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L eaving Piers to see Darcy out, April hurried upstairs to see Gussie. In fact, her greater urge was to go to the baby and make sure he was still happy without Mrs. Robb’s provisions, but she forced herself to go to Gussie first.

The girl was not lying in bed in a darkened room with a cold compress on her head, as April half-expected. Instead, she sat in the chair by the hearth, gazing into the flames. Which might have been why her eyes were red, though April doubted it.

Gussie made an effort, smiling at her. “Has your admirer gone?”

April blinked. “Mr. Darcy? He just had something to get off his chest.” She sat in the chair on the side of the hearth. “I think you should follow his example. What has made you so dislike Sir Peter?”

One hand lifted and fell helplessly back into her lap. “Of course I don’t dislike him,” she said in despair. “But he wasn’t meant to come here, not yet!”

“Why not?” April asked, none the wiser.

“Because... this !” She held up both hands, pointing all her fingers toward her face. “I look terrible!”

April’s lips twitched, which was an entirely unhelpful response, and besides, it wasn’t truly funny. Fortunately, Gussie did not notice.

“You have been very ill,” April said. “And it’s true you’re still a little pale and thin, but terrible ? Hardly. Sir Peter will just be glad to see your health improving. Which it won’t, Gussie, if you keep getting so overwrought about nothing.”

Gussie pushed her head back against the chair. “I know, but I can’t help it. I wanted to take him by surprise in the spring with my brilliant beauty. Pathetic, isn’t it?”

“No,” April said carefully. “But, if this means you have a decided preference for Sir Peter, what on earth makes you believe he is so shallow?”

“Shallow? Of course he is not.”

“Would you dislike him if he started looking a bit peaky?”

“Of course not,” Gussie said impatiently.

“But men are different. They care about how females look. What do you imagine all the primping and fashionable gowns of the Season are all about? Attracting the right male attention. And don’t look at me like that!

If you imagine Piers would have married you if you hadn’t been beautiful as well as clever—”

“I never thought I was beautiful,” April blurted. Though Piers had told her so, she was merely glad of his bias and kindness. It had never been about beauty...had it?

“Well, you are,” Gussie muttered.

Brushing this aside, April tried a different tack. “Is Sir Peter handsome?”

Gussie blinked. “I don’t know. I like the way he looks.”

“I expect he likes the way you look too. But if he likes you, Gussie, he likes you . If he’s worth anything—and I believe he is—he would never be put off by a little thinness of the face. What might put him off is rudeness.”

Gussie closed her eyes. “Was I awful? I had a plan, you see, and he ruined it by turning up.”

April leaned forward. “You really weren’t pleased to see him, were you?”

Gussie shook her head. “But April, I miss him now he’s gone. Am I very foolish?”

“Yes,” April said, smiling. “But the position is not irretrievable. We’ll see him again before we leave. And you must concentrate on rest and recovery. Now, would you like to go for a drive or have you exhausted yourself?”

***

I N FACT, GUSSIE FELL asleep still curled in the chair, so April covered her with a blanket and left her to it.

As soon as she stepped into the passage, she could hear the baby crying. She bolted along the passage to her dressing room.

There she discovered Janey had taken over Martha’s baby-watching duties. The girl stood over the baby’s cradle, her hands over her cheeks in helpless despair, while Georgie bawled his little eyes out.

“Oh my lady, I don’t know what to do with him!” she cried. “I’ve changed his nappy and given him a cuddle, but every time I lay him down, he cries and won’t stop till I pick him up again. And Mrs. Robb said not to pick him up all the time.”

Well, Mrs. Robb is not here. April picked the baby out of his box and his wailing cut off like a tap. The little lips stretched and his watery eyes positively sparkled.

“He smiled at me,” April gasped, and her heart broke into a thousand pieces.

***

P IERS SAT IN HIS FAVOURITE armchair in the library, his legs stretched out in front of the fire and crossed at the ankles. It was a good position in which to think, and his mind was certainly rushing.

Baby Georgie. This house. Tucker and his hackney. Darcy. Essie Brown. Mrs. Robb kept popping in there, too, as did the Parks to whom he and April owed so much. The trouble was, he couldn’t fit them into a pattern that made sense, even leaving half of them out. Too many characters or too few?

He couldn’t tell because they were desperately short of evidence to prove anything at all beyond the existence of a baby discovered the morning before last.

Georgie, this house, Tucker...

The library door burst open and April flew in.

Blinking himself back to reality, he acknowledged the baby in her arms and the fact that her lovely face was wreathed in smiles. His heart turned over, for she was happy. Blazingly, deliriously happy.

“Piers, he smiled at me!”

His heart contracted and he found himself standing up to look. Georgie kicked one leg and fixed imperiously onto Piers’s eyes with his own.

“He’s not smiling at me.”

April brought up her little finger and tickled the baby’s cheek. He kicked both legs and turned his face into April’s breast, burrowing.

“He’s hungry,” April said uneasily, “and Mrs. Robb isn’t back yet.” She touched the corner of Georgie’s mouth, and he latched his lips onto her finger.

Piers laughed. “Well, that seems to be fooling him for a bit.”

Not for long, however. The finger quickly proved unsatisfactory, and he let it go to do some glaring and more quick, heavy breathing instead.

April rocked him in her arms in a panicked sort of a way. “Oh dear. I’ll ask Mrs. Park. Maybe he can take a bit of water or something?”

While Piers moved toward the bell rope, April was already halfway to the door. She clearly meant to go in person to the housekeeper. As worried for her as for the baby, Piers gave up on the bell and merely accompanied her to the kitchen.

This fresh appearance of their lord and lady in the servants’ domain, bearing the baby did not cause consternation so much as chaos.

Busy maidservants bearing glasses and piles of linen, swerved to get a closer look at Georgie, thereby getting in the way of a footman carrying a heavy tray, who was paying more attention to the newcomers than to where he was going.

Bernie the stable boy, clutching a plate of Mrs. Gale’s special door-stop sandwiches for growing boys, gawped at his godlike employers with child and almost fell over a pail of water Janey had set down to scrub the kitchen table.

The water slopped over the side of the bucket, and Mrs. Gale tutted in disapproval as she sailed past it toward her visitors.

As queen of her domain, Mrs. Gale welcomed the viscount and viscountess without looking at them, all her softened focus on the baby in April’s arms, who was now whinging, though whether at the noise in the kitchen or the fact that April had been forced to stand still, was not clear.

“He’s hungry,” Mrs. Gale observed.

Bernie glanced at his sandwiches and looked guilty.

“I know,” April said. “I was hoping Mrs. Robb had stopped for a cup of tea down here.”

“No, she’s not back yet. He must be due for a big spurt of growing, the greedy little fellow. Here, Janey, is there any water left in that kettle? Pour a little bit into a bowl and bring it over. Sit down here, my lady...”

Under everyone’s gaze, Piers and April sat at the kitchen table with the baby. Janey brought a bowl of water from the kettle, which Mrs. Gale tested with the tip of her finger. “Stick your finger in the water, my lady, and see what you can dribble into his little mouth while he sucks it.”

To Piers’s relief, this seemed to work, for the wailing and fussing stopped.

Whenever Georgie released April’s finger, she hastily dunked it into the water again and thrust it back into his eager mouth.

It was peculiarly fascinating. Even more so was the soft expression on April’s face.

He could almost have believed the child was hers, and that caused a tumult in his heart, shot through with pain at her inevitable grief. And his own.

He spared a glance around his gathered, gawking household—which now included Park himself. Bernie, at least, gave the impression of trying to tear himself away, backing toward the kitchen door with his sandwiches untouched.

Mrs. Park emerged from her sitting room, as though roused by the sheer inactivity of the kitchen.

“Why are you all standing around here? What on earth...?” She broke off in astonishment as she caught Piers’s gaze.

“I see. Well, it doesn’t take all of you supervising!

Let’s have the lamps lit. Janey, get that table scrubbed and the bucket out of the way.

Francis, Martha, to the dining room with you. Are you still here, Bernie?”

Reluctantly, everyone began to move again, when a loud knock sounded on the area door. Bernie froze again. Everyone looked to Park for guidance—presumably since the ejection of Essie Brown.

Park squared his shoulders with a certain grimness and sailed across the kitchen to answer the knock himself.

Piers rose, directing Francis with his eyes.

The footman set down his tray and moved to stand in front of April and the baby, while Piers followed Park to the area door, watching from the kitchen doorway as the butler turned the key in the lock.

Park opened the door and froze, staring at whoever or whatever stood there. Piers clenched his fists.

“Evening, Dad,” the visitor said.

***

P IERS CAUGHT HIS brEATH , tensing as the unseen male voice spoke. Park slowly stepped back from the door to make way for the newcomer.