The Duke's Gamble. Miranda Jarrett

“Don’t fear, duck, we’ll see you through. If you’ll just hold her knee for her here, miss.”

      Gratefully Amariah obeyed, and at once was caught up in the drama of the birth. As she’d thought, the baby crowned and slipped into the midwife’s waiting hands within minutes of her appearance. A boy, loud and lusty, and as the kitchen staff cheered his arrival, the new mother wept with mingled joy, exhaustion and despair as the midwife put her new son, wrapped in a clean dishcloth, to her breast for the first time.

      “I’d nowheres t’ go, Miss Penny,” she whispered through her tears. “But you an’ t’other Miss be so kind t’ us in th’ yard each day, I thought I could…I could—”

      “You did exactly the right thing coming here,” Amariah said softly, brushing her fingertips over the baby’s downy head. “We’ll find a safe home for you and your son once you’ve recovered. Now rest, and enjoy him.”

      “Sammy,” said the girl. “His name be Sammy. Sammy Patton.”

      “Sammy, then.” Amariah smiled. “Welcome to this life, Sammy. And may God bless you both.”

      She helped the midwife bundle the soiled linens, closing the door gently to let the new mother sleep. Yet even as she washed her hands and arms, the image of the new baby lingered, his tiny wrinkled fists ready to take on a hard life, his pink mouth as wide and demanding as a little bird’s, ready to announce his hunger and indignation to the world.

      “Miss Penny?” Pratt stood before her, even more anxious than usual. “Miss Penny, his grace is here for you.”

      “His grace?” Amariah stared at him, her thoughts still on the new baby.

      “His Grace the Duke of Guilford, miss.” Pratt nodded, as if confirming this for himself as well as for her. “I have put his grace in the front parlor.”

      “Guilford!” Oh, merciful heavens, how had she forgotten so completely about him? Swiftly she tore off her bloodstained apron and ran toward the stairs, smoothing her hair as best she could, then flung open the twin doors to the parlor.

      “Good day, your grace,” she said with a sweeping curtsy. “Forgive me for keeping you waiting, but I had an unexpected emergency that needed my attention below stairs.”

      She smiled warmly, but Guilford only stared, his expression oddly frozen.

      “Good day to you, too, Miss Penny,” he said at last. “It would appear that I’ve caught you at an, ah, inopportune time. Shall I wait for you to recollect yourself?”

      “I won’t make you wait at all, your grace,” she said, puzzled. “I’ll just send for my bonnet, and I’ll be ready.”

      He shook his head, for once seemingly at a loss for what to say. “I shall be glad to wait, you know. Perfectly glad.”

      “But there’s no reason for it, your grace,” she began, then caught him looking down at her dress. It wasn’t the usual kind of admiring gentleman’s look, but a silently appalled and beseeching look, and quickly she turned toward the glass over the fireplace to judge for herself.

      She was still wearing the plain gray wool gown she’d chosen for morning prayer, now rumpled and wrinkled and stained where her apron hadn’t covered her enough. She wore no jewelry, and her hair, though mussed, was still drawn back tight in a knot at the back of her head.

      It wasn’t much different than how she usually looked for day, but Guilford wouldn’t know that. Whenever he saw her, she was always dressed in one of her blue Penny House gowns, fashionably cut low and revealing, with white plumes pinned into her curled hair and paste jewels sparkling around her throat. How she looked for the evenings was as much a part of the club as the Italian paintings on the wall or the green cloth covering the hazard table upstairs, and no more a part of her, either.

      She glanced back at him with that pathetically woeful expression on his face. Of course, he was wearing his same habitual coat, so dark a blue as to be nearly black, a green-flowered silk waistcoat draped with a heavy gold watch chain and cream-colored trousers, all chosen to please himself and without a thought for where they were going. Had he truly expected her to match him, and dress in the gaudy blue silk and paste necklace for calling on almshouses?

      “I’m perfectly content to wait,” he said again, adding a coaxing smile. “Take as long as you wish. I understand how ladies can be, you know.”

      “Oh, I’m sure you do, your grace,” she said, smiling in return. She understood him, too, and likely a good deal better than he either realized or wished. “I suppose I am a bit untidy. I’ll take those few minutes to refresh myself, and be back before you miss me. Shall I send for Pratt to bring you refreshment?”

      “That excellent fellow has already tended to me.” He gathered the glass from the table beside him, raising it toward her like a toast. “Hurry back, sweetheart. And mind that I’m most partial to the color blue on a lady like you.”

      “I’ll take that into consideration, your grace,” she said as she backed from the room.

      But now it was outrage that sent her marching up the stairs to her private rooms to change, her heels clicking fiercely on the treads of the steps. For an intelligent man, the duke was behaving like a first-rate dunce. This was the other night after the wedding all over again. Did Guilford really believe her memory was this short? She’d asked him to join her today for educational purposes, not to amuse him, and she knew she’d made her intentions perfectly clear.

      Quickly she shed the soiled gown, washed, and brushed her hair, then stood before the other gowns that hung in the cupboard. She didn’t possess the vast wardrobe that Guilford seemed to believe. Beyond the dramatic gowns for evening that she and her sisters wore for their roles at Penny House, there wasn’t much that would meet the stylish standards of a duke. The only one that might do was a soft blue wool day gown with a ruffled hem, complete with a matching redingote with more ruffles across the bust, and a velvet bonnet in a deeper blue—an ensemble designed by her fashionable sister Cassia, and the one Amariah wore when she and her sisters went driving in the park together. She touched her fingers to one of the ruffles and smiled, imagining how pleased Guilford would be to see she’d obeyed his request.

      Then she resolutely turned to the gown beside it. A serviceable dove gray with dull pewter buttons, high necked and as plain as a foggy day: a dress somber enough for a poor neighborhood. Amariah’s smile widened with fresh determination as she reached for the gown and drew it over her head.

      Guilford wouldn’t be partial to this color, or the sturdy plainness of her gown, either. She didn’t care, or rather she did for the opposite reasons. At least she knew how to dress unobtrusively and suitably when the situation called for it.

      And as for her so-called reputation as a virago: ah, for a virago the gray gown would be entirely appropriate!