Alexander discovered what he wanted to know early the following afternoon when he called in at White’s Club. Lord Hodges’s rooms were within easy walking distance, though it would have taken a very long horse indeed to span both places. Fortunately for him, he discovered when he rapped the knocker against the door, the man was at home. A servant conducted him upstairs and left him in a square, well-appointed room, tastefully decorated and furnished. Lord Hodges joined him there within five minutes.

And yes, Alexander decided, Netherby was almost certainly right, just as was his own impression from having seen the baron a few times before. He was surely only in his mid-twenties. He was tall and good looking, youthfully slender, with blond hair cut short. He looked at his visitor with polite curiosity as he greeted him and shook his hand.

“To what do I owe the honor?” he asked as he indicated a chair.

Alexander sat. “I believe,” he said, “you must be Colin Handrich rather than Justin?”

A brief frown creased Lord Hodges’s brow. “My brother died ten years ago,” he said. “Three years before my father.”

“You have three sisters,” Alexander said.

“Lady Elwood and Mrs. Murphy,” the young man said. “I had a third sister, but she died as a child about twenty years ago. I beg your pardon, Riverdale, but what is the purpose of these questions?”

“I am glad of one thing at least,” Alexander said. “You did not know. I must enlighten you: Your third sister is not dead. She is the Countess of Riverdale, my wife.”

Hodges stared blankly at him, laughed slightly, then frowned again. “You are mistaken,” he said.

“No,” Alexander said. “What do you remember of her?”

“Of Rowena?” Lord Hodges sat back in his chair. “She was sickly. She rarely came out of her room. She never came into the nursery or the schoolroom or downstairs with the rest of us. She had a great … strawberry swelling covering one side of her face and head. I think it must have killed her, though the swelling had started to go down and lose some of its color. My aunt took her away to a doctor who said he could cure her. But she died. I am sorry for the misunderstanding. You have married someone else. I read your wedding announcement a day or two ago. Please accept my congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Alexander said. “But you were given the wrong information. Your aunt took your sister to London and called upon a former employer of hers, a Mr. Heyden, hoping he could help her find employment. He married her instead and they adopted your sister and changed her name to Wren Heyden. They raised and educated her. Sadly they both died last year, within days of each other, leaving Wren alone and very wealthy.”

“The Heyden glassware heiress,” Hodges said softly, as though to himself. “That was how your wife was described in the announcement.”

“She has a home not far from Brambledean Court,” Alexander said. “I met her there earlier this year and married her three days ago.”

The young man stared at him. “You must be mistaken,” he said.

“No,” Alexander said.

Lord Hodges gripped the arms of his chair. “Does my mother know?” he asked.

“She may have drawn her own conclusions when she saw my wife across the theater two evenings ago,” Alexander said.

“My aunt kidnapped Rowena?” Lord Hodges asked.

“There were plans to send your sister to an insane asylum the following day,” Alexander told him. “I would use the word rescued rather than kidnapped. Besides, your mother saw them leave and did nothing to stop them.”

“God.” Hodges had turned noticeably pale. His hands were white-knuckled on the arms of his chair. “But I remember her well enough to know she was perfectly sane, even though she could not read or write. Did they believe she was not? Was that why she was kept locked up most of the time?”

“I think,” Alexander said, “it was her appearance.”

Lord Hodges lurched to his feet, crossed the room to a sideboard, picked up a decanter, changed his mind and set it down again, and came to stand facing the fireplace, one hand gripping the mantel above his bowed head. “I was only five or six when she was taken away,” he said. “I remember so little about the events surrounding it. I know I cried when I heard she had died and lost faith in the power of prayer and healing. I used to kiss her face better whenever I went to see her and pray for a miracle. I am sorry. That is an embarrassing childhood memory to blurt out. It was her appearance, then? The strawberry mark? It was for that she was locked away and to be sent to an asylum?”

They were not questions that called for answers. Alexander did not offer any. But he did say something. “Perhaps your childhood prayers were answered,” he said. “Do you remember your aunt?”

“Not really,” Lord Hodges said. “I remember that she came and then took Rowena away to the doctor a few days later. I cannot recall anything else about her. She was kind to Rowena?”

“She and her husband showered her with love and acceptance,” Alexander said, “and saw to it that she was properly educated. When she showed an interest in the glassworks, her uncle trained her to take his place and left the business to her in his will. She is a superbly successful businesswoman.”

Lord Hodges said nothing. He had his eyes closed.

“You do not live with your mother,” Alexander said.

“No.” The young man opened his eyes.

“Has she mentioned the evening at the theater?” Alexander asked.

“Not to me,” Lord Hodges told him. “I do not see a great deal of her. I do not see her at all, in fact, except when I run into her by chance at some entertainment. But I will say no more on that subject. It is a family matter.”

“I understand,” Alexander said.

“A family matter.” Lord Hodges laughed suddenly. “You are family, are you not? You are my brother-in-law.”

Yes. Alexander had not thought of that until now.

“Keep her away from my mother,” Lord Hodges said, his voice low. “Does she still have the mark?”

“The purple remains of it,” Alexander said. “She is beautiful.”

The young man half smiled and turned away from the fireplace. “My mother will not like that,” he said. “She will allow only unmarred beauty in her orbit, and that beauty she will enslave if she is given the chance. Keep Rowena away from her.”

“For your mother’s sake?” Alexander asked.

Lord Hodges drew breath to speak but released it and waited a few moments. “My father escaped by dying,” he said. “My elder brother escaped into alcohol and died as a result when he was younger than I am now. My eldest sister is a shell of the woman she might have been. My middle sister married an Irishman when she was seventeen, escaped to Ireland with him, and never returned. I stayed with an uncle and aunt during school holidays after my father died and in Oxford while I was at university. I moved here to these very rooms afterward. Rowena was rescued by Aunt—God, I do not even recall her name.”

“Megan,” Alexander said.

“By Aunt Megan,” Hodges said. “Keep her away from my mother. That is dashed unfilial, Riverdale, and I always try to preserve decorum, even inside my own head. Honor your mother and father and all that. But Rowena is my sister and you are my brother-in-law. Keep her away.” He returned to his chair and sank down onto it while Alexander regarded him silently. “Is it true, then? Is she really alive? Has she been alive all these years?”

“Will you come and meet her?” Alexander asked.

“Oh, God,” Lord Hodges said. “She must hate me.”

“She remembers you,” Alexander told him, “as the only person in her first ten years who ever showed her kindness. She remembers the kisses on the damaged side of her face. She remembers you turning the key in her door and coming in to play with her. She remembers playing outside with you once.”

“I was told I must never do it again.” The young man was frowning in thought. “I had forgotten. I was told she was ill and must not go out. I remember reading stories to her because she could not read herself. I must have only just learned.” He looked at Alexander. “Will she hate me?”

“No.” Alexander got to his feet. “I am going home now. Will you come with me? I cannot promise she will be there, of course.”

“I will come.” Lord Hodges stood too. “I was on my way out somewhere, but I cannot for the life of me remember where. I will come. God. Rowena.”

Alexander had no idea if he was doing the right thing. He would find out, he supposed.

Viola and Abigail were to return home the following day, taking Harry with them. Today Wren had gone to see the Tower of London with Viola and Lizzie while her mother-in-law called on her brother and sister-in-law and Abigail went to spend the morning with Jessica and to see the baby—her niece—once more. Harry was borne off by the Duke of Netherby to practice some light swordplay in an effort to get the strength back in his arm, which was otherwise healing nicely. They were all back home by the middle of the afternoon, however. Jessica had come with Abigail and was going later with her and Viola and Harry to dine with the dowager countess and Cousin Matilda.

Wren was feeling a bit exhausted, as she did much of the time these days. She had gone out unveiled but not unnoticed. And at home she seemed always to be surrounded by people—well-meaning people, it was true, people of whom she was growing increasingly fond, but people nonetheless. Elizabeth and her mother were to attend a soiree this evening. Perhaps, Wren thought hopefully as the drawing room about her buzzed with cheerful teatime conversation, she would have the chance of a quiet evening alone with Alexander. How blissful that would be. And she did not believe he would mind. He had told her that for several years he had hardly come to London at all but had spent his time at Riddings Park. He still preferred the quiet of country life to the bustle of life in town.

She sat back in her chair, sipped her tea, enjoyed the company, and longed for the evening. When the drawing room door opened and she saw Alexander, her heart lifted. But he did not close the door behind him or advance far into the room as he greeted everyone.

“Wren,” he said, “will you come down to the library with me? There is someone I would like you to meet.”

Again? Who now? she wondered in some dismay. Had she not met enough strangers in the last week or so to last a lifetime? He was surely being unfair.

“Of course,” she said, getting to her feet. She would not reproach him in front of everyone else. She almost asked him who it was when they were on their way downstairs, but she would soon see for herself.

He was a young man, tall and slender, smartly dressed, blond haired, and very handsome. He was turning from a bookcase when they entered the library, and he was looking as ill at ease as Wren was feeling. She was feeling something else too—dread? His eyes were riveted upon her from the first moment.

“Roe?” he said, his voice little more than a whisper.

Only one person had ever called her that—one little mop-haired blond child with his toys and his books and his healing kisses. This man—

“Colin?” Her fingers curled into her palms at her sides.

His eyes stilled on the left side of her face and then focused on her own eyes. “Roe,” he said again. “It is you. It is you?”

Wren felt as though the blood were draining from her head. She felt as though she were gazing down a long tunnel. A warm hand grasped her firmly by the elbow.

“I have brought Lord Hodges to meet you, Wren,” Alexander said.

Lord Hodges? He was not Papa. He was not—no, surely he was not Justin.

“Yes, I am Colin,” he said, crossing the room toward her in a few long strides and taking both her hands in a bruising clasp. “Roe. Oh, good God, Roe. I thought you were dead. I thought you died twenty years ago.”

A little six-year-old. A happy little boy with his toys and books and get-better kisses who always seemed to skip happily wherever he went. The only person who had loved her during her own childhood.

“Oh, God,” he said, “they told me you were dead.”

If he squeezed her hands any more tightly, he was going to break a few fingers. “You used to kiss my face to make it better,” she said. “Do you remember, Colin? You did make it better. See? It never did go quite away, but it is better. And everything else got better too. Except that you were lost to me. And I have always wondered … My heart has always ached.”

“I survived too,” he said, and when he smiled, she could see—oh, surely she could see that radiant little boy, though she had to look up an inch or two at him now. “I still cannot believe it, Roe. You are alive. All these years …”

I survived too … A strange choice of words.

“Perhaps we should all sit down,” Alexander suggested.

He poured them each a glass of wine while Wren sat with Colin on the deep leather sofa that faced the fireplace. He took both her hands in his again as soon as they were seated, as though he feared she would disappear if he did not hold on to her. Alexander sat in one of the armchairs flanking the hearth.

“No, it never did go quite away,” Colin said, tipping his head to look at the side of her face, “but it does not matter, Roe. Riverdale was right. You are beautiful. And you were the fortunate one. If you had not been blemished, she would have kept you. Did Aunt Megan treat you well? Riverdale says she did.”

“She was an angel,” Wren said. “And I use the word with all sincerity. So was Uncle Reggie, whom she married. But, Colin—Lord Hodges?”

“Were you cut off from all knowledge of us, then?” he asked her. “Papa died seven years ago of a weak heart. Justin died three years before him. There is an official story of the cause, but the truth is that he drank himself to death. You probably do not know anything else about us either, do you? Blanche married Sir Nelson Elwood. They live with our mother. There are no children. Ruby married Sean Murphy when she was seventeen and went to Ireland with him. She never comes back, but I have been there a few times. I have—you and I have three nephews and a niece. I have rooms here in London, where I live year-round.”

“Not with … Mother?” she asked.

“No.” He released her hands and reached for his glass of wine. “I suppose you were not sickly as a child, were you? That was not why you rarely came out of your room.”

“No,” she said.

“I suppose you were kept there,” he said, “because you were a blemish upon her beautiful world. Young children are very gullible. They believe everything they are told. I suppose that is natural. They have to grow gradually into discernment—and cynicism. I was proud of myself when I learned to turn that key. I can remember turning it so that I could come and play with you. I never thought to question why a sickly sister had to be locked into her room. But, Wren, you were able to escape when you were still young. If you had not had that strawberry blemish, you would have been sucked up like the rest of us, for you are beautiful and probably were even as a child. But forgive me. Nothing must have seemed like a blessing in those days.”

“Oh, you did,” she told him.

Both he and Alexander smiled at her, and she looked from one to the other of them and felt a great welling of love.

“The rest of us had identity only as her beautiful offspring,” Colin said. “I had a bit of a lisp as a child. I was not allowed to grow out of it until I almost was unable to do so. And I was not allowed to cut my hair in what I considered a decently boyish style because it was blond and curly and people used to pat me on the head and coo over me. And I was told you had died. I can remember going to your room the night after I heard and tucking my favorite cloth tiger beneath your bedcovers to keep you warm and putting the book you most liked me to read on your pillow to keep you company. But it seems I stayed there to do both myself. I believe I fell asleep crying. There was a bit of a hue and cry the next morning when I was not in my own bed.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Even though I did not know it, thank you, Colin.”

“Why Wren?” he asked her.

She smiled. “It is what Uncle Reggie called me the first time he saw me,” she said. “He said I was all thin and big-eyed and looked like a little bird. Soon Aunt Megan was calling me Wren too and I liked it. When they adopted me, I became Wren Heyden, the name I bore until three days ago, when I became Wren Westcott.” She glanced at Alexander and smiled again.

“I do not believe I could get used to saying it,” Colin said, “though it is pretty.”

“Oh no,” she said. “You must always call me Roe. Only you have ever done so, and I associate it with brightness and comfort and love.”

He sighed and looked from her to Alexander. “I want to know so much,” he said. “I want to know everything. And I suppose I want to tell you everything. There are so many missing years. But I must not take up more of your time today. Riverdale, I owe you a debt of gratitude I may never be able to repay. I would never have known. I read your marriage announcement, but the name Wren Heyden meant nothing to me. I would not have known even if I had seen her, for her face is different now from the way I remember it. I would have gone through the rest of my life believing my sister to be dead.”

“But you must stay,” Wren said, forgetting her earlier longing to be alone with Alexander for the evening. “Stay for dinner. Meet my mother- and sister-in-law and cousins. I daresay you know some of them already.”

“Alas, I cannot,” he said. “I have an engagement I cannot break. A friend of mine has a sister who needs an escort to Vauxhall, and I am he. She is a shy girl and has not taken well with the ton so far this year.”

“Then you certainly must go,” Wren said as he got to his feet and offered both his hands to draw her up before him.

“Roe,” he said, tightening his grip, “stay away from her. She is my mother—our mother—and I would not utter one disloyal word about her to anyone outside the family. I said the same thing to Riverdale earlier about staying away from her, but only after he convinced me that he was indeed my brother-in-law. She is poison, Roe. There is only one person in her world—herself. Everyone else is part of a stage set about her or the audience to gaze upon her with wonder and awe. She can be vicious to anyone who will not play his or her appointed part. I am almost choking on such disloyal words about my own mother, but she is your mother too and she will not be happy if she comes face-to-face with you. She will fear exposure as someone who is not quite perfect after all. Stay away from her. Forget about her. But I daresay you already intend to do just that.”

“Colin.” She smiled at him. “Something in me has healed today. There was goodness in those years.”

“I am sure I will be waking up tonight imagining this is all a dream,” he said. “And for once I will enjoy waking all the way up to realize it is not. You are alive.”

“Yes,” she said. “Enjoy Vauxhall.”

“Oh, I will.” He grinned. “Miss Parmiter may be shy, with the result that the ton has taken little notice of her. But I have. Roe, may I kiss it better again?”

“Oh yes, please.” She laughed as he kissed her left cheek and then pulled her into a tight hug. She hugged him back and thought that darkness was never quite dark. Her first ten years had come very close, so close that she had almost forgotten the one thin thread of light that had made all the difference—the bright-faced little boy who had grown into this handsome young man. Her brother.

They saw him on his way, she and Alexander, after he had agreed to return the following day. Then they returned to the library. He had her hand in his, she realized, their fingers laced. He drew her down onto the sofa and wrapped one arm about her. She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. She felt his free hand wipe her cheeks gently with a handkerchief.

“If he had turned out to be the other brother,” he said, “I would not have told him.”

“Justin?” she said. “I suppose he suffered too. One does not drink oneself to death for the pleasure of it.”

“He was cruel to you,” he said.

“He was just a boy,” she told him. “Blanche and Ruby were just girls. I have to forgive, Alexander, even if only in my own mind. If one of them had looked as I did and I had looked as one of them did and been under the influence of my mother, who is to say I would not have behaved in just the way they did?”

He bent his head and kissed her.

“I am going to go and see her,” she said.

The arm about her shoulders tightened. “Your mother?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Why?” he asked. “Wren, there is no need for that. Your brother advises against it, and he ought to know. He was quite adamant about it, in fact. You do not need to do this. Let me take you home. I am longing to go myself. Let’s go home.”

“Do you know where she lives?” she asked.

“No.” He sighed. “But it should not be hard to find out.”

“Will you do that, please?” she asked him. “I am going.”

He did not ask why again, which was just as well. She did not know why. Except that her past had been opened up at last, beginning with the visit to the theater and the outpouring of her story later. And now this. She had to finish what had been started or it would forever fester inside her. She was not looking for healing. She was not sure that was possible—just as perhaps it was not for Colin and her sisters. She just wanted to face her memories, including those that were too deep to be dragged up into her conscious mind. That was all. That was why.

“Wren.” Both his arms were about her. His cheek was resting against her head. “What am I going to do with you? No, don’t answer. I know what I am going to be doing with you within the next day or two. I am going to be going with you to call upon Lady Hodges.”

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you. And soon, Alexander. Then I want to go home with you.”