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A s it grew dark that afternoon, only her sense of his lordship’s dignity kept April away from the kitchen. Instead, she sat in the window seat of the drawing room, from where she could just make out the opening to the area steps.

Surely this was the time the mother would be going home from her work? Or whatever had led her to leave the baby.

Piers came in with his piles of correspondence and sat by the fire.

Normally, she liked to watch him at work, admiring the speed and firmness of his hand gliding across the page.

Normally, she would read a book, glancing up occasionally.

Today, the book lay in her lap unopened, and when she spared a glance from the window, she found he was not reading or writing either. He was looking at her.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

He stirred. “I’m thinking we’ve let the tracks fade. We should have begun looking for whoever left the baby the moment we found him.”

“We don’t know how long he was there before we found him,” April pointed out. “He could have been there since last night.”

“I doubt it. The area is swept and cleaned each morning. Janey would have found him then. Are there not deliveries of milk and butter early in the morning? Besides, he was content and not dangerously cold. I don’t think he could have been there very long before he was found.”

Like her, Piers had been thinking about it. And for an apparently vague man, he was sharply observant. She had always been fascinated by that contradiction.

“We need to speak to delivery men,” April said. “And neighbours and their servants.”

“And our own,” Piers said.

April frowned. “Our own? But they all assumed the child was yours.”

“That’s not evidence,” Piers observed. “And it’s worth pointing out, the baby was not left at the front door, but at the servants’ entrance.”

“To be less visible from the street, probably,” April said. “And if whoever did it was not a lady—or a gentleman—they would be noticed coming up the front steps.”

“That is true, but the point remains, why pick on our house? Is there a connection? Or was it just luck that our step was the one?”

“Girls who’re in trouble,” April said, “mothers who can’t cope or who’re desperate, leave their babies at church doors or orphanage gates. Who would rely on an unknown nob in Mayfair? Would it not cause scandal and sniggering to take in such a child?”

“Yes,” Piers said ruefully. “And believe me, word will spread, if it hasn’t already. And whoever left the baby with us must have known it was likely to end up at the orphanage just the same. Which makes me think it was an impulse born of some kind of desperation. A sick or even dying mother.”

“Who just happened to be strolling the gracious streets of Mayfair?”

Piers sighed. “What was the infant wearing?”

April wrinkled her nose at the memory. “Something very nasty. A gown of some kind and wrapped in a shawl. With bits of cut-up clothing and other rags as blankets—they were clean.” Her gaze strayed back to the window. “The mother could still come back for him.”

Piers nodded. “And if she doesn’t, we shall begin looking for her in the morning.”

“It won’t be easy,” April said reluctantly. “Not if she wants to stay hidden.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I found you easily enough, didn’t I?”

April smiled at the memory. It seemed so long ago. Another life of fear and nightmare. And yet she was not a different person.

“Tomorrow,” she said decisively. But she stayed by the window, watching.

***

A FTER DINNER, THE LORD and lady of the house flustered their staff by appearing in the kitchen for the second time that day.

Mrs. Park, who knew immediately why they were there, ushered them to her sitting room and closed the door. The baby was lying awake in its wooden box, gazing at a candle flame.

There was no sign of the wet nurse smelling of gin, but another young woman, neat in a starched cap and apron, rose as they entered.

“This is Mrs. Robb from the agency,” the housekeeper said, and the woman curtsied.

To April’s critical senses, she was clean and fragrant, though there was little obvious warmth about her.

“She has agreed to stay on a temporary basis until the matter is resolved,” Mrs. Park added.

“Thank you, Mrs. Robb,” April said civilly, and to Mrs. Park, “I take it no one has come to claim the child?”

Mrs. Park shook her head.

“Most odd,” April said.

Piers had already walked up to a little clothes horse in front of the guarded fire, where a tiny doll-sized gown, a shawl, and some of the other familiar baby coverings—including the once nasty napkin—were hanging to dry. He touched the gown and the shawl, feeling the quality or lack of it.

"Mrs. Park," he said, “how often was anyone out in the area before Janey found the baby in the box?”

“Park unlocked the door first thing as he always does. He likes to step outside for a second, whatever the weather, just to make sure everything is as it should be.”

“Presumably it was. And from the door he would easily have seen the infant’s box on the step.”

“He would. And it wasn’t there. It can’t have been there either when Janey was scrubbing the steps.”

“And what time would that have been?” he asked.

“She must have finished by seven.”

“And was that the last time anyone was out there?”

“Yes, I think so...”

“What about deliveries?” April asked. “Doesn’t the milk come at seven?”

“Just before. I heard Janey telling the boy off for muddying her step. That was all we had until the butcher’s boy came later in the morning.”

“So, at some point between seven of the clock, when Janey finished with the step, and—what?—just after nine when she found the baby, someone left it on our steps.”

“Apparently so,” Mrs. Park said. She was blushing very slightly and April thought it was a sort of apology to Piers for imagining ill of him.

Piers did not seem to notice. “I’ll just go and have a word with Janey,” he murmured, strolling out of the room as though blissfully unaware of the havoc his presence would cause in the kitchen.

“We want to find the mother,” April said.

Mrs. Park sighed but nodded. “What does his lordship want to do with the child while he looks?”

April regarded the baby and the nurse and the housekeeper’s once private sanctum. “It’s a problem.”

“If you wish,” Mrs. Robb offered, “I can take him to the orphanage.”

April cast her a hostile glance. “Would you take your own child there?”

“My own child is dead,” the nurse snapped. “So I do not have the choice.”

April felt the blood drain from her face so quickly that she had to hold the back of the chair for support. How could she have been so crass? “I’m sorry,” she managed. “That was a stupid and unkind thing to say.”

“No,” Mrs. Robb muttered. “I spoke out of turn.”

More for something else to look at, April went to the baby’s makeshift cradle. The child, kicking its little legs, gazed up at her fixedly.

“He can’t stay in this room,” she said. “Mrs. Robb will have to be with him for tonight at least and the old nursery rooms are too cold. They haven’t been aired or cleaned for years.

..” Decisively, she swung to face Mrs. Robb.

“You shall have my dressing room. There is a couch made up there already, with space for the baby’s box.

I shall merely move a couple of things out of your way. ”

“But my lady,” Mrs. Park said, clearly dismayed. “You will lose your privacy...”

“Oh, I shall impose myself upon my husband,” April said grandly. And if that didn’t stop the silly suspicions of the baby’s paternity, nothing would.

***

M RS. PARK TOOK A FIRST morning cup of tea to her husband and found him standing just outside the area door, deep in thought. She pushed the cup and saucer into his hands and he grunted by way of thanks.

“It isn’t himself,” she murmured.

“What isn’t?” he asked with rare impatience.

“The baby’s father.”

“Because he’s looking for the mother? That doesn’t mean all you think it does.”

“He could have put his foot down and sent the child away. That he didn’t do so means something. Because he knows the gossip it will cause to both of them.”

“To please her.”

“Maybe. But he is the sort of man to make suitable arrangements. Not this. It isn’t his, my dear. Or hers.”

“I know that,” he said. “It isn’t Simon’s either.”

She looked at him so long in silence, that he was forced to meet her gaze fiercely, as if he imagined he could thus enforce belief.

“ That is what we don’t know,” she said gently. “We must consider the possibility. I will not allow my grandson to be brought up—or die—in an orphanage. And I don’t think you would either.”

He closed his eyes. They shared the old hurts in silence until he squeezed her hand. “I’ll talk to himself. If anyone can find Simon, he can. Though it might lose us our place here.”

“He married April,” she said. “He does not judge people as others do.”

“Nor is he a soft touch. Come, we’re letting the cold in.”

They stepped back inside and he closed the door.

***

“P IERS?” APRIL FLUNG out one arm in search of him, just as he slid out of bed.

She snapped open her eyes to discover it was still dark, then remembered they had a plan. She almost groaned for she was still tired.

“Go back to sleep if you like. I’m brave enough to nobble the milkman alone.”

“I want to see who else is around,” April said, forcing herself to slide out the other side of the bed and groping for the day clothes she had brought through from her dressing room last night.

If Piers was appalled by the baby and wet nurse taking over his wife’s dressing room, he had given no sign of it.

Nor had they been kept awake by crying, although April had heard a brief wail in the middle of the night. Mrs. Robb was clearly conscientious.

Yawning, April stumbled into her clothes, crammed her hair up anyhow with some pins, stamped her feet into shoes, and wrapped herself in two thick shawls.