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frown. “I wonder if she has an aunt like you.”
    Phoebe shrugged as she finished off her own tart. “Izzy seems like a very lonely little girl. Maybe all she needs is a friend or two.”
    Helen wrinkled her nose. “Not me, though.”
    Phoebe let the matter drop, but the idea did not go away. Izzy and Helen were alike in more ways than one. Both natural born and likely to suffer for it at the hands of other children. Though the children of Swansford only repeated the words they heard from their parents, they were words with the power to hurt a sensitive child like Helen, and to continue hurting her long after they were said. That’s why Helen hated going to school in Swansford, and why Phoebe had taken over educating her.
    Two motherless girls, scorned by their peers. Despite the fact that one had grown up too tough and the other a little too sheltered, they might each be precisely what the other one needed.
    Perhaps she should approach Lord Farley on that matter, she thought as they made their way to Swansford the next morning. It was a misty day with fog hunkered down in the hollows and low spaces between the hills. As they passed Nester Hill, Phoebe stared down the road that led to the three-story limestone edifice at the center of Farley Park. But the memory of the viscount’s stern face put an immediate end to that foolish idea. With an effort she turned her attention to the widening path before her. She was better served staying strictly out of Lord Farley’s way. No doubt he had a proper governess or nurse, or some other personage to attend to Izzy.
    “Hurry, Helen,” she called to the child as Helen chased after Bruno, who scampered after a yellow butterfly. “Mrs. Leake likes to get the eggs early, before all the shoppers have been and gone.”
    In the neatly stocked store, Mrs. Leake sat on a stool working a column of figures in her ledger book. But she put the battered book aside when she spied Phoebe and Helen. Waving Phoebe over, she distracted Helen with a hard butterscotch candy.
    “Is it true?” she asked Phoebe without preamble. “You accused Lord Farley’s child of stealing from you?”
    Phoebe set the egg basket down on the waxed wood counter. “She did steal from me. I caught her in the act. But I expect to eventually—”
    “But surely you didn’t really march her home and demand restitution from him?”
    “No. That is, I didn’t demand anything. And I didn’t march her there. I simply returned her home. That’s all. Indeed, he was out searching for the child even as we approached the park. Where are you hearing these things, anyway?”
    Mrs. Leake sat back on her stool. “That’s neither here nor there. I’m just relieved to know you haven’t taken complete leave of your senses.” Then before Phoebe could respond to that remark, the shopkeeper leaned forward, a conspiratorial gleam in her eyes. “It’s all over the countryside, you know, about those children of his.”
    “What about them— Children? Are you saying he has more than the one?”
    “Indeed. That tough little Londoner and,” her voice lowered a notch, “a dark-skinned baby. Both of ’em natural born,” she added with a knowing nod.
    Phoebe pursed her lips. So she was right about that. But Mrs. Leake must have forgotten to whom she was speaking, and Phoebe was not above reminding her. “I’m reasonably certain that it’s not the children’s fault who their parents are.”
    At once Mrs. Leake’s leathery cheeks turned pink. “Gracious, I’m sorry, child. You know I don’t hold it against Helen what that wild sister of yours did. Why, everybody knows that Helen is the sweetest little thing in the world.”
    “Yes. She is.”
    “And it’s all to your credit, your good influence upon her. You raised your niece right, not like that light-fingered guttersnipe at Farley Park. You should hear the tales coming from the Park. Why, one of the upstairs maids has quit her position, and she told us that the