Nev looked around the breakfast room; he remembered it from when Lady Bedlow had first redecorated it, when he’d been a little boy. It had been elegant and feminine and lovely, his mother’s touch evident in every inch of it. Now the furniture was a jumble of light and dark wood, baroque and rococo and heavy Elizabethan-whatever Penelope could take from the guest rooms. There were darker patches on the walls where she hadn’t found a picture the right size to replace the ones that were missing. He looked at Penelope, who wanted to be a lady. Who knew when they would be able to spare the few hundred pounds for new furniture? “Of course I don’t mind. Thank your parents for me.”

She smiled gratefully at him. “I will. What kind of furniture would you like to have?”

“I don’t know.” On impulse he put an arm around her waist and pulled her to lean against him. “The Chinese style is all the rage now, isn’t it? We could have everything with gilt and dragons and bamboo.”

Penelope laughed, and he felt it where she curved against his side. “No one would believe that you picked it. They’d all say it must have been your vulgar Cit wife.”

“You’d look splendid in a dark blue kimono embroidered all over with golden dragons, and chrysanthemums in your hair.”

“Kimonos are Japanese.” But there was a smile in her voice, and she turned her head and let him kiss her.

He was already wondering whether she would let him make up for last night when she pulled away. “Nev, is that-have you been in the stables?”

Oh, Lord, he must be disgusting. “I-I’d better go and bathe,” he said hastily.

“All right. Oh, and Nev, one more thing-Mama asks a favor, and we really can say no-there’s a woman who works at the brewery, whom Mama knew when she was younger, and the woman’s daughter has-” Penelope looked away uncomfortably; Nev was bemused at how charming he had begun to find prudery. “Well, she was with child, and she didn’t want it, so she took something. And now she’s very ill, and her mother is desperate. The doctors are saying that clean air might save her. And Mama doesn’t know anyone else with a place in the country-she wants to know if we have an empty cottage, or if we can board her with someone. She says she’ll pay for it. I know it’s a lot to ask, Nev, but I can’t help feeling it’s our Christian duty.”

Nev nodded. “Poor girl. By all means have them send her up, if she can travel. I’m sure we can find someone who’d jump at the chance to make a little extra money by looking after her.”

“Thank you, Nev,” she said, as if he were doing her a favor, when it was her parents who were showering him with largesse.

The next three days passed by in a blur. The Baileys were eager to help Mrs. Brown’s charity case; Mr. Bailey’s broken leg was taking its time in mending, and the family desperately needed the money. They could spare a bed, and their children were old enough not to trouble an invalid. Penelope gave them a small advance to clean the cottage and wash the sheets and buy enough fuel so that they could heat water and make tea for the sick girl whenever they liked, instead of paying a ha’penny to a neighbor for the use of their fire, as Penelope had noticed the Cushers did.

On the fourth day the girl arrived from town, accompanied by a nurse who had made the journey with her and would be going back to London as soon as she had entrusted her patient to Mrs. Bailey’s care. Penelope and Nev went to see her settled in and to make sure that the Baileys had everything they needed. Penelope didn’t expect it to take long.

She stepped onto the freshly swept dirt floor just ahead of Nev. Unlike many of the laborers, the Baileys had two rooms. Since the Baileys’ little bedroom had been given up to the invalid, the children’s bed in the corner of the main room was now to house Mr. and Mrs. Bailey. The children were to sleep on blankets by the hearth. A table and a few rush-bottomed chairs comprised the whole of the furnishings, apart from the kettle, a pot or two, and the poker. But at least it was well-tended, the family’s clothes were not too ragged, and the room smelled fresh and clean.

“Mr. Garrett was kind enough to give us some fresh straw, to change out the mattresses,” Mrs. Bailey said in explanation.

Penelope thought of the furniture her mother was probably even now spending hundreds of pounds on, and her conscience smote her. But she smiled and tried not to look self-conscious as Mrs. Bailey exclaimed over the basket Penelope had brought, with real tea, a chicken for broth, and milk and butter for gruel.

“I tried to bring enough so that Mr. Bailey could have some too,” Penelope said. “How is your leg, Jack? I mean to ask the nurse to look at it before she goes.”

“It’s very kind of you, your ladyship, but I’m sure there’s no need for that,” Mr. Bailey said. “It’s doing very well. I’ll be on my feet in no time.”

Penelope did not think that could be true; he had been injured three weeks ago and still could barely rise from his chair. “Well, we’ll see. How did the girl take the journey?”

“She’s sleeping,” Mrs. Bailey said. “I don’t think she’s quite in her right mind just yet-feverish, of course. She had trouble swallowing water when she was brought in. But I’ve opened the window; the Norfolk air should do her good.”

Penelope and Nev went into the second, smaller room. It held nothing but a bed and a chair; the sick girl was in the bed, and the chair was occupied by the nurse, a stout woman who was bathing her patient’s forehead with a cool cloth and encouraging her to drink some water. Penelope stepped forward, and for the first time she saw the sick girl’s face.

The sudden buzzing in her ears drowned out the Baileys’ fierce whispered conversation from the room beyond. The girl’s blonde hair was dirty and tangled, and her elfin face was too thin and flushed with fever. But Penelope recognized her instantly.

It was Amy Wray.

Thirteen

Penelope wished her head would swim, that she would faint, anything-anything to make the present recede just a little from her consciousness. Anything to draw Nev’s attention away from the pitiful wreck of his former mistress. But she did not. She could not. She was not built that way. She stood there, cold in the afternoon sun, and watched her life unravel around her in perfect, precise detail.

In an instant Nev was at the bedside. “Oh, God,” he said in a low, terrible voice. “Is she-will she-?”

Penelope felt the knot climb in her throat-high enough to make her bite the inside of her lip to keep from screaming, not high enough to inconvenience anyone.

“I think she’ll pull through, my lord.” The nurse rose from her chair and bobbed a perfunctory curtsy. “But I couldn’t say for sure. She’s been sick an awful long time, more’n a week; don’t seem to know where she is half the time and burning up with fever. She really shouldn’t have traveled, but the air in London is so close this time of year, it might have killed her all on its lonesome. She’s lost too much blood.” The nurse made a clucking sound in the back of her throat. “That’s what comes of opposing nature.”

That was when the worst of it hit Penelope. Miss Wray was here because she had aborted an unwanted child. Nev’s unwanted child. She was seized with a horrifying thought-had Nev known? Had Miss Wray told him, that night at the theater? Had Nev concealed this from her? For the first time since they had entered the room, Penelope looked at Nev’s face. She could only see part of his crooked profile, because he was turned away from her to look down at Miss Wray. His face was gray.

Miss Wray shifted restlessly. “Nev,” she moaned.

Penelope froze, her eyes darting to the nurse.

The woman frowned. “She keeps saying ‘never.’ Who knows what’s going on in her head? I hope she isn’t scared, poor thing.”