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A PRIL WOKE WITH THE knowledge he was not beside her and sat bolt upright in bed. Her head reeled with the speed of her movement. So did her stomach.

He was rising too early again. She had been vaguely aware of him tossing and turning in the night.

She had been so proud that since September, when their true marriage had really begun, he had been sleeping soundly and contentedly.

Puzzles worried at his mind of course, and this one was special for many reasons, but his wakefulness made her uneasy.

Especially if it had more to do with her.

With her talk of keeping the baby, with the reminder of her own barrenness.

No one is happy forever . Who had said that to her?

It didn’t matter. It was true that no one could ever be happy every minute of every day.

She did not expect Piers to be. But it was the depth of his unhappiness she needed to watch and manage.

The very idea of him slipping back into what he called the blackness, terrified her.

She slid out of bed, washed and dressed hastily in yesterday’s morning gown—and missed Piers’s helping her with the ridiculously tiny hooks. A shawl covered her failure to fasten most of them and she sallied forth in search of her husband.

Her stomach rumbled. And toast, perhaps. Or at least a biscuit...

The kitchen was the first room she had ever seen in Petteril House.

Admittedly she hadn’t seen much of it then, since she’d only had a dim lantern and pots and pans had been of little interest to a thief in search of a jewel safe.

But it had been her first home too, or at least the first she could really remember, and she was quite comfortable marching down there in search of her husband the viscount.

Rather to her surprise, she found him immediately, pushing Jack Newly the pie man into a chair at the table while Mrs. Gale poured him a cup of tea.

The pie man?

Piers glanced up and their eyes met.

No blackness, only blazing determination that took her breath away.

“You’ve solved it,” she blurted.

“I worked it out,” he said, like a correction, “with the aid of Mr. Newly here. Come out in the garden and I’ll tell you.”

With a bewildered nod to Newly, who had jumped to his feet at first sight of her, she snatched a piece of toast off the plate on the table and followed Piers to the back door.

In the garden, they sat on the bench, shivering in the cold, while he told her what had suddenly become clear to him in this very spot only half an hour or so ago.

“I think it was the similarity in the stories that led me there,” he said.

“Simon going to prison for defending the woman he loved from her abusive husband. And your telling me that Ginny the flower seller was frightened. My thoughts about the mystery and you had become so muddled I knew you must have told me something important. Between us, we must have seen something important. I wasn’t paying much attention at the time, but the morning we found the baby and I bought you flowers, Ginny had white Christmas roses in her barrow. ”

“And her being Tucker’s errant wife explained him hanging around the square—even his trying to break in here the other night. He must have been looking for his wife as well as the baby. Because you’d told him along with the others at the hackney stance, exactly where the baby was.”

Her toast suddenly tasted like ashes and she lowered it, staring at him in sudden fear. “Oh, Piers, he moved house suddenly the day after, saying his wife had gone earlier. What if he found her and hurt her so badly that she... We haven’t seen her for days. What if she’s dead?”

“Well, I don’t think she is,” Piers said, standing up. “Let’s go and see.”

He offered her his arm and she was glad to accept it, abandoning the remains of her toast for the birds. But he didn’t go back to the house. Instead, he turned toward the garden gate out to the mews.

The groom lounging in the stable doorway, sprang to attention. “’Morning, my lord. My lady.”

“Is Bernie inside?” Piers asked casually.

The groom opened his mouth to bellow a summons, but Piers forestalled him, saying hastily, “We’ll go and speak to him there.”

“Is he in trouble?” the groom demanded.

“Oh, no.”

Bernie was right at the back of the stable, carefully grooming one of the carriage horses.

He dropped the brush, possibly by accident, though he rushed forward to meet them.

“M’lord, m’lady, I followed the cove just like you said but he didn’t do nothing but go to his club and his friends paid me to follow him too.

I kept the money though I’ll give it back if you want me to.

And then he just came back here but Mr. Park knew all about it. ”

“I know,” Piers said gravely. “You did very well. Thank you.” He held out the promised coin but held onto it when the boy grasped it. “You had better tell Mrs. Tucker to come out. She is quite safe.”

Bernie gawped. April suspected she did the same.

It took a moment, but the hay pile rustled and then slowly, uncertainly, her gaze darting all around, Ginny the flower girl emerged.

Tears were streaming down her face. “Oh, sir, oh ma’am, oh please keep my baby safe...”

“You’re both safe,” April said, going to her because she could do nothing else. “We’ll look after you now.”

“I didn’t mean to do the wrong thing, sir,” Bernie was saying anxiously to Piers. “She were just starving and needed a place to hide and I didn’t miss one of my sandwiches...”

“I’d say you should have told me,” Piers said, “but then I neglected to ask you about yesterday at all.”

Ginny Tucker was thin and frail, and her whole body was heaving with grief and fear and probably physical pain. Her story was not new or unusual. April had even guessed at it—without the connection to Georgie.

Georgie...

How blind I have been...

“Come,” April said gently, although her arms already ached. “I’ll take you to him. He’s missed you.”

***

M RS. PARK WAS NOT GETTING much peace in her private sitting room.

When April had closed the door on the mother and child whom she left in there, the first person she saw was Mrs. Robb, sitting at the kitchen table beside Jack Newly.

Despite the company, the nurse looked curiously alone. Her expression was numb.

Without meaning to, April put a hand on her shoulder. No words were necessary or wanted. In fact, April didn’t even want to think.

She gazed at Piers, who sat, frowning, astride one of the kitchen chairs.

“It’s a mess,” she said frankly. “Ginny can’t go back to him, and we have no right to keep them from him. Wherever we send them, he’ll find them, because all the places we have are yours and therefore easy to find.”

“It’s Tucker who needs to be sent away,” Newly said savagely. “Preferably for life.”

“You’re not to touch him,” April said severely.

“Agreed,” Piers said, lifting his chin from his hands. “But Newly is right.”

April glared. “Only the law won’t touch a man for beating his wife or his child.”

“It will, however, punish him for other crimes.”

Newly cocked a hopeful eyebrow in his direction. “Has he committed any?”

“Not yet,” said Piers, rising to his feet.

“Oh no,” April said.

“I’m your man,” Newly said, his eyes gleaming as he stood beside Piers.

“Sadly, you can’t be,” Piers said. “There must be no contact between you and Tucker now. But don’t worry. There will be plenty of witnesses. I even know a Bow Street Runner.”