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“Jeremy? Maria’s husband?” she said, startled. “But he likes you. So does Maria.”

“Maybe. But he insisted on my meeting him at White’s. Naturally, I made one of the footmen conduct me to him, which was unnecessarily formal. And on the way out, while I was still with Gadsby, someone addressed me with familiarity after I’d walked right past him. It could have been Jeremy testing me. Or the unknown himself might be jailer number one. I’m sure there are other candidates. I may have it all wrong and out of proportion, but they are the four I keep coming back to. I can’t be definite and I can’t rule them out.”

He grimaced, then added reluctantly, “Actually, there’s a fifth. I find I can’t rule out the Parks’ son, either.”

“Simon?” Simon, whom they had once suspected of abandoning his illegitimate child on their doorstep. Simon, who had gone to prison for assault. His parents, April trusted with her life—all their lives—but more than anyone they could have noticed Piers’s difficulty with faces and spoken about it in front of their son...

“He’s at Haybury Court,” April said uneasily. “We gave him work and prospects.”

“I know. And I like him. But he speaks well. And we don’t know that he’s still at Haybury.”

Betrayal, suspicion of betrayal, was vile. The pain of it was reflected in Piers’s dark eyes. He had had a lot longer than her to consider it.

“Can you describe this jailer?” she asked.

“A couple of inches shorter than me, broad shoulders. Short, light brown hair, slightly longer at the front, almond-shaped eyes. His thumbs are unusually long and slender and he has a missing tooth on the upper right of his mouth.” He swallowed convulsively. “April, it grieves me, but I have to send you away. We’ve talked too long and we can’t risk your being discovered here.”

All the guilt and shame of leaving the baby swamped her at once. And yet... She grasped his hands more tightly.

“I can’t leave you here,” she insisted

“You must. It’s all for nothing if you don’t.”

“But what if you can’t...?”

“I can do anything now that I’ve seen you, now that I know you’re well, and that our son... What is his name?”

“How could I have given him one without you?”

She didn’t know which of them moved first but his arms were around her, and hers around him. Still crouched uncomfortably amongst the glass and bits of window frame, he kissed her mouth, hard and thoroughly, like a promise. As if he knew anything more gentle or tender would crush her.

“Go home,” he whispered. “I’ll see you there very soon.”

And then his hands were on the rope she had never quite unknotted from her waist. “I’ll lower you down for speed, and keep the rope...”

Letting him go, unlatching her hands from him, was the hardest thing she had ever done. He lifted the outside board a fraction, gazing downward, listening, and then he lifted it higher and helped her over the window frame to the outside world.

She could not help reaching back to kiss him again, and then, too quickly, he was lowering her down the wall to the ground. It took a mere couple of seconds, and then she untied the rope.

She could not linger, not even for one last glance, or to see the rope snake back up to the ruined window behind the board. To be caught here, now, really would be the end of everything.

So she fled.

***

IF PARK WAS HIDING something, he did it so well that Haggs could not tell.

“He was in a state. He needed to walk it off,” the butler told them. “So I gave him his hat, he set off up the square toward Park Lane, and I haven’t seen him since.”

“What sort of a state?” Gussie asked. “Worried? Afraid?”

“Oh, yes, miss. Very afraid. For her ladyship, you understand.”

Birth was a risky business. Haggs could understand that fear, but surely there had to be more to it? “Did he seem purposeful? Give any indication of what he meant to do, or where he meant to go?”

Park spread his hands. “He was walking fast, but as to purpose, he seemed too distracted to have one. He’d have gone without his hat if I hadn’t thrust it into his hands. When he weren’t home by midnight, we went looking for him, Stewart and me.”

“Where did you look?” Haggs asked.