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Chapter Twenty

As Lark approached Lady Melforth’s door, a carriage pulled away from the curb. His gaze narrowed to Viv slumped on the front steps in the morning light, her head bowed, a brown paper package clutched to her chest, her blue skirts trailing against the stones. The first time he’d seen her he’d thought a piece of the sky had fallen to the ground. Now his heart lurched. She had fallen somehow. He hurried his steps.

The house looked as it always did with its neat stone exterior and iron railing, its windows glinting in the sun. He glanced at the door knocker, but no black cloth shrouded it to explain her dejected state. Her gloves, bonnet, and shawl proclaimed that she had been out on some errand or was about to begin one. He stopped, facing her. “Viv? Why are you sitting out here?”

She looked up, blinking against the light. He moved to shield her face from the glare and caught his breath at the expression of blank wretchedness in her eyes. “The Strydes are here. I saw them enter.”

So, she had been out. He knew she avoided the Strydes when she could, but usually they brought out the fight in her. Their presence did not explain her downcast state. “May I?” he asked.

She seemed not to understand him. Carefully, he brushed her skirts aside and joined her, setting his hat on the stones. He wasn’t sure she noticed that he sat beside her. “Can you tell me what’s wrong besides the Strydes?”

Carriages and vans rattled by on Henrietta Street, casting moving shadows over them as they sat. A passing gentleman and the lady on his arm gave them a quick puzzled glance. Lark waited. The morning’s brightness exposed an odd contrast between the shine of his boots and the bedraggled hem of her gown. At last, she spoke.

“Where have you been these past days?” She sounded mildly curious, as if his absence had been a matter of little importance.

“Did you think I’d forgotten you? The duke—”

She twisted, putting a gloved hand to his lips, shaking her head sadly. The brown package slid off her lap down her sprawling skirts. “Don’t,” she said. “The duke is not your employer, is he? And you do not manage his book collection, do you?”

He met her gaze as steadily as he could.

She took her hand away.

“I never lied about knowing him. He saw to my education.”

She gave him a sad, searching look that made his heart shrink. He wanted to protest that it hadn’t all been lies. His feelings had not been a lie. But as he tried to think of more truths he could tell her, his thoughts scattered. “I do not depend on him for…my…income. I bank with Hammersley’s, as I told you.” He tapped the package beside her with his forefinger. “Is this making you sad?”

She pushed the package off her skirts onto the stone step. “The proofs from Dodsley.”

“You’re disappointed.” He knew he was stating the obvious, and the word was far too mild for whatever devastating blow had fallen. Something had knocked the bright spirits out of her. He stole a glance at the package of proofs. The explanation must lie in them. “Did Dodsley change the title, or worse?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She began to tug off her left glove. “It’s good that you are here. We have come to the end of our arrangement, have we not?”

He watched her pull at the glove. It snagged a little on his garnet ring, but she tugged again to free her hand. He took her hand in his, hers, icy cold, the ring loose on her finger. She was going to end their betrothal, while he had come to ask her to continue a few more days, at least until he knew the whole truth. He already knew that his mother had not had the pox, nor had she lived by selling the use of her body.

He rubbed Viv’s hand between his own warmer hands. If he could delay this talk of ending their betrothal, he could get to the bottom of what had happened to bring her so low. “Can you tell me what has caused your distress? Is there anything I can do? Shall we go to Dodsley?”

“I’ve just come from Dodsley. He isn’t the problem.” Her hand lay lifeless and cold in his. Her gaze was remote as if her thoughts were far away. Then she turned and looked at him with such piercing directness, his heart hurt. “I want no more deceptions,” she said.

He swallowed. It was too soon to undeceive her. He needed more time. Even a day or two could make all the difference. His mind raced through what he already knew, what he could possibly say. His mother had a history, though she did not yet have a name.

Wenlocke had been the key. With the duke’s backing, the hospital had allowed Lark to question the oldest serving members of the staff. An ancient nurse remembered the night arrival of a woman so dosed with laudanum the doctor feared she might not revive. When prompted to explain a matching record that Finch found, the matron acknowledged that the woman must have been admitted mistakenly. The matron insisted that the hospital bore no blame because the woman had been troubled with delusions of a husband and a son though her record said otherwise. She had been sent to a private hospital in Surrey. Meanwhile, Robin had discovered that Sneath was well known to the authorities for various frauds. Fury and guilt plagued Lark with each discovery, and each maddening delay now that he was so close to finding the truth.

He roused himself from his thoughts. Viv was in distress. He must help her first. A large shadow fell on them both and didn’t move. Lark looked up.

Rook stood on the flagstones in front of the house, his stance wide and challenging, his fists clenched, his bearded face screwed tight in anger.

“Tell ’er the truth. Tell ’er ’oo you are, or I will.” His voice boomed out.

Viv’s hand slipped from Lark’s, and she turned a faltering gaze from him to Rook. “You followed us in the park that day.”

“Tell ’er,” Rook said, ignoring Viv, his stare fixed on Lark.

“She knows who I am,” he said. Lark readied himself to push Rook back away from her.

“Hah! She thinks yer a toff that dresses swell and talks fine. Yer liars, the pair of you.” Beside Lark, Viv shuddered.

Rook dipped a big hand into the pocket of his worn brown coat and pulled out a scrap of blue velvet, crushed and dirt-smudged. “See this!” He took a heavy step forward and dangled the little blue purse by its strings, thrusting it at Viv’s face. “Yer nothin’ but a cheat. Ye think yer that clever stuffing it with stones.”