Storming the Castle

“There is nothing mysterious about me. I’m a very ordinary girl.”

“You can sing in Italian—”

She began to explain, but he held up his hand. “Kate told me all about it.”

He was like no butler she’d ever heard about. And he knew she was thinking precisely that because he gave her a slow, naughty grin. Philippa barely stopped her mouth from falling open. No one had ever given her a smile like that, not to Miss Philippa Damson, the future bride of the future baronet.

Except . . . she wasn’t a future bride anymore.

Without taking a breath, she raised one eyebrow, in just the same manner as the innkeeper’s wife in Little Ha’penny—whom everyone agreed was no better than she should be. “Kate?” she said, purring a little. “What an odd way to refer to your mistress.”

For a moment she feared she’d overdone it, but his smile only deepened, causing a shiver to go right down her back. “Ah, but Kate’s not my mistress,” he said. “At least, not in the most important meaning of the word.”

She blinked, then frowned at him. “You shouldn’t even suggest something like that!”

He threw back his head and laughed. “A very young pigeon, aren’t you? A very, very young—”

“I’m not so young,” she said hotly.

“How old are you, Miss Damson?”

“Twenty. Which is quite old enough for—for all manner of things.”

“Too old to debut,” he said. But she was wise to him now.

“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “After my family fortunes fell, we never considered such a thing, of course.”

“Ah, the fall,” he said, sighing melodramatically. “Ever since the first fall, it’s just been downhill all day.”

“Are you talking about my family or Eve?” Philippa inquired, barely suppressing a giggle. “Because I’ve always thought that poor Eve was more sinned against than sinning.”

“Why so?” he asked, leaning against the wall next to her. It was scandalously casual. A butler never—but never—leaned against the wall. And yet, there he was.

“Eve wasn’t responsible for the sinful enticement of the serpent,” Philippa told him, feeling her heart speed up even further. “She merely offered the apple to her companion, which demonstrated good manners, not to mention generosity.”

“I don’t think that good manners are an acceptable excuse for all that trouble she caused,” Mr. Berwick observed.

“It’s true that she probably should have avoided that particular tree,” Philippa conceded. “Still, no one ever seems to notice that Adam ate the apple as well. It’s half his fault.”

“I blame them both,” Mr. Berwick said. “Just think, if they hadn’t been so foolish, we’d all be living in Paradise.” He leaned a bit closer. “Very warm, I’ve heard. None of this English rain.”

Philippa didn’t move back even though he was close enough that she could smell him. He smelled delicious, like lemon soap and something else, like the wind on the moors. “I like rain,” she said, unable to command her mind to come up with anything else.

“You wouldn’t,” Mr. Berwick said, “if we were both wandering about in it quite naked, without even a fig leaf to our name.”

That hung in the air for a good second. Or ten.

Then she heard it: down the corridor came a thin, protracted wail, an agonizing sound.

“Ah, bollocks,” Mr. Berwick muttered.

It was such an English expletive—and said in such a velvety, accented voice—that Philippa couldn’t help laughing.

A smile spread over his lips too. “You really aren’t worried about Jonas’s survival, are you?”

She shook her head. “He’s crying because milk doesn’t agree with him. But it’s not a mortal condition, and his stomach will eventually get used to it.”

“Fancy yourself a doctor?”

“No, but any person with common sense can see when a baby has colic,” she said. “It’s always better to do nothing in such cases.” She hesitated.

“What?”

So she told him, in a rush, about her fear that Jonas had intussusception. “But I’m sure that my uncle told me that there would be blood in his nappy,” she finished. “And there isn’t.” Jonas’s persistent wails were coming closer.

“It sounds to me as though you’re right,” Mr. Berwick said. “Still, we need your uncle to come take a look at the baby. Where is he? I’ll send a carriage immediately.”

“You couldn’t!” Philippa gasped, horrified. “He would—no!”

“But he’s the best doctor you know. We need him.”

The door opened, and Kate reentered, carrying Jonas and followed by a man who was the prince, presumably. A tottering elderly lady clutched his arm. She wore so much face paint, topped by a fuzzy and rather shabby wig, that she resembled a Chinese dog that had gone through Little Ha’penny along with a traveling fair.

But it was the prince who caught Philippa’s eye. She stood rooted to the spot and looked from Mr. Berwick’s eyebrows to the prince’s, at their hair, their eyes, their chins . . .

“Her Highness, Princess Sophonisba, and His Highness, Prince Gabriel Albrecht-Frederick William von Aschenberg of Warl-Marburg-Baalsfeld,” Mr. Berwick announced. Turning to them, he said, “May I present Miss Damson.”

“Most irregular, being introduced by the butler,” the old lady said irritably. “Well, who are you, then?”

“I’m—”

“She’s a friend of mine,” Kate interjected. “She’s come to help with Jonas.” She smiled at Philippa, and Philippa realized, rather to her surprise, that it was true. Even though she’d known Kate for only a matter of hours, they were friends.

“I can’t hear a word over that howling,” Princess Sophonisba said. “I never heard of a lady nursing her own baby before. I’m sure that’s the problem.” She leveled a thin finger at Kate. “What that child needs is the milk of a hardy peasant. Yours is probably thin and blue. Though now I think on it, you’re practically a peasant yourself.”

Philippa’s eyes met Kate’s, and Philippa said hastily, “I’ll just walk Jonas in the corridor until he calms, shall I?”

“Yes, do,” the elderly princess said. “He sounds like one of the devils they like to talk about in church, the kind who have nothing to do but yowl. Wick, why aren’t you offering us something to drink? Just because Rome is burning doesn’t mean we needn’t fiddle. This screeching is terrible for my nerves.”

Philippa settled Jonas into the crook of her left arm and nodded to the footman, who opened the door for her.

In the hallway, Jonas waved his tiny clenched fists and wailed. He was pulling up his legs again, so his stomach must be aching. Philippa settled him on her shoulder and patted his back gently as she walked.

If Mr. Berwick insisted on summoning her uncle, it would all be over. Her father would arrive within hours, and she would end up back in Little Ha’penny, married to Rodney. Jonas let out a big burp.