A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby by Vanessa Riley

She stops herself once seen, knowing that she’s dressed as a footman, so perhaps her disguise will hold. It was in a dingy crib, three stories up.”īut she’s made it out safely enough - and tonight, she can sleep knowing that her son has a full belly.Įxcept that she doesn’t quite get away unseen, for as she’s leaving the property, a carriage and cavalry come running through the gate. I drew my arms about me and made sure my heart was still inside my ribs. “Hand over hand, toehold after toehold, I lowered myself until one boot hit the ground and then the other. Luckily, she has people to help her, and if she can trust them a little longer, she knows she’ll have her son back one day.Īfter his feeding, she hears voices in the hallway, and has to hide outside on the window ledge and scurry down the side of the building. She has to prepare more before she will be ready to rescue Lionel. And she sees right away that she’s correct - the boy has a rash and is stinky, and gobbles hungrily when she offers him her breast.īut while he isn’t in perfect shape, he isn’t in a dire way yet, and Patience knows that tonight isn’t the night for a jailbreak. Slowly and quietly she made her way up to the nursery for a feeding, because she knew that no one could better care for and feed an infant than his mother.

Unbeknownst to him, Patience had been released, and now she risked recapture to care for her infant boy. When she had finally escaped the room, Markham had restrained her and sent her to Bedlam, but maintained guardianship of her son. Already prejudiced against Patience due to the color of her skin, and blaming her for her husband’s suicide, he had locked her and her son in the nursery until she had become terrified and had panicked. She is on a perilous yet essential mission - she has disguised herself as a white footman and has snuck back into her own home to breastfeed her son Lionel.Īfter the death of her husband, her husband’s uncle Markham had become a terrible tyrant.

Our story begins differently than any of our others - for we are seeing the scene through first-person, through the eyes of our heroine, Patience Jordan.

A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby by Vanessa Riley