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When they went out, Juliet found she had been pressing her palms flat to the table surface for some time.

Reports came back in waves through the afternoon. The streets around the square: nothing. The coaching yards: no child seen. The northern market, the south end of the park, the neighboring squares: all of them the same.

Each report arrived in the entrance hall and moved through the house, and after each one the house grew quieter than before. The housemaids stopped speaking to each other in the corridor.

Juliet stood at the library window and watched the drizzle drag gray lines down the glass.

She did not let herself think about where Eloise was. She thought instead about the wooden horse left on the window seat. About Adam covering ground she could not see.

The door opened behind her at half past one.

She turned to find the young housemaid, Nell, standing in the doorway, still pink-cheeked from searching outdoors for too long, her eyes wide with the same attentiveness the whole house had worn since morning. She held a folded piece of paper in her hand, sealed with red wax.

“A boy brought this to the kitchen door just now, my lady. He said it was for your eyes only.” She hesitated. “He was gone before Cook could ask where he came from.”

Juliet crossed the room and took it.

The seal was plain; there was no crest, and it had been pressed flat with something that left no mark. Her name on the outside, but nothing else. It was written in a neat, careful hand. She waited until the door closed behind Nell, then broke the seal.

The letter inside was three paragraphs long. The handwriting was controlled, unhurried, composed with care and time to spare.

She read it once, her eyes widening with each line. Then, with trembling fingers, she went back to the beginning and read it again.

The child is unharmed. For now. Those words opened the letter—the very first line placed there so she would read everything that followed.

She was to come alone to the address printed on the letter’s foot.

She was not to bring her husband.

She was not to bring the Runners, nor any servant, nor any person in any capacity whatsoever.

If she arrived accompanied, or was followed, or sent word ahead, Eloise’s present comfort could no longer be guaranteed.

She had until three o’clock.

If she delayed past that hour, Eloise…

“Oh God,” Juliet murmured to herself.

She was to tell no one she had received this letter, and it was signed by a name which filled her with dread.

Penhurst.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Godfrey Grantham, Viscount of Penhurst, had written to her.

Hands still trembling, Juliet set the letter down on the library table and stood with her hands flat on the wood, taking in deep breaths that did nothing to calm her down at all.

Outside, the drizzle had thickened into proper rain, and the street below was empty.

She had known Penhurst was a despicable human being, but she hadn’t expected him to be this vile.

How…how could he abduct a child?

Even if he harbored a grudge against her and Adam, it would be the noble thing to face them head-on, rather than go below the belt like this.

She read the address at the letter’s foot once more and pressed it into memory. Then she went to the escritoire in the corner, opened the drawer, and took out a blank envelope. She folded the Penhurst letter along its original creases and slid it inside. She sealed it, and she wrote Adam’s name across the front, bearing down on each letter with the full weight of the pen.