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“No, we shouldn’t,” Miles said decisively. “Where is Hobbs? Is it too much to ask that he keep an eye on the front door?” He gave it a kick, leaving a scuff on the white paint.

“I could have knocked, or you could have put me down,” Daisy pointed out.

“I’m carrying you over the threshold,” he said gruffly. Then he blinked. “I apologize. Lack of sleep makes me irritable. The truth is that I don’t want to talk about Belle’s father. She is an orphan, soon to be my ward. I grew fond of her last night—irrationally, since she spent most of it howling. Her parentage is irrelevant because she’s mine. And yours, obviously.”

Hobbs opened the door, stepped back, and bowed.

“Finally,” Miles said, carrying Daisy into a spacious marble entry. “Your new mistress, Hobbs. Lady Devin.” He set Daisy down with a thump.

Her sympathy with sacks of laundry was increasing by the moment.

“My lady,” Hobbs said, bowing. “I bid you welcome to Devin House.” Behind him, two maids came running down the stairs, and several footmen emerged from the baize door that led downstairs, clustering behind Hobbs.

“Have you been in Lord Devin’s employ for a long time?” Daisy asked, thinking of Miles’s threat to fire him. The butler looked too elderly to find another post.

“Years,” Hobbs said with pride. “His lordship keeps trying to pension me off, but I knew him as a nipper, and I shan’t resign until I want to.”

“You’re a pain in my arse,” Miles said.

“His lordship doesn’t take well to lack of sleep,” Hobbs said with a confidential twitch of his eyebrow. “The young lass, Miss Belle, had a tooth paining her, and Lord Devin walked the floor like the old days. Miss Clementine never liked to cut a tooth.”

Miles growled something under his breath, but Hobbs ignored him. “May I introduce the household, my lady? This is Mrs. Bretton, our housekeeper …”

When Hobbs introduced her to the maid Daisy had last seen holding the baby, the poor girl looked exhausted.

“I’m so sorry that Belle kept you awake,” Daisy said.

The maid curtsied. “She’s taken a dislike to me, my lady. No one but Lord Devin could persuade her to stop crying. Thankfully, that tooth finally came through an hour ago.”

“Thank God,” Miles said.

“Miss Belle has had some warm milk and is fast sleep,” Mrs. Bretton put in.

No one in the household was wary of Miles, and unless she was mistaken, they truly liked him. “Marvelous,” Daisy said warmly. “I hope that my personal maid, Ada, has been introduced to everyone?”

“An Irish lass is always welcome here,” Hobbs proclaimed. “She is in your bedchamber, arranging your bits and bobs, my lady.”

“I shall escort you upstairs,” Miles declared. Once they climbed the stairs, he pushed open a door to reveal a large bedchamber at the rear of the house with recessed windows facing a lawn studded by gracious oak trees.

Most of the room was taken up by an extremely large bed, so high that a short flight of stairs awaited its occupants.

Daisy quickly looked away from the mounds of snowy pillows. “A place to read!” she exclaimed, darting across the room to the comfortable window seat surrounded by bookshelves.

Ada popped out of a side door, but Miles left before Daisy could introduce her. In fact, Daisy wheeled about just in time to see the door shut behind him.

“The marriage won’t be consummated until evening,” she blurted out, with a distinct sense of relief. It wasn’t the bedding that worried her; it was all the confessions she had to make first.

Ada let out a giggle. “It’s kind of his lordship to give you time to prepare.”

“Perhaps,” Daisy said. She was so rattled that her next thought spilled out. “A besotted man wouldn’t run away. I expect Livie’s husband carried her over the threshold to their bedchamber and didn’t leave until morning.”

“Yes, but Lord Devin is a perfect gentleman. Always considerate, that’s what they say below stairs.”

Daisy didn’t think she’d experienced Miles’s considerate side. Being informed that only parts of her were lovable had definitely cast a shadow over the morning.

“Did you warn them that I am not a perfect lady?”

“You’ll be a breath of fresh air,” Ada said tactfully. “I’ve run a bath in the water closet. Mr. Hobbs sent your trunks straight to the country, but I’ve kept back a traveling gown and that blue gown you like for tonight.” Unlike so many dresses ordered under the aegis of her mother, this one was cut to a fashionable length.