“Here.” The stranger reached around Simon and slapped something against his chest.
Nausea rose, soured the back of his throat, as he grasped the too-familiar object. Frail arms. Tiny corn husk head. Two black-painted eyes.
Dear Lord, please no.
Baby.
“Now move.”
CHAPTER 18
Georgina ripped open the entrance door and darted into the night. She was halfway down the stone stairs when the carriage lantern lights illuminated the figure.
Disappointment constricted her.
Mr. Oswald.
Alone.
The heaviness sank her down to the stone steps, and she curled her fingers around the rough edges.The stars.An absent thought. She craned her neck back and stared at them, blinking in the velvet blackness, because if she did not look at something, she’d die.
“A gentleman could grow fond of coming home to such a sight.” Mr. Oswald’s shadow moved next to her, though he did not sit.
She smelled vanilla and sherry so strong it roiled her stomach. “You did not find him.”
“A rather embarrassing defeat, I admit. I searched London over.”
“Tomorrow we must look again.”
“Impossible, I fear. I have a meeting with fellow Whigs tomorrow, where we’ll do more drinking port and gambling than discussing constitutional monarchism, I imagine.”
She stood. “Then I shall go alone.”
“I think you shall find your search as futile as mine.”
“He has to be somewhere. He cannot have…he cannot have simply disappeared.”
“You are a trusting creature, Miss Whitmore. I hope your confidence is not misplaced.”
What did he insinuate?
“I had a cuckoo bird once.” He moved closer. Moonlight paled his features, making his skin a glowing white. “I used to lay seeds on my balcony railing and watch her feed every morning.”
She tried to turn, but his hand touched her shoulder, and he spoke faster.
“I was a perceptive child. I had every intention of discovering the cuckoo’s nest so that I might observe the process of her motherhood and hatching, perhaps even claim one for my pet.”
“Mr. Oswald, it is late.”
“I was most startled by what I discovered. The cuckoo mother did not build the proverbial home for her own. She laid her eggs in a goldfinch nest and flew away. I never saw her again.”
“What are you saying?”
“One who disappeared once might do so again.”
“Simon would not forsake his children.”
“Only his mother, his father, and his own intended, I suppose?”
