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“Sure.” He eyed her speculatively. “Word is, there’s a new player from across town. No one you want to tangle with, if you get my drift. Quiet here these days, innit?”

He no longer met April’s gaze. But she knew the two remarks were connected. For whatever reason, it was his gift to her.

“How’s one go about meeting this new player then?” she asked.

“One doesn’t. He comes to you.” Raddle grinned maliciously, looking her up and down. “And he won’t.”

“I got to go,” April said, shoving her beer at him. “Got an appointment.”

Raddle treated that as a huge joke too. April slouched out. She dared not cross the waste ground again, but she kept an eye out for any movement on it or around it. There was none.

That in itself was odd. The work of Raddle’s mysterious new player? He would certainly have her think so. A fearsome reputation, earned or not, could easily keep lesser and warier folk away from a place they had no reason to come to anyway.

Was this new player the man who’d captured Piers? Or was someone just making use of the rumour? Either way, she began to think that he really was being held around here, somewhere close to the ruin where she was to leave the money tomorrow.

Are you there, Piers? Are you?

It tore her apart to walk away, taking the fastest route out of the Dials because she couldn’t allow herself to be noticed. And because she desperately needed to get home to the baby.

The baby. Quite suddenly, tears threatened to choke her, because without Piers their son still had no name.

Where are you? Are you close by? Why could she not even feel his presence? Was he already dead?

She stumbled over her own feet and got snarled at by a rough man who shoved her aside. She dashed her sleeve across her face and broke into a run.

***

JAMES DARCY, CONGRATULATING himself on his clear head, attacked his admittedly very late breakfast beef with gusto before reaching for the day’s post piled at his elbow. Most of it was addressed to his father so he put those aside to be sent on. A couple of notes from friends invited him to the same gathering at Vauxhall Gardens. His lack of enthusiasm for such a party took him by surprise.

As did the serious consideration he found himself bestowing on his cousin’s invitation to join him in the country. There was to be no party there. At least nothing formal. But Darcy had been bemoaning his lack of purpose to his cousin Gerrald last week, and Gerrald, bless him, asked him to come and take a look at the management of his estate.

Having just induced Sir Terrance, otherwise called Papa, to give him the management of a small family estate in Berkshire, Darcy now struggled for any notion of where to begin. A week or so with Gerrald might well give him more of a clue, and the means to impress Sir Terrance.

Darcy let the letter drop and applied himself thoughtfully to his steak.

He knew exactly why he wasn’t rushing to Gerrald’s. He wanted to see Lady Petteril. The on-dit was that she had just given birth to a son, a whole month before she expected to, and he could not go until he was sure of her health.

His devotion to Lady Petteril, chaste as it was, had already lasted far longer than any attachments of a more intimate nature. He had never encountered anyone so sweet and funny and different and lovely and loyal...

Perhaps Petteril suspected his love for his wife. That would explain why he’d cut him the other evening at White’s.

At least, it was one explanation. Darcy threw down his knife and fork and grinned.

He would go to Gerrald’s the day after tomorrow. It would be perfect timing.

***

PIERS WAS ON THE WINDOWSILL, working loose the second nail with the head of the first, while he memorized his description of jailer number one for future reference—almond shaped eyes with crow’s feet, missing right upper molar, long thumbs—and wondered about his captors.

In particular, he wondered who the woman was. Could it have been she who knew about his difficulties with face recognition? She who was in charge?

He was inclined to rule out his maidservants, and the female members of his family. Not that they were above crime. Hortensia and Maria had both stolen from him in the past, whatever their consciences had pretended they were doing. But Maria was in the country, according to Gadsby last week, and Hortensia would never lower herself to an alliance with his jailers. Gussie... Well, he refused to believe it of Gussie.

What of women he knew less well? Laine’s wife? His mind boggled there, too.

Annie... Ann Eastleigh was April’s friend from the past, a prostitute who had looked after her and kept her secrets. Until Annie had caught the eye of a peer who’d set her up as his mistress in her own home. Annie was most certainly at home with villains of all shades, although he doubted she would do April an ill-turn. He didn’t like to think Annie would do this to either of them. For one thing, she was far too comfortable in her new life.

Frankly, he didn’t like to think of anyone he knew turning on him, and yet his jailers knew what no one could just by looking at him.