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“I do not. Do you?”

“No name, no. Only that it began, as near as I ever understood it, around the time her husband died. There was an accident, I was told, though I never learned the particulars of it, and after that, someone began looking for her in earnest, and would not stop, no matter how far she ran or how often she changed her situation to avoid him. She changed her work more than once in those years, her manner of dress, even the way she wore her hair, anything that might make her harder to place. She had no close family left anywhere near London or Mayfair to go to for shelter, no one at all besides the one small daughter she was trying so hard to protect. It was only ever the two of them against whatever it was she was so afraid of.”

A cold sensation ran down Anthony’s chest, spreading outward with a speed that left him briefly unable to answer her at all. It was not only that Rose’s death remained unexplained, uncertain, possibly far darker than the illness he had been told to expect. It was the daughter.

Leonora had been asking questions for weeks now, openly, to shopkeepers and acquaintances, about a woman who resembled her mother, about Rose Ashcroft specifically, by name, in rooms full of people she did not know well enough to trust. If whoever had hunted Rose for years was still out there, still watching for any thread that might lead him back to the daughter he had never managed to find, then every single one of those questions had very possibly already reached him.

“Your Grace?” Hester was watching him now with evident concern. “Have I said something amiss?”

“No. No, you have been more helpful than you can possibly know.” He stood, rather more abruptly than he intended.

Closure was no longer the whole of what Leonora needed, nor even the most urgent part of it. If this man was still out there, and still searching, then every question she had asked about her own mother these past months had been a small, unwitting signal of exactly where to look for Leonora. She might very well be in danger.

“Thank you for your time, Hester. You have told me a great deal more than I came here expecting to learn. If anything further comes to mind, anything at all, however small it seems to you, I would be grateful if you sent word to my household directly. I may well have further questions yet, once I have had time to think properly on what you have told me.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” She rose with him, studying his face. “I’m glad I could help.”

He thanked her once more and let himself out, past Alderney’s footman and down the front steps into the evening air, his mind already working ahead of his feet.

There was danger. He could sense it.

He would have to be more careful and watchful with Leonora, until he understood exactly what they were dealing with.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Idid not say they were in the valise,” Alice said. “I said they were nearly in the valise.”

Leonora lowered the satin ribbon she had been folding and looked at the child kneeling on the nursery rug. Alice had one slipper on her left hand and the other on her right, and she was walking them across the floorboards in small, careful steps.

“Nearly,” Leonora repeated, watching her with a small smile on her face.

“They are on the way. They are only very slow.” Alice made the slippers hop the last distance to the open valise and dropped the shoes in with great ceremony, then sat back on her heels. “There. Now they have arrived in the valise and are ready to be transported.”

“A triumph,” Leonora said. “What about the nightdress?”

“Her Grace has it.”

“Her Grace does not have it. Her Grace is resting upstairs, and I watched you carry it into the garden room yesterday, Alice.”

Alice’s mouth worked sideways while she considered whether to dispute this, and then she scrambled up and ran for the door without another word. Leonora shook her head and went on folding. It was a small, ordinary task, and she was grateful for it, because her hands had been in need of something to do since breakfast.

Four days. Alice had been under this roof for four days, and Leonora could count what those days had held. There had been the ghost stories by the fire, and a walk through the kitchen garden where Alice had insisted every beetle was a duke in disguise. Leonora would miss the noise of her. She had not expected that.

The door opened and Leonora had expected Alice to be scurrying back with the nightdress but when she turned, she found another familiar face standing there.

Seraphina stood on the threshold with her gloves already in one hand, her bonnet strings loosely tied, and she wore the expression she saved for book endings that did not make sense. Behind her in the corridor Leonora could hear a heavier tread and a low voice, which meant William had gone looking for Alice.

“You look well,” Seraphina said, which was the sort of thing she said when she meant the opposite.

“I am well.” Leonora laid the last ribbon on top of the pile and closed the lid of the valise. “Alice is hunting for her nightdress. She will be down shortly.”

“Leonora –”

“She had a lot of fun, that I can promise,” Leonora continued. “When did you even start telling her ghost stories, Seraphina? Isn’t she too young for those?

“Leo –”

“I taught her a tune,” she continued still. “On the pianoforte. She loved it. I apologise in advance for the noisy afternoons you are going to be having after today.”