“Thank ye, Lord,” the boxer next to him murmured. It was his turn in the ring next, to face whichever of the paying gentlemen wished to strip down and fight before an audience.

“Fightin’ when you’re angry,” Cribb said to Patrick, “is not a good idea.” He turned away, focusing on Reginald Petersham, who was just climbing into the ring.

Patrick stood next to the ring, letting compliments swirl around his head as he rubbed the sweat from his face and chest.

What’s done was done. Sophie was pregnant. Treacherously, an image crept into his mind of a little girl with her mama’s curls and beautiful smile.

He dropped the towel and headed for the dressing room. Unless he missed his guess, Sophie hadn’t seen a doctor. He needed to find the best doctor in London—someone from the Royal College—and Sophie must see him tomorrow.

Patrick scrawled a note on Jackson’s Boxing Salon stationery. He gave a boy a crown to deliver it to the house of his lawyer, Mr. Jennings of Jennings & Condell.

A half-hour later, Jennings looked at the message perplexedly. “Determine who is the best doctor for birthing babies in London,” it said. That was it, barring Patrick’s characteristically bold and scrawling signature.

Why was it delivered tonight? What on earth did Foakes think Jennings could do about a doctor that couldn’t wait until tomorrow? And why had he sent it from a boxing salon rather than from his own house?

Jennings jiggled uneasily in his high-backed library chair. He would greatly dislike it if Foakes had taken to fathering children outside his own home. Messy financial transactions, those were, the ones dealing with illegitimate children. He, Jennings, should know, given that Jennings & Condell had the honor of being lawyers to the royal family.

So far, Foakes and his small household had been a joy to represent, with nothing more intricate to establish than a generous settlement on his wife. But now look: only married a few months, and already Jennings & Condell was being made party to some sort of immoral doings.

Jennings pursed his lips disapprovingly. He was a fierce Methodist, and although he unhesitatingly fought bitter lawsuits on the side of his dissolute, aristocratic clients, he saw no point in privately condoning their behavior.

It was only on the way home that Patrick remembered the unpleasant way he had parted from his wife. Lost my temper again, he thought. At least Sophie didn’t get angry. Or did she?

The memory of her smiling face as she held open the bedchamber door flashed into his mind. Something about his wife’s eyes. She had said he was cruel. He remembered that. And then suddenly she was smiling at him, as if they were about to go to a garden party. But her eyes weren’t smiling. I should remember that in the future: Sophie’s eyes speak the truth.