Page 58 of Duke of Iron
The other held out a folded sheet of paper. “She left this note, sir.”
Logan snatched it and read.
To His Grace, the Duke of Irondale,
I regret to inform you that I am unable to continue in your employ. The infant’s nature is most alarming, and I fear for my nerves and constitution. He cries in ways I have never witnessed, and I can only conclude the fault is neither mine nor the house’s. I am truly sorry for the inconvenience.
Respectfully,
Mrs. Pettigrew
Logan crushed the note in his fist. “Where is Mrs. Paxton?”
“She’s gone to find a new wet nurse on short notice.”
He turned to the cradle. The baby’s face was mottled, his cries reaching a new pitch of misery. For the first time, Logan wondered if the child might actually detonate. “Can you do nothing for him?”
Both maids shook their heads. “He will not take any milk, Your Grace. Nor will he sleep. He only wants to be held, but…” She trailed off, eyes wide.
Logan’s mind flashed to May, rocking the child in the chair by the window, singing her infernal lullabies. “Where is the Duchess?”
“She’s abed, Your Grace. Exhausted. Mrs. Paxton said she was the only one who could calm him.”
He glared at the child, who responded by screaming even louder.
He turned to go, but Mrs. Paxton intercepted him at the door. Her arms were folded, her face unreadable. “Your Grace. The infant is in distress.”
“I can see that.”
She leaned in, her voice pitched low. “I know it is not my place, Your Grace, but perhaps—just perhaps—you should try what the Duchess did. He seemed to like it.”
Logan wanted to tell her that he’d sooner eat the fireplace poker. Instead, he said, “Very well. Leave us.”
Mrs. Paxton did not move. “The servants will be waiting in the hall should you require assistance,” she said, then ushered the maids out behind her.
Logan glared at the child, who glared back, a challenge in every inch of his pinched little face.
“Fine,” Logan muttered, and bent to scoop the baby from the cradle.
The moment he lifted Rydal—William—the wails redoubled. Logan tried cradling the child in the crook of his arm. No improvement. He shifted, supporting the head as he’d seen May do. The noise lessened by a single decibel. Encouraged, Logan rocked back and forth, a rhythm that felt both idiotic and undignified.
He walked the length of the nursery, pacing with the child in his arms. After a minute or two, the howling faded to a series of wet, hiccuping gasps. The baby’s tiny fist latched onto Logan’s cravat and refused to let go.
Logan stared at the child. In this light, he could almost see a resemblance—not to himself, but to some ancestor whose portrait haunted the family gallery. There was a set to the brow, a stubbornness in the jaw, that made his stomach turn.
“What do you want?” he asked, not expecting an answer.
The baby sneezed, then burrowed into the fold of Logan’s sleeve.
He rocked in the chair, refusing to feel anything at all.He is not mine. He cannot be mine. This is a ruse, an elaborate joke, and soon the world will tire of it.
But still he rocked, and after a while, the child slept.
He did not notice Mrs. Paxton return until she was standing just behind him, her voice so quiet it barely disturbed the air. “The maids say you have a way with him, Your Grace.”
Logan snorted. “They have low standards.”
“They are young and inexperienced,” she replied. “You do not seem young, nor inexperienced. Yet you hold the child as though you have done so before.”
