Lord Tremont had a surprisingly jolly laugh, all good nature and merriment. He apparently took no offense at the MacKays’ machinations, while Matilda… She had hoped her inquiries of Mrs. MacKay hadn’t been too obvious, and then, there stood the earl, gazing up at her from the foyer as if she’d conjured him from her abundant imaginings.

Fate playing a little joke on her, or a wish coming true?

“I have never seen Major MacKay looking so devilish,” she said as she trundled along arm in arm with the earl. “When I first met him, he struck me as the quintessential dour Scot. Dorcas Delancey was the equally circumspect daughter of the vicarage, but they appear to have brought out the mischief in each other.”

“Is a little mischief a bad thing, Mrs. Merridew?”

Matilda considered the question while they waited at an intersection. The snow was rapidly thickening, and street traffic was hustling along. The crossing sweeper marched out into the middle of the passing vehicles and brandished his broom in both directions. The boy’s trousers were raggedly hemmed a good six inches above his skinny ankles, and the lumbering coaches dwarfed him.

“It’s hard to imagine that one is entitled to any mischief,” she said, “when a child must face this weather. That could be Tommie—shivering, underfed, a hairsbreadth away from tragedy if some drunken lordling goes racing by in his phaeton. I was raised in a vicarage—I have that in common with Mrs. MacKay—and such an upbringing takes a jaundiced view of mischief.”

“Perhaps ‘mischief’ is the wrong word,” Tremont said, guiding Matilda across the slick cobbles. “Maybe the term I want is ‘joy.’ Glee, high spirits.” He tossed the boy a coin, and the lad caught it in a bare, dirty paw. “In a world where children must fend for themselves from too young an age and generals send young men to their deaths by the thousands, joy can be an act of courage.”

Matilda had felt a spike of joy simply to behold Tremont, and he was right—that had been an act of courage, or folly. Maybe both?

They reached the opposite side of the street, and when Tremont ought to have escorted Matilda down the walkway, he instead considered the crossing sweeper.

“The lad’s name is Charles,” he said. “He refuses to answer to Charlie. I’ve tried giving him more substantial coin, but he spends it all on his auntie, who is a sot. I doubt Charles is home much, if a home he even has.”

A closed, crested carriage careened by, nearly knocking Charles off his feet.

“Tremont… He can’t be nine years old.”

His lordship appeared to be mentally puzzling out a geometric proof, while Matilda wanted to snatch the child off the street, sit him before a roaring fire, and acquaint him with a full plate of beef and potatoes.