"We agreed on eight o'clock, remember?" It was the latest he'd been able to get her to agree to. If they hadn't arrived in London in the pitch dark, she would no doubt have gone out looking straightaway.

Her fingers twisted in the fringe of her shawl. "I know, but I can't sleep. I have to start looking."

He was very tempted to tell her that she'd been sleeping perfectly well only a few minutes before, but one look into her agonized eyes and he shut his mouth. It wasn't that she couldn't sleep, it was that she couldn't wait.

"It's been weeks," she said. "But now I'm here and I can't bear to waste another minute. If you don't want to go, that's all right, I'll go by myself." She turned back to her room.

"No, we'll go together," he told her. "I'll meet you downstairs in fifteen minutes."

"Thank you." Her eyes ran over his rough jaw, then his bare chest, and rested briefly on his buckskin breeches. She frowned. "You're not going like that, are you? I mean in riding breeches. And without shaving. It's just, if you dressed more formally, I'm sure they'd be more cooperative."

He raised his brows.

"It's true," she said earnestly, "In my last few days in London, the people I talked to were sometimes quite horridly rude and unhelpful, I think because by then I was looking fairly bedraggled and desperate. So if you were to look . . . I don't know . . . respectable and commanding, it would help."

He was tempted to remind her that in the past she had objected strenuously to his commanding ways, but she was strung tight as a bow, and now was not the time.

"I'll do my best," he said. "And Nell-"

She turned back and he caught her around the waist and drew her against him. "Stop fretting. We will find her," he said and kissed her firmly.

Her eyes misted up and she nodded, pressing her lips together as if unable to talk, and vanished into her room.

Harry rang for hot water and ordered a simple breakfast to be ready in fifteen minutes. He shaved-not his best effort, at this rate he might have to think about getting a valet-and dressed swiftly. Luckily whoever had unpacked his clothes had also pressed them and he looked quite respectable. Commanding he could do unshaven and half dressed.

He'd dressed quickly but when he opened his door she was already waiting for him, dancing impatiently on her toes. She was wearing that drab brown dress again. Damn, but he couldn't wait for her to get some decent clothes.

"I don't have a hat!" she said as if it was a major disaster. "You knocked my hat off in Bath, remember, and wouldn't stop to pick it up. And now I don't have a hat! I need to look respectable. They won't be helpful if they don't think I'm respectable. And how can I look respectable if I don't have a hat?"

"We'll get you a hat."

She wrung her hands. "At this hour of the morning? From where?"

He glanced past her and saw her maidservant hurrying along the passageway. "You should've rung for me, m'lady," Cooper began. "I didn't know you'd be up so-"

"Lady Helen needs a hat," Harry told her. "We'll be downstairs having breakfast-"

"I couldn't eat a thing," Nell told him.

Harry tucked Nell's hand into the crook of his arm and said to her maid, "Find her a hat, there's a good girl, and bring it to the breakfast parlor."

"Yes, sir." Cooper bobbed a curtsy and ran off.

"Now, breakfast," he said and led Nell toward the stairs.

"But I don't want any."

"You will eat something or else you won't step a foot out of this house."

"But-"

"Don't argue. Last time you went looking for your daughter you collapsed from hunger. I'm not having that."

She sighed and nodded. "All right. I didn't think . . . It's just that I'm so nervous, I might not be able to keep anything down."

"You will. It's just nerves that make you feel that way. Take it from a seasoned campaigner, you'll feel better with something in your stomach."

They walked down the stairs arm in arm.

"Did you sleep in my bed last night?" she asked abruptly.

"Yes, I did. You started wandering again, so it was easier just to get into your bed and keep you there. And it worked," he added, wondering why the hell he felt so defensive about it. "You slept the whole night through without stirring."

"I wondered if that was it. Thank you."

Harry looked at her in surprise. Thanks were the last thing he'd expected from her.

She explained, "Despite everything, I do feel quite well rested."

It was more than Harry could say. "Breakfast," he said and ushered her into the breakfast parlor. Cook had done them proud on such short notice. She had scrambled eggs, bacon, ham toast, sweet pastries, and a pot of coffee and another of hot chocolate.

Nell opted for a pastry and hot chocolate, Harry for everything else and coffee.

"I made a list last night," he said between mouthfuls. "I've marked the places you went to. We'll start with all the institutions to the northwest of the city first. I assume your father would be most likely to choose a place close to where he was, perhaps an area he was familiar with, rather than riding across town.

Nell nodded. "That makes sense." She hadn't eaten a thing, but at least she was drinking the chocolate. Her fingers shook as she lifted her cup.

He leaned over and caught her hand in his. "Stop worrying, we'll find her. Now eat something."

She nodded. "We will, yes, we will," she said, as if convincing herself. She crumbled the pastry in her fingers, then added in a voice of quiet desperation, "We must."

There was a knock on the door and Cooper came in, with a drab pelisse over one arm and a hat. "I've got a hat for you, m'lady. It's an old one of Lady Gosforth's. I smartened it up with a bit of ribbon and some feathers-"

"Thank you, Cooper." Nell jumped up and jammed it on. She turned to Harry. "Respectable?"

"Very nice," he said. He didn't know much about hats, but he liked this one. It didn't hide her face like so many of the ridiculous things women wore these days.

"Then let's go." Cooper helped Nell into the pelisse. Nell buttoned buttons with feverish, clumsy fingers, saying to Harry, "Aren't you finished yet? We need to leave now."

Harry gave a rueful glance at his half-full plate, drained his coffee cup, and stood.

"Good morning, my dears." Lady Gosforth sailed into the room. She stopped and scanned Nell critically. "Good heavens! Is that my old hat? It looks rather elegant, I must say. There's no need to gape at me like a fish, Harry, I have several times risen at such an uncivilized hour, and with a wedding in three weeks, there's a great deal to be done. Sprotton, some hot chocolate, if you please. I'm drawing up a plan for our shopping expeditions today, my dear. I thought we'd start with a visit to my mantua maker."

"But I can't!" Nell wailed. She turned to Harry, "We have to go."

"Nell won't be free today, Aunt Maude," Harry said. "Pressing business. Tomorrow, perhaps, or some other time," and he marched Nell out the door.

"Good grief, Harry, the girl needs to go shopping. Tell him, my dear-"

But they were gone.

Eleven.

"That was wonderful," Nell gasped as the curricle moved off at a smart trot. "When your aunt came in, I thought we'd never get away."

"I'm wearing my commanding clothes," he said dryly. "Ah, here we are."

To Nell's surprise, Harry pulled up and the groom jumped down to hold the horses. They hadn't even left Mount Street.

"Why are we stopping?"

Harry gestured to a tall building. "The parish workhouse of St. George's, Hanover Square. We might as well start with the closest." He jumped down and lifted her down.

Nell felt suddenly hollow.

The building was large, three stories high, built of brick and good intentions, but grim, nevertheless, with small windows. If there were children inside, you couldn't hear them.

Harry knocked on the door. After a moment, a gaunt woman dressed in gray opened it. She looked at them in surprise. "Can I help you?"

"Harry Morant," Harry said, doffing his hat. "And this is my wife. We wish to speak to whoever's in charge."

Nell barely took in the fact that he'd called her his wife. She was trying to control the shaking that had begun at the words "parish workhouse."

She'd lost count of the number she'd visited before. Had she known this one was so close she would have come last night.

The woman stood back to let them in. "The director isn't in, yet. But I might be able to help."

Inside it smelled of steam and strong lye soap. "Washing day?" Nell blurted and wondered why she'd said it.

The woman gave her a cool look. "Indeed." She turned back to Harry. "How can I help you?"

"My wife's late cousin gave birth to a baby girl several months ago," he said, squeezing Nell's hand so she wouldn't react. "We believe her father might have brought the baby here-tragically, he, too, is dead, which is why it's taken us so long to track down what happened to the child. We wish to raise the child as our own."

The woman escorted them to a small office and took down a heavy blue bound ledger. "When would this have been?"

Harry glanced at Nell.

"Around the nineteenth or twentieth of October," she said. Almost six weeks ago.

The woman turned pages with infuriating slowness. "The nineteenth . . ." she said. "And how old was this child at the time?"

"Five weeks old."

The woman raised her brows. "It's unlikely we'd take an infant of that age," she said. "Was she christened?"

"No."

"But the mother or father was a member of this parish, I presume?"

"Not the mother. I-I'm not sure about the father." She didn't think Sir Irwin was a member of any parish, but if he was, it wouldn't be a London parish but the church near his home in the country.

"We only take in members of this parish," the woman said. "So if the child is not of this parish . . ." She made to close the heavy book. Harry's hand shot out and slammed on top of the open page.

"Be so good as to check your records anyway," he said in a silky quiet voice that sent a shiver down Nell's spine. His eyes glittered coldly.

"Yes, of course, sir," the woman said hastily. She ran her finger down the list. Nell held her breath.

"The only infants we took in during that week were a boy of two and a girl of ten months who came in with her mother."

Nell's heart sank. From a distance she heard Harry saying, "You said you don't normally take very young babies. Who does?"

"Captain Coram's Foundling Hospital, out in Bloomsbury Fields."

"Then we'll go there next," he said.

Nell was already halfway to the door.

Captain Coram's Foundling Hospital was situated in the more open country of Bloomsbury Fields. An imposing brick edifice, it was built with two substantial wings extending out around a central courtyard.

This time they spoke to the director, a large man in a severe black suit. "Yes, we only take infants under twelve months," he told them, polishing a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez. "Your cousin's child is illegitimate, I presume?"

Nell could not speak.

"Yes," Harry said.

"The mother's first child?"

"Yes," he said again.

The man placed the glasses on his nose and peered through them at Nell. "And from a mother of good character?"

"Yes," Harry said firmly.

"Then there is a good chance she was admitted here. The nineteenth or twentieth of October, you say." He adjusted the fit of his pince-nez and consulted his records Nell's hand slipped into Harry's. She waited.