The stairs seemed to go on forever, one pretty, quintessentially British landscape after another, every step muted by the spotless carpets underfoot. Condemned felons probably climbed to the gallows with only slightly more foreboding than Matilda felt. They at least faced an end to their troubles, while she…

Don’t be pathetic, Matilda. That voice, oddly enough, belonged to Papa, and for once, his admonition was appropriate. She gained the first floor and let go of Tommie’s hand.

“This way,” Tremont said, striding past more landscapes. “You have the corner, where the light is best, and you have a superlative view of the river. I allowed myself to stay in that suite for one night when I returned to England. I watched the sun come up over the Thames and knew I was finally home—except I wasn’t, not truly.”

He fell silent and fitted a key into the lock of the last door at the end of the corridor.

When will I finally know I am home? “It’s lovely,” Matilda said, stepping into a parlor that would have been of a piece with the earl’s own dwelling. “Tommie, take a peek out the window.”

Tommie ran to the window and simply stared at the vista of the river below. Even on a winter afternoon, the light sparkled off the water, and the distant shore—an unremarkable collection of shops, warehouses, and tenements—had the aspect of a magical land.

“We’re sailing away on the river?” he asked, nose pressed to the glass.

“With tomorrow afternoon’s outgoing tide,” Tremont said, which spared Matilda having to prevaricate with her son. “You will travel to a new world and have many fine adventures.”

Tommie turned away from the window, his features set in an obstinate cast Matilda knew all too well.

“I don’t want to have adventures in a new world, Mama. I want to have them here. With Tuck and Jensen and Cook and MacIvey. I want to learn to polish boots like Charlie and speak the Erse like the major and MacIvey and MacPherson. I miss Tidbit, and Arthur, and—”

The earl scooped Tommie up and perched him on his hip. “My boy, this will not do. Do you recall that in my youth, I had to imagine sailing away in my longboat? I had to make believe some old tree or ruined cottage was my ship? I was an earl, a peer of the realm, and I’d never seen the sea. I’d never heard the sails luffing in the breeze, never felt the deck shifting as my ship got underway. By this time tomorrow, you will know firsthand all the things I could barely imagine.”

“I don’t want to be a Viking.” A note of true despair undergirded Tommie’s petulance. “I want to go back to the happy house and learn to play the fiddle. I hate the stupid ocean.”