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“Mrs. Fishpole!”

“Yes.” She smiled up at him. “Meggin is at home, Tom. I find it very hard to forget that she is alone in the nursery, albeit under Rosy’s care.”

Shame and wonder are infrequent companions, but Tom knew them both. “You’ll be the better part of me, won’t you?” he said, his mouth swooping down on hers again.

She pushed him away, but not very resolutely. It wasn’t until some minutes later that a rather discomposed looking young lady and her companion hailed a waterman and told him they wanted the Westminster Stairs, for a hackney to the Pewter Inn.

“Of course, I’m going to find her!” the gentleman said irritably to his companion.

“Yes, but what if you can’t?” she replied, untangling a long curl from an emerald necklace that she was rather unwisely wearing, given the famed presence of pickpockets at Vauxhall. “Can’t we simply enjoy ourselves, Garret? According to the playbill, there’s a Spectacular Pyrotechnical Display tonight. I do love fireworks. I don’t want to spend the whole evening traipsing around these dark gardens looking for Lady Godwin!”

“She must be here,” Mayne told his sister. “Just hush, Griselda. Perhaps we can find her in the supper room.”

“I don’t want to go all the way over there!” Griselda said in some alarm. “My shoes aren’t designed for walking miles and miles, you know. Why don’t we sit in the Chinese pavilion? She’s certain to turn up. Everyone visits the pavilion; you know that. And if she doesn’t, I’m quite certain that some other flame of yours will wander by, and you can amuse yourself.”

Mayne drew a reckless hand through his elaborately casual locks. At the moment he didn’t give a damn for the effect his valet had achieved after some thirty-five minutes of devout labor. “You don’t understand, Grissie,” he said with frustration. “Helene is different from the rest.”

“Poppycock,” Griselda said, making her way toward the Chinese pavilion, whose delicate spires made patterns against the London sky. “You may feel that way now, but it will wear off. Contain yourself, please. And do remember that you’re a man on the cusp of marriage. All these extremes of emotion are so tedious.”

She waved to the attendant, who took one look at Mayne and his sister and escorted them to a prime table where they could both see and be seen.

“There, you see,” Griselda said with satisfaction once she had arranged her reticule, fan, gloves and shawl just as she liked them, and checked her emeralds in a small mirror. “You can snap up your little countess as she passes, and I do promise not to giggle at her shorn locks. Though I must say, darling, that I begin to wonder at your taste. All this enthusiasm for Helene Godwin? I remember her in school as being just too, too tedious. All braids, restraint and pale skin. And no more interesting on further acquaintance, I assure you, unless you have a passionate interest in music.”

“You’re quite wrong,” Mayne snapped at her. He was a fool to have brought his sister. He itched to be out strolling the paths. At this rate, he would miss Helene. She was probably walking down a shadowy path, and he could be next to her, enticing her into meeting him at his little house in Golden Square.

“Here!” Griselda called, waving her reticule and hooting until Mayne longed to shake her. “It’s Cornelius,” she said. “Cornnneeelius!”

An exquisite sprig of fashion strolled in their direction, peering at them through his quizzing glass. His hair frothed above his forehead as if he’d been struck by curly lighting, but Griselda seemed to find nothing amiss.

“I thought you dropped that fop based on his poetic failures,” Mayne remarked.

“Not yet,” she said complacently. “I told him to write me another poem. Then I shall give the poem to you, darling, and we will discover who he stole it from. That is much more fun. What’s to be gained from discarding the acquaintance?”

But Mayne had suddenly realized there was, indeed, something to be gained from the presence of Cornelius Bamber. “Good to see you, Bamber,” he said rather shortly. “I would be most grateful if you would accompany my sister for a short time while I attempt to find an acquaintance.”

“My pleasure,” Bamber said languidly. “Who would not grasp at such a chance? She walks in beauty, like the night…”

“Didn’t Spenser say that?” Mayne asked acidly. “Or wait, wasn’t that Byron?”

Bamber ignored him, since he was in the midst of an elaborate bow that involved three or four hand flourishes, so Mayne strode off. He was conscious of a surge of desire at the very thought of Helene that felt like electricity going from his toes to his hair. He hadn’t felt this way since he was a mere adolescent. With her clear, thoughtful eyes and her sophisticated, urbane view of men and women, Helene was his twin. A gloriously feminine, beautiful version of himself.

Behind him, his sister had been joined by Lady Petunia Gemmel. They were squealing at each other in a way that promised Lady Petunia had brought a luscious piece of gossip to the table. That should keep Griselda occupied for an hour at least; the two of them were positively savage when they began running down reputations, particularly if the people being discussed were near and dear acquaintances.

Helene walks in beauty, like the night, he thought to himself. Perhaps Byron wasn’t such a bad poet after all.

Thirty

In Which a Songbird Develops Talons

The Pewter Inn was bustling with every kind of coach that trundled the streets of London: phaetons, barouches, landaus, and even a chariot. Postboys were shouting and running in all directions. Just as Tom and Lina walked through the gates (over which Pewter Inn was spelled out in flaking silver letters), the mail coach careened in, narrowly missing the left column, which would have brought the whole gate down on their heads.

“Meggin offered me an apple as I descended from the mail,” Tom told Lina. “She was trying to sell apples to the passengers.”

Shrieks reverberated around them as the boys began their game of throwing all the passengers’ luggage to the ground, including a crate of chickens that promptly burst open and sent fowl fluttering in all directions.

“I see what you mean,” Lina said, holding Tom’s arm rather tightly. “She’s very small to find herself amidst all this—”

She didn’t finish because Tom abruptly dragged her to the right to avoid a landau being backed through the gates by a fine young gentleman who obviously felt that lowly persons should give way before his vehicle, and not vice versa.