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P iers felt somewhat frustrated, not to say outwitted, by the slippery Amos Tucker, who had certainly eluded them most effectively.

Unsure of the regulations, he didn’t know if Tucker could simply choose to work from a different hackney stand.

Or sell his horse and carriage and vanish into London’s anonymity.

Which really didn’t sound like any son of the Parks, even one who had been to prison.

So how could his questions at the stand the previous day have stirred Tucker to house-breaking? Was the Christmas rose a misleading clue? Or was Tucker truly the father of the child trying to steal it back? Then why abandon his son in the first place?

“We are going in circles,” he said abruptly, climbing back into the hackney after asking questions at the third hostel he had visited that morning.

“Slowly.”

April was irritated because he was insisting on going alone into these insalubrious hostels.

If they had separated, they could have got round twice as many.

In the old days, as Ape or April, she could have been much more effective in such investigations, inveigling all sorts of people to talk to her.

He had rather tied her hands by making her Lady Petteril and she knew it.

If she had been Hortensia, she would have sniffed. As it was, she glared at him, shifting restlessly.

“I don’t even hold the horses anymore,” she muttered as the hackney moved on.

He nudged her with his elbow. “If it’s any consolation, I feel I’ve been wasting my own time too. I’m beginning to wonder if either Tucker or Simon, even if they’re the same man, have anything to do with our baby. Maybe it’s time to think . And to write.”

Piers had always been an intellectual, a man of thought.

That he could also be effective as a man of action had been something of a revelation that helped him deal with the difficult transition from Oxford don to viscount.

And to solve new kinds of puzzles. But sometimes he did need space—and peace—to clarify his mind and see the truth.

April, since she had first learned to use a pen, had begun to write things down. She thought and acted quickly because she had always had to, but often their joint clarity had come from what she had written.

She nodded and leaned against him. “It must be midday anyway. We should go home to Gussie.”

“I already told the jarvey.”

They were quiet on the journey home, but silence with April had always been as pleasant as her sunny chatter.

Only, over the last few days, she hadn’t seemed quite as sunny as usual. Glancing at her, he saw her eyelids drooping and closing. Of course, her sleep had been interrupted last night by his blundering pursuit of their house breaker.

The familiar, gentle ache of protective love folded around him. There were many joys in marriage, he had found. And there were these quiet, profound moments he had no name for.

In the traffic confusion of Piccadilly, the hackney was forced to halt behind a large dray whose driver was arguing vociferously, though with whom, Piers could not see.

What did make him sit up was the sight of his neighbour, James Darcy, weaving along Piccadilly toward St. James as though with some purpose.

And a few yards behind him, bless his heart, weaved the quick, casually slouching figure of Bernie, Petteril’s new stable boy.

Good for you, lad .

As though his involuntary movement had woken her, April lifted her head from his shoulder. The hackney moved forward to the sound of a few more insults hurled by their driver.

“Darcy,” Piers explained. “With young Bernie on his tail.”

“Oh.” She stretched and blinked rapidly. “I need to wake myself up. Can we walk from here?”

“Why not?” Piers rapped with his cane on the roof and heard the jarvey curse as he manoeuvred into a safe place to halt.

Piers alighted, handed down his sleepy lady, and paid the grumpy driver before strolling on toward home with her hand in his arm. Someone raised his hat to them, which Piers acknowledged with a gracious nod and walked on, since he’d no idea who the man was.

Neither had April, apparently, for she did not murmur his name as she always did if she knew.

Newly the pie-man’s stall had been re-stocked for the midday rush, and he was doing a brisk trade. Reg the Veg was not short of customers either.

“The flower girl’s gone,” April said beside him. “Why is she always hidden or gone?”

She veered toward the stalls, dragging Piers with her. He gave in, since she had a point. She caught Reg’s attention just by her presence, and being so clearly above the rank of the others who surrounded him.

“Where’s the flower girl?” April asked him.

“Gone home,” said Reg, gesturing toward the empty barrow that stood close into the railings. “Nothing left to sell.”

“But she’s left her barrow.”

“Jack will take it for her.”

Will he, by God? Piers regarded the pie man with an interest that wasn’t quite free of suspicion, though of what he was at a loss to grasp. Jack Newly was far too busy to notice.

April allowed Piers to draw her away toward home but there was a furrow on her brow that amounted to worry. “I don’t like this, Piers. That girl is too frightened.”

Once, she had said the same thing about Gussie and she had been right at the time. Because of her, they were all a little wiser. April knew pretty much everything about fear and she recognized the signs most people would never even notice.

“Of what?” he asked. “Those two?”

“They’re pushing her out, aren’t they? I don’t know why, but something is going on. I hate that they can do that, Piers. It isn’t right.”

He caught her gaze. “I know. But you can’t save them all, April.”

But she wouldn’t be April if she didn’t try, now that she was a viscountess with comparative wealth and status. He suspected she had always tried, even when her power was limited to sending the bad men in the wrong direction or just getting in the way and being cuffed aside for her pains.

His stomach still tightened at such thoughts. Worse were the sudden tears filling her eyes. She looked away, glaring straight ahead to dissipate them. He allowed her the dignity, giving her a moment’s silence before wondering aloud what Gussie was up to.

“Primping in case her admirers call, probably,” April said lightly, and the moment passed.

Francis admitted them to the house and took their outerwear with great willingness. His gaze was a mixture of anxiety and hope when it landed on Piers, but that was no bad thing.

“Where is Miss Gussie?” he asked.

“Sitting in the drawing room, my lord.”

Gussie was, in fact, pacing in the drawing room, and ready to pounce.

“Piers!” she exclaimed, advancing on them from the window. “We know where the baby comes from, and you need to speak to Park who has behaved atrociously!”

Piers blinked. “ Park has?”

“The baby?” April asked urgently at the same time. “Where is he?”

“Upstairs with the nurse, since she hasn’t gone out yet and Park wouldn’t let the child’s family take him home!”

Piers pointed to the sofa. “Sit, little coz, and stop working yourself into a frenzy that will make you ill again.”

April sat beside her and Piers swung over a chair and sat astride it, his arms resting along its back.

“Cough,” he suggested.

“What?” Gussie asked, bewildered.

“More than his accent has slipped,” April said wryly. “He means, tell us what happened. Who is this family you think is Georgie’s?”

“A woman came to the door—the tradesmen’s door—while the staff were all drooling over the baby. I was on my way to sit in the garden, and I seemed to be the only person who heard the knock, so I answered it. The woman said she’d come about the baby, so naturally I brought her inside.”

“Was she alone?” April asked quickly.

“Quite alone, and she told this most tragic tale of her dreadful stepdaughter who left her own child on a random stranger’s doorstep simply to hurt her husband and father!

She would not even tell her family where she had abandoned it until they got it out of her today and this lady came at last to fetch him home. Can you imagine the worry? And Park...”

“What was her name?” Piers interrupted.

“Her name?” Gussie closed her mouth, frowning. “Actually, I don’t believe she said.”

“Don’t you find that a little odd?” Piers asked gently.

“What I find odd,” Gussie retorted, “is Park’s totally unfeeling response!

And Mrs. Park backed him up. It was as if they didn’t want the baby’s real family to be found, as if they wanted to keep him for themselves!

Honestly, Piers, no one but me even tried to stand up for the poor woman who was not even allowed to see the baby!

Oh, I’m not saying he should go back to his mother who must be utterly unsuitable, but her stepmother will be taking over the care now and she was clearly—”

“Clearly?” April interrupted. “Could you see this woman’s face?”

“Well, not exactly...”

“Because she was wearing a black veil?” April said. “And a black hat and cloak? Little woman with a soft voice and a peculiar way of talking?”

Gussie’s jaw dropped. “You know her?”

“Essie Brown,” April said matter-of factly. “She’s a baby farmer.”

“A what?”

“She collects babies and children. Some are stolen. Some people pay her—a great deal in some cases—to look after their accidental offspring. Which she does up to a point. Some she sells—again for a great deal of money—to desperate childless couples. Some die because they’re too young or get ill and she never lets a doctor over the door.

Those who grow big enough she sells into employment—often of a kind you don’t even want to know about—or just takes all their wages which amounts to far more than the meagre rations they’re given to eat. ”

She broke off, as though suddenly mindful of her audience and glanced surreptitiously at Piers, who was thinking grimly of the kinds of “employment” she meant.

“That is horrific,” Gussie whispered.

“It is,” April agreed.