tugged at the collie’s leading string, and the jolly pup sprang up and off the bed to follow his mistress to the door. “It doesn’t seem normal, does it?” she asked.
Melanie shook her head, swallowing hard.Was it possible the baby was ill?
“I’ll ask Maxwell, but he’s attending meetings at Westminster all afternoon, so it’ll have to wait until tonight,” Caroline announced. But of course! Melanie had forgotten, the earl occasionally did business with the Duke of Malum.
But… What if the baby really was ill? What if it needed help sooner than that?
Left alone again, Melanie returned to the window to reconsider the situation.
She had pulled the window closed earlier, but pushed it open once again. The nursemaid, who was contentedly reading a book, seemed a little too unconcerned, and those hoarse little cries, which weren’t as vigorous as they’d been before, came from the opposite side of the nursery.
“Excuse me,” Melanie called out, perhaps a little too quietly.
The nursemaid didn’t so much as look up.
“Excuse me!” she called louder this time, her throat actually hurting from the strain.
This time, the woman glanced around curiously before looking out the window, obviously surprised to be greeted from outside when they were both three stories high.
“The baby.” Melanie pointed to where the cries were coming from. “It needs you to… dosomething.”
The suggestion was lame at best, and as she watched the woman rise and approach the window, Melanie wished she’d considered her advice more thoroughly beforehand.
From beneath dullish brown hair, scraped back into a bun so tight it pulled the skin of her face taut, the nursemaid’s browsshot up as though astonished anyone would dare question her methods. She pressed colorless lips into a hard, narrow line, her bearing cold and rigid.
“Something might be wrong…” Melanie insisted, refusing to be deterred by the woman’s unwelcoming demeanor.
Because the baby… was still crying.
“Enough,” the nursemaid shouted away from the window, momentarily scaring her infant charge into silence. “And you,” she addressed Melanie. “Mind your own business.”
“But—”
The woman silenced Melanie with one last scathing look, and then purposefully pulled the windows closed, followed by the drapes.
Melanie was momentarily put off, but not for long.
In fact, the exchange summoned a surge of protective energy to course through her limbs.
