“You wouldn’t,” Mr. Berwick said, “if we were both wandering about in it quite naked, without even a fig leaf to our name.”

That hung in the air for a good second. Or ten.

Then she heard it: down the corridor came a thin, protracted wail, an agonizing sound.

“Ah, bollocks,” Mr. Berwick muttered.

It was such an English expletive—and said in such a velvety, accented voice—that Philippa couldn’t help laughing.

A smile spread over his lips too. “You really aren’t worried about Jonas’s survival, are you?”

She shook her head. “He’s crying because milk doesn’t agree with him. But it’s not a mortal condition, and his stomach will eventually get used to it.”

“Fancy yourself a doctor?”

“No, but any person with common sense can see when a baby has colic,” she said. “It’s always better to do nothing in such cases.” She hesitated.

“What?”

So she told him, in a rush, about her fear that Jonas had intussusception. “But I’m sure that my uncle told me that there would be blood in his nappy,” she finished. “And there isn’t.” Jonas’s persistent wails were coming closer.

“It sounds to me as though you’re right,” Mr. Berwick said. “Still, we need your uncle to come take a look at the baby. Where is he? I’ll send a carriage immediately.”

“You couldn’t!” Philippa gasped, horrified. “He would—no!”

“But he’s the best doctor you know. We need him.”

The door opened, and Kate reentered, carrying Jonas and followed by a man who was the prince, presumably. A tottering elderly lady clutched his arm. She wore so much face paint, topped by a fuzzy and rather shabby wig, that she resembled a Chinese dog that had gone through Little Ha’penny along with a traveling fair.

But it was the prince who caught Philippa’s eye. She stood rooted to the spot and looked from Mr. Berwick’s eyebrows to the prince’s, at their hair, their eyes, their chins . . .

“Her Highness, Princess Sophonisba, and His Highness, Prince Gabriel Albrecht-Frederick William von Aschenberg of Warl-Marburg-Baalsfeld,” Mr. Berwick announced. Turning to them, he said, “May I present Miss Damson.”

“Most irregular, being introduced by the butler,” the old lady said irritably. “Well, who are you, then?”

“I’m—”

“She’s a friend of mine,” Kate interjected. “She’s come to help with Jonas.” She smiled at Philippa, and Philippa realized, rather to her surprise, that it was true. Even though she’d known Kate for only a matter of hours, they were friends.