Cynthia must have agreed with me, because her eyes had gone quiet. “I’d say we need to find this Nurse Betts,” she said. “The sooner the better.”

“I agree, dear lady.” Mr. Fielding turned to me, resigned but resolute. “What do you wish me to do?”

Cynthia also looked at me expectantly. It ought to be comical, a vicar and a highborn lady asking a cook to give them orders, but the situation was too dire for amusement.

“Please keep searching for her, Mr. Fielding,” I said. “Go where she would have gone, to the places she told you were special, anywhere she mentioned, even in idle conversation. Lady Cynthia and I will also look, and question. I have made a friend of one of the cooks, and I plan to try to speak to some of the maids who work in the wards. They might have seen or noticed something without knowing it.”

“Exactly,” Cynthia said. “Mrs. H. told me of the peculiar practice of people observing the kiddies at tea or dinner or some such. I’ll put on my visit-the-charities gown and go myself. Who knows? Awful people might be using the opportunity to sweep a child away.”

Mr. Fielding’s expression was far from that of a man of God. I saw rage in his eyes, raw and unyielding.

“If they have, hell will be too good a place for them. I was one of those children once, ladies, without the good fortune of being taken in by a charity. My mother left me on the street as quite a little fellow, and only by the grace of God did I survive. The man Daniel and I called ‘Father’—Mr. Carter—only let us into his house because we could work, though he turned out to be a decent enough cove, for a villain. That was short-lived. In a few years, he was dead, and we were out again, avoiding filth any way we could, until I was fortunate, several years later, to be taken in by another. It made us who we are, Daniel and me. Trust me when I say I will do my utmost to find these children and bring whoever might have harmed them to justice.”

His eyes flashed, the rage flaring into incandescence.

I wondered if he meant justice in a court of law, or his own sort. I’d seen Daniel’s form of justice when he’d gone after bad men.

I took a last sip of the rather indifferent tea and rose. “I too will do my utmost, I assure you, Mr. Fielding. As will Daniel and Lady Cynthia. I think we can agree that this task is very important.”

Mr. Fielding had risen to his feet when I did. “It is, my friends. I will leave no stone unturned.”

“But have a care,” I warned. “They already know of your interest. You might be in danger.”