Chapter Seventeen
T wo days passed without a visit from Newberry’s fellow physician. Neville Pridmore reportedly had royal as well as noble patients and a full schedule. Viv spent the time at her desk or at Lady Melforth’s side. Although Lady Melforth kept to her room, she read over pages of their draft and kept Viv busy making small changes and sending them off to Dodsley. Newberry came twice a day to urge his patient to rest rather than write. He said nothing to Lady Melforth of his suspicion that she was subject to a particular palsy, but with Viv, he shook his head and looked grim. The Strydes called often and were turned away on Newberry’s orders, and once Viv heard Mrs. Stryde’s angry voice, warning Haxton that he would be gone as soon as the house was hers.
The night before the consulting physician’s visit, Lady Melforth could not sleep. She insisted that she alone would meet him. She asked Viv to retrace the steps of their walk through the Green Park. Walk Number Six was meant to refresh a woman’s senses and encourage her to enjoy the freedom of a country ramble in the city. Now Lady Melforth worried that the walk was too taxing for a lady, and wanted Viv to walk the route again. Viv knew she was being got out of the way, so that her mentor could face the new doctor alone, but she agreed to go, so that her ladyship could at last sleep .
Viv sat beside the great canopied bed and turned to the other matter on her mind, ending her betrothal. She would ask Lark to accompany her to the park. There, away from others, she would find a way to end their betrothal with dignity and gratitude. She had thought of little else in the few minutes that were hers while attending Lady Melforth and working on the book.
Briefly their engagement had seemed real. His feelings seemed to have changed from the moment when he’d challenged her to accept the ruse. He had said no moonlight and roses, and had kissed her on the pavement in front of the house with someone playing badly in the background and the odors of horses and trash bins in the air.
She had kissed him back and clung to him in that moment. Without meaning to, she had come to regard them as being in league together, taking on the great city and making it theirs. But days of tending to Lady Melforth and holding the book’s pages in her lap had brought Viv to her senses. She had come to London to become a writer. She owed everything she had learned to Lady Melforth. Tomorrow or the next day, she would take the last bits of the book and all the notes and revisions to Dodsley. In days, the proofs would be in her hands.
She knew there were girls who dreamed of seeing their names in the marriage register of some grand church next to a mister or an esquire or even a lord. Not Viv. She had dreamed of opening the cover of a book and finding her name in print. She knew just how their London guide would look now that Dodsley had accepted their title .
A L ADY’S G UIDE TO L ONDON IN T WELVE S ELF- G UIDED W ALKS
A F AITHFUL D ESCRIPTION OF R OUTES AND P LACES
T O A SSIST W OMEN IN K NOWLEDGE OF THE M ETROPOLIS
W RITTEN BY L ADY A URORA M ELFORTH, T HE T RAVELING V ISCOUNTESS,
AND M ISS V IVIAN B RADISH
L ONDON: P UBLISHED BY D ODSLEY & S ONS , 86 T HE S TRAND
A VAILABLE AT B OOKSELLERS IN E NGLAND, W ALES, I RELAND, AND S COTLAND
It was an old dream, now close to coming true. And Lady Melforth needed her. Viv had no business turning away from her when the caring had become more difficult.
*
The morning of the doctor’s expected visit, Lady Melforth woke early, insisting that she must be up and dressed hours before he was scheduled to arrive. Sarah, her maid, sent for Viv at once. Together they helped her ladyship to her dressing table, where Sarah had placed her ladyship’s cup of morning chocolate. Sarah offered further help, but was sent to bring her ladyship’s clothes from her dressing room. Viv was ordered to gather the latest pages from her ladyship’s bedside .
Her ladyship stared at the mirror, apparently lost in thought. She lifted her hand and rested it on the edge of the dressing table, then with a sudden jerk of the hand, swept the cup of chocolate from the table. She gave an anguished cry and shouted for Sarah. With her shaking hand, she clutched her dripping skirts, scattering drops of chocolate.
Viv’s heart lurched. All of Newberry’s hints that her ladyship might be seriously ill came to mind. She dropped to her knees at her ladyship’s side and put a steadying hand on her trembling arm. Once the tremor subsided, Viv retrieved the cup from the carpet. Sarah came running. “Sarah, please bring some towels and send for Jenny.”
Viv applied a napkin to the worst of the dark spill on her ladyship’s dressing gown. “Don’t worry, ma’am. Jenny will take care of the spill. Let’s move you to the bench and get you out of this wet gown.”
Lady Melforth released her hold of the gown, and allowed Viv to help her to her feet. Together they managed the few steps to the bench at the foot of her ladyship’s grand canopied bed. Viv helped her ladyship to put a hand to the scrolled arm of the bench and stiffly lower herself down. She looked up at Viv with anxious eyes.
“How silly of me to be nervous about this fellow Pridmore’s visit. He’s just another sawbones, no matter how puffed up he is by having exalted patients.”
“Exactly,” Viv agreed. “You know Newberry only wants to be sure that he has not overlooked anything that may be done for you.”
Jenny arrived, and whatever she thought of the dark brown stains on the ivory skirts of the dressing table or the puddle of chocolate on the pale blue carpet, she went to work at once with soap and cold water to remove evidence of the spill. While Sarah and Viv helped her ladyship to dress, Jenny turned the skirts on the dressing table to move the stain to the back. Together Jenny and Viv moved the table a few inches forward to conceal the drying spot on the rug.
When all was in order, Viv and Sarah helped her ladyship back to her dressing table, and Sarah began gently to brush her ladyship’s fiery hair into some sort of order.
“Now, Viv,” said her ladyship, her gaze once again clear, meeting Viv’s in the glass, “you’d best get going if we’re to have those last revisions to Dodsley by the end of day today.”
“Of course, ma’am.” Viv gathered up the pages, gave a mock salute, and turned to go. Outside the bedroom, she leaned against the door, and made a brief, silent prayer for strength for her ladyship.
*
When Viv descended, she found Lark waiting in the hall. It was plain that he and Haxton were now on good terms. Even the least of her acquaintances would feel something when the pretend betrothal ended, perhaps nothing very great, a bit of confusion, a passing sympathy for Viv, but something.
Lark’s questioning gaze met hers at once, and he moved toward her at the bottom of the stairs. “Something’s happened, hasn’t it? Is she worse? You don’t have to tell me, but I am at your service today.”
“Are you? Again? When I meet your duke, I will be sure to tell him that he is a most lax employer.” She accepted her cloak and bonnet from Haxton.
“That he is! Where are we off to today? Your publisher?”
She settled the bonnet in place, noting the familiar evasion at the mention of his work. She took a minute to hide a slight disappointment as she donned her gloves. She had no business feeling disappointed that he hid something of himself from her almost effortlessly. Her plan was to end their pretense of a betrothal. “Lady Melforth wants me to check the time and distance on one of our early walks through the Green Park.”
“Your carriage awaits,” he said.
At that, she did look up. She hadn’t ordered it. “Do we need a carriage? It’s a perfect spring day.”
“Which, we’ll enjoy in the park. You’ll have a more accurate account of how fatiguing the walk is if you haven’t walked a mile or more first.”
“Miss.” Haxton opened the door, and they passed through into the bright cool day.
Taking the carriage made perfect sense, but again Viv sensed that his preference for taking the carriage concealed something. She cast a quick glance around her as she climbed into the coach. Henrietta Street looked ordinary. Nothing in the air, the sunshine, or the sky suggested cause for alarm. It was a rare spring day.
When they sat facing each other and he signaled the coachman to go, she noted a passing expression of satisfaction in his eyes. “What are you not telling me?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “You want to return to Lady Melforth in good time, don’t you? ”
“I do,” she agreed, still trying to name the thing that bothered her and wanting to protest that she could easily walk three miles or four in London and hardly needed to be carried to her destination. But the protest never made it to her lips. With the motion of the carriage, she yawned, prodigiously, helplessly, a long shaky exhalation. She clapped her gloved hands over her gaping mouth.
Across from her, he grinned. “Her ladyship running you ragged?”
“It’s not as bad as that.”
“I can see that you are worried about her,” he said, sobering at once.
“She’s restless at night, so I read to her, her own books mainly. That’s what’s so heartbreaking. I think she fears that she’ll never write again. And…”
“And…” he said gently.
“And that would be like losing her voice, losing who she is.” Viv straightened on the velvet seat. “That’s why it’s important that we get our book finished. More than any doctor or medicine, having the proof copy in her hands is bound to do Lady Melforth a world of good.”
“Well, then. Let’s get to it.”
The carriage let them down in Piccadilly near the entrance to the park. Viv and Lady Melforth had chosen the smaller park as a walking destination without the bridle paths and carriage ways of the larger, more popular Hyde Park. The route they’d planned was about a mile along the Queen’s Walk, past great houses like Spencer House, and humble lanes like the old passage for milkmaids to the milk stalls in St. James’s Park, down to Buckingham House, and on down Constitution Hill to the tip of the park across from the Duke of Wellington’s Apsley House. The whole leisurely excursion was meant to take an hour, allowing time to admire the different prospects, and offering women the freedom of a stroll in the country in the heart of the city. Queen Caroline, GeorgeII’s wife, had envisioned just such outings when she’d designed it.
The carriage rolled away, and they entered the park. A clump of Narcissus nodded their white heads at them. There would be no other flowers in the park itself, just a rolling expanse of green with the tracery of faintly green-tipped branches overhead. Viv reached for her notebook and pencil.
“I’ll watch the time if you like,” he offered.
“Thank you.” She set off briskly, and almost at once, moderated her pace because he was with her, his presence a reminder to allow for observation and for enjoying the freshness of the air and greenness of landscape and the freedom of easy motion. It was a scene into which Lark fit perfectly, every inch the gentleman.
At each stop, Lark gave her the time to jot in her notebook. And she considered their surroundings. No spot seemed quite right for announcing the end of their engagement. There were too many people about. The sun was too bright, or the shade too deep. He was being too helpful. She wanted to keep to their schedule. By the time they reached the little shrub-surrounded lake below the front of Buckingham House, she had resolved that the best place to end their betrothal was in Lady Melforth’s green drawing room where it had begun. In a few days, Viv would have a handsome copy of the book to give him and could inscribe a brief message expressing her gratitude for the ways he had helped in making it. That would be a perfectly fitting way to end things between them.
Swans glided on the lake and ladies in white gowns echoed their movements on the surrounding path. Children and small dogs ran this way and that, chasing sticks and balls. Looking toward Buckingham House itself one saw columns upon columns and a view obstructed by the great marble arch in the forecourt. The arch had been built to memorialize England’s great victory over Napoleon. Viv consulted her notebook. One couldn’t exactly commend the house as an inspiration to women.
“Are you wondering what to say about it?” Lark asked.
She nodded, turning to look toward the east. “The arch is too near the house, and obstructs the view. Of course, the king doesn’t live there, so I suppose it’s no inconvenience to him. At least the arch is not blocking traffic.”
“The king probably doesn’t want to live with a monumental arch to another man’s achievement on his doorstep.”
She frowned. “You think the king is offended by the monument?”
“He tried to give the house away to Parliament,” he said. “But the members apparently refused to take it over as a meeting place. You could simply omit it from your guide.”
“But how could a monument to a national achievement offend the king? He’s the head of the nation, isn’t he?”
Lark was silent for a moment, the teasing look gone from his eyes. “What if,” he said at last, “the king doesn’t feel that he was truly a part of the great effort of beating Napoleon. What if the monument makes him feel like a mere onlooker, an idler, as if he doesn’t quite belong among the happy throngs of Englishmen glorying in their splendid victory. A man has to take part in order to belong.”
“Oh dear, I can’t omit it. It’s there, isn’t it? It makes a fine backdrop for Londoners out on a stroll, something for a painter to capture.” She caught his glance, now laughing again, and realized he’d meant to provoke her defense of the place. He was dangerous in the way he had of anticipating her thoughts.
They turned and made their way down the final stretch of the proposed walk toward the western tip of the park where three great thoroughfares came together, and that other, vaster park began. Viv slowed her steps, reluctant to come face-to-face with Apsley House. Carriages and horsemen passed in all directions and a shifting crowd gathered to admire the Duke of Wellington’s famous abode at Number1, London.
Apsley House stood at the end of a row of grand houses on the north side of Piccadilly. A little island of green with a few trees on it lay between them and the house. People paused before the house, pointing to its features and paying their tribute of awe to the duke and to the men who’d fought with him at Waterloo. Viv could see without feeling the swelling pride and unity of the crowd in the near environs of the great man who had led England to glory on that day. Lark’s words about belonging or not belonging were fresh in her mind. She could not share the thrill or celebrate with others, not because she had not been at the great battle, but because for her June eighteenth was no victory. It was both her birthday, and the day her father died, the day her mother’s widowhood had begun.
It confirmed what she and Lady Melforth had been striving for in their guide. The grand monuments and sights of London might have different meanings for each traveler.
As she stared at Apsley House, she realized that she’d lost Lark somewhere in the crowd. She turned to look for him and found a rough-looking man with a dark brown beard, bear-like in his size and ferocious appearance, his huge fists clenched, his menacing gaze fixed on someone beyond her. She followed the hostile gaze and found Lark looking away from Apsley House, unaware of the man. Lark stood transfixed, the only word for it, staring at a plain building of yellow stone and red brick on the opposite side of Grosvenor Place.
She moved closer to him and put a hand on his sleeve. “Lark, what is it?” she asked. “Do you know that building?”
He didn’t answer. Viv glanced at the building that had captured his attention. Two signs across the upper stories proclaimed in bold lettering: P ENITENT W OMEN’S H OSPITAL and V OLUNTARY A DMITTANCE .
Viv turned and found the bearded man still glaring at Lark. She tried to catch the man’s eye and warn him off, but he turned his back to her. That broad back in a plain brown sackcloth coat reminded her of the fleeing pickpocket of the day she met Lark. But they were laughably far from Babylon Street, surrounded by fashionable Londoners. People strolled past, unhurried, unalarmed. The bearded man moved on as if he meant to enter the park. Viv slipped her arm through Lark’s and gave a gentle pull.
He seemed to feel her presence then, but turned a blank face to her, his mind clearly on some inner vision. She tugged his arm again. “Let’s return to Piccadilly,” she said. On Piccadilly, there were always crowds, and perhaps there would be a constable, someone to turn to if the bearded man approached again. Lark fell into step next to her, but said nothing, withdrawn into himself. She thought walking must help, must bring him back to himself and to her. She could not imagine why the building had overset him.
They had gone a very few steps when a harsh voice reached them.
“I’m warning ye. Ye’d better do a click. Ye and yer fine friends can’t dodge me furever!”
Viv couldn’t be sure she heard right. She looked over her shoulder as Lark pulled her along. The bearded man stood alone in the middle of the walkway, rigid with fury, people swerving around him as they passed by. “Does that man know you?”
“I doubt it. Come along, Viv. It’s time you met the duke.”
*
Whatever the Women’s Penitent Hospital meant to Lark, seeing the building had changed him. His face was grim, and there was a reckless gleam in his eyes. He was no longer the easy gentleman out for a stroll in the park that he had been. Instead, he kept them moving at a brisk pace up Piccadilly and into Mayfair, winding through its streets, a man with a purpose and direction.
Several streets and turnings later, he stopped at an imposing stone house, five bays wide, and taller and more austere in its lines than its neighbors. The individual who opened the door came as a surprise to Viv. He wore a grin as if he’d been enjoying a good joke.
“Miss Bradish is here to see the duke,” said Lark.
The man did not go all stiff and haughty on them. Rather, some quick assessment went on behind the professional glance of friendly curiosity, and they were let into a warm and comfortable entry hall and cordially asked to wait a minute. From somewhere above them came squeals of youthful laughter.
Then they were led to the back of the house and admitted to a sunny, book-lined study in which, in the middle of a fine Turkish carpet, stood a castle constructed of books and children’s blocks surrounded by tiny figures of mounted knights arrayed for battle.
Viv’s gaze shifted at once to the man standing behind the castle. He was tall and fair with piercing blue eyes, broad shoulders, and a lean torso encased in a waistcoat of figured blue silk. The cuffs of his white lawn shirt had been rolled up, presumably as he did some work at the large desk to one side of the room. Viv saw the ink stain on his middle finger, the telltale sign of a writer at work. His alert gaze was all for Lark, and some unspoken communication passed between them.
“Your grace,” said Lark. “May I present my fiancée, Miss Vivian Bradish.” He turned to her. “Miss Bradish, His Grace, the Duke of Wenlocke.”
Viv dropped into the expected curtsy. He was something, this living duke, not quite what the word duke might conjure in the public imagination, far too young, too fit, too vigorous, almost like a pugilist in his figure, but undeniably powerful with an easy authority of manner. There was no evident surprise in the duke’s expression at Lark’s announcement, but Viv guessed that the man had taken some cue from Lark. She could hardly decide which of the two of them behaved with greater composure.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Bradish.” The voice was deep and sure. “Forgive me if we had an appointment, it must have slipped my mind. What brings you to Wenlocke House today?”
“Miss Bradish has something she wishes to say to you,” Lark prompted.
Viv reddened, remembering her threat of the morning. “I, too, am pleased, your grace. What Lark, that is, Mr. Larkin, is wishing me say, may sound presumptuous.” She paused, but met the duke’s gaze squarely. “You, sir, are a most lax employer if my fiancé is to be believed.”
A corner of the duke’s mouth twitched ever so slightly, and he glanced at Lark. “You doubt him, then, but if Mr.…um…Larkin has neglected his work of late, surely I may blame that on you.”
A light knock sounded on the door, which opened behind them without ceremony. A woman entered, who could only be described as a fairy princess, petite and golden-haired, shimmering in a pale rose-colored silk gown, a small beribboned pin on one shoulder. She stopped when she saw them. “Oh, I came to return this.” She held up another of the knight figures. “I didn’t realize you—”
She broke off, catching sight of Lark. Her eyes lit up. “ Lark!” The word came out on a gust of a sigh. She moved toward him with her hands extended.
“Your grace.” He bowed his head and allowed her to take his hands. “I have been remiss,” he said. “I came to introduce my betrothed.”
The duchess sent a questioning glance to her husband and caught some message from him as Viv tried to make sense of what she was seeing and hearing. Her mysterious betrothed was well known to both the duke and the duchess, but he was no mere secretary handling matters of book collecting. Indeed, the books in the study appeared to be arranged to suit small castle-builders rather than a collector of rare volumes.
The duchess turned to Viv. Again, Lark made the introduction, and Viv curtsied to the lovely duchess, who seemed to recover from her surprise.
“I believe,” she said, “that we should have met sooner. Lady Melforth’s invitation did not reach us, as we were in the country for the birthday of our middle daughter. A new pony was involved.”
An awkward moment followed. Viv was sure the duke and duchess were waiting for some clue from Lark, but he had withdrawn into himself with the look of troubled distraction his face had worn since he’d seen the Penitent Women’s Hospital. At last, he spoke.
“Thank you for seeing us, sir, ma’am. I apologize if our visit has inconvenienced you. Miss Bradish has had her doubts about my connection with you since we met, and as we were walking nearby, I thought to stop and put her mind at ease at last. ”
“Do not trouble yourselves. You see how informal we are here.” The duke accepted the small figure from his wife and stooped to place it in front of the castle.
“Shall I send for some refreshment?” asked the duchess.
“Thank you, no,” said Viv. “I must return to Lady Melforth directly.”
“Ah, well,” said the duke, coming forward, and offering an arm to both ladies. “Let us send you home in proper style, Miss Bradish. Lark can see to having a carriage brought round.”
Viv murmured her thanks, and they made their way back to the entry hall. Her brain buzzed with questions about her betrothed. It was plain that the duke and duchess had closed ranks to offer him some sort of protection. From what she could not imagine.
For a few minutes they stood in the entry, the duchess asking questions about the guide Viv and Lady Melforth were writing, just the sort of easy questions to keep Viv’s mind occupied and not wandering to the much larger questions the day had raised.
“We must invite you to dinner here,” the duchess was saying when Lark returned. They made their farewells, and Lark led Viv to an elegant open carriage standing at the door with a liveried driver on the box. Viv thanked the duke and duchess, and Lark helped her into the carriage.
“You’re not coming?” she asked.
“I’m afraid you reminded my employer how very undemanding he’s been, and now he has things for me to do. Go. Lady Melforth needs you. You have a book to finish.”
She nodded. She had only a brief glimpse of his troubled face as he turned away.
He was right, but behind him the duke’s door stood open, a door to all that was mysterious about her betrothed, all that he had concealed. It made no sense that he had been so very modest about his connection with the duke and duchess. His ties to them appeared quite deep. But then there was the bearded man in the park who seemed to know him. And the puzzle of the change in him wrought by the sight of that hospital. Her pretend fiancé was a dizzying set of contradictions.
Viv leaned back against the cushions. She should be thinking of Lady Melforth. Her duty was to her ladyship. The new doctor must have made his visit by now and perhaps offered her ladyship a course of action or medication to deal with her troublesome symptoms. He might even have given her ailment a name.
*
Viv’s carriage passed from sight with no sign of Rook, and Lark returned to Wenlocke’s house. He must think of Dav as Wenlocke now, though he imagined that his old companion found it distasteful to go by the title of his vengeful grandfather.
The pleasant butler readmitted Lark to the lofty entry hall where the duke and duchess waited. Without hesitation the duchess came forward and enfolded him in a warm embrace. He steeled himself to bear it. He could not turn her away.
The hug was quick and light, like a passing cloud of goodness and sweetness. He knew the duchess had had her share of sorrows. She still wore the small pin and faded ribbons on her shoulder that Lark and Rook had once lifted from her pocket in the schoolroom at Daventry Hall where she’d taught them reading and maths.
“I will leave you two gentlemen to understand one another.” She gave her husband’s hand a squeeze and ascended the stairs.
“Come,” said Wenlocke. “We’ll have beer and sandwiches and you can tell me what really brought you here today.” He nodded to the butler and turned back toward his study.
Lark followed. He had expected exposure not kindness. Kindness from those he had once wronged would be his undoing. He knew how to mimic kindness, how to offer it to strangers, and how people, all sorts of people, even the most unlikely, drank kindness in as if they were parched for it. He hadn’t thought he was someone who needed or deserved kindness.
And now he’d come face-to-face with shocking evidence of his true identity. His fragmentary memories of beringed fingers and upholstered carriages had deceived him. The hospital revealed his mother’s shame. She had been a drab, one of those women shuffling along London’s lowest streets, concealing poxy faces behind leaden paint and reddened lips, until they could no longer dupe potential clients.
In his study, Wenlocke gestured to an armchair. Lark waited for the duke to be seated. Wenlocke laughed, and pointed to the child’s castle in the middle of the room. “You see that we live quite informally here. And you must know that you are welcome. ”
Lark remained standing. “After twelve years? You must think me daft to come here. I…I…would not have except that…” He could not say what he’d discovered about his mother. “I thought you’d likely expose me.”
One of Wenlocke’s fair brows quirked upward. “You thought I might begin by asking Miss Bradish why she has pledged her troth to a pickpocket, though an uncommon one, and one who’s not done a click in some time.”
Lark could not hide his surprise. “How did you know?”
“Sit down, would you.”
Lark complied. He could not help it. The energy that had propelled him away from the hospital, away from Rook’s anger, suddenly left him.
“I’ve been following your…career. Robin, you remember him, has joined Peel’s new detective force. He keeps me informed. If you were ever taken up, I would want to act.”
“You would do that? Even after the way we left?” In addition to his other sins, Lark could add thinking ill of Wenlocke.
For a moment Wenlocke studied his hands, saying nothing. “I know what you did that day, the day of the match. The duchess told me. When you called out my opponent as a cheat with weighted hands, you saved my life, and because, mine, hers. We always hoped you would come back.”
While Lark sat stunned by what he was learning about his old companion, a footman knocked and entered with a tray of beer and sandwiches. When these were set down and the fellow had left, they were free to resume their conversation, but Lark could not begin again. His life had never unfolded in a smooth progression. It was no broad straight avenue, but a maze of narrow winding ways, sudden turns, and blind alleys. He had thought himself prepared for life’s blows, but the sight of that hospital had shaken him. He had come to Wenlocke to end the farce of his betrothal.
“So tell me.” Wenlocke took up a cup of beer. “What’s happened? What brings you back to us? Your engagement?”
Lark regarded the tray of refreshments, but they seemed quite beyond his reach. “I discovered the truth of who my mother was.”
Wenlocke lowered the ale cup in his hand to the table, his expression sobering at once. “And what is that truth?”
“She was admitted to the lock hospital on Grosvenor Place. That night was the last time I saw her.” Saying the words hurt. In ancient times a lock hospital had been for lepers. Now such a place was for women who had the pox. The hospital had overturned all his fantasies of the fine coach and his mother’s beringed fingers turning the pages of a storybook.
Wenlocke didn’t speak. Instead, he rose and moved restlessly around the room, stopping at the mantel to shift a ceramic duck nearer its mate and at the desk to straighten a pile of papers. At last, he turned and faced Lark.
“Are you sure? Tell me everything you remember about that night. It was night?” He took his seat again.
“It was night. We came in a closed carriage. Posh, I think. At least with soft cushions. Father, Mother, and I. It was late, and I must have dozed in the carriage. I think my mother fell asleep as well.”
“Go on.”
“When the carriage stopped, another man opened the door, not a servant, at least not in livery. Together, my father and the other man helped my mother from the carriage. I saw the building through the open door.” That much had come to him almost at the first glimpse of the hospital before Viv tugged his arm and Rook shouted. The images rearranging themselves in his head had fled in the face of the insistent present.
“Can you remember any talk? Anything that was said? Did your mother speak?”
“There were only men’s voices. I must have tried to follow, but my father told me not to move.”
Wenlocke appeared to consider Lark’s account, leaning forward in his chair, his brow furrowed, his powerful shoulders hunched, his hands steepled together. “I can guess what you’re thinking. You imagine that your mother was a mere doxie and that when illness rendered her unable to ply her trade any longer, she had no recourse but to abandon you, perhaps in the vain hope of saving you both.”
Lark nodded dumbly.
“I doubt it. Think, man. From what you’ve told me so far, it’s unlikely that your mother entered that hospital voluntarily. The nighttime admittance. The carriage. Your father’s presence and some sort of accomplice. Your mother’s sleepy condition. Your own abandonment. All those details suggest a different story.”
“You think my father was a villain?”
“We can’t rule it out. We can return tonight if you like, and recreate the circumstances exactly. You may remember more.” Wenlocke paused. “I think you should attempt it. Are you willing? ”
Lark sat stunned. It was a risk. All the time he had pretended to be Edward Larkin, he had expected that the truth, when he found it, would confirm that he was a gentleman, one worthy of Viv Bradish. He had imagined, walking in that park, that he could simply step into the identity he had invented for himself. He could shed the years as a pickpocket because he had been born a gentleman. The hospital undid that history. Now, again, with Wenlocke’s offer, the path of discovery took an unexpected turn toward a dangerous hope. He could not see whether it would end in his elevation to respectability or cost him a true betrothal to Viv.
He looked up and met Wenlocke’s gaze. “I’ll do it.”