Page 22

A lthough April’s breath at his neck was even and soothing, Piers could not sleep.

He worried about her and distracted himself by worrying instead about the baby and his failure to find out the truth about him.

Although he truly hadn’t given up, he did recognize that the chances of success were low.

So, he thought about April again and the circle of anxiety continued throughout the night, through short dreams and long spells of wakefulness.

April had fallen asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, as though exhausted by sheer emotion. He could not bring himself to wake her, but he slid from the bed and crept into his dressing room. Five minutes later, he was walking downstairs by the light of a solitary candle.

Only Janey was in the kitchen. “Morning, my lord. The kettle’s just boiling if you want coffee.”

“Thank you,” he said and watched her pour a few previously ground beans into a cup and cover them with hot water from the stove. He left it for a bit, then picked up the cup with a nod and wandered toward the back door. “Best lock it behind me.”

He sat on the garden bench, listening to the first wakeful chirps of the birds and watching the dawn break. He could almost imagine himself in the country, except for the distant sounds from other kitchens and the nearby roads where horses and vehicles and pedestrians were already moving.

He thought about saddling his own horse, then decided to wait for the grooms to get up, which they would do soon enough now.

Reaching the sludge at the bottom of his cup, he abandoned it and ambled across the garden to the mews.

He walked from one end to the other, thinking about Simon and his prison sentence for striking a man who beat his wife.

He thought of the hackney that had all but run Darcy over after Darcy had seen Georgie on the area steps of Petteril House.

He thought about April and her instinctive love of that abandoned baby.

And his own instinct to protect them both.

Grooms were stumbling out of the mews buildings, including his own men who all shambled up the garden path to the kitchen, including Bernie. He still needed to ask Bernie where Darcy had gone yesterday, though his urgency about the matter had quite faded.

Wandering past the gate, he thought he could smell Mrs. Gale’s first breakfast serving of porridge and milk, ham and eggs, and lots of tea.

Was Tucker the hackney driver at his breakfast already? Did his wife rise and prepare it for him? Or did he buy it from a stall like Jack Newly’s on the way?

Reaching the end of the mews, Piers discovered he was cold without his overcoat. Time to go back and wake April and break his own fast. Or should he go alone to find Tucker?

Bernie slipped out of the gate clutching a large, heaped plate, taking it furtively back to the stable as though to protect it. Where did the boy put all that food? He wasn’t feeding bacon to the horses, was he?

Piers smiled to himself. In retrospect, Ape had never been that ravenous. Not after he had begun to live here. Had any of the others seen the clues that Ape was not a growing young boy but a fully adult if undernourished woman?

And he was back to unease over April’s unhappiness, and the baby. Think of Tucker and flowers and well-baked pies, and frightened flower girls - anything that would not paralyze him into blackness.

Abruptly, he halted. His hand was already on the gate, but he didn’t open it, for now his mind was racing, lining up the truths and questioning them until, surely, the only possibility was left.

He had to know.

Turning, he actually ran the length of the mews in the direction of the park and emerged into the street to see Jack Newly the baker setting up his stall alone in the wintry half-light.

A lantern hung on the side of his stall.

There was no sign of the flower girl, although her empty barrow stood again beside the railings.

Newly must have heard his running footsteps, for he half-turned, an expression of surprise on his face. “Where’s the fire, sir?” he asked lightly.

“Good question,” Piers replied, slowing to catch his breath. “Here’s another: what’s the flower girl’s name?”

Even in the odd light, he saw the shutters come down in Newly’s eyes. His smile was fixed. “Ginny? She’s a good girl, sir, hard-working and respectable, always—”

“I have no designs on her virtue,” Piers interrupted. “Her surname?”

A frown creased Newly’s brow, as though he couldn’t find a reason for the question. Or a reason not to answer. “Tucker.”

Tucker .

Part of Piers sagged, though not really in relief. He was right but the tragedy remained.

“Where is she?” he asked steadily.

“Flower market, probably. She’ll be along later.”

“Like yesterday? Hidden behind you and Reg the Veg in case she sells anything?”

Newly took the bait, his eyes spitting. “It’s not like that at all!” He broke off, biting his lips and closed the lid of his stall with distinct clatter.

“No, I don’t really believe it is,” Piers admitted. “But you are hiding her, aren’t you? She’s frightened and probably hurt. We had our eye on you, in case you were bullying her, squeezing her out, but it was never you. You were just hiding her from Tucker. He beats her, doesn’t he?”

“Since they were married,” Newly said, rage in his voice.

“Bastard! What man of any feeling, any honour, could lay a finger on that girl? Her own husband who’s meant to protect her—knocks her around like a football, though never her face, only places she can cover up—and she does.

She took it for more than a year, defending him when I saw the bruises on her arm, when she could barely walk for the pain.

Still, she took it all and stood up for him until he. ..”

He swung away again, swiping a pie from his stall and handing it to a man in a cloth cap Piers hadn’t even seen approach. The exchange was quick and mechanical, pie for coin, with a couple of nods and barely a break in stride for the customer.

“Until,” Piers said, “Tucker discovered he could hurt her more through the baby.” He had heard about the healing bruise on Georgie’s arm, which had supposedly been struck against the side of his box, a difficult feat.

.. “Ginny Tucker brought the baby here with her, didn’t she?

The morning we found him on the doorstep. ”

“He drives a hackney,” Newly said. “He used to work afternoons and late evenings, so when she was selling her flowers, he was at home with the child. But she got too afraid to leave him, so she brought him here with her.”

“But he knew where to find her,” Piers said.

“She caught sight of him the other morning and bolted, left the child on my doorstep to hide him. Tucker followed her in his hackney and lost sight of her. I doubt he’d have seen the baby, even from his box, because whether from luck or cleverness, she had placed him so close to the wall.

He hung around the square waiting for Ginny to come out of her hiding place—which I suspect was the narrow passage along the side of my house.

From there, she probably fled via the back garden.

“The funny thing is, my neighbour rolled home and did see the baby before we did—largely because he was holding himself up by holding on to my railings.

Maybe Tucker thought he lived there. In any case, Tucker gave up and drove around the square, probably with ever increasing anger until he almost ran my poor neighbour over.

“Which,” Piers finished, refocusing his attention on Newly, “explains why there was no sign of the flower seller when I rode past to the park a few minutes later. When I rode home, she was back at her barrow. I should have seen how upset she was.”

“She knew the child was in your house,” Newly said. “She thought you were kind and he’d be safe with you and your lady wife.”

“Did she go home?” Piers asked, his mouth dry with fear.

Newly shook his head. “I looked after her barrow at night and she stayed with a friend. Tucker found out, of course, fortunately not when Ginny was there, and the friend asked her to leave. You’re not meant to come between a husband and his wife, are you?

It’s the law that she and that child belong to Tucker, even though he’ll kill them in the end.

I’d kill him myself only then who’d look after Ginny? ”

He looked up and down the street, served a couple of customers, then, as if he’d made up his mind, he swung back on Piers.

“I’ve lost her,” he blurted. “I don’t know where she is.

Me and Reg, we helped keep an eye out for Tucker, kept her hidden from him as best we could, found a place she could slip through the railings and hide.

He came by in his hackney yesterday, before midday, and she bolted.

And never came back. I can’t find a trace of her. ”

He stared at Piers, his face anguished with raw emotion. “What if he’s killed her?”

It was terribly, tragically, possible. But as the last suspicion slid into place, Piers doubted it. And crossed his fingers.

“I don’t think he has.” Piers nodded curtly and walked away back toward home. The wind was icy.

Behind him a shout went up from Newly. “Reg! Reg! Hurry up! Mind my stall for a few minutes!” Then came pounding footsteps, and Newly was striding along beside him.

“Is she with you?” he burst out.

“Oh, not with me,” Piers said vaguely. “If I’m right, then she’s safe.

But for God’s sake, keep your eyes open for Tucker.

One more question, Newly. He must have known you were hiding her.

He must have worked out she bolted at first sign of his hackney.

But all he needed to do was leave it around the corner, walk a few yards and grab her.

He had every right to take his wife home.

No one would have stopped him. The law is all on his side. Why didn’t he?”

“Because law or no law,” Newly said savagely, “he knows I’d kill him.”

***