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He scowled. “I hate that name.”

“So do I,” Belinda said. “Let me have a go. I’ll find a better one.”

June went to set the Bible in front of her.

The girl closed her eyes and opened the book. “Make it a good one,” she said as her fingertip descended.

June bent to look closely at the page. “You landed right on top of a name,” she said. “It’s—” Stunned by the significance, she paused before saying: “Benjamin.”

The beloved youngest son of Jacob and Rachel, who had died giving birth to him. A child born in sorrow, as the vicar had once explained, but redeemed by a name that meant hope for the future.

For the people who sat at this table, hope had always been hard to come by. They had to use it sparingly, to keep from running out altogether. Too much hope could kill you but so could not enough. Maybe this child, so pure and new, was the small but crucial supply they all needed.

June saw that Enid, the toughest, least sentimental of all of them, was struggling with tears. Enid understood it too.

“It’s a good name, then?” Belinda asked.

June nodded, using her sleeve to blot the wet corners of her eyes. She had to wait until her voice was steady enough to reply. “It’s perfect.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Mother’s Song

There are times when life delivers too large a portion of something to be digested all at once. A sensible solution is to divide it into smaller, more manageable servings to be consumed later.

The unexpected loss of Tuppence, along with instantaneous parenthood, was more than enough for Reina to absorb in less than a week. Her avoidance of John was the equivalent of “Waiter, wrap up the pudding for takeaway.”

She couldn’t avoid him altogether, of course. As usual, he consulted with her on scheduling and household matters, brought her dinner trays, and did everything necessary to make her life comfortable and orderly.

After engaging the services of an undertaker, John had collected the necessary medical certificate from Dr. Gibson and taken it to the local registrar’s office to officially register the death. He had also applied for the burial permit, purchased the plot at Brompton Cemetery, and hired the hearse and mourning carriages.

John had even gone to Millbank Prison for information regarding Tuppence’s next of kin. They’d given him the letter her family had written to the prison governor stating they wanted no contact with the prisoner and had no wish to be notified of her release. It was common, John had told Reina, for imprisoned women to be disowned completely. A woman was expected to be virtuous and obedient; for her to have been convicted of a crime was considered unnatural. Although that had infuriated Reina on Tuppence’s behalf, it certainly dismissed any concerns about someone from the Higget family coming forward to claim the baby.

Reina now found herself in the odd situation of being grateful for John’s remarkable efficiency, while at the same time becoming increasingly suspicious of it.

A muddle of images, words, and details had been left in the wake of the baby’s birth. Now Reina’s brain was in the process of sorting through the pieces, picking up each one to fold it and put away in the proper drawer. For some of those items, however, there was no drawer.

How, for example, had John known exactly where to find Dr. Gibson that night? How had he persuaded her to come immediately? How was it that—as a recent issue of the Pall Mall Gazette had just confirmed—her husband, Ethan Ransom, happened to be the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police? How likely was it that a man as worldly and intelligent as John would have ended up as a violent thug thrown into prison? If the John Pembroke she’d come to know had ever decided to commit a crime, he wouldn’t have been caught.

“We can’t always save them,” Dr. Gibson had said to John, the night Tuppence had died. “You know that.”

Why had she said that to him?

Now that Tuppence had been laid to rest, Reina needed to ask John those questions and many others. But she was afraid of the answers.

It made her nervous around him, as if he held the power of life and death over her. And she had willingly set aside every defense that might have helped her survive the coming devastation.

After changing into a comfortable day gown, a golden mustard color she’d always gravitated toward when the weather was damp, Reina went to the library. She sat at the end of the table, detached her propelling pencil from its chain, and began to write on a sheet of note paper.

1.Purchase nursery supplies from Winterborne’s.

2.Consult archive of The Lancet for articles on pediatric health.

3.Write to Florence N.

4.Compile list of pediatric questions for Dr. Gibson.

5.Keep weekly journal of Baby’s sleep, behavior, appetite, development—