He had sent a footman to Manchester with explicit instructions to find experienced nannies and doctors, at least two of each. The baby didn’t need a pretty bosom to nestle against: he needed someone who could figure out what was wrong with him.

But Wick walked back across the room, maintaining the same even stride with which he’d lulled Jonas to sleep. The girl didn’t meet his eyes; she was staring at the baby.

“Your name and your experience with children?” he asked briskly, thinking to get the whole thing over within two minutes. There were strands of bright hair peeking out from the girl’s cap, and her eyes were moss green. Plus, she had an entirely delectable bosom . . . she would never do. She’d have the footmen at fisticuffs within the week.

She didn’t seem to hear his inquiry. Instead, she came straight up to him and peered at Jonas’s face. “He’s wanting water, that’s for certain.”

“Babies don’t drink water,” Wick said, and never mind the fact that he’d never held a baby before this one. “Babies drink milk.” Her ignorance of this obvious truth was another strike against her employment.

“If they have the collywobbles, they need water as well.”

“How much experience have you had with infants?” He could see the nape of her neck as she peeked more closely at his nephew. It was delicate, pale, and translucent, like the finest porcelain. “Have you been a nursemaid for long?” Then, annoyed by the fact he was looking at her neck, he added, “You’re far too young.”

“I don’t have much experience, but what I have is the right sort,” she said, looking up at him, finally. He mentally revised his assessment of her eyes: they were not the green of moss, after all, but the green of the sea on a stormy day.

Wick felt an altogether uncomfortable warmth in the area of his groin. He’d be damned if he would line up with the footmen to ogle one of his fellow servants.

He’d accepted long ago that ladies were not for him. True, he was the son of a grand duke, albeit a grand duke in far-off Marburg. But he had been born on the wrong side of the blanket. Raised in a castle and yet a bastard—which meant that he couldn’t marry anyone of respectable birth. And he was too educated to settle for a milkmaid who wouldn’t mind his questionable parentage.

“What sort of experience is the right experience?” he asked.

But she had bent near again and was studying the baby’s face. “I don’t like the look of him,” she said, pursing her lips. They were rose-colored, those lips.

Wick looked past her lips to Jonas. “At least he’s sleeping,” he said. “He cried all night.”