CHAPTER 15
“Anything further from the Hampstead lead, Your Grace?”
Godfrey folded his notebook and tucked it into his coat as the carriage rattled through the Mayfair streets.
They had spent the evening at a coffeehouse near Chancery Lane, meeting with a private investigator Godfrey had engaged to supplement the Bow Street runner’s efforts. The man had contacts in Hampstead and claimed to have located a former servant of Madame Fontaine’s who might recognize Richard from a description.
Another thread. Another maybe.
Evander was running out of patience for maybes.
“Follow it,” Evander said. “Pay whatever he asks. If the servant can place Richard at that house within the last six months, I want dates.”
“Understood.” Godfrey hesitated. “It is nearly midnight, Your Grace.”
“I own a clock, Godfrey.”
“Of course. I only mention it because Her Grace has taken to asking Mrs. Cahill about your evening schedule. With some regularity.” Godfrey kept his eyes fixed on his notebook. “I thought you should know.”
Evander leaned his head against the seat and closed his eyes. The carriage swayed over the cobblestones, and the stitches in his arm itched beneath the fresh bandage, and his wife was tracking his movements through the housekeeper.
He was too tired to decide what to do about any of it.
“Noted,” he said. “Goodnight, Godfrey.”
The carriage stopped at Blackholm House. Godfrey departed for his own lodgings, and Evander let himself in through the side entrance to avoid waking Harding.
The house was dark and still; the lamps were turned low in the corridors. His boots were quiet on the carpet as he climbed the stairs.
The nursery door was open. The room beyond it was empty. Tommy’s crib stood neatly made, the blankets folded, the pillow smooth.
No baby. No Mrs. Bridwell.
Where are they?
Evander’s chest tightened. He crossed the corridor to the nursemaid’s quarters and found the door closed, a thin line of darkness beneath it. Asleep. Which meant Tommy was elsewhere, and the only elsewhere that made sense was Mary’s room at the end of the east corridor.
Her door was ajar. Evander pushed it open and stood on the threshold, letting his eyes adjust.
Mary lay on her side in the bed, fully clothed, her shoes still on, one arm curled beneath her head. She had fallen asleep waiting for something or in the middle of something, and whatever it was had overtaken her before she could undress.
On the bed beside her, nestled in the wicker basket that had arrived on Evander’s doorstep five weeks ago, Tommy slept with his fists above his head and his mouth slightly open.
Evander exhaled. The tightness in his chest released, replaced by a warmth that he chose not to examine too closely.
Both of them were safe. Both of them were here.
He crossed the room and lifted the basket. He cradled it against his chest and turned toward the door, stepping carefully over Mary’s shoes where she had not quite managed to kick them off.
The corridor was dark. Evander carried the basket to the nursery, thirty feet of careful, measured steps, holding his breath with each one. Mrs. Bridwell’s door was closed, a thin line of darkness beneath it. He nudged the nursery door open with his shoulder and crossed to the crib.
He lowered the basket to the floor beside the crib and kneeled to lift Tommy out. Before his hands reached the blanket, Tommy’s face crumpled. His body stiffened inside the basket, his back arching, and the cry that erupted from his small lungs was loud enough to rattle the paintings on the nursery wall.
Evander froze. If this continued for another ten seconds, Mary would wake. He was standing in the nursery holding a screaming baby in a basket at midnight, and there would be no dignified way to explain himself.
He stared at the baby. Tommy screamed. His face had turned the color of a radish, and his fists punched at the air, and the sound coming out of him was astonishing for something that weighed less than a Christmas goose.
“Stop that,” Evander whispered.
