Trev pressed his fist to his mouth and nose, subduing a sneeze and a laugh. It was said with such a pretty, tremulous naïveté that the nurse didn't even feel the sting. She huffed and clumped about, grumbling, but after slamming shut the window, placing all the uten sils of her black art to her satisfaction, and snuffing the lamp, she made a decisive effort to tiptoe on the way to the door, threatening to rattle the medicine bottles off the shelf.

After the door closed behind her, a silence descended on the room. Trev waited. The sound of Nurse's shoes receded, replaced by the creaks of the f loorboards overhead as she took possession of the attic.

"Mon trésor," his mother murmured. "The toast is clear."

Trev worked himself from beneath the bed frame, wincing as he bumped his head. "The 'coast,' Maman. The coast is clear." He fumbled to light the bed candle that Nurse had just extinguished.

"That is a great relief to me." She gave a faint smile. "Toast I never could comprehend to be clear. Particularly as the English… put butter on it. Are you hungry?"

He observed her intently, suspicious that his first impression had been correct—that her eyes had filled with tears when she first reached out her hand to him. "I'll eat later. Constable Hubble is presently engaged on some murky business with Cook in the kitchen, which I prefer not to know too much about."

"You have been… traveling?" She seemed uncon cerned that he had entered through the window. It seemed to be his typical means of ingress and egress to any respectable establishment these days.

"Yes." He did not elaborate but sat down on the bed and put his finger under her chin. "What is this?" He examined her face from side to side. "You've been gay and raking while I wasn't here to restrain you, I see. Too many parties, Maman. You're run off your feet."

She smiled. Then she gripped his hand and pressed it against her cheek, kissing his palm fiercely. Her eyes glittered as she took a single sobbing breath.

When she released him, he brushed his fingertips tenderly over her pale hair and down her chin. She greeted him with tears. Tears, and he had never seen his maman weep before except when his brother had died. She had lost four more children, but if she shed tears, she had done it in someplace beyond where anyone could see or hear.

"I won't leave again," he murmured.

"But the constable…" she said.

"Aye, and the Bow Street Runners too," he said, dropping his hand with a sigh. "I'll be put to some lengths to dodge them, I fear, but I won't leave you again, Maman."