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“No, no. He just looked rather...lost.”

Haggs knew that look, though one didn’t see it very often. Withy had always been a past-master of self-control. “But he did go for a walk. Park said so. He headed up the square toward Park Lane. And no one has seen him since. April must be climbing the walls.”

“She didn’t seem to be earlier today,” Laine remarked. “Subdued, perhaps. Distracted. But still her sunny self.”

“She was acting,” Haggs said, then, with less certainty, “unless she knows what he’s up to and no one else does. Except Stewart.”

They all considered this for a while.

Haggs took a sip of his brandy and scowled. “But why? Why would he leave her alone all this time? He hasn’t even met his son and heir!”

“An accident?” Fosterson suggested with unease. “A tap on the head can lead to memory loss. He might have forgotten where he lives.”

“We’d know, wouldn’t we, if it was something worse?” Laine added. “The watch or whoever would have found him, and somebody would know him. He’s become quite a recognizable figure about town—who else goes about with two quizzing glasses round his neck? And it’s not as if he’d have walked alone into more dangerous areas. Even if he was daft enough to go into the park and get knocked down, the keepers would have found him this morning.”

“Someone must have seen him,” Haggs said abruptly. Springing up, he abandoned his half-full glass on the table next to Fosterson. “Fill your boots.”

“Where are you going?” Laine demanded.

“White’s,” said Haggs over his shoulder.

The notion that Piers and April were up to something together was one he had not really thought of, and although he still considered the timing dashed odd, he did not wish to interfere with it. They had a tendency to find mysteries that other people didn’t notice, and solve them, too. Which was not, perhaps, the safest of pastimes, and Haggs did not wish to endanger Withy any further.

He still couldn’t imagine Piers staying away so long at such a time, but he clearly didn’t know all the facts. It behoved him to discover what he could with discretion. And the club was probably the best place to start.

The ton had largely cleared out of London for the sea air of Brighton and so on, or for their own estates. But there were always enough people around to gossip. Not that the gentlemen at White’s would describe their conversations as such—gossip was for women—but that was what they did.

Since he hadn’t yet eaten, Haggs made his way to the dining room, where he conversed with several people. To each, at one point, he asked, “Seen Petteril around town?”

Someone had seen him in the city last week. Someone else had seen him walking with his lady in the park. But not in the last couple of days.

“Going down to the country, weren’t they?” Cauldwell said, as they ambled together toward the gaming room.

“Of course they were,” Haggs agreed. “Perhaps they have gone already. Why are you still here? Thought you were off to save the ancestral lands, too?”

Cauldwell grinned. “I have issued my decrees. Once the harvest is in, I can start on the improvements I need to make. Going to follow Petteril’s advice pretty closely there. Not a country man yourself, Haggard?”

“Well, my stepmother and I try not to live on top of each other too much... Game of piquet?”

“Hmm, perhaps just one.”

Haggs was careful not to pursue the subject of Petteril. But he listened. And by the time he went home, all he had gathered was that no one had seen Withy since Park handed him his hat last night.

***

PIERS WOKE TO THIRST and an aching head. Not quite the morning-after a heavy drinking bout. There was a different quality to this misery and a nasty taste in his mouth reminiscent of an earlier nightmare. The blackness was much the same, though.

Or would be if he let it close in and destroy him, as it so nearly had before.

April.

He sat up groggily, fighting the darkness while the feeble light of dawn seeped around the shutters on the other side of the room. For more than a year April had been the sun in his life and so much more. Today, this situation was not about him, his weakness, his failure. It was about her and their child, who needed him. He could not let this go on. He would not.

He picked up the full cup beside him and shivered in the cold. The room smelled of rain. Though he hadn’t heard it in the night, he could almost feel the dampness seeping in.

Surely, when his jailer came, he would feel the wind all but whistling through the room? All the more reason to get out before breakfast.

Piers drank the two sips he had allotted himself and carried the rest to the chamber pot. Wiser since last night, he left only a couple of mouthfuls in the cup. They would expect him to still be groggy after that, and he probably looked it without much effort.