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“’Course I will,” Brearly said generously.

“If I’m still waiting.” As the carriage in front eased forward a few steps, his horse ambled forward too without obvious instruction.

April and Piers moved with him. “Wait though,” he said suddenly, taking off his hat again and scratching his scalp.

“He ain’t working today. I saw him on my way to work this morning —in the street like.

Looked pretty rough too, poor bug—er... fellow. ”

“You mean he’s sick?” Piers asked in surprise, though it wasn’t really astonishing if a man poked in the throat with an umbrella should feel a trifle unwell the next day.

“Looked it,” the jarvey replied.

“I don’t suppose you know where he lives?” Piers said hopefully.

Their informant shrugged, abruptly closing ranks with his absent colleague against the nosy nobs. “I don’t go round for tea and scones.”

“No matter,” Piers said. “I can easily find out from the borough records.”

“That’s true,” the man allowed, perhaps feeling his refusal had been too hasty. He stared at Piers. “I don’t hold with abandoning children. Terrible thing to do.”

“It is,” April said cordially. “Which is why my husband needs Mr. Tucker’s help.”

“He’s not in trouble,” Piers assured him.

Yet , thought April grimly.

“I need to know about one of his passengers,” Piers continued. “You can’t pick and choose those, after all.”

“Wish you could sometimes,” the jarvey said with feeling. “I been doing this for close on five years now and—”

“Same as Mr. Tucker?” April interrupted.

“Nah, he’s a Johnny-come-lately. Look, I don’t know his precise direction but I can tell you roughly. Save you going to the borough.”

“That’s very helpful of you,” Piers said fervently.

“A wife,” April murmured, as they made their way to the front of the line of hackney cabs. “Do you suppose Simon took the mother as well as the child when he fled from the north?”

“It’s possible. It would certainly be another reason to hide from his disapproving parents. Only why would he leave the child now? Why would she?”

“Maybe she died,” April said with sudden bleakness.

“There is no reason to suppose so.” He spoke with perfect calm but as though he understood her sudden surge of unspecific grief, he covered her hand with his. And then they were climbing into the front carriage and heading for Amos Tucker’s neighbourhood.

***

A MANDA ROBB WALKED out of the back door into the kitchen garden, another woman’s child in her arms when she longed for her own.

Not that she resented this scrap of abandoned humanity. It was the parents she resented. How could they leave their child with strangers?

The Petterils, of course, were rich people. Kind people, too, apparently. But surely whoever left the boy on their doorstep hadn’t cared about that. They had just left him and run. Indefensible.

The sky was quite clear this morning, the sunshine bright though cold. She walked around the garden with Georgie, telling him about the herbs they passed, and the apple tree and gooseberry bushes. Georgie looked as though he were interested.

On Lady Petteril’s orders, an old but beautiful cradle had been rescued from a dusty room at the top of the house and was being thoroughly cleaned. In their own way these people were looking after Georgie. His lordship was not immune to the baby’s appeal.

As for her ladyship... Amanda was more worried about her.

Like herself, Lady Petteril would find it hard to let go when she had to.

And she would have to. Even if his lordship decided to pay for Georgie’s upbringing, it would never be as their son.

Titled lords needed blood heirs. They would have children of their own and forget about Georgie.

I wouldn’t . But then, Amanda had no chance now of other children.

Her husband was dead, and she could not imagine marrying again.

She sat down dreamily on the wrought iron bench, lifting her face to the weak sunshine.

But I could take him in. With the Petteril’s recommendation, I could get other positions with rich people, afford a better place for Mama and Esther and Georgie. ..

Only she would not see her daughter as often as she wished... Like now, and it had only been a day. She looked forward to going home quite fiercely, even for an hour or two...

Her skin prickled and she opened her eyes, instinctively holding the baby closer.

Lady Petteril had been afraid someone was trying to steal Georgie.

.. Amanda had thought it foolish imagination, yet now she gazed around, at each of the blank windows of the house.

From the kitchen sink, the maid Janey waved to her.

But still the hairs on Amanda’s neck stood up. Someone was watching her. She knew it.

A breeze ruffled the bare branches of the apple tree. The gooseberry bushes suddenly seemed too thick and impenetrable, the garden too vulnerable.

Abruptly, she stood and almost ran along the path back into the house.

***

I N THE END, PIERS AND April found Tucker’s abode without having to ask. It was the only one that boasted an outbuilding that had clearly been used as a stable and carriage house. And right in front of that was a lushly blooming Christmas rose bush.

“There’s no horse or carriage in the stable,” April said, after jumping up to see in the cracked and grimy window. “If he isn’t at work, where is he?”

“I have a horrible feeling I know,” Piers said ruefully. “Let’s ask his nearest neighbour.”

This turned out to be a young woman with a toddling child clinging to her skirts.

“Mr. Tucker?” she said in reply to Piers’s question. “He’s gone, sir. He got a new place, cheaper rent and better accommodation for the horse.”

“We’ve just missed him, have we not?”

“Afraid so sir,” the young woman said. “He just loaded up the last of the things into the carriage a couple of hours ago and off he went.”

“Was his wife with him?” April asked.

“Oh, no, she went already the day before—or was it the day before that?—to make it homely while he did the heavy lifting and caught her up.”

“She took the baby, then,” April said, making it more statement than question, but the woman nodded as though that was understood.

April was almost bouncing on Piers’s arm as they left the neighbour’s door. “There is a baby,” she crowed. “And either of them could have left it on our doorstep.”

“But why would they?” Piers asked. “These are decent lodgings and he looked well enough and prosperous enough to me.”

“She left him,” April said. “Tucker is Simon and he left the baby on our doorstep for his parents to look after.”

It was, Piers reflected, the only story that made sense.

Only the secrecy seemed wrong —breaking into Petteril House whether to get the baby back or to speak to the Parks.

“I suppose prison might have made him secretive... He might have lurked some time in his cab outside our house, wondering if he’d done the right thing, and then bolted suddenly before he changed his mind, going so fast that he knocked Darcy over on the way past.”

She glanced at him sharply. “You don’t believe it.”

“I don’t disbelieve it. I just don’t think we have all the facts.”

“We certainly don’t have Simon,” she allowed, frowning. “Nor any forwarding address for him. More prison secrecy?”

“Perhaps. Either way, we have lost him for the day. He won’t be back at the hackney stand until tomorrow.”

“He won’t be able to afford missing too many days work,” April said. “Shall we go home to Gussie?”

“Via a couple of men’s hostels,” Piers said. “Just in case Tucker is not Simon.”

***

G USSIE WAS WANDERING aimlessly around her old home, which now looked and felt so different, willing herself back to health and looks. A little fresh air might give her back some bloom...

She turned her steps toward the kitchen, thinking she could sit on the garden bench, if it was not too cold, and read a chapter of her novel.

From the foot of the kitchen stairs, she could either go into the kitchen itself, or the narrow passage that led between the back door and the area door.

Judging by the laughter and the cooing coming from the kitchen, the baby and his temporary nurse were in there.

Gussie hesitated a moment, for she liked babies and had better grow used to them too before she met her nephew.

But fresh air beckoned first. She could worship at the baby shrine after that. Before she could reach for the back door, a knock sounded on the area door—loud enough to be heard by the kitchen staff had they not all been occupied in gushing and chortling over the baby.

Even Gussie’s footsteps in the passage, moving all the way from the back to the front of the house did not disturb them. Gussie opened the area door to find a very small woman in black at the door. Black hat, black veil, black cloak.

“Good morning,” said this diminutive, funereal vision in an anxious, sorrowful voice. “I have come about the baby.”

“The baby?” Gussie repeated, startled.

“The one that was found on your doorstep,” the woman said. Behind the veil, her eyes glittered with emotion. “It’s mine.”

Gussie caught her breath. “You had better come in,” she said. What a pity Piers and April had chosen this morning to go out! And then, with a little more glee, it struck her that for once, she would be solving their puzzle for them .

“Oh, I can hear the little mite!” the woman exclaimed, all but rushing past Gussie to the near kitchen door, where she was brought up short by the solid, impressive figure of Park, who looked over her head at Gussie.

“Is this person known to you, Miss Withan?” he inquired in the lofty way only butlers could.

“No, but she says the baby is hers...”

Park looked down his nose at the woman with an unexpected lack of kindness. “Madam?”

“Let me see my dear little Charlie,” she begged.

“Perhaps, when you tell me precisely which step you left the child on.”

“Bless, you,” whispered the woman, raising a handkerchief to her veiled eyes with more symbolism that practicality. “It was not I who left him. It was my stepdaughter, just to vex her husband and her papa, knowing little Charlie is the apple of both their eyes.”

“Then the child is not yours but your stepdaughter’s?

” Mrs. Park said, from beside her husband.

Behind them, quite a crowd of servants had formed, though not Mrs. Robb.

And not the first footman, Joshua, who stood now at the back door, while the other footman, Francis, paused on his way down the steps from above.

Behind her veil, the visitor’s eyes seemed to flicker, taking it all in. “My step-daughter’s, to my shame. It took us this long to get the truth out of her.”

“She does not sound a fit person to be caring for the child,” Gussie said indignantly.

“Oh, she isn’t, miss, she isn’t. Which is why I shall be taking care of it from now on.”

That seemed a much better idea to Gussie. Surely Piers would be happier about it too...

The woman took a hesitant step toward Park. “So if you will just...”

“But we will not just hand the child over,” Park said with quite unnecessary hauteur. “You come back with the child’s parents when Lord Petteril is here, and he will discuss the matter.”

The veiled woman’s eyes sparked through the veil—grief or anger? Either way, Gussie could not blame her. She had never seen the kind-hearted Park so... hard .

“You can’t just abduct a child!” the woman said, rallying, with threat in her voice.

“Nor can you abandon it on a doorstep for days. But if we’re talking about the law, I’m sure his lordship will be happy to bring along a magistrate to decide the legalities, once all the witnesses are gathered.”

“You break my heart,” the woman mourned. “You break my husband’s heart!”

“The matter may be resolved as I have outlined,” Park said, moving inexorably forward so that the visitor had to fall back to the area door, which he opened with perfect civility.

“Cruel,” the woman whispered. “Too cruel.”

He was, and the indignant Gussie couldn’t understand it.

“Good day, madam.” Park almost pushed her out by closing the door, which he locked and bolted behind her.