But more looked curiously at Pippa and then whispered behind their hands. Alexander Foakes’s daughter was his mirror image. In fact, if Pippa hadn’t been wearing a lemon-yellow dress she would look quite simply like a younger version of the earl. More than one member of the ton circled around the walks in order to drive a carriage past the pair again, or turned carelessly at the head of a walk to return toward them. Who was she? Who ever heard of an annulled marriage that produced children?

“The only annulment I ever heard of,” reported Lady Skiffing, “came about when young Lord Sybthorpe was married practically at birth to his father’s second cousin’s daughter, or some such relation like that, and then it was clear by a few years later that the bride was wrong in the upper story. So she had to be removed to an asylum, and he ended up marrying that consummate tart—what was her name? Barbara Cullerson, I think. Out of the frying pan, into the fire!” she finished triumphantly. “There were no children from that marriage either,” she added, “not that it signifies, of course.”

“Well, I know that when Miss Filibert—you must remember her, dearest Lady Skiffing, she was the one with such horribly gaping teeth—at any rate, when Miss Filibert eloped with her music teacher, or was it with her dance instructor? I vow, I have quite forgotten. At any rate Lord Filibert had that one annulled. They had only spent three hours alone together, and so …” Lady Prestlefield trailed off suggestively.

“The real question is,” Lady Skiffing said in lowered tones, “who is that child?”

“Yes.” Lady Prestlefield pursed her lips thoughtfully. The two ladies were sitting in a barouche, barely wide enough for them and their petticoats. They could hardly ask the Earl of Sheffield and Downes to join them, not that he would ever join two old ladies anyway.

Suddenly Sarah Prestlefield laid a hand on her friend’s whip, signaling her to bring the barouche to a stop. “Look!” she breathed through scarcely opened lips.

At the top of the drive Alexander Foakes had encountered the two reigning beauties of the London ton, Charlotte Daicheston and Sophie York, and Lady Charlotte seemed to be scolding the earl. It was hideously vexing to be so close and not be able to hear. Lady Skiffing coaxed her horses to a slow amble and they drew closer without the three young people noticing.

“It is not a question of convenience,” they heard Charlotte say as they got close enough. Her eyes were flashing magnificently; she really was a lovely girl, Lady Skiffing thought. “That child is not safe!” Lady Charlotte continued.