Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

Gone. The word drove Georgina forward, long after she had rushed from the hackney and marched down Seeley Lane in the waning light of day. The ramshackle buildings, the loud flash houses, the seedy gin mills had all appeared wretched and miserable in the foul-smelling air of evening.

Now they were swallowed in darkness, visible only by haunting, candle-lit windows.

Gone.

Agnes was gone.

Like everyone Georgina loved.

God, I must find her. The prayer grew with sickness, with heaviness, as she entered a peeling white inn with vulgar caricatures in the windows. She asked after a woman in fine dress, perhaps with her hair arranged in a tight chignon.

But mayhap her hair had changed.

Mayhap her dress too.

The innkeeper shook his head with a yawn, then pointed her on to the next lodgings on Seeley Lane. A four-story stone building on a street corner, with tattered clothes and blankets drying from a rope secured to the neighboring roof. Wind flapped the threadbare fabrics. From a window two stories up, a woman leaned into the night and slung a bucket of waste into the air, the splash lightly bespattering Georgina's skin and dress.

Shuddering, wiping her face, she approached the grimy red door.

She knocked twice, but when it didn't open, she tried the knob and let herself in.

The dim taproom smelled of mildew and dirt and the overwhelming odor of yeasty beer. She almost fled. She almost scrubbed her face yet again to remove the splatters, and peeled off the already-stained white gloves, and hurried back to where she'd paid the jarvey to wait for her.

"Eh, you." From a creaking chair by the hearth, a sloppy white-bearded man leaned up, eyes hazy. "Wot you want?"

Her courage dwindled. What little she had left. "Sir, I am…I am looking for a woman who might be staying here. Her name is Miss Agnes Simpson."

"Wot you want wif her?"

"You have seen her?"

"I seen every barque of frailty in London." He hiccuped, swayed to his feet, gaze shifting up and down her. "Deed. Every last one."

"Is she here?"

"Don't suppose you'd be wanting a drink, then."

"Sir—"

"Plenty there be. Enough for the night, eh, that is." He reached for a stoneware beer bottle on the brick floor, staggered forward another step. "I'll get a chair, and we can—"

"Sir, you do not understand me." Heat blasted her face with such force that her hairline perspired. "I have a gentleman awaiting me outside in a carriage, and should I so much as snap my fingers, he would come charging in to assist me. Shall I call for him now?"

"Oh." Disappointment, more so than intimidation, sank the man back into his chair. He took a long drink from his bottle before he answered. "Top floor. Room with the cracked door. Meant to fix that. Will soon, if paupers like your friends would pay their Dun territory."

Relief trickled through her. Agnes was here. She was not…gone. Taking the doorway the bearded man nodded her toward, she climbed stairs that were dark and soft, as if the rotting wood was ready to crumble beneath her.

The second floor increased her heart rate.

The third trapped her breathing.

The fourth numbed her, because the last thing in the world she was ready for was to see Agnes' face. She won't come. The realization, the one she'd forced away from her heart all evening, bludgeoned pain inside her chest.

What was Georgina doing? What did she truly think she could accomplish?

Agnes had made her choice.

She no longer wanted home, nor safety, nor truth—nor Georgina. Just like the rest of them. But ever since the library, she had been plagued with the burden that if she'd only known to plead with Papa, to beg him against such a horrid decision, she might have saved his life.

Perhaps that was what she was doing now.

Hurrying through the winding dark hall on the top floor, Georgina passed several quiet rooms until noises penetrated the silence. At the end of the hall, light streamed out from underneath a door—and through a jagged crack between two of the door planks.

With every step, the voices loudened.

One soft and whimpering, like the mournful cousin Georgina had comforted that first year of her arrival, in the floral-papered bedchamber where they had played and bonded.

The other was harsh. Gruff. Cutting in its fierceness and rage.

Then a dull smack.

Georgina flung herself at the door and pushed. A chain rattled on the other side. Locked. "Agnes!"

The voices lowered. Whispers almost, then a second thud.

"Agnes, it is me. Georgina." She pounded with fisted gloves. "Please, let me in."

"Go away."

"I am not leaving you. Open the door."

"Please!" Half scream, half sob. "Georgina, I beg of you…leave me now. I shall never go back with you. You must know I cannot. Whatever sentiment you still carry for me in your heart is not, nor ever will be, returned."

"I want to see you. Do not deny me that."

"Get her out of here," said a man.

"Georgina, leave! I shall speak to you another time. I shall tell you everything you wish to know, but I cannot—Lucan, no!"

The chain clattered, the door flung open, and a muscled blond man stood in the doorway with bare feet, gaping shirtsleeves, and filthy trousers. He wrenched Agnes' arm behind her back. "You want her so bad, you can bloody have her."

"Lucan, no." Weeping. "Please—"

He slung Agnes to the floor and slammed himself back inside, but she groped for the knob anyway. "Lucan, let me in." She threw her hands into the wood, until the crack whined and the chain clanged and the cursing on the other side grew louder. "Please, please, please let me in. Do not do this to me. Please."

"Agnes." Georgina knelt next to her, tried to peel her back.

Her hair was down and tangled. Her dress unfastened and sliding down her shoulders. Her cheek red, as if she'd been slapped more times than she'd begged him to let her in again.

"You must come home with me. You are not yourself, Agnes—"

"Leave me alone!" Her cousin clutched a gold pendant about her neck, hunkered her head. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. Let me alone. Leave me. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you."

Georgina's mind cried against the words. She didn't know what to do, nor how long she should stay, nor if this wailing creature she pulled close was even the same girl from all her memories.

But when she glanced up through aching eyes, someone was hurrying down the hall. Not with a stagger and a white beard, but with steps that were strong, capable, and knowing.

"Let go of her." Simon's voice. He pried Agnes away from Georgina's arms, swung her up into his own, and instructed Georgina to take his arm.

She did not have to think. She need not know anything or understand anything, because Simon did. She walked with him back down the rotting stairway, into the night, then inside a carriage that was warm and scented of a smell so unique to Sowerby House.

When the wheels rolled into motion, she glanced at his face. She could not fathom what look she might have given him, if he saw her tears or didn't, if he comprehended all the things that cried within her.

But in the faint and swaying carriage lamplight, he nodded his head at her.

As if to say everything in the world would be all right.

"She is asleep."

Simon nodded. The Whitmore parlor appeared different this time of night. All the trivial objects—the yellow curtains, the dull books, the dusty globe—were but shadows outlined in a faint glow of candlelight.

Georgina sat next to him on the cream-velvet settee. She was different too. He was not certain how, only that the rigid aloofness, that bashful and unreachable cheerfulness, was as absent as trees in the first months of winter, stripped of all their leaves.

"She is asleep," she whispered again, without looking at him. "I do not know what I shall do come morning."

"You have done enough."

"She shall ruin herself."

"She already has."

Georgina leaned forward on the settee, fingers massaging her temples. "How did you come to find us? You should not have left Sowerby House. The children—"

"They are safe and well guarded. Upon my return, I stationed four footmen to walk the grounds and have instructed both Mr. Wilkins and two other capable manservants to follow the children about. They shall not be left alone, nor taken out of doors."

"I hope it is enough."

"It is."

Silence fell, just as it always had in younger years, at this very settee, when they were mere children shoved into the perplexities of courting.

"I did not expect you to still be here." She glanced at him, candle light gleaming from her curls. "Downstairs, I mean. When I was finished with Agnes."

"There are questions I must ask."

"About Agnes?"

"About the pendant on her neck."

"I know nothing of it. Indeed, I have never seen it before."

"I have."

"When?"

"At Newgate. The turnkey." The tangible link—the first one that made sense—brought his blood to a warm boil. The muscled brute had access to prisoners. He also had access, it seemed, to Miss Simpson. Was he the one who had pressured the girl to accuse Simon? What had the turnkey done? Promised to marry her if she consented—knowing that, as she carried his child, she had no choice?

Georgina leaned her head against the back of the settee and sighed, as if as many questions raced through her own mind. "I wish I knew more. I wish I could help you."

The sincerity pulled at him. Like a cool and painless dagger, it cut through the center of his chest. Deeper, deeper until it pricked a quiet place in his heart.

He didn't want to feel hurt.

He didn't want to feel anything.

But he did. "You deserve to know everything you wish."

She tilted her head. That blushful look again. A faint smile breezed across her lips, as she whispered that it was late, that he may tell her later, that she would listen whenever he was ready.

He was ready now.

But he stood to his feet without saying anything. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the folded paper. He held it out. "For you."

She hesitated, so he unfolded it for her, then settled the drawing in her lap.

"It is not very good." The urge to squirm itched at his feet. "I drew from memory."

She said nothing for so long he regretted everything. Coming here, drawing the face, sitting in the dark with her while she worried over his children and understood him and—

"It is Papa." She flattened it against her chest. Tears swam. Silence thickened in the still and shadowed room.

With a faint good night, he departed the parlor and wiped sweating hands down the length of his trousers. Her face followed him. The earnest eyes. The worry-laden brow. The kind lips and the voice so soothing with care.

Care for him.

For his children.

For the ruined cousin upstairs and the papa in the drawing and the world around her.

He climbed into the carriage outside with an odd realization blazing through him. One he had never noticed, nor considered, before.

Miss Georgina Whitmore was beautiful.

Glass clanged against the wobbling silver tray, as Georgina pried open the bedchamber door. The room was motionless. Morning light glowed pink from behind the satin draperies, but as they had been secured shut, no warm sunlight streamed across the cream- and rose-colored furniture.

"Nellie is down at the meat market this morning, so I thought I would bring this up myself." Georgina settled the tray to the small bedside stand. "Hot chocolate, a bit of fried ham, and a seedcake. Although do not worry"—Georgina poured the steaming brown chocolate into a cup—"I made certain Cook left off any caraway, as I know you quite despise the taste."

The lump on the bed remained unmoving.

A snag caught Georgina's throat. How many days would her cousin remain this way? How many days had it been already? A week?

The doctor had come and gone. The baby was well, he assured, though would be much stronger if the mother would indulge in exercise and a more substantial diet. "Which you should make certain she attains," the man had scolded.

As if Georgina could do anything.

Indeed, she could not even make her cousin speak to her—let alone finish the meals on every tray sent up, or bathe in the copper tub Nellie prepared, or dress in the waiting gowns they draped across the bed.

What did he promise you? The question throbbed, as Georgina settled on the edge of the bed. She pulled back the covers, hesitated, then brushed a quick stroke down Agnes's tousled brown hair. "Dear, what did he do to so destroy you?"

Agnes blinked hard.

"We used to tell each other everything."

Another blink.

"I told you how frightened I was of the old clergyman on Sunday mornings, for in his black cassock, he seemed quite the terror to me. You laughed and called me ridiculous. I believed you." Georgina eased her fingers through the tangles, smoothing them away, one by one. "You told me how that sometimes, late at night, you thought you heard your mamma coughing and calling to you, just as she did before she died. I told you people still talk to us from heaven. It was not true, but it always seemed to make you happy."

Tears slipped from the staring eyes, rolling down her cheeks, dripping into the white-cotton pillow.

"Agnes, please say something to me."

"I have nothing to say." A threadbare whisper. "I have nothing to live for."

"You have everything to live for." Georgina leaned closer to her, rubbed her trembling back. "You have me and this town house. You have your friends the Gilchrists. You have the baby."

"The baby I lied about."

"What?"

"It does not belong to Simon. You knew that all along. It belongs to…to the man I was in the room with."

"Let us not speak of him."

"He lied to me."

"I know."

"He said if I told such a story, we would have nothing holding us back. That we could be married. That we could be together without me having to…having to sneak away in the night when no one could see us." Her shoulders caved forward, eyes closed with pain. "He said we would walk down the street together, proud as anyone. He said our baby would have nice things. He said we would be happy, but he…he…"

From behind, the bedchamber door creaked open. "Miss Whitmore?"

"I shall be out in a moment, Nellie."

"Oh, but I have the most pleasant news. You must come quick."

Confusion stirred through Georgina, until she turned to see the smile brightening Nellie's face. "Mamma?"

Before the maid could answer, Mamma squeezed into the room—dressed in a gown too fine for travel, a purple feather waving from her hair, with cheeks as round and gleeful as they ever were when she enticed her gentlemen. "My two pet darlings." Mamma clapped both chubby hands, a ray of light glittering from one finger. "I have the most magnificent surprise."

"Where were you?" Mother sat behind the pianoforte, fingers splayed on the keys as if in reminiscence of tunes now silent. "You did not come home last night."

"I am sorry to cause you worry."

"I fear you have done little else your entire life."

Simon scooted a satin-seated chair from the wall and straddled it backward. Mother would have gasped could she have seen it. He should bear guilt for that. He should bear guilt for slipping into Sowerby House at the break of dawn too.

But he was too weary for anything but exhausted indifference. "I had matters which had to be attended to."

"Your father was one of the most fully engaged men I have ever known. He had more duties and pressing businesses to attend than you have even thought about—and his matters never kept him from bed at a proper hour."

"I am not my father."

"Of that I am well aware."

Simon dropped his forehead to the back of the chair. Frustration expanded throughout his body, but he tried to ward off the tension. Mother could not be blamed. She was tired and afraid like he was—only worse, because she was left in the dark.

He stifled a yawn with his fist. Last night, after departing the Whitmore town house, he had hurried back for Seeley Lane. The muscled turnkey had been gone and the room stripped of belongings. Simon had spent the last hours of night combing every nearby tavern and pub. The man was nowhere.

But Simon would find him soon enough. As soon as he gained some sleep, he would take another visit to Newgate and wait for the turnkey to leave for the day. The blackguard had a lot of questions to answer. And if it took bloody fisticuffs to get him talking, Simon would oblige.

Happily.

"You have not eaten breakfast."

"I will sleep first."

"You do not take care of yourself, Son." Mother sagged from behind the pianoforte. "Have you no thought for anything beyond the present? Can you not see that you shall fall ill? Do you not realize that in less than a fortnight, you shall lose your inheritance?" Her voice cracked. "Have you no care that you and the children you supposedly care for shall be destitute, if not for the charity of myself and others?"

The bleakness of her words engulfed him. He moved his chair back to the wall, walked behind the pianoforte, and with a careful finger, brushed the tears from Mother's cheeks. He kissed the top of her head. "All shall be well, Mother." He hoped she believed the words.

He certainly did not.

"Married?" The word had difficulty squeezing out.

Mamma waved it away, as if her splendid bit of news was hardly worthy of fuss. "Do not carry on so, darling. Most everyone is doing it. Of course, I would have consulted you first had you been a child. But I daresay, you are quite a lady now and should be old enough to encourage any desire of my heart, if you truly loved me."

"It is just so"—Georgina sank into one of the parlor chairs, a strain creeping across her temple—"I daresay, it is all very sudden."

"On the contrary. I have known him quite longer than I knew your father."

"Where did you meet?"

"Oh, I knew you would make me tell, you silly girl." A pout settled across Mamma's lips, then an impish smile dashed it away. "I had little intention of confessing to my own daughter, but it seems I must. I have not been in Bath these past three weeks."

"Oh?"

"The Hawes and I grew hideously bored taking the mineral waters, so we traveled back to London to attend a house party at Gumbleton Estate in the country. Of course, it did enter my heart to write to you, but I did not wish to burden you with news I was so near when you were doubtless otherwise occupied with suitors and such." Mamma giggled. "Speaking of which, it has been whispered to me by more than one nattering friend that you have been seen with the illustrious Mr. Oswald. Am I to imagine a matrimonial announcement is forthcoming?" "You are to imagine nothing of the sort." Did Mamma know her so little? Did she remember nothing of Simon Fancourt?

"You have always been shy, I think, else you would have been married by now. Poor darling. But let us not speak of it. I must continue this story quickly, for all day I have been longing quite pathetically for a soak in warm water and a cup of hot tea. Nothing pacifies me like those two remedies after a hard travel." She rushed in a breath. "In short, it was quite providential that I should happen to find an old friend in attendance. We had both known each other since childhood days, and I once fathomed myself in love with the silly boy. Until your father, of course." Sighing, she twirled at the gold, pearl-studded ring on her pudgy finger. "The three of us were all quite wonderful friends, many years ago, but by and by, he no longer came to visit. I have neither seen nor heard from him in positively ages."

Georgina nodded as if she understood, as if a sour taste was not forming in her mouth. "And then?"

"Oh, he quite charmed me all over again, the darling man. As soon as the banns were read, we were married at the church near Gumbleton. We had but two glorious days before we decided we must return to reality sometime. He went on to take care of business at his estate, and I am returned here to wait for him. He should arrive most anytime, I imagine, and then you shall meet your new papa."

Georgina bit her lip against a burning protest. She intertwined her hands in her lap. "I am…" She cleared her throat. "I am happy you are happy, Mamma."

"You sweet pet." Mamma stood and patted Georgina on the cheek, then sashayed from the room with murmurs about a hot bath and tea.

Georgina found her own bedchamber. Heart panging, she locked herself inside and pulled the folded paper out from under her pillow.

Papa's face stared back at her, his eyes as kind and loving in Simon's drawing as they had ever been in life. How long had Mamma been so indifferent to the grief? How long ago had her heart released Papa, the library, and the questions?

One of Georgina's tears splotched the pencil strokes. She dabbed it dry with her sleeve.

Please help me, God.

She didn't know why she prayed the words. Perhaps because Mamma's marriage seemed, in so many ways, like a betrayal. As if she'd forgotten her first love. As if life was changing, moving on, and she did not even care.

But perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps it was only that Mamma had done what Georgina had not the strength to do. Maybe never would.

Heal.

And forget.

Smoke.

Simon caught the taste in his mouth as he jogged up the stairwell of Gray's Inn. On the second floor, he hesitated.

Maids scurried about the hazy corridor, some coughing into their hands, others toting brass buckets. Gentlemen lingered outside Sir Walter's door—likely fellow barristers—some with pipes jutting out of their mouths and most with arms crossed over their chests, as if in contemplation.

Simon pushed his way through the mayhem. "Excuse me." He coughed as he squeezed through the stifling swirl of pipe smoke. "Excuse me."

"Get this fumbling ignoramus out of here!" From a sitting position on the floor, Sir Walter threw a stack of charred papers at his lanky clerk. "Out! Before I lose what little temperance I have left." He glanced up at Simon with a sooty face. "Get in here, Fancourt. And for sanity's sake, shut and lock the door—if it still works."

Simon waited until the clerk fumbled out, then closed the office door before anyone else could squeeze through. What in the name of heaven had happened?

A tall, narrow corner cabinet was black, the top already crumbled into ashes, with ruined parchment and ledgers littered on the rug below. The corner of Sir Walter's desk was singed. The windows were opened, allowing the afternoon breeze to draw out the overwhelming scent of fire.

"How did it start?"

Sir Walter pushed to his feet, brushing ashes from his white pantaloons. "I had stepped out for a bit of luncheon, and when I returned, my office was aflame. The coward will not own to it, but I imagine that buffle-headed clerk of mine knocked over a lamp or such."

"In daylight?"

"My eyes are not what they used to be." Sir Walter removed his smudged spectacles. "The extra light spares me strain."

"I see."

"I fear you do not." Kicking at the ashes and half-burned pages at his feet, Sir Walter cursed. "All my receipts, my notes, my records…gone."

"I am sorry."

"As am I to you."

"Sir?"

"Not only shall I not be able to search for the names you gave me within my own resources"—his mouth curled in frustration—"but with all the additional work this shall cause, I shall have little time to find the information elsewhere."

"Then you are ending your search."

"No. It was ended for me."

"But surely it would not be difficult to find out which barrister represented which name when—"

"I do not tempt the hand of fate, Fancourt. I do not know what you think, but this entire ordeal seems far too coincidental for peace of mind."

"You think the fire was started deliberately?"

"I think I do not care enough about your insane plight to find out." Coughing into his fists, Sir Walter gestured toward the door with anger that was rare from his usual calm. "If you will excuse me."

Simon nodded and departed the room with a groan building in his throat. Either chance was against him…

Or someone was much closer to Simon's search than he'd realized.

"La, you are such a boring creature. If you cannot read literature, you might as well read gossip columns like your mother." Mamma laughed at herself, the kipper half eaten on her plate as she indulged in her third cup of cocoa instead. "Listen to this. Remember Miss Hattie Gossett—that strange wallflower child who was always blinking too much? It says here she ran off with a man from the militia a fortnight ago. Heaven knows she must have disgraced her poor parents out of their wits."

Georgina swallowed the last of her poached egg and washed it down with a cup of tea. The thought to chide Mamma for indulging in pathetic gossip came to her, but what good would it do?

Mamma would only find someone else to tell the stories to.

At least she was talking to Georgina. That was more than she usually did on her brief stays at home.

"Hmm, let me see. It says here that our local ratcatcher was seen"—she glanced up with a sudden frown—"Where in heaven's name is dear Agnes?"

"Mamma, I told you last night."

"That is all very sad, but surely she cannot be so ill that she cannot attend breakfast. Why, I was nearly days from birthing you and I still always attended meals at the table. But never mind." Mamma fluttered her napkin, as if it was of little consequence. "She may do as she wishes, of course."

"Perhaps I should go and see after her." Georgina scooted from her chair. "Excuse me—"

"Mercy!" A gasp. "Oh you must look at this. Simply horrifying." Mamma shuddered and clicked her tongue as her eyes darted across the magazine page. "You remember that ghastly woman who was murdered and disfigured in her own bed? It was all a rather terrible affair. The poor husband was bereaved and his own brother was accused of the crime." Mamma motioned Georgina to her side and lifted the magazine page. "But now it seems the husband has quite disappeared and his town house has been left in shambles. Do you imagine it could have been him all along? Pray, does the drawing of him not appear rather murderous?"

"Mamma, you judge too quickly." Georgina frowned at the drawing. Something about the features, the eyes, was disturbing—though she would certainly not encourage her mother's nonsense. "He might have a thousand reasons for disappearing."

"Out of the country?" Mamma harrumphed. "I think not. But either way, you were off to see to your cousin. Go on with you. I shall probably recline in the parlor for a small nap. I daresay, how very much home life tires me. How ever do you keep up your energy all day long without something interesting to stimulate you?"

Georgina smiled. "Yet another mystery, I suppose." She left the breakfast room, shaking her head at Mamma, brushing a tiny speck of egg from her dress when—

She froze halfway up the stairs. The drawing flashed through her mind again. This time with color, with dimension, as if she'd seen the man before.

Impossible.

Or was it? After all, the magazine did say Patrick Brownlow had resided in London. Perhaps she had met him at a ball, or sat in a box near him at the theater, or ridden beside him at Hyde Park.

Wherever she'd seen him, if she'd seen him, it hardly mattered.

She continued to Agnes' chamber, coaxed her into eating more breakfast from the tray, and talked in soft tones until her cousin fell asleep. Not until she had gently closed herself from the chamber and had taken the hall did her mind materialize a second memory.

Another hallway.

Dark, downcast eyes. A muffled "Good day." A panicked pace to his steps, as he hurried past her and fled—

Hollyvale.

Of course. The day of the picnic. Why had Patrick Brownlow been there? Why had she not seen him outside with the others? Why had Simon asked her about it nearly a week later, as if it bore some sort of significance?

She darted her way back to the breakfast room. Nellie was just clearing the plates and pots, but the open magazine still lay in Mamma's place.

Georgina snatched it up and tore out the column concerning Patrick Brownlow. Her heartbeat spiked faster. "Nellie, will you go and call for the carriage?"

"Where are you going, Miss Whitmore?"

"To Sowerby House." An overwhelming sense of anticipation burst within her. "At once."

He could think better up here.

Simon sat on the arm of the broken wingback chair, while Mercy and John played on the dusty turret room floor with old toys they'd discovered in the chest. The flat tin animals, mostly monkeys and tigers, became alive with childish sounds and voices.

Even Baby befriended the creatures.

Dragging a hand across his sweaty forehead, Simon leaned over to unlatch the window. Some of the heat fled. Noontime air swirled inside, smelling of grass and countryside and afternoon.

Yet another one gone by without the answers he needed.

Urgency twinged him. Yesterday, before his last stop at Gray's Inn, he had spent his day waiting for the mysterious turnkey to depart Newgate. He never did. Now what?

He had already tried to speak with the prison warden.

Instead of granting Simon an audience, they had denied him access into the prison at all. As if he was some sort of filthy rat, the Scotsman had mumbled a minced oath and waved Simon away.

Next time he would break through the door with his fists and boots.

"Papa, me can keep this one?" Mercy sprang next to him, presenting a white-bearded monkey perched on a treetop. "Him is named Monkey."

"He is yours then."

A grin flushed her face and she barked a low animal sound—more in likeness to a dog than a monkey—as she bounced the toy across Simon's knee.

Humor tickled him. A chuckle rumbled out.

The sound must have been foreign, for John glanced up with surprised delight, lowering his tin tiger. His nose crinkled. "That's a dog noise, Mercy." His words tripped on a laugh of his own.

Mercy giggled.

Then John hooted.

Shaking his head, Simon tried to keep back the flood of laughter, but it spilled out anyway like an unstoppable current. Strong enough, nearly, to sweep away all the strain in his body, until little mattered but Mercy's silliness and—

A small knock sounded at the open turret door.

Sucking in air, Simon glanced up and stilled. "Miss Whitmore." He stood faster than he meant to and wiped wet eyes.

With a bashful tilt of her head, Miss Whitmore stared at the three of them—smiling.

Why did the smile arrest him? Why did he find it odd, like a mother who had just stumbled upon an endearing scene of her children instead of strangers? Had he not seen her smile before?

Of course he had.

Many times.

But never like this, with such a mark of joy and loving astonishment.

Loving. He resisted the word, as Mercy raced for the woman in the doorway and hugged her legs.

Even John approached her. He grinned up at her, chuckling all over again, as he told Miss Whitmore of all the toys they had discovered in the old black chest and the funny noises Mercy made when she played.

Miss Whitmore's easy voice, her glistening eyes, responded to everything—all effortlessly, it seemed, as if patting Mercy's back and laughing at everything John said was something she had been doing all along.

Had so short a time in the forest made her this comfortable with them? That niggled him. Mayhap entranced him too.

"Mrs. Fancourt said I might find you here." In one sweeping glance, she took in the sight of his paintings. He could not read whether the old relics of his childhood pleased her or not. "I did not wish to disturb, but I have a small matter I should discuss with you."

"Alone, I presume?"

She glanced down at his children with another warm smile, nodding.

"Very well. John, take your sister back to the nursery."

"May we bring the toys?"

"Yes, but gather them quickly."

Both children sprang into action, stuffing tin toys into their pockets and cramming more than three in each fist. Then they were gone, the trail of their chatter and footsteps echoing in the turret stairwell.

The room became smaller. Quieter.

"I will not suffer you to speak here." Simon turned and wiggled the window back shut. "We will take a carriage ride, if you are obliged, as it will spare us this heat."

"If that is what you wish."

Without looking at her, he pointed to the door. "After you." He followed her back down the stairwell, sweat damp on the back of his neck, a rare discomfort flipping his stomach.

What was he doing?

He should have remained in the turret room. He should have allowed her the few moments she needed, escorted her back downstairs, and sent her back where she belonged.

Away from Sowerby House.

But the room had been too intimate, with all the paintings staring down at him, crying things from his soul, things he feared she would still see in his eyes if he looked at her.

No, the carriage ride would be best.

He could handle the reins and remember all the reasons he had never wanted to marry Miss Georgina Whitmore. Was that the matter she wished to discuss with him? Had she reconsidered his offer of marriage?

He bit the inside of his cheek at the strange confusion thumping his heart. He was not certain he could allow that to happen. Not for Sowerby or his mother or father or anyone else.

Before, perhaps.

Before he knew her better.

But not now.