Read Online My Lord Winter by Carola Dunn - Free Book Online

hot cheek. What had come over her? She was not given to changing colour like a ninnyhammer, and the earl had merely expressed his gratitude. It must have been the way he looked at her. Who would have guessed that grey could be such a warm colour? His hand had been cool, strong yet gentle. Her own still tingled from the contact.
    No wonder young ladies were not allowed to be alone with gentlemen, she thought, if the result was to leave young ladies feeling peculiar all over!
    A footman was watching her, with curiosity that changed at once to rigid impassivity when he realized he was observed.
    “Pray direct me to the nursery,” Jane requested. She would go there first, so that she’d be able to take news of the child to Lady Fitzgerald.
    Despite precise directions, it took her some time to reach the nursery, tucked away at the top of a distant wing. There she found Miss Gracechurch instructing the housemaid who had been put in charge of the baby because she had once held a position as nursery maid. She had never been in sole charge of a newborn before, and she was absorbing Gracie’s words with wide-eyed anxiety.
    Rather than interrupt, Jane went straight to the cradle where the Honourable Miss Fitzgerald was fast asleep in a lace-trimmed gown and cap—Gracie disapproved of swaddling bands. The baby’s tiny, dimpled fists pressed to her cheeks. Jane thought her decidedly plain with her snub nose and squashed chin, though she wouldn’t have dreamed of saying so. She had yet to see an infant whose looks justified the inevitable admiration, but perhaps it was different when one had children of one’s own, at least until they reached an age to be bothersome.
    Not for the first time, she vowed to herself that her own children, however bothersome, should never be sent away to a distant estate to be reared by servants. This nursery was far enough, isolated enough, from the more frequented parts of the house.
    “Too far,” said Gracie as they retraced their steps together. “Lady Fitzgerald has to nurse the child herself until a wet nurse can be hired and it is most unwise to carry so young a babe back and forth along miles of draughty corridors. I wonder whether I ought to speak to the housekeeper or to Lady Wintringham herself about preparing a closer room.”
    “If you like, I will ask the earl.”
    “The earl! I hardly think you are on such terms with his lordship as to request his assistance in a matter that is the concern chiefly of the lady of the house.”
    “I have been talking to him, and I believe he is not so black as he is painted. Indeed, when he forgets how important he is and comes down off his high horse, he is an amazingly agreeable gentleman.”
    “His high horse? Jane, pray do not...”
    “...use my brother’s slang—I mean, colloquialisms. I beg your pardon, Gracie dear. But do you wish me to speak to Lord Wintringham, in the King’s English, about changing the baby’s room?”
    “I think not. He might mount again onto his high horse.”
    Jane giggled and impulsively hugged her governess. “I do love you, Gracie.”
    “And I you, my dear.” Smiling, she touched Jane’s cheek lightly before reverting to her subject. “Perhaps it will be best if the Fitzgeralds themselves approach Lady Wintringham.”
    “They might not care to approach so unapproachable a lady for a favour after setting her household at sixes and sevens already. I know: we shall have Ella ask the advice of his lordship’s valet, who was so helpful last night.”
    “An excellent notion. Now the only remaining question is whether I send a footman to fetch Ella or go to my chamber and ring for her. What a trial it is to live in such vast magnificence, to be sure!”
    Laughing, they parted and Jane continued to Lady Fitzgerald’s room. Both her husband and her sister were there. The Fitzgeralds were delighted to see Jane, but Lavinia Chatterton seemed uncomfortable. After a few minutes, she crossed to the window, glanced