“Tell her that. She has the look of a young lady who could use a pleasant encounter with a friendly stranger.”

“Robert, I’m…”

“Afraid?”

Some, maybe. Afraid of losing Ivy, which was old business. “I am awed. Look at her. She’s wonderful.”

He stood very close, as if they were husband and wife exchanging a private word. “To feel that way about somebody is lovely, isn’t it? That they are wonderful simply for existing. Such sentiment fills the heart with gladness. Perhaps all parents experience that joy, but I know I felt the same way about you when you sneaked me that cheese all those years ago. This female, I said to myself, is a wonderful human being, somebody with the courage to act on her convictions, and what kind, sensible, marvelously devious convictions they were too.”

Rothhaven might as well have wrapped her in a hug, right before all these strangers. “Don’t make me cry, or Stephen will deal with you harshly.”

“I’m a-tremble with dread. She’s reading Byron, by the way. Looks like she’s enjoying all that clever twaddle too.”

Constance dared a peek. “Reverend Shaw will never allow that girl to buy a book of Byron’s verse.”

Robert smiled down at her, his gaze tired and loving and utterly at peace. He winked, then sauntered off to lean against a lamppost.

Right. A pleasant exchange with a stranger it would be. Constance meandered over to the bookstall and picked up another of the volumes of Byron laid out on the table. She moved a few steps away and opened the book to a random page: Love will find a way where wolves fear to prey.

“Do you enjoy Byron?” she asked, pretending to peer over at Ivy’s book. “I certainly do. He has the knack of being both sly and tenderhearted.”

“Yes,” Ivy said, closing the book and holding it to her middle. “Byron says the things most of us haven’t words for, and he says them more clearly than we think them. You’re my mother, aren’t you? My first mother.”

Ivy’s expression was guarded, but far from wrathful. She looked curious, hopeful, and oh, so vulnerable. Constance’s heart began beating so hard she put a hand to her sternum.

“I have the very great honor to be the woman you were born to. How did you know?”

“You look like me grown up, though you’re prettier. Mama Etta told me who my real mother was. Constance Wentworth, from a wealthy banking family that lived far, far from the West Riding. She said you cried when you gave me up, and that you would find me one day. I’m leaving for New South Wales in a few weeks, so I figured you’d better find me soon. Did you cry when Mama Etta fetched me from you?”