Page 6
SHE WOKE TO THE UNFAMILIAR sound of a fussing baby—not crying, just breathing loudly, as if working up to it. She could not have slept long, perhaps a couple of hours.
She smiled. Our baby. She turned over quickly, but she and the child were alone in the room.
“Piers?” she called. Nothing happened.
She slid out of bed and picked up the baby, who stopped fussing and looked at her. His eyes were open and as blue as the sky. She smiled at him and turned back to the bed. That was when she noticed the letter on the mantelpiece. It must have been the one Aunt Hortensia had brought to her last night. April had told her to give it to Piers.
She went and fetched it before pulling the bell and climbed back into bed.
The baby, who looked less wrinkled, though still vaguely prune-like, seemed eager for breakfast, so she let him eat while she examined the letter. It was definitely directed to Lady Petteril, in a hand she did not recognize, though since there was no address, it could easily have been intended for Hortensia. Except that it had been delivered here.
She broke the seal and found a somewhat illiterate missive inscribed in capital letters.
LADY PETRIL.
WE HAVE YOUR HUSBAND THE VICOUNT. FOR HIS SAFE RETURN, YOU MUST PAY 3 THAWSIND POUNDS IN BANK NOTES AND COIN. DELIVER FRIDAY EVENING HALF PAST 7 AT THE RUIN IN SARACEN STREET AS ON MAP BELOW.
TELL NO ONE OR HE DIES.
FAIL TO PAY EXACLY AS INSTRUCTED AND HE DIES.
The letter fell from her nerveless fingers onto the coverlet. For several moments, her mind was completely blank. She seemed to have stopped breathing.
I cannot lose him this way. I cannot lose him.
The face of his son single-mindedly imbibing came back into focus. Not now...
And then: But this is nonsense! It has to be.
Yet as the door opened to admit Ruby, she found herself whisking the stupid letter beneath the covers.
“My lady!” Ruby exclaimed. “Are you feeding him again? He will want to do nothing else!”
April frowned. “Look at him. What else can he do? Except sleep.” She wrinkled her nose. “Mind you, he doesn’t smell very good, does he?”
Two maids appeared with trays of breakfast in quantities that she could never eat, both desperate to see the new baby. Mrs. Park came to see how she did and shooed the maids back to their work. When the baby fell asleep again, Ruby took him away to change his napkin.
Mrs. Park said, “There’s water heating for a proper bath. Make you feel a bit better.”
“I feel fine,” April said. Only she didn’t. The corner of the horrible letter pricked her thigh. She knew, but she asked anyway. “Is Lord Petteril home?”
Mrs. Park licked apparently dry lips. “Not yet, my lady. Sir Peter Haggard called.”
If Haggs was here, then Piers was not with him. Her stomach tightened further. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong. Yet she couldn’t say the words. A constant trail of footsteps in the dressing room next door, and the splashing of water told her the bath was being prepared. And after that...
“Once I’m dressed, will you send Stewart to me?”
Stewart was Piers’s valet and, possibly, the only person she could trust with her fears.
***
IF IT HAD DONE NOTHING else, the laudanum had helped Piers to sleep. But it seemed he had not imbibed enough for the effects to last for long. When he opened his eyes, the room was no longer pitch black. Not that it was bright, but flashes of daylight lined the shutters on the window, peeking between cracks in the wood. Piers unwrapped himself from the blanket and after listening carefully, rose and padded across to the door.
It was a faint hope and he wasn’t surprised to find it still bolted shut. No, the window was the weakness. When he stood under it, there was just enough light to read his watch. Twenty minutes past six. He wound the watch and returned it to his waistcoat pocket.
Is April well? Am I a father?
He could not afford to think of it. He had to get out of here and go home.
