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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 Viv was sure the duke and duchess were waiting for some clue from Lark, but he had withdrawn into himself with the look of troubled distraction his face had worn since he’d seen the Penitent Women’s Hospital.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.”