Even so, he kept trying to tell himself that he had no use for a wife, given that his wife must necessarily be a servant. Kate, after all, was the granddaughter of an earl. She was a perfect person to marry a prince. Gabriel was extraordinarily lucky to have met her.

There were few Kates in the world, and none who ended up paired with bastards.

But still . . . as he followed Miss Damson’s admittedly delicious figure from the kitchen, he thought, for the first time in his life, that perhaps he could marry a servant after all.

If the servant was a lady.

Chapter Three

Philippa was feeling wildly self-conscious as she walked out of the kitchen ahead of the devilishly handsome Mr. Berwick. In fact, her skin prickled all over at the idea that he was just behind her.

Which was ridiculous. Absurd.

He was a majordomo, for goodness’ sake. A butler. Her mother would turn in her grave at the very idea that she was noticing a butler’s profile, let alone his voice.

True, he was the most handsome butler she’d ever seen. He didn’t bundle his hair into a little bag the way their family butler, Quirbles, did. Instead, it was pulled back from his face in a way that emphasized his brow. His eyebrows formed peaks over his eyes.

And those eyes . . . they were fierce and proud, like an eagle. Not like a butler. Nothing like a butler.

It wasn’t just she who saw it either. Back in the kitchen, they had all instinctively acted as if he were a gentleman rather than a butler. Fascinating.

Her mind returned to the baby. She was almost certain that Jonas merely had a very bad case of colic. She’d seen as much several times while accompanying her uncle on his rounds, and once in Little Ha’penny itself. But the worrisome question was whether the baby might have something called intussusception, if she remembered the name right. That was when the bowels were all going the wrong way, and no matter what anyone did, the baby died.

She started walking a little faster. There was no point in mentioning this possibility to the princess since it would terrify her for no good reason. If it was intussusception, there was nothing to be done. But she was fairly sure that her uncle had told her that intussusception was always accompanied by a very slow pulse. Jonas’s pulse had seemed quite normal, and in any case, Lily had not reported seeing any blood in his stool—another telltale sign.

She started ticking off in her mind all the things she had to do: reassure Jonas’s mother, first of all. Then give Jonas a warm bath, with a little massage of his tummy. She had some balsam in her bag that she could rub on it.