Two days later, Tessa was situated on a blanket in Hyde Park, arranging a picnic basket. Her hands shook, despite the mundane task. She blew out a breath, irritated by her nerves. She and Christian had enjoyed the park from the vantage of this very blanket, beneath this very maple tree, all summer long. Today would be—

Well, today would be marginally different.

Today would steer the entire rest of their lives.

Tessa took three quick breaths, telling herself she had accommodated Joseph’s request to meet the baby. She’d wanted to gush, Oh, but let us rush home so you may meet him immediately! But this was the Old Tessa’s answer. The New Tessa did not gush or rush. The New Tessa knew the meeting should occur when Christian was happy and rested, where Joseph would feel the least overwhelmed or confined.

Christian tended to be happy on his blanket in the park, and they would not have the stuffy interruption of servants. Best of all, perhaps, Joseph could arrive (and then subsequently depart) in a manner that made him feel the least . . . trapped.

Trapped. It was a horrible term, and Tessa had danced around the risk of it. But she quite liked her new policy of simply calling things as they were. Joseph had been trapped. There were times when Tessa herself felt a little trapped. The potential for a negative reaction was very real—hence, the park. Who could feel trapped in a park?

“Oh, but you’re not so demanding are you, Dollop?” Tessa asked the baby.

Christian lay on his stomach in the center of the blanket, gainfully lifting his chin and sucking on his fist.

“Well, perhaps just a bit,” she corrected. “When you are hungry. Or wet. Or tired. Or stuck on your stomach when you would like to flip onto your back. But these are all significant frustrations, aren’t they? Who doesn’t become demanding when faced with challenges such as these?”

She chattered away, smiling down at her son as she unpacked a strawberry tart and ate the berry from the top. Purposefully, she did not scan the open green behind her nor the paths to the right and left.

She would not watch for him, she had told herself. She would not fidget or check the timepiece in her basket or, God forbid, stand up and pace. She would be calm and contained, the serene picture of experienced motherhood, just as she had been for every other outing to the park. A young mother and her baby, enjoying the sunshine. In no way should she appear to be rapidly unspooling inside because her beloved son was about to meet the man she herself once loved and wanted to love again. The man who he might refer to as Papa.

Christian made a signature squawking noise and lashed out a slobbering hand, rocking to his side. “Oh, you almost have it,” encouraged Tessa, smiling at the baby’s favorite new trick. Any day now, he would rock himself over from his stomach to his back. Christian squawked again and lashed out an erratic hand, grabbing a fistful of beige silk.

“Oh, but let us not eat Mama’s dress?” She tugged, preventing the fist’s unerring progress to Christian’s mouth. “It’s horrid, I know, but the dye may not be safe. Here, let us find Goose . . .” She dug in the bag for his toy.

Perry and Sabine had tried to persuade Tessa to wear one of her old dresses, but Tessa resisted. Not today, when the most important interaction with Joseph Chance would take place.

Joseph had been very stoic at the docks, but it had been obvious that he regarded her bland, suffocating new dresses with confusion, if not outright distaste. But her appearance had no bearing here; what mattered was how Joseph regarded her son.

With this in mind, Christian had been carefully dressed in a gown of bright white with blue embroidered dots around the collar and hem. He wore a white cap with the same blue embellishment, and if the day turned cold, there was a matching blue jacket.

Tessa’s one concession to her own appearance had been her hair. When Perry had volunteered to braid it loosely and rope the yellow plait across the crown of her head, Tessa had complied. She did not think she could bear the tight bun or a dour bonnet today—not in the shade of the park. The last warm days of September would give way to autumn soon, and she would allow herself to enjoy a small straw hat while she could. Besides, the stiff bonnet brim got in the way when she lifted her son to her mouth for a kiss.

Perry had been delighted and pinned the straw hat and a whirl of ribbon to the left of the plait, a pretty little flourish, a bit of whimsy. Tessa almost wept at her reflection. She patted the braid now, delighting in the freedom from the bite of pins at her nape.

“Tessa?”

Her hand froze above her head.

She looked down at Christian, chewing on the beak of Goose. She looked at her half-eaten tart.

He is a decent man, she reminded herself. He will not reject a baby.

He hasn’t even rejected me yet, not really.

Her heartbeat increased to an accelerated pound. She drew a shaky breath and then looked up, shading her eyes.

Joseph Chance sat mounted on a chestnut stallion, staring down at them from the path. He wore an emerald green coat, grey waistcoat, and ivory cravat. His breeches, molded to his muscled legs, were tan, and the sun glinted off black Hessians. His hat was rakishly low. The combination of elegance and easy confidence in the saddle was not lost on her, and she thought absently of how the Old Tessa would have appreciated that look. Now she only cared how he would or would not appreciate her son.

“So you have found us,” she said lightly. She put a palm on her son’s warm, soft back.

“So I have,” he said, unmoving. His eyes did not leave hers.

The baby, she willed. Look at the baby.

Christian let out a shrill squawk and pitched the goose doll so that it fell just out of reach. His squawk turned into a fuss and Tessa quickly replaced the toy.

“I . . . I assumed you would be walking.” Joseph nodded to the empty pram beside the tree.

“Oh,” she said, looking at the pram, “no, anything but that, I’m afraid. If I push him, he will fall asleep. Better that he sleep at home, when I can be busy with other things. When we reach the park, we generally spread out on the ground. Won’t you—that is,” she tried again, “can you—?”

Before she could finish, he slung his leg over the horse and stepped down. “May I join you?”

“By all means.” Tessa stared down at her son, who chewed willfully on the foot of his goose.

The horse’s tack jingled as Joseph wordlessly secured him beside the maple.

“Your horse is well mannered, I hope,” she said. She worried about the large animal so close to Christian lying prone on the ground. Worry was now a mainstay of her life.

“He is,” Joseph said. He came to stand beside her. It occurred to her that the logistics of this meeting would be strange. Joseph was dressed to promenade, not sit on a blanket beneath a tree.

“I’m sorry there is no easy place to si—”

He dropped down beside her, spreading his legs in front of him. He crossed his shiny black Hessians at the ankle. “It’s impossible to overstate how much I value solid earth after five weeks at sea.”

“You are gracious to say so.” She wanted to look at him, to really look at him. Even in their brief courtship at Berymede, they had never sprawled out on a blanket. It had been winter, and he had been so very careful to resist situations that would tempt them before the wedding. Oh, the irony.

Now he sprawled just two feet away. She could smell his soapy, woodsy smell. He tugged off his gloves and laid them beside her on the blanket. Tessa watched this but then darted her eyes away, looking everywhere but at him. She unrolled the baby’s damp collar from the chubby folds around his neck. Christian let out a long, indignant coo. If she had been alone with him, she would have scooped him up and repeated his babble, trying to make him speak again. Instead, she cleared her throat. Joseph said nothing.

But perhaps he was uncertain and wished only to observe the baby? Or the sight of him raised the awkward question of domestic logistical matters, none of which Joseph was prepared to discuss?

She felt herself begin to perspire. She’d foolishly put too much emphasis on getting the introduction exactly right but devoted no thought to the words she would use to make it.

“Tessa?” Joseph said, drawing her gaze back to his face. He took off his hat. “I’m afraid I must to admit something to you.”

Tessa’s stomach cinched into a tight knot. This was the moment he would reject everything—the baby, herself, the marriage. This was the moment he would walk away forever. “Yes?” she whispered, unable to meet his gaze.

“I find myself at quite a loss. I’ve no idea what to . . . do, er, next.” He winced slightly. “Forgive me. But can you . . . ? That is—?”

Tears of relief sprang to her eyes.

Joseph cringed, watching his wife’s face crumple into tears. He cursed under his breath and reached for his handkerchief.

“Here.” He thrust the monogrammed linen at her. “Perhaps I should have concealed my ignorance. Although it’s fairly obvious, I’m afraid.”

Tessa shook her head, and tiny wisps of blonde flew out from her face. He blinked, enjoying the loose, relaxed beauty of her hair with no stiff bonnet. He tried and failed to think of something light and funny to say.

“You’ll have to forgive me,” she said. “I . . . I have looked so forward to this moment, and I was so afraid that you would be . . . that you would be—” She faltered.

“Competent?” he offered.

She laughed. “Resentful.”

She said it lightly, but it felt like a punch to his gut. He picked up one glove and laid it down again. He settled the other glove on top of it, carefully aligning the edges, finger to finger. “Oh, Tessa,” he sighed. “Resentful? I’ve been angry—yes. But is this how I have portrayed myself to you? So callous?” He laughed without humor and plucked at the gloves, tossing them into the air. “No, don’t answer that.”

She watched the leather fall into a heap. “You have every reason to resent us, Joseph. Few men could look at a child who was . . . not of his own flesh, yet thrust into his lifelong care, and not feel resentment. I have only the reaction of my own parents and brothers to compare. Please remember.” She looked away and added softly, “And then there was the reaction of the man who fathered Christian.”

As ever, Joseph’s breath stopped at the mention of Tessa’s former lover. “You have spoken to this man since the baby? You have made some introduction?” He could barely grit out the words.

Tessa shook her head wildly. “Oh, no. I shall never see him again. What I mean to say is, when I discovered my condition. I told him. He was cruelly indifferent.” She gathered herself up on her knees. “Joseph, please understand. I, alone, am to blame for the circumstances of our marriage—this I know. But I kept the details of the pregnancy concealed because I had met such resentment from the man who fathered the child.”

“I would implore you not to transfer his resentment to me.”

“Oh,” she said simply, chewing her bottom lip. “I suppose this is fair.”

Was it fair? Joseph wondered. He knew himself to be justified in his outrage, his anger, his feelings of betrayal—even his bloody wounded pride. His friends understood—Cassin and Stoker claimed they would have reacted in precisely the same way. And yet—

Was he so blameless? The night of her confession, he had heaped resentment on her. Soon after, he had fled England and scarcely looked back.

He cast an eye around the sunny park, thinking of those angry months after the wedding. His outrage had felt wholly justifiable at the time. Even now, his pulse quickened and his head ached, thinking about how foolish she had made him feel, how hurt he’d been.

But now? He glanced back to Tessa and her baby.

Nothing in London was as easy to justify as it had seemed in Barbadoes.

Joseph ran a hand through his hair, scrambling for a new topic. Tessa toyed idly with Christian’s fat fists, watching Joseph from the corner of her eye. She seemed as uncertain as he was. He wondered for the hundredth time how involved she wished Joseph to be with the baby. The future was uncertain, obviously, and that uncertainty included today, this very moment. Was he meant to only observe the baby? Would it be intrusive to ask about his temperament or daily routine? Would he hold the baby?

There was a rather large chance that Tessa considered the baby to be hers alone, despite bearing Joseph’s last name and, presumably, relying on Joseph for financial support.

The thought of this unsettled him in a way he could not really define, but he could not conceive of a way to assert himself. He wasn’t even certain how to reach out and touch the child.

Rolling his shoulders and giving her a smile, Joseph elected to ask about the baby in terms of their newfound common ground. “When you are ready,” he said, “I should like to hear about the summer you spent learning London’s dockyards while also caring for a newborn babe. Stoker and I are still in a mild state of shock over how you managed it all.”

She sat bolt upright. “I hope nothing is amiss?”

He shook his head. “On the contrary. I find myself in the position of defending my contribution to our partnership. Stoker now wishes to cut me loose and deal only with you. Thank God Cassin is in Yorkshire. I should never hear the end of it. I’m meant to be the brains of the operation, although you could not tell it yesterday.”

She laughed and began to ask questions about the warehouse and the buyers, the distribution of the guano, and the fabric they would take under sail for the return to Barbadoes.

Joseph answered her questions but eventually their conversation drifted to London—how she enjoyed the city after a girlhood in the countryside; their friends Willow and Cassin and their unexpected love match; and the coronation of the new king, which had happened only weeks before.

He was just about to ask her if she ever found time to play the piano, when the baby suddenly caught their attention. He’d been cooing, making loud but happy baby sounds, and now he had begun to rock to his left, to and fro, enjoying the sound of his voice undulating with the effort. Tessa smiled down at him and Joseph paused in his questions, enjoying the sight of her enjoying her son. They both happened to be staring down at the baby in the moment he rocked, rocked, rocked, and then dug his left knee into the blanket and flipped over.

Tessa gave a gasp of delight and sat on her heels. “But did you see that? He turned himself over!”

Joseph looked at the baby, now lying on his back, blinking up at the maple leaves and bright September sky. His small round face was like a pink full moon, his blue eyes wide with shock.

Joseph leaned over him. “Is he . . . all right?”

“He’s rolled over—and so early! He was on his stomach—you saw it—and now he has flipped! All of his own accord.” She scooped the baby in her arms and squeezed him, kissing all available skin. “Good boy, Dollop!” She beamed at Joseph. “Perry told me he might flip himself as early as four months, but it might take longer. Some babies go until six or seven months without turning over.”

She seized the baby against her again, hugging him so tightly he let out an impatient squawk. She laughed and tucked him under her chin. “Perry has six younger brothers and sisters,” she explained, “and she’s been an invaluable resource for what to expect. I knew nothing of infants, Mary Boyd does not have children, and my own mother is no longer a part of my life.” She held the baby at arm’s length. “Perry will be so proud, Dollop!”

Joseph sifted through the pieces of information she’d just given him. For all practical purposes, his wife was navigating motherhood entirely alone. On his very rare encounters with the maid Perry he found her to be sweet but also young, impulsive, and silly. She was Tessa’s guide? He wondered for the hundredth time how her own family could abandon their only daughter.

How could you? he suddenly thought, and he felt color rise to his cheeks.

“Let us see if he will do it again,” Tessa said, replacing the baby on his stomach on the blanket. The baby cried out, opposed to being returned to the position he had so recently conquered. But within moments, he dug his foot and knee into the blanket and flipped himself again.

Tessa clapped and laughed, smiling down. Joseph wanted to watch the infant, truly he did, but he struggled to look away from the delight on Tessa’s face. He felt another prick in his heart. Another pinhole. He felt oddly light.

With considerable effort, he tore his eyes away from his wife to look down at the child.

“Oh,” sang the baby’s mother, “how hard you worked to flop over, but you aren’t quite sure what to do now that you’ve managed it. Poor Dollop.”

I know the feeling, mate, Joseph thought, peering down. He felt his own smile form. Christian Chance had three distinguishing features: chubbiness, which gave him the look of a tiny, pink monarch; a shock of dark black hair, like down on a gosling’s back; and crystal blue eyes.

Like his mother’s.

Joseph said, “He is a beautiful baby.” In his experience, this was never the wrong thing to say. It was also not a lie.

“Oh, thank you,” said Tessa. “He has been beautiful to me from the first moment.”

Joseph wanted to ask if he looked like the man who fathered him, but could not. With effort, Joseph fought off all thoughts of the man who fathered him. Instead, he watched the baby stare up, captivated by his mother. Joseph, too, knew what it felt like to look into her blue eyes.

He considered what to ask next. He was far more interested in the baby, and even more so in Tessa’s new role as a mother, than he had expected. It was an understatement to say he had never given much thought to fatherhood. He had not known his own father, and the Earl of Falcondale, who had brought him up in many ways, was far more like an older brother.

Joseph wondered what, specifically, fathers did for or to newborn infants? His only thought was to provide for the child and for his mother. His mind leapt immediately to the money he’d left to sustain Tessa and Christian while he was away. Had it been enough? He wondered suddenly where the child slept. Was his crib sturdy and safe? Could there possibly be a proper nursery in the Boyds’ small Belgravia townhome?

Christian wore a spotless white gown, but did Tessa have what she needed in the way of tiny garments for the child? What of this quilt on which they now sat? The picnic basket with leather-and-brass handles and the food inside it?

He was overwhelmed, suddenly, with the impulse to be some part of the small family before him, but he was so very uncertain about how. Were finances an appropriate way to start? Joseph cast around for some inroad.

“What do you enjoy most about being a mother?” he finally asked. It was one of a painfully short list of questions he’d stayed up half the night to compose.

Tessa blew out a breath, sending the wisps of hair fluttering around her face. “Oh, there is only one good thing about being a mother.” She swept the baby off the blanket. “And that is this little dollop.” She kissed the baby on the neck and Christian let out a happy shriek. He flailed his chubby arms like he was trying to fly.

“All the rest is quite a lot of hard work, I’m afraid,” she said. She set the baby on her lap, facing Joseph. He settled in, entitled to the spot. He chewed on his fist, considering Joseph with half-lidded eyes.

Tessa went on, “Getting up in the night, washing and mending baby clothes, bathing him, feeding him, trying to fit my own meals and mending when he sleeps. And then of course fitting in my work at St. Katharine. I am lucky because I have Perry to help me, and she loves him like a sister. Our shared love for him drives it all.” She looked away, staring out across the park. “I love him even when he is screaming at the top of his lungs, dirty, and it is the middle of the night.”

She shook her head, as if dislodging a memory, and returned her gaze to Joseph. “I did not expect to love him quite so much, honestly. I cannot find words to do it justice. And he doesn’t even really do much of anything—not yet. He does not speak, he does not show preferences for anything more than meals and a dry nappy and me. He is indifferent even to his toy goose, but Willow sent it, and I would love him to eventually attach himself to it. Even with all of that, he is—” She paused and kissed the top of his head. “I would endure any amount of sleepless drudgery for him. And my love for him is so . . . comprehensive, I know that I shall endure any hardship, for the rest of my life, to provide for him, even though I know nothing of the boy or man he will become.”

She took a deep breath. “But it cannot be said enough, I have Perry to help me, and in this I am so fortunate. Thank you for the money you left for her salary, by the way.” She smiled gratefully as if the money had been remotely enough.

The baby began to croon, a low, gurgling noise that began comical and pleasant but soon dissolved into a cranky, dispirited fuss. Tessa bobbed her leg, gently bouncing him up and down, but his fussy croon began rising to a low cry, then a wail.

“Ah, are you tired, Dollop?” she asked, kissing him on the cheek. She smiled up at Joseph. “If I push him home in the pram, he will fall asleep. Will you—?” She paused and turned the baby over her shoulder, patting his back. “Do you have time to walk us home?”

“Of course,” he said, shoving up.

“Oh, lovely, thank you,” she said, sounding surprised and happy. He wondered if it was the only correct thing he’d said all afternoon.

“Will you hold him while I pack up the basket?”

“I—ah . . .”

Before Joseph could qualify his hesitation, Tessa thrust the fussing baby at him, and he was given little choice but to receive him. He wrapped his hands around his thick middle and held him out like a muddy dog. The baby’s wail paused, mid-crescendo, and Joseph Chance stared at the boy, blue eyes to blue eyes. The baby blinked. He crinkled his nose and formed his mouth into a little O. He opened his wet eyes very wide. His expression seemed to say, Who the devil are you?

“Who, indeed, mate?” Joseph said lowly, and he felt something break off inside of his chest and fall into the pit of his stomach.

Tessa chuckled. “Tuck him into your arm,” she said. “Here. Like this.”

She came beside Joseph and spun the baby in his hands to pull Christian to the crook of his arm. “There you are. Now support him under his bum.”

Joseph allowed her to guide him while Christian resumed his wail in honor of Joseph’s obvious incompetence. Tessa ignored the infant’s outrage, and Joseph felt himself relax. He watched her situate the baby in his arms, straighten his gown, and pat him on his head.

She’d not touched Joseph since he’d returned, not really, and now she eased him around with gentle pats and tugs. He could smell her soft, floral scent. His body pulsed at every point of contact. He fought the urge to step closer. The baby reached out to her, and he had the ridiculous urge to reach out for her, too.

She moved away, seemingly unaffected, to pack the basket. The baby’s temper fit rose, but Joseph was transfixed by the sight of Tessa’s fluid, unhurried ministrations. She crawled on her hands and knees, offering an eye-blinking view of her bottom as she tossed crockery into the basket. The quilt was not precisely folded so much as loosely halved and quartered. She held it to her nose to breathe deeply before she piled it beside the picnic basket.

“Sabine made this quilt for us,” Tessa told him. “Isn’t it lovely? I thought it was too pretty to spread on the ground, but she insisted that we use it. Now it’s taken on the smell of summer grass and soft earth, and I love it even more.”

She held a half-eaten cake between her lips while she repacked sundry picnic items. Every few minutes she paused to take a bite, closing her eyes in simple pleasure.

“I’ve offered you nothing,” she laughed, popping the last bite into her mouth. “How very rude of me. The Boyds’ cook packed a full tea.”

“I came to meet the baby,” he said.

Tessa laughed again, climbing to a stand and reaching for her son. “Well, you’ve met him. Come here, Dollop. You’ve shouted quite enough at your papa—” She froze, her blue eyes huge on Joseph’s face. “I’m sorry. I . . . That is, Perry and I have been referring to you as Papa when we talk to the baby.”

“I’ve done so very little to earn that title, I’m afraid,” he said. The words were out before he thought about them. A relief. The truth.

Tessa continued to stare. The baby cried louder, reaching for his mother.

“What is it that you feel you should have done, Joseph?” Her voice was a confused whisper. He could barely make out the words over the baby’s cries.

“I . . . I cannot say,” he lied. “My own father died before I was born.” He shrugged and relinquished the baby. “More.” He thought of a hundred things he could have done. Anything.

She gathered the baby close, kissed the top of his head, and then settled him, wailing, in the pram. She stepped back and dusted her hands together. “Can I trouble you to carry the basket and the blanket? He will fall asleep within minutes if I begin to push.”

Joseph tossed the blanket over his saddle and hooked the basket over the horn. He tugged the horse on a long lead behind him and fell in beside Tessa. As she predicted, the baby’s cries turned into a long, low sort of gravelly song, and then dropped off altogether.

In silence, they walked along Barrack’s Way, the spindly wheels of the pram popping over the gravel walk. After a moment, she said, “He is easier to become accustomed to when he is asleep.” Two children ran past, giggling, holding fast to the straining leash of a dog. “It was ambitious, perhaps, to have introduced you during our time at the park.”

“Is it your wish that I become accustomed to the baby?” Joseph asked. He was determined to discover what she really wanted.

Tessa glanced at him and then looked left, steering the pram toward High Row. He held his breath.

She nodded. “If you are so inclined.”

“I would like that,” he said. In his head, he thought, I would like to become accustomed to you both.

Suddenly, she stopped walking. Joseph was two steps ahead and turned around, nearly colliding with his horse. “What is it?” He peered into the pram at the sleeping baby.

“On Friday, Sabine and I have plans to visit Vauxhall Gardens. In Kensington.”

Joseph paused. “I beg your pardon?”

“Vauxhall Gardens,” she repeated. “Do you know it?”

“Yes, I know it.” Vauxhall Gardens was a centuries-old outdoor public entertainment venue with music, food stalls, dancing, and fireworks. Men and women from every class frequented the Gardens for mischief and merriment—and trysts. So, so many trysts.

Joseph worked to keep his voice level. “Have the two of you visited Vauxhall before?”

She shook her head. “’Twill be our first time. Sabine, who has been exploring the city bit by bit, has begged me accompany her for an age, but I only now feel it is safe enough to leave Christian with Perry for an evening. We are looking forward to it, to be honest.”

“Indeed,” Joseph said. She was walking again, and Joseph was grateful to follow two steps behind. His sight narrowed to the vulnerable vision of Tessa and Sabine embarking on Vauxhall Gardens alone on Friday. Or any day. Ever.

“I mention it only,” she went on, “to see if you might like to join us? Mr. Stoker, too, of course, as long as you don’t reveal to Sabine that I mentioned it. She is strenuously opposed to any machination toward Mr. Stoker.”

“We’ll be there,” Joseph said. He let out a trapped breath. The very thought of Tessa and Sabine venturing alone into Vauxhall stopped his heart. The gardens were festive and diverting, but every manner of rake, swindler, inebriate, and thief prowled the dark paths and secluded bowers. And these were the upstanding patrons. The fights and assignations that he and Stoker had enjoyed at Vauxhall through the years were too numerous to count.

But she was not going alone, he reminded himself; she had just smoothly invited him, despite his general ineptitude at anything resembling manners throughout this outing.

And of course he had no right to forbid her to go anywhere. She’d been making her way around London, including to two separate Blackwall docks, for months.

He took a deep breath. “Will you allow us to collect you? I’ve a phaeton that rides four, and if the night is not too chill—”

“Oh, no, an escorted journey would spook Sabine for certain. There are front gates, I understand. Let us simply convene there. Shall we say at six o’clock?”

Joseph bit the inside of his cheek, thinking of the rabble that loitered outside the gates of Vauxhall Gardens. “Six o’clock,” he repeated tightly. “We will be there. I shall look forward to it.”

“Lovely,” she sighed, smiling up at him. “Sabine will be irritated that we’ve included Mr. Stoker, but she will survive.”

Joseph smiled and nodded, his brain choked by the terrible vision of his wife and Vauxhall Gardens and survival.