His fist was raised to pound again when Thirkell opened the door, and Nev nearly hit him in the nose. Thirkell blinked bleary eyes at him. “Nev?”

“Thirkell, I need your help. I need to borrow your racing curricle.”

Thirkell yawned. “You can’t. Percy’s got it.” Then his eyes widened and he clapped a hand over his mouth.

Nev realized abruptly how very, very stupid he had been. He could not understand why he had not tumbled to it immediately-perhaps because he had been so distracted by Penelope’s announcement. Of course Thirkell was in on it. The spiked punch, when Lady Bedlow was so susceptible; Thirkell’s guilty face; Nev, I need to tell you something.

Nev had no one left now-no one to help him. He wanted Penelope so badly it hurt, physically hurt. He clenched his teeth.

“I almost told you, Nev.” Thirkell’s words tumbled over each other and meant absolutely nothing, because Thirkell had helped Louisa and Percy. “I wanted to tell you, but you know how Percy is, and you had been awfully rough on him, and I had promised silence faithfully-there’s no help for it now, you know. Percy and my curricle, and such a head start-”

“It is very early in the morning to be talking of curricle racing,” Sir Jasper said, appearing at Nev’s elbow. Oh, God, Sir Jasper. Lord knew what he would do if he found out how matters lay. He might take his disappointment out on anybody-on Nev’s people, on the poachers, on little Josie Cusher. It had to be hushed up as long as possible.

“Oh, we weren’t-” Thirkell broke off with such obvious guilt that Nev very nearly laughed at the whole absurd situation.

“We weren’t talking of curricle racing,” he said. “Mr. Garrett’s mother has been taken ill, and he borrowed Lord Thirkell’s curricle to go see her. But he has left his luggage behind him, and we were wondering if it might catch up with him.”

“I see,” Sir Jasper said. “Is that what brings you here so early?”

“My mother lost an earring,” Nev said. “She was so distressed that I offered to drive over directly.”

Sir Jasper was too well-bred to inquire further into what Nev was all too aware was a paltry lie, and one he did not even trust his mother to corroborate. But he could think of no other way to explain the dowager countess’s presence.

Though they had been the only people in the breakfast room when they arrived, by the time Nev, Thirkell, and Sir Jasper entered it again, it was full of guests and the bustle of conversation and silverware and morning papers. Nev’s gaze instinctively turned to Penelope. She was eating, methodically, her color somewhat restored. But her drained, unhappy look was as pronounced as ever.

Sir Jasper greeted Penelope and Lady Bedlow graciously. “I will instruct the servants to search the ballroom and hallway for your earring at once. I know it is irreplaceable.”

Lady Bedlow’s startled gaze flew to Nev. He gave her the smallest nod he could manage, and to her credit she said, “Yes. It has my dear husband’s hair in it, you know.”

“But where is Miss Ambrey?” Sir Jasper asked. “Still abed, no doubt?”

Lady Bedlow’s small store of subterfuge was used up. She flushed crimson and stammered something in which, “Louisa,” “a school friend,” and “taken ill” were discernible, but not much more.

Nev looked at Sir Jasper to see how he took this. The man was no fool. Nev was prepared for skepticism, perhaps even anger. But he was shocked by the pure violence of the baronet’s emotion. His face was chalk white, his eyes dark furious slits.

Nev’s heart sank. Louisa and Percy had made him and his people a powerful enemy in the neighborhood.

Penelope stood abruptly. “Nev, I’m going to be sick.”

“You, fetch a basin,” Nev snapped at a footman.

“No time,” Penelope said in a tiny voice.

This, at least, was a crisis Nev felt equipped to deal with. Hurrying to the side table, he unceremoniously dumped the bacon in with the sausage and brought her the pan, cursing as it burned his fingers. The poor girl was promptly, violently sick; the breakfast hadn’t had time to do her any good.

“I’m so sorry,” she said miserably as he wiped her mouth with his handkerchief. “I’m so sorry about everything.”

“It’s all right. It’s not your fault.” He wanted to be angry with her, but she looked so very mortified. Sighing, he gathered her up in one arm and let her bury her face in his jacket. He signaled to the footman to take the soiled pan away and looked round at the assembled guests over Penelope’s head, daring them to look even the smallest bit amused.

Several were hiding smiles, but Thirkell’s aunt said comfortably, “It is embarrassing, isn’t it? I remember when I was expecting my third, I cast up my accounts on my husband’s new Persian rug. Oh, he was furious!” Soon all the married ladies were swapping stories about their morning sickness.

Penelope, however, had gone rigid.

It would never have occurred to Nev, otherwise; she had been drunk the night before. There was nothing out of the way in her feeling sick. But he glanced down and met her eyes, her mouth a stunned O, and the word expecting echoed in his ears very loud.

He tried to remember when she had last had her monthlies, and could not recall. “Are you-?” he asked under his breath.

“I don’t know.”

He could not tell what she felt. He could not even tell what he felt. It would be a great difficulty, if Penelope really meant to be gone. And then, she might stay for the sake of the child, and the thought made him furious. But despite all these rational considerations, there was something very much like joy being born in his heart: a hopeful, infant joy.

He turned his head so that Penelope would not see him smiling, and spied Sir Jasper going out the door. He ignored his irrational flash of unease. “Here, sit down. I’ll get you a cup of tea.”

Penelope sat, a look of shock still on her face. Nev crossed to the tea service and was just adding the obscene amounts of honey he knew Penelope liked when Mr. Snively raced in, sweaty and gasping for breath.

For once in his life, the vicar didn’t bother with polite greetings. “Where is Sir Jasper? He must come directly!”

“He just stepped out,” Nev said. “What is the trouble?”

“He’s needed to read the Riot Act. The folk are forming up here and at Loweston, and they mean to free the prisoners!”

Sir Jasper rode down the drive, the shade of the Montagu oaks heavy on his face like a corpse’s shadow in the hot Paris summer. In the fields, his men’s faces twisted with hatred as he passed. Fear grew within him, hot and thick.

It was all slipping away, everything he had worked so hard for. He had spent his life keeping the wretches in his district from revolting. He had spent countless hours on the bench and spent a fortune to discourage poaching and sedition, he had enclosed the commons, he had spent years painstakingly guiding the late Lord Bedlow in everything, he had built up contacts and relationships, he had spent his life. Other people were happy, but not he. He had worked so hard, always, to make sure that everyone was safe. To make sure his sons never had to hide in the attic and watch an old man hanged on their doorstep.

He laughed, a strangled, high sound he didn’t recognize. What sons? His wife had been barren and was dead, and Louisa was gone, eloped with the steward because of Bedlow’s mismanagement and that bitch Lady Bedlow, who had somehow tricked him into thinking it was her the steward had his eye on, and not beautiful Louisa, the pride of the neighborhood.

And now the Cit countess was breeding. Breeding! She would have a son, and all that money would be assured, and together that wretched family would lead the district straight to Hell. Loweston would be ruined and Greygloss with it, and then the whole country would go, slipping and sliding into bloody revolt like at St. Peter’s Field.