My Last Duchess (The Wildes of Lindow Castle #0.5) - Eloisa James Page 0,68

sent a footman to Manchester with explicit instructions to find experienced nannies and doctors, at least two of each. The baby didn’t need a pretty bosom to nestle against: he needed someone who could figure out what was wrong with him.

But Wick walked back across the room, maintaining the same even stride with which he’d lulled Jonas to sleep. The girl didn’t meet his eyes; she was staring at the baby.

“Your name and your experience with children?” he asked briskly, thinking to get the whole thing over within two minutes. There were strands of bright hair peeking out from the girl’s cap, and her eyes were moss green. Plus, she had an entirely delectable bosom . . . she would never do. She’d have the footmen at fisticuffs within the week.

She didn’t seem to hear his inquiry. Instead, she came straight up to him and peered at Jonas’s face. “He’s wanting water, that’s for certain.”

“Babies don’t drink water,” Wick said, and never mind the fact that he’d never held a baby before this one. “Babies drink milk.” Her ignorance of this obvious truth was another strike against her employment.

“If they have the collywobbles, they need water as well.”

“How much experience have you had with infants?” He could see the nape of her neck as she peeked more closely at his nephew. It was delicate, pale, and translucent, like the finest porcelain. “Have you been a nursemaid for long?” Then, annoyed by the fact he was looking at her neck, he added, “You’re far too young.”

“I don’t have much experience, but what I have is the right sort,” she said, looking up at him, finally. He mentally revised his assessment of her eyes: they were not the green of moss, after all, but the green of the sea on a stormy day.

Wick felt an altogether uncomfortable warmth in the area of his groin. He’d be damned if he would line up with the footmen to ogle one of his fellow servants.

He’d accepted long ago that ladies were not for him. True, he was the son of a grand duke, albeit a grand duke in far-off Marburg. But he had been born on the wrong side of the blanket. Raised in a castle and yet a bastard—which meant that he couldn’t marry anyone of respectable birth. And he was too educated to settle for a milkmaid who wouldn’t mind his questionable parentage.

“What sort of experience is the right experience?” he asked.

But she had bent near again and was studying the baby’s face. “I don’t like the look of him,” she said, pursing her lips. They were rose-colored, those lips.

Wick looked past her lips to Jonas. “At least he’s sleeping,” he said. “He cried all night.”

“That’s because of the pain,” she said. “You’d better give him to me. We have to get some water in him, first thing, then we’ll deal with the milk.”

Before he knew what was happening, she slipped her hands around the baby and lifted him deftly out of Wick’s arms. “Here! You can’t do that,” he said, alarmed at the very thought of Gabriel or, God forbid, Kate knowing that he’d allowed a stranger to take the baby.

But the girl—

“What did you say your name was?” he asked.

She finished tucking the fold of the blanket under Jonas’s face before she looked at him. “I didn’t,” she said. “I am Philippa Damson.”

“Like the jam?” Wick asked. She was sweet as jam, and that part of her name suited her. He’d like to lick—

He wrenched his mind away.

“Exactly like the jam,” she said, turning toward the door. “Now come along, Mr. Berwick. This baby needs water immediately.”

Wick stared after her for a moment.

At the door, she looked over her shoulder. “You have to show me to the kitchen.”

“Kitchen?” he echoed, trying to figure out how to get Jonas from her arms without waking him. Gabriel would never forgive him. He didn’t even want to think about how Kate would react. “Look, you must give the baby back to me. I promised His Highness that I, and I alone, would hold Jonas—that is, the young princeling.”

“He needs water,” Miss Damson said. “Or he will die.” She looked down again. “I think there’s a chance he won’t live through the night, actually. Babies die awfully quickly if they don’t drink enough.”

Wick walked forward and pushed the door open before her. “Straight to the end of the corridor and down two flights.”

When they reached the kitchen, nine or ten heads swiveled almost in unison.