My Last Duchess, стр. 57
“Then where did you come from?” He drifted a step nearer, and now he stood directly before her. Mr. Berwick wore beautifulclaret-colored livery with frogged buttons. Somehow on him it didn’t look like livery but like the uniform of the Queen’sown Hussars. And, like them, he was broad-shouldered and muscled and immaculately kempt.
Philippa pulled herself together, and said, “I grew up in a village not far from here. When I heard about the baby, I thoughtI might be able to help.”
“You did?”
Perhaps he was more like a magician than one of Her Majesty’s Hussars. Something about his eyes was making her feel quivery.“And I have helped,” she stated, confident that this, at least, was not a fib.
“You are a mystery.”
“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, naughtygrin. Philippa barely stopped her mouth from falling open. No one had ever given her a smile like that, not to Miss PhilippaDamson, 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 everyoneagreed 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, butKate’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 thatpoor 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 againstthe 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 noticethat 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 leaneda 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 soapand something else, like the wind on the moors. “I like rain,” she said, unable to command her mind to come up with anythingelse.
“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 willeventually 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 suchcases.” 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 therewould 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. Whereis 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 elderlylady clutched his arm. She wore so much face paint, topped by a fuzzy and rather shabby wig, that she resembled a Chinesedog 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 theprince’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