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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.”