“Nothing for me, and I won’t take up much of your time. I trust you are well?”

She glanced around the room, which, now that he studied it, was also showing a few signs of wear. By candlelight, the frayed edge of the Turkey carpet would not be obvious, nor would the lighter rectangle on the wall where a painting had hung.

In the harsh light of day, the decor had deteriorated significantly.

“I’m well enough. I hear you are a papa now.” She led him to a sofa Percival recognized from his visits here more than five years ago. He sat as gingerly as he could, having taken his pleasure of the lady more than once upon its cushions.

This sortie was proving damned awkward, but sending a note would not do.

“I am blessed with four healthy sons, if you can believe it.”

She considered him. Her hair was still a rich, dark auburn, her eyes a marvelous green. Even without her paint and powder—especially without it—she was a beautiful woman, and yet… the bloom was off her. She’d been, in cavalry parlance, ridden hard and put away wet too many times, and all the coin in the world could not compensate her for that.

“And your lady wife? How does she fare?”

The question was a polite reminder that Kathleen St. Just did not permit married men among her intimate admirers—or she hadn’t five years ago. Percival had liked that about her—respected her for it.

“It’s about my lady wife that I have presumed to come to you.”

He rose, the damned sofa being no place to discuss Esther’s problems.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to drink, my lord?”

My lord? She’d seldom my-lorded him in the past, but there was comfort in the use of the title now. Kathleen was a fundamentally considerate woman, something he hadn’t appreciated enough as a younger man.

“Nothing, thank you.” He paced away from her to peer out her back window. In spring, her tiny yard was a riot of flowers, but now it was a bleak patch of dead, tangled foliage and bare earth, with a streak of dirty snow by the back fence. “I need advice, Kathleen, and information, and I cannot seek them from the usual sources.”

“I will not gossip with you, my lord. Not about anybody. I know how you lordly types like to revile one another by day then toast one another by night.”

He turned and smiled at her. “You know, my wife frequently takes that same starchy tone with me. I have always admired a formidable woman.”

He’d confused her with that compliment. Beautifully arched brows drew down. “Perci—my lord, what are you doing here?”

He admired women who could be direct, too.

“My lady wife is sickening for something, and she won’t consult a physician. She didn’t refuse me outright when I suggested it, but she has a way of not refusing that is a refusal. Whatever’s wrong with her, it’s female. You always had a tisane or a plaster to recommend when I was under the weather, and your remedies usually worked.”

Kathleen left the sofa too and went to the sideboard. None of the decanters were full—in fact, they each sported only a couple of inches of drink. Her hands on the glass were pale and elegant, though the image struck Percival as cold, too. He swung his gaze to the bleak little back garden, where a small boy was now engaged in making snowballs out of the dirty snow.

“You love your wife, I take it?” In the detachment of her tone, Percival understood that the question was painful for a woman who would likely never marry and never have any pretensions to respectability again.

He kept his gaze on the small boy pelting the back fence with dirty snowballs. The boy had good aim, leaving a neat row of white explosions against the stone wall at exactly the same height. “I love my wife very much, else I would not be here.”

Kathleen said nothing for a moment while the snowballs hit the wall, one after another. “Describe her symptoms.”

He did as best he could while the boy ran out of ammunition and knelt in the snow and mud to make more.

“Is she enceinte?”

Percival shook his head, much more comfortable watching the busy little soldier in the back garden than meeting Kathleen’s gaze. “She doesn’t smell as if she’s carrying.”

Kathleen came to stand at his shoulder. “What on earth does that mean?” A touch of their old familiarity infused the question. Just a touch.

“My wife always bears the scent of roses. I don’t know how she accomplishes this, because she doesn’t use perfume. Maybe it’s her soap or the sachets in her wardrobe. It’s just… her, her fragrance. Blindfolded, I could pick her out from a hundred other women by scent alone. When she’s carrying, there’s more of a nutmeg undertone to the scent. Very pleasant, a little earthier. I realized it with the second child, and it was true with the third and fourth, too.”

He glanced over at her and saw she was watching the boy too. The look in her eyes reminded him of Esther—whose name he had managed not to utter in this house—when she was nursing Valentine. Sad, lovely, and far, far away.

“My guess is nothing ails your lady that time will not put to rights, my lord. She is likely weakened by successive births and weary in spirit. My sister has nine children, my brother’s wife eight. You must be considerate of her and encourage her to rest, eat good red meat—organ meat, if she’s inclined. Steak and kidney pie or liver would be best. Under no circumstances should she be bled; nor should she conceive again until her health and her spirits are recovered. You should get her out for light exercise for her spirits—hacking out or walking, nothing strenuous.”

Esther loathed organ meat. He’d never once in five years seen her eat either liver or kidney.

“How long will it take her to recover?”

Kathleen crossed her arms and considered him. She was a tall woman and did not have to peer up but a few inches to meet his gaze. “You might ask a midwife, or one of those man-midwives becoming so popular among the titled ladies.”

“I’ve yet to meet a member of the medical profession not prone to gossip and quackery—unless you can suggest somebody?” This was what he’d come for—a reliable reference. The ladies of the demimonde could not afford to jeopardize their health, especially not in its female particulars.

“Let me think for a bit. If some names come to mind, I can send them to you.”

“That would be appreciated.” It would also let him end this very awkward interview. As Percival gave Kathleen his direction, the little boy had abandoned his play and disappeared from the back garden. Percival wondered vaguely to whom the child belonged, that he was allowed to play unsupervised on a day that was growing colder, for all it was sunny.

Kathleen showed him to the door, and in her eyes, Percival might have seen either disappointment or relief that he was going.

The entry hall was devoid of flowers—Kathleen had always loved flowers. That he knew this about her was both melancholy and dear in a sentimental sense that made him feel old.

He paused as he pulled on his gloves. “Kathleen, do you need anything? Is there something I might do for you?”

No servants, no flowers. Scant drink in the decanters, paintings likely pawned… She was succumbing to the fate of all in her profession who overstayed their dewiest youth.

She looked haunted, like she might have asked him for a small loan then loathed herself—and him—for sacrificing this last scrap of pride to practicalities. A door banged down the hallway, and the small boy came pelting against Kathleen’s skirts.

The lad said nothing, but turned to face Percival with a glower worthy of many a general. The knees of his breeches were wet and muddy, his hair was an unkempt, dark mop, and his little hand—red with cold—clutched a fistful of his mother’s skirt.

“Hello, sir.” Percival said. This fellow looked to be about Bart’s age, perhaps a bit older, and every bit as stubborn—which was good. Boys should be stubborn. “A pleasant day to you.”

Kathleen smoothed her hand over the lad’s hair and said something to him in Gaelic. The boy looked mutinous, but swept a bow and muttered “G’day, m’lord.” The glower never faltered.

As Percival took his leave, he realized why he’d felt such an immediate affection for the pugnacious young man: Kathleen’s son had the exact same shade of green eyes that Percival’s own boys shared. The same stubborn chin Gayle sported, the same swooping eyebrows Victor had had since birth, the same tendency to muddy his knees Bart delighted in.

Amazing how small boys could come from such different stations and be so alike.

* * *

Mama grabbed Maggie by her shoulders and turned her forcibly toward the water. “Those boys are your brothers.”

There were two of them, scavenging the verge for rocks to throw at the ice forming along the edge of the Serpentine. One boy was blond, the other had hair several shades darker than Maggie’s red hair, and both—like most boys—were good at throwing rocks.

“I would rather have sisters.” Sisters would not be doing something as silly as breaking ice that was just going to form again.

Mama’s fingers pinched uncomfortably on Maggie’s shoulders. “Be glad at least one of them is male. Your papa’s papa and your papa’s older brother are in poor health and failing rapidly, but should one of them outlive your father, that blond boy will become the next duke.”

Mama sounded fiercely glad about this. Maggie had no idea why. From what little she knew, being a duke was also silly.

“Who is that lady?”

“That pale Viking creature is your papa’s wife, and may he have the joy of her.” Mama fairly snarled this information. Maggie would have bruises from the way Mama gripped her shoulders now.

“And the other lady?”

“Lord Tony’s wife, your papa’s sister-by-marriage. Why Lord Tony married a horse-faced Valkyrie when he could have had his pick of the heiresses escapes me. Windham men are headstrong. Remember that.”

Remember it for when? Unease shivered down Maggie’s limbs along with the cold. “I need the necessary.”

Mama shook her. “No, you do not. I told you to go before we got in the coach.”

Which had been ages ago, since Mama had taken to lurking in the park and rolling around Mayfair by the hour, hoping to catch another glimpse of Maggie’s papa.

And yet, Maggie wanted desperately to get away from those laughing, rock-throwing boys and the pretty blond lady smiling at her red-haired friend. Their very joy and ease made Maggie anxious.

“I really do have to go, Mama. I’m sorry.”

Of course, Mama slapped her. A slap against a cold cheek had a particular pain to it, a sting and a burn made worse for the frigid air. Maggie would remember that, and she would not cry—crying was for babies.

“You vile little rat,” Mama hissed. “Everything I do, every single thing, is for your benefit, and yet you must whine and carry on and foil all my plans. I should have left you as a foundling on the steps of the lowest church in the meanest slum—”

Maggie cringed away, expecting the inevitable backhanded blow, but down by the water, the boys were no longer throwing rocks. They were staring at her and at Mama. They weren’t laughing anymore.

“They’re watching you, Mama.”

All of them, the boys, the two ladies, a nursemaid who had a tiny girl by the hand, a footman near the boys, and a second nursemaid. All of them had gone still, watching Mama raise her hand to strike Maggie again.

That hand lowered slowly and straightened the collar of Maggie’s cape. “Let them watch. The performance is just beginning. Come along.”

Maggie had to run to keep up with Mama on the way back to the coach, run or be dragged. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the boys were still watching, and so was the tall blond lady.

Papa’s wife was pretty, and she looked worried—for Maggie. The lady kept watching until Mama bundled Maggie into the coach, and even as the coach pulled away, Maggie peered out the window and saw her watching still.

When I grow up, I want to be a Viking creature too.

* * *

Esther regarded her husband over a glass of hearty red wine—she preferred white, but somebody had mixed up the menus, so a roast of beef had been served instead of fowl.

“Have another bite, my dear.” She obligingly nibbled from the fork he proffered. “Did you enjoy the outing to the park today?”

“I did, and I think the boys did too, very much.” She had enjoyed most of it, despite the chill. She was also enjoying her husband’s attentions, which had been marked throughout the meal. “Is there a reason we’re dining in our chambers, Percival?”