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“No,” she said. “It was only a momentary spat. It does not mean anything.”

And Eloise’s arms tightened around her neck in wordless response. But Eloise knew that even she had not believed those words herself.

Hyde Park at that early hour gave Juliet the kind of quiet that the house had stopped offering her. The bridle path was empty in both directions, the plane trees along the southern stretch stripped to their branches, and Mercury moved beneath her with the easy power of a well-rested horse that wanted to run. Juliet let her.

The cold found the gap between her collar and her hat. She did not mind it. For a mile she gave the mare her head and concentrated on nothing except the sound of the ground rising under them and the wind filling her eyes.

She rode longer than she intended. She always did, when her thoughts refused to arrange themselves into any useful order.

On the first mile she thought about Adam…because she simply could not help it. On the second, she tried to think of other things and failed. By the third, she gave up entirely and turned for home, conceding that the morning had not produced the clarity she’d gone out looking for.

It was now over a week since the study, since she had stood in the doorway with Eloise on her hip and said She is my daughter, too with an edge in her voice she had not planned.

Even now, Eloise’s words continued to swirl inside her mind: So you are fighting with Papa.

Juliet came in through the mews, dismounted, handed Cinnamon off, and went in by the side entrance. She was on the first-floor landing, riding hat already in her hand, when she heard the voices below; there were more than there ought to be at this hour, and they carried a pitch that she felt before she understood. She went down.

The entrance hall held Mrs. Priscilla, two housemaids standing behind her, and Miss Green facing them all. The governess’s cap had been pushed sideways, as it does when a person has pressed their hands over their head repeatedly, and the skin around her eyes was swollen. They all turned when Juliet came in.

“Your Grace,” Mrs. Priscilla said.

“What is it?” Juliet said.

Miss Green pressed both hands to the front of her skirt and then removed them. “We…we cannot f—find Eloise, Your Grace.” She said it quickly, as though speed might make it less awful.

“She wanted to play hide-and-seek. I said yes to one game, but when I went to look for her, she wasn’t in the morning room or the parlor or the library, and I thought the garden but—” She sucked in a breath. “But I have been through every room. Every room.”

Juliet’s heart dropped right into her stomach. “How long has it been?” Juliet asked, her tone hard as stone.

The governess swallowed, sweat beading at her temples. “Just over an hour,” she answered, pushing Juliet’s panic a bit higher. Miss Green sounded closer to hysteria.

“Wake everyone who is not already at work. I want this house searched from attic to cellar, every cupboard, and every room again. Send someone to the garden and the mews immediately.” She was already moving. “Come with me, Miss Green.”

But search as they did, they found nothing in forty minutes. Every cupboard, every storeroom…even the gardener in the mews had not seen a child all morning. Juliet was at the foot of the stairs when the front door opened, and Adam came through it.

He stopped at the threshold with his hat in his hand and took in the arrangement of the hall in one sweep: the housemaids, the governess with her ruined composure, Juliet standing at the center of it all. His face went pale almost instantly, as if he could already tell what was happening.

“What has happened?” he said. Though his voice was the level, careful one he had been using for four days, she could see the tremor in his throat as he spoke. But she could not keep this from him either; in fact, it was fortunate he had come back at this time.

“Eloise is missing,” she said, trying her best to keep the panic out of her voice, but she was not sure she was doing a very good job of it. “She was playing with Miss Green an hour and a half ago. We have searched the house and the garden.”

He crossed the hall in four strides and stopped before Miss Green. He was considerably taller than her, and she took one involuntary step back, but his voice, when he spoke, was measured. “Before the game, did she say anything? Ask to go somewhere, or mention anyone she wanted to see?”

The governess shook her head, first slowly and then rapidly, as though the motion might produce a different answer. “Nothing, Your Grace. She was happy; she only wanted to play.”

He turned to Mrs. Priscilla. “Which footmen are presently accounted for?”

The question landed like the crack of a whip, and Juliet watched Mrs. Priscilla’s eyes widen in sudden realization.

“Thomas has not been seen since breakfast, Your Grace,” she said, her tone shocked.

Adam let out a string of obscenities that Juliet would have clutched her pearls at, were she in the right frame of mind to do so. Then he pulled on his gloves.

“Send a boy to Bow Street,” he said. “I want Runners here within the half hour. Send word to Lord Honeysett.”

He turned for the door, and Juliet moved.

She had the outdoor coat off its hook before he had crossed half the hall. “I am coming with you.”