The whole party flocked out of the large double doors leading from the drawing room to the garden. Alex handed Charlotte the glass of champagne he carried in his hand. Charlotte heard Sophie squeal with delight as the smell of roses drifted over the garden, her three gallants jostling in an attempt to be the first to pick her a perfect rose. Alex led Charlotte to a perfectly unexceptional bench, in clear view of Lady Dewland. She felt a tiny pulse of disappointment. Didn’t he want to pull her off into the darker paths leading to the back of the garden? Not that she would have permitted such a thing, of course. She sipped her champagne and then bent her head back, feeling soft curls brush the back of her neck. It was now so late that it was possible to see a few stars in the sky, even given London’s ever-present haziness.

“Did you read the piece in The Gazette about coal dust?” she asked suddenly. “The writer argued that coal fires are not only obscuring the air, but actually making people ill, especially babies.”

Alex looked down at her curiously. He hadn’t thought that society belles read anything but the gossip pages.

“I thought he argued the case too strongly,” he replied. “There’s no scientific evidence linking coal dust and mortality. I should think that many of those babies die of malnutrition.”

“Why do they cough so much then?”

“They could have colds … pneumonia. I thought his point was interesting, but without better information we could not ban coal fires as he proposed.”

“But, Alex,” Charlotte protested, not even realizing that she used his first name, “he said that autopsies have found babies whose lungs are black inside!”

“Well, then why are most of those babies found only among the poor?” Alex rebutted. “They could have died from anything!”

“You know as well as I do that only the children of the very poor are autopsied.” Charlotte was keeping a tight rein on her temper. She drank some more champagne.

“Yes, but I have seen very few babies among my friends who have a constant cough, as he was describing. And if I had,” Alex said, “I would take Pippa to the country immediately.”

“That’s just it,” Charlotte explained patiently. “Children of nobility spend most of the year on country estates. We’re in London only for the season—half the year at the most. Whereas poor children breathe this air all the time.” She waved her hand at the sky. “I spend a lot of time thinking about light,” she said, “and you have no idea how different it is here than in the country. It’s hardly even light in the city.” They lapsed into silence.

Alex looked down at Charlotte with a new respect. She had just argued him into a standstill. A small frown creased his forehead. Why did she spend a lot of time thinking about light?