If you like this online read you'll enjoy Deborah Hale's books!

Married: The Virgin Widow
 £1.49
 £1.49

Bought: The Penniless Lady
 £3.39
 £3.39

His Compromised Countess
 £4.24
 £4.24

Opening her letter from Merritt with trembling fingers, Rosemary scanned the once-familiar hand.

"Mr. Temple's had a falling out with Harry's nurse. He needs me to come right away and help him secure a new one."

"Mrs. Jessup might do." Ivy referred to a young widow in the village who'd recently been delivered of a stillborn baby. They had called on her that morning with a quantity of broth and jelly they could hardly spare.

Rosemary shook her head. "The poor creature's too frail and too young. Harry needs a mature, reliable nurse."

She did not say, scarcely allowed herself to think, that Mrs. Jessup was also attractive and eligible for marriage. Not to mention how she might worship Harry, having lost her own infant. Selfish as it might be, Rosemary could not abide the thought of such a woman in Merritt's household.

"Fetch my cloak," she bid Ivy. "I must go at once."

Rosemary carefully folded the letter and slipped it into her apron pocket, knowing she would sleep with it under her pillow that night.

* * *

"Rosemary! You're an angel of deliverance to come on such short notice when you must be so busy."

If he found one pretext after another to occupy her, perhaps it would delay her family's departure to Bath. Merritt tried to resist the selfish inclination.

"Harry's nurse said it's high time he was weaned anyway." He bounced the fretful baby in his arms. "I worry about spoiling his digestion, though. The poor little fellow has taken a cold. I told the woman not to keep his nursery fire so high — the place was an oven!"

"Let me take him."

Rosemary held out her arms and instantly Merritt felt his anxiety ease. She'd attend to the child far more tenderly than Harry's own mother would have. Merritt tried to stifle the bitter regret that gripped him whenever he thought of Sophia. The spoiled heiress had paid for her heedlessness with her life, after all. But he couldn't forgive her having almost killed their unborn child in the process. Nor could he excuse himself for failing to stop her.

Rosemary cuddled the baby close, unmindful of his small runny nose soiling the shoulder of her dress. "If he's feeling unwell, he may not want milk anyway. Have Cook make up some good nourishing broth and see if he'll take any of that."

While she fed and comforted Harry, they discussed Merritt's requirements for a nurse.

"I believe I know the perfect person," she said at last. "Mrs. Olney reared several healthy children, all grown now. Then she had a late baby afflicted with some disorder. Though she tended to him devotedly, the child died not long ago."

Merritt nodded. "I'll go at once and pay her a call. If she's as good as she sounds, I'll engage her services immediately even if I have to pay her a king's ransom."

He paused. "May I impose on your kindness to stay with Harry while I'm gone?"

To be continued...



chapter: 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20