“Mr. Cat will not sit at table with Mrs. Crumpet,” Leonie reminded Nick. “Though he will share a brandy with Lord Steed when it’s nippy out.”

Leonie chattered on, her prattle confirming Leah’s growing suspicion that though Leonie had the appearance of a young lady, she was a child still in her mind, and likely in her heart as well.

But what was she to Leah’s husband? Surely he would not have used Leonie in any carnal sense? That notion was too absurd to entertain. Nick loved this Leonie, and Leonie obviously loved her Nick.

“How do you take your tea?” Leonie asked very properly. Leah glanced over at Nick, but his expression was watchful, giving nothing away.

“I am rather spoiled in this regard,” Leah said. “I like plenty of cream and at least two lumps of sugar.”

“Papa has a sweet tooth as well,” Leonie confided, beaming at Nick. “Don’t you?”

“I have a sweet tooth in proportion to the rest of me,” Nick admitted, his guarded eyes belying his easy tone. “What about Lord Steed? I’ve known others of his ilk to be fond of sugar.”

Leonie turned to the stuffed horse. “He says we can’t very well put carrots in his tea.”

As the sun set slowly, tea passed in a pleasant childish amalgam of make-believe, let’s pretend, and social banter. Leonie was peculiarly intuitive, sensing currents around her more accurately than would others her age.

And yet… As Leah watched Nick taking tea with his daughter and her stuffed animals, saw the fathomless love and concern for her in his eyes, Leah realized that here was the reason Nick Haddonfield still had a capacity for whimsy.

Leonie was the reason Nick was so affectionate, so devoted to his family, so tenderhearted, protective, and responsible—Leonie and her need for him. When another in Nick’s position might have become just one more strutting young lordling, Leonie had instead given Nick the impetus to turn himself into a man anyone would be proud to call friend.

As Leah took in blond hair, blue eyes, significant height, and a host of mannerisms shared between parent and child, she tried to absorb the fact that this lovely, fey, childlike young woman was Nick’s very own daughter. Nick had loved her for her entire life and would love her until his dying breath and beyond.

And yet, it was a love that only enhanced the regard Leah felt for her husband.

“As it is nigh dark,” Mrs. Waverly said, “we’d best be retiring, Miss Leonie. I’m sure your papa needs to seek his own bed.”

Leonie shook her head vigorously, which had a few more tendrils of blond hair tumbling loose. “Not Papa. He’s allowed to stay up late.”

“That I am, Leonie mine.” Nick rose and drew Leonie to her feet with a flourishy bow. “But young ladies need their beauty sleep.”

“Good night, Papa.” Leonie flung her arms around Nick’s waist and hugged him tightly. He bent over her, wrapping his arms around her gently and kissing her brow. “Will you come see me again soon?”

Nick smiled down at her. “As soon as I can, princess.”

“Will you bring Mrs. Nick? Can we have another tea party?”

Nick’s smile became subtly pained. “Perhaps. If one plans a tea party, it has a tendency to provoke the heavens into raining, but we’ll see.”

“Of course we’ll come for another tea party,” Leah interjected, smiling at Leonie. “I am new to the neighborhood, so I will be out making calls, and it will be nice to share a cup with some friendly faces. Perhaps next time I can meet Mr. Cat?”

“He should love to meet you,” Leonie assured her earnestly, disentangling herself from Nick’s embrace. “Good night, Mrs. Nick.” She startled Leah no end by flinging her arms around Leah’s neck as well, a dicey proposition, when Leonie had several inches of height over Leah and was an enthusiastic hugger.

“Off to bed with you, favorite brat,” Nick chided playfully. “Set a good example for Lord Steed and Mrs. Crumpet.”

“Yes, Papa.” Leonie beamed at them in the waning light, blew Nick a noisy kiss good night, then turned and scampered into the house.

Or scampered as well as someone could who was quite tall for an adult woman.

Nick offered Leah his arm and escorted her to the stables in complete silence. The horses were brought out, and when Nick would have boosted Leah into the saddle, she leaned in close to read his expression.

Nothing. Nick’s face gave away not one thing. Not relief, not fatigue, not resignation, nothing.

“Do you mind if we walk back to Clover Down?” Leah suggested on impulse. She wanted to be touching Nick when they finally got around to discussing his daughter, not stealing glances at him from atop her horse.

“It’s a pleasant night.” Nick handed the reins to the groom, who led the horses off without a word. Leah accompanied her husband to the foot of the lane before Nick’s voice pierced the gathering gloom.

“For God’s sake, Leah, say something.”

What to say?

“That Mrs. Crumpet is rather a dull thing,” Leah managed. “Makes you wonder upon whom Leonie modeled her.”

“Her previous companion,” Nick replied. “It took me almost a year to comprehend the dratted woman threatened to hide Leonie’s stuffed animals if Leonie complained to me of anything.”

“How old is your daughter?”

“She just turned sixteen,” Nick said on a soft exhalation. “Physically she’s sixteen, but mentally…”

“I’m not sure mentally matters a great deal. We can all be reduced to mewling infancy under the wrong circumstances. Tell me about her, Nicholas. You are clearly a devoted papa, and she adores you.”

“She adores anyone,” Nick said, wearily to Leah’s ears, maybe guardedly as well. “It scares the hell out of me, if you want the truth. Someday, some bloody young swain will come along, delivering the eggs, and walk off with her heart if not her virtue.”

He went on, pouring out a litany of every father’s hopes and fears for his daughter, his fondest memories and most harrowing moments. Leah listened, leading Nick around to the back gardens at Clover Down as the words continued to flow from him, haltingly at first, but then more steadily, until his voice was a rumbling torrent of paternal devotion.

When it had been full dark for more than an hour and the crickets were chirping at the moon, Leah sat beside Nick among the newly blooming roses, holding his hand and hoping she was reading the situation correctly.

“So how did she come to be as she is?”

“Fevers, though I didn’t realize it until my old nurse informed me of it this week. I thought Leonie was born that way.”

“It must have been quite a shock,” Leah said, “to be what, fifteen years old, and a father?”

“It was a shock. I didn’t find out about Leonie until I was seventeen. I’d been dallying for several years at that point and had come to comprehend the precautions that must be taken. As a very young fellow, though, I was heedless.”

“You got somebody with child. I can’t understand why the young lady didn’t simply apply to you for support.”

“She was a relation of Magda’s,” Nick said. “Daughter to a tenant, and she went to Magda first, thinking to rid herself of the child. Even the heir to an earldom is a poor bet for one’s future when he’s fifteen years of age.”

“Your father pensioned her off?” Leah suggested, drawing Nick’s hand through hers.

“Magda sent the girl to live with cousins here in Kent,” Nick said. “Then announced her own retirement about a year later. No one thought anything of it, given that Magda is older than dirt.”

“And you would have been sixteen when your nurse left Belle Maison.”

“Sixteen, and as is the case at that age, a very different heir than I would have been at fourteen or fifteen. I charged off to university, full of my considerable self, ready to have at adult life.”

“What happened?”