Tremont was silent for a time, his thumb rubbing gently across Matilda’s nape. His was a peaceful presence—a paradox, given how active his mind was—and she’d had too little of peace.

“I wanted safety,” he said. “As a boy who’d suffered the worst blow, as a peer too young for his responsibilities, as a youth who’d thrown himself into the moral cauldron of war, I wanted a system of infallible answers. Philosophers appeared to provide that refuge, but ancient aphorisms aren’t the bulwark I’d thought them to be.”

“I wanted safety too,” Matilda said slowly. “To me, that meant the respectability of marriage, relief from my father’s constant judgment, and distance from that chilly, grim parsonage.”

“We lived,” Tremont said, “and we learned, and now we love. May I show you something, Matilda?”

She was learning to read the subtle signs with Tremont. His question was almost casual, meaning whatever he had to show her was likely to be upsetting.

“You may.” She resumed her place beside him, and he took a folded piece of foolscap from his breast pocket.

“Nan Winklebleck drew that from memory.”

Matilda unfolded the paper, and as if some part of her mind knew what she’d see, she beheld a portrait of Harry and was not surprised.

“The eyebrows aren’t quite right,” Matilda said. “Harry parted his hair down the center, not to the side. He usually wore a mustache, and this fellow is clean-shaven. This looks like him, and yet, it might not be him.” She passed the sketch back, despite a temptation to study it further.

“What do we know of Harry’s family?” Tremont asked.

A logical question, and bless Tremont for asking it. “Nothing. I assumed they disowned him, or he them. For all I know, Harry’s uncle is a preacher and his aunt married to some venerable alderman. Of his immediate family, I know only that he was born in Bristol and had few privileges growing up. He spoke fondly of his mother, but fondness was one of many disguises he could put on or take off at will. He was doubtless fond of me in his way, until I refused to do as he wished.”

“Then this could be a cousin or brother of your late husband. Nan knew him as Harry Merryfield, and he ran a house-stealing rig while she was acquainted with him. That would have been perhaps two years ago. She described him as charming, self-interested, and arrogant.”

“That hardly narrows down the field, my lord.” Even as Matilda spoke, she had the sense of hope being snatched away—again.