“I am not. It is true. Besides, you are related after all.”
“That we are.” He steered them gently around a pair of ladies who had stopped directly in the middle of the path to conduct what appeared to be a very urgent conversation. “Have you seen your mother since we returned?”
She stiffened slightly on his arm and nodded. “Yes. She is insistent upon seeing David. I am trying to convince her otherwise. I do not want her to form a bond with him only to have him taken away once we find Arabella. And besides—” she lowered her voice so that only he could hear, “—I am also worried that she will be able to tell that he is not mine.”
He waved a hand. “Do not fret about that. We shall simply say that he takes after his father. Which he may well do for all we know.”
“Some father,” she said quietly. “To want to discard his mother and keep only the child. And for what? The little one is a bastard, for all we know, unless she married him.”
“We will sort all that out once we find Arabella. We will find out whether she married him, and if not, we will come up with a suitable story. We will make certain he does not come anywhere near her or the child.” He looked at her. “As for your mother, it will be difficult, but I will be at your side. I will take the blame. Do not fret.”
She exhaled slowly. He wanted, in that moment, to wrap his arms around her and hold her—to soothe her in some way—but he didn’t know how, and he didn’t know if she would want that. There had been a lightness between them of late, since the Royal Menagerie. In the evenings back at the house, they spoke with ease. They even laughed. And sometimes, they sat in silence, and he knew those silences were filled by the same thing—worry about Arabella and worry about the future.
“Julian! Over here!”
Nathaniel’s voice carried across the park. He was waving his arm above his head in the manner of a man who had entirely abandoned dignity, standing near the Serpentine. Julian nudged Clara slightly, and the two of them made their way over to where Nathaniel and Evelyn had settled on a black and red checked blanket that had already been spread out on the grass.
Greetings were exchanged, and they sat.
“It is rather crowded today,” Nathaniel observed. “Perhaps we ought to have met at home.”
“Certainly not,” Evelyn replied with brisk authority. “They must be seen together, and they must be seen in the company of their friends so that everybody knows we accept them—that we are all on their side.” She glanced around with a serene expression. “You see how we are being examined already. As though we were some rare species of?—”
“Birds,” Nathaniel supplied.
“You are a rare bird indeed,” he added, in a teasing tone that made Julian chuckle. Beside him, Clara smiled.
“I shall take that as a compliment,” Evelyn said, “for otherwise you would be walking home.”
Nathaniel raised both hands. “Itwasa compliment. Of course, it was. I know better.”
“After all these years, I should hope so.”
“Now—” Julian leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice though the chatter of people and the clatter of hooves on the nearby bridle path would have drowned them out regardless. “Has Stanhope found anything?”
Nathaniel’s expression shifted. He nodded. “He has. Apparently, Arabella returned by ferry from Dover four weeks ago. She was in the company of two others—a young Italian gentleman and a lady. He has not yet been able to establish their identities although it appears they parted ways at Dover. The lady remained at an inn there before eventually making her way to London.”
“London,” Clara said. “So, you think they all met up again here?”
“They must have,” Julian said. “The gentleman who handed me the baby was Italian or at least his accent was. I spoke to him for only two or three minutes, but it was plain enough where he was from.” He paused. “I wonder—was he a gentleman come to her aid or a servant? A servant might have helped her, but I cannot see one simply abandoning his posting.”
They fell silent for a moment.
“Is there anything else?” Clara asked. “Any idea of where she might have gone from here?”
Nathaniel shook his head. “Our man, Stanhope, searched all of your holdings.”
“He did,” Julian confirmed. “I thought perhaps she had made her way back to Southampton.”
“Could there have been another reason to go so far? Was she preparing something, do you think? Staging somewhere? Otherwise, why make the journey at all?”
Nathaniel scratched his chin. “It is peculiar. For her to go to Southampton, baptize the child and return here.”
“She would have made the journey to have her son baptized by our family vicar,” Julian said. “She has always been close with him. Her parents and mine were both baptized by his predecessor.”
“Stanhope found nothing more?” Nathaniel asked.
“Nothing. And I am quite certain he would have told me.”
