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The cry penetrated the fury of his brain but before he could respond, something struck him in the mouth. And the shoulder and the face.

“Piers, he missed me!”

Of course he did. April had spent most of her life dodging blows. She had the reflexes of a cat.

And Tucker had hit him.

They had won.

In fact, Tucker was still hitting him, though they were too close together for the blows to have much weight. It was more like panicked scrabbling, or the sort of childhood fights he had had with his brother and cousins.

The fear and fury that had impelled him up here vanished into something very close to laughter.

As he fended off the blows, trying to still and capture Tucker’s wild hands, he became aware of the surging crowd he had deliberately attracted.

All the jarveys were there. Vehicles had stopped in the road as men abandoned their horses and ran across to either help or watch the fun.

Tucker was trying with all his body weight to shove Piers off the box.

It was instinct to push back, which Piers did, pushing the man hard against the back of the bench.

He was almost in control when the horse, either frightened by the crowd or inadvertently instructed by the ribbons tangling between himself and Tucker, took off.

The hackney veered around the vehicle in front and galloped wildly up Oxford Street. Piers released his man to seize the ribbons instead, and Tucker, with a yell of fear, hurled himself inexplicably toward the road.

Piers made a grab for him and caught a handful of coat in one hand.

Someone screamed. A horse neighed and stamped with clear anxiety. Several people bolted out of the way of the hackney. Piers managed to haul the dead weight of Tucker upright onto the box.

“Woah, there, horse, gently, my friend,” Piers soothed and quickly brought the horse back to a standstill at the side of the road. After all, it hadn’t really had time to get the bit very firmly between its teeth for a decent bolt.

Everyone was rushing toward them, a sea of people with indistinguishable faces. Piers turned his head and looked at Tucker.

Terror still stood out in his eyes. And that, Piers felt, was well-deserved.

***

P IERS FELT SLIGHTLY numb as they finally walked toward home.

There had been enough witnesses to the whole scene—including their friendly Bow Street Runner, Jimmy Knott, who just happened to have been passing—to tell the full story of the confrontation.

Tucker had attacked Lady Petteril with his whip, Lord Petteril had defended her, and Tucker had then attacked him, after which the horse had bolted and Tucker had inexplicably tried to jump into the road. Fear again.

No one would have been to blame for the injury or death of Tucker except Tucker himself.

Only that wasn’t strictly true.

Piers had set out to provoke an assault. He couldn’t even say he had not intended the man to die, because there had been a moment, when Tucker had wielded that whip...

No one would hurt April again while Piers lived. And certainly not with impunity.

“It didn’t go quite according to plan,” she said.

“No,” Piers agreed.

“Why did he try to jump?”

“Fear,” Piers said. “And panic. It ruled him, I think. That’s why he needed to make his wife afraid of him.”

She thought about that for a bit. “What will happen to him now?”

“Transportation, probably. Ginny and Georgie will be free of him, at any rate.”

She squeezed his arm. “Then we did what we set out to do.”

Jack Newly was at his stall, gazing at them. Piers lifted one hand his thumb pointing upward and Newly grinned hugely.

“He’ll help look after them now,” April said. “Piers?”

“Yes?”

“Why did you save him?”

“Instinct.” But he would remember the earlier impulse, too, the one that had terrified Tucker in the first place.

She brushed her cheek against his shoulder. “You are the best of men.”

He wished that was true.

***

B Y AGREEMENT, APRIL wrote a glowing reference for Mrs. Robb—or at least Piers wrote it and April signed it. She had been practising her signature and it now looked quite ladylike. They gave the character to her with a packet containing rather more than her fee.

“A present for your daughter,” April told her. “Rent a better place to stay. Between the agency and the recommendation of my husband’s connections, you will do better. Later, you might consider housekeeping as an alternative.”

Mrs. Robb swallowed audibly, but seemed to have no words beyond a hoarse, “Thank you. My lady. My lord. May I say goodbye to Georgie?”

They must all say goodbye to Georgie. Piers’s heart contracted, though April merely said breezily, “Of course!”

Though his name was not really Georgie but Amos, like his father. Piers was glad his mother called him Mo.

April went shopping with Gussie. And when they came home, she busied herself with packing for Haybury Court. She did not go near the kitchen, where little Mo was ensconced in his new cradle with his loving mother and the devotion of the servants. She was brittle, avoiding the pain of the parting.

And yet she did go down to the kitchen to be with him when Jack Newly came to collect Ginny and Mo. Her eyes stayed dry and she kept smiling. And Piers’s ache was nearly all for her.

***

T HE FIRST THING HE noticed, entering his bedchamber to change for dinner, was the absence of April. Her brushes and the perfume bottles he had given her had vanished, presumably back to her own room.

It was a good thing to be back to normal, he assured himself. He just needed to give her time and space to grieve. And pray it did not take her away from him.

So, he changed into evening dress, dragged the comb through his hair, and strolled through to April’s rooms, which were no longer locked to protect the privacy of Mrs. Robb.

She was sitting at her dressing table, staring into the glass so hard, she didn’t even notice him until he stood behind her and she saw his reflection.

She smiled at once, a forced smile that meant nothing. Except pain.

“Don’t pretend, April,” he said. “Not with me.”

She blinked at the glass, then turned to face him. “I’m not pretending. I just want it to go away.”

“You want what to go away? Pain?”

She nodded. “It will pass. He was never ours.”

He took his courage in both hands, because there had always been truth between them. “But the pain was there before you got fond of Georgie. Before he even landed on our doorstep, you were losing your...sunniness.”

“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered, staring at him, her eyes full. “I just... I want things I can’t have. I’m all jumbled inside, and it frightens me.”

“You are unhappy.”

“Sometimes. At others, most of the time, I’m very happy until something makes me sad or angry or...” She trailed off, searching his eyes and must have found the truth there for she suddenly jumped to her feet, seizing him by both shoulders.

“No,” she said fiercely, “no! Without you, I would die ...”

He held her, burying his lips in her hair. “Then what is it?”

“I don’t know,” she mumbled into his coat. “I can’t think. Everything is new and I don’t know where I am. Sometimes I think I’m drowning... I don’t feel like me anymore.”

“You’re still you,” he said huskily. “And you’re still wonderful. I think we need to go home.”

Her fingers tightened, digging into him. “We do. I believe we do. And everything will be better.”

“Can you last another two days?”

“With you,” she whispered. “With you.”