Adelaide snuggled against her husband’s side, torn whether to tell him about Charlotte’s experience in Kent three years ago. Better not, she decided. He would be absolutely furious and probably charge into Alexander Foakes’s town house like a bull. At any rate, she was worried about that twin brother. What if it had been the other one—what was his name? Some sort of Irish name, she thought. Well, what if it had been the other twin in the garden? Could Charlotte tell the difference between them? She quailed at the idea of asking her daughter.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand, Marcel. Sarah Prestlefield told me—you know how malicious she can be—that Alexander Foakes has a daughter. In fact, she said that his daughter is with him practically every moment, and never with a nanny. She’s apparently about a year old, and very ill-trained, and he carries her around town. And Sarah said she looks exactly like him! So how can this be if he’s … well … incapable?”

“I don’t know,” Marcel said. “I hadn’t heard about a daughter. But you know, Adelaide, this daughter might be anyone’s. I gather that his first wife is dead now. So who’s to say whether she was the child’s mother or not?”

“Well, how would that change things, Marcel? I don’t understand. Either he can, or he can’t. And if he can, then we shouldn’t worry about Charlotte.”

Marcel sighed. He didn’t feel like explaining the intricacies of potency with wives as opposed to potency with courtesans. “Well, dear,” he said uncomfortably, “there’s a possibility that Alexander Foakes’s incapability is not, ah, applicable in all situations.”

There was a short silence. “Oh, dear,” Adelaide said quietly. “This is all so unpleasant. And I like him, Marcel, I really do. Are you absolutely sure? Maybe this is all gossip.”

Marcel shook his head. “Several of my so-called friends have taken great pleasure in assuring me of the accuracy of the report. His first wife, a woman named Maria Colonna, petitioned the Pope—she was Catholic, of course—to annul their marriage after one year, claiming that her husband was impotent. And Alexander Foakes did not contest the annulment. Apparently she was from a quite good family too, in Rome, and they all considered it a great disgrace. She died a few months ago, and he returned here. I suppose he came with this child, although no one has mentioned a daughter to me.”

Adelaide tried to think it out. She had a separate problem. She didn’t want to let Charlotte know that Alexander and his brother had attended her coming out ball, and that she had seen them and not mentioned it to Charlotte. What if she were enraged? What if she thought her mother had betrayed her?