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cultivation, until it had edged out all other plants.
    Decades before, when Joss’s grandmother had the care of the conservatory, a much greater variety had grown. In her day, Jumanah, Lady Sutcliffe, had coaxed a small corner of India to flourish.
    Apparently. Joss had never known her, for within a few years of her arrival in Somersetshire, the English winters had chilled her just as they had the neem . This small, handwritten book was all Joss had left of his grandmother, who had long ago stepped from the soil of Calcutta onto a boat alongside a cook, an ayah , and the English soldier she had wed in haste. She had served him as bibi ; she now carried his child. His unexpected ascent to a barony required their marriage along with their swift journey to England. The future heir to the Sutcliffe barony—for did not all parents assume they would have a son?—must be born in wedlock.
    In only one generation, though, their branch of the family tree snapped and fell. The hoped-for heir had been a girl—a daughter unprotected by settlements from a marriage contracted in haste, unshielded by a dowry. If her parents had lived, all might still have been well.
    But they hadn’t. And when their orphaned daughter Kitty met the worthless Jack Everett, scandal and ruin soon followed. Thanks to the forceful persuasion of her uncle, the father of the present baron, Everett had married her. Her son, Josiah, had not been born a bastard. That was the only selfless act Jack Everett had ever managed.
    Cloaked and shielded in notes and coin, Augusta Meredith had no idea how vulnerable she was. How much she had to lose if she placed her trust in the wrong person.
    No, Joss would have to watch her carefully. Another item to add to his list of urgent , top secret , must do at once tasks while in Bath. Where he had told Augusta no , someone else was sure to tell her yes.
    People who had grown up with unstained birth and reputation could never comprehend how difficult a stain was to remove.
    Shutting the book, Joss peered out the small window above the desk. The room overlooked a mews, and at the street level, watery moonlight revealed a boy hauling an empty Bath chair, likely ready to head home for the night.
    Joss pried at the latch, opened the window, and called down to the boy in a hoarse whisper. “Will you deliver a note?”
    With canny greed, the boy laid down his burden and agreed to a small fee. Squinting into his room—not much brighter than the street, as his lamp was turned low to save fuel—Joss located writing materials and scrawled a quick letter asking Augusta to meet him the following day. He folded it, sealed it, then twisted it around a coin and dropped it into the waiting hands of the boy three stories below.
    â€œDo you know Lady Tallant’s house?”
    â€œCoo,” said the boy. “Her what stays in Queen Square? The countess?”
    â€œIndeed. That note is for her friend, Mrs. Flowers. And the coin—”
    â€œIs for me. Right you are, gov’nor.” With the admirable energy of the young, the boy tucked the note in a pocket and hoisted the handle of his chair again. And he was off, the echoes of their conversation still dying in the quiet street. The rattle of his chair wheels faded, leaving nothing behind except rows of houses with shuttered faces, their golden stone washed gray by the starless sky.
    Tomorrow, if Augusta agreed to his request, Joss would meet her again. He would take her at her word: that she truly did trust him to sort through possible lovers for her, and that she could help him make the land deal that would free him for a new life.
    He hoped she planned to be more forthright than he did.

Four
    Eight o’clock in the cursed morning and the Pump Room was already crowded. An endless parade of Bath’s denizens—the fashionable, the invalids, and the merely curious—passed before Joss on foot or in wheeled chairs.
    The room was larger