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“I will not tell you.”

Leonora blinked. “Mother...”

“Do not look at me that way, my darling.” Rose’s voice was gentle. “If I tell you who he is, you will go looking. I know you. The one reason I have been following you for the past few weeks now, risking being seen is because you have been asking questions, Leonora. It’s dangerous. He lurks in the shadows, waiting. He can hurt you. I don’t want you to cross paths with this man. Ever, or he will be fixated on you too.”

Leonora lowered her eyes.

Lady Byron, who had been listening with her arms folded tight, finally spoke. “She is right, Leonora. I do not like it either.”

Leonora wanted to argue. Her whole life she had argued, chased and pushed at every closed door. But her mother’s hands were in hers, and they were shaking. She found she did not have the heart to insist.

“All right,” she said. “I will wait.”

“Thank you.”

Leonora nodded. “Was there no one?” she asked. “In London, when you first came?”

“One person.” Rose’s face softened. “A friend, in the worst of it. I would not have survived without him.”

A friend.

Leonora’s breath hitched. She thought at once of Lord Brighton in the shop, saying that her mother had been one of his oldest friends. For a moment something warm unfolded in her chest. She had barely managed a thank you at the shop, shaken as she was. The next time she saw him, she would thank him properly.

Rose was watching her face. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” Leonora shook her head, smiling in spite of herself. “I am only glad you were not alone.”

The silence that followed was softer than before. Leonora cleared her throat.

“I never forgot the song,” she said, and felt her face heat. “The one about the fox. You made it up the afternoon you brushed my hair. I remember the sound of it, and I remember you laughing. But I have lost the words. I tried so many times.”

Rose stared at her. Then, slowly, she began to hum.

It was thin and tuneless, and it went flat at the top of the phrase, exactly where it always had. Rose caught herself, laughed, shook her head, and began again.

“The fox put on his Sunday hat, and went to call upon the moon. He asked to borrow a spoon, he said, and stayed to hum a tune.”

Leonora was crying again. She did not remember when she had started. She heard her own voice rise to meet her mother’s, cracking on the same high note, wandering off key in exactly the same place, and the two of them broke off at once into helpless, ragged laughter. Rose pressed her forehead to the back of Leonora’s hand. Leonora put her free hand into her mother’s hair, which was coarse and gray, and held it there.

“Oh, I am so glad you are alive, Mama,” Leonora whispered, feeling hot tears sting her eyes. “It is so surreal.”

“I am sorry for all these years, my child,” Rose wept. “I am sorry I hurt you.”

“We will figure something out,” she answered and nodded. “We will come up with a plan to make sure you can walk the streets of London free again. I will ask everyone I know to help me make sure of this. It will not be long now.”

“Thank you.” Rose nodded. “Now that I have seen you so close, I want to fight now. My child is all grown up and I did not get to see it. I should be angry, not hiding away like this.”

Rose lifted her head. She wiped her eyes, and looked at Lady Byron.

“Amanda.” Rose’s voice trembled but held. “You gave Leonora a home, and sisters. Every day for all those years I was afraid. Every day I told myself that she was with you, and it was the only thing that let me sleep.” She drew a breath. “Thank you. For all of it. I am eternally grateful to you for not turning Leonora away.”

Lady Byron was silent for a long moment. When she looked up, her eyes were red.

“I only gave her strict rules,” she said. “She grew into the rest on her own.”

“She grew into you,” Rose said. “I could not have asked for better. I hear talk in the streets about how intelligent the Byron sisters are. How eloquent. You gave her that.”

Lady Byron’s mouth wobbled. She pressed it flat, nodded once, and reached for the teapot with care.