Nestled in a pretty hollow just off the main road between London and Richmond, Pleasant Farm was small but prosperous-looking, with tidy fields bordered by neat hedgerows and a sprawling, slate-roofed stone farmhouse that showed signs of having been considerably expanded in recent years.
When Hero’s yellow-bodied carriage drew up in the farm’s cobbled quadrangle, she could see a half-grown girl in a plain round gown and sunbonnet feeding geese down by a small pond. Another child, this one no more than two or three, sat in a patch of shade near the open kitchen door, playing with a kitten. As Hero watched, a short, stout woman with a clean white apron pinned to her gray stuff gown came bustling through the doorway, one hand raised to shade her eyes from the sun as the team of fine black carriage horses came to a halt and one of Hero’s liveried footmen jumped to open the coach door and put down the steps.
The woman let her hand fall to her side, her features settling into an expression of sympathetic concern. She looked to be perhaps forty-five, although the dark hair beneath her starched white cap was little touched by gray and her plump face showed few lines. She stood watching as Hero, dressed in a carriage gown of moss green and a shako-style hat adorned with a single artfully curling plume, descended the steps. Then the woman stepped forward and dropped a quick curtsy. “Good morning, and welcome to Pleasant Farm. I’m Prudence Blackadder. May I help you?”
“How do you do, Mrs. Blackadder?” said Hero, settling her skirts around her. “I’m Lady—”
“Oh, no need to be giving us your name, my lady,” said the woman in a rush. “That is, unless you’s wanting to, of course. Been doing this now for going on twelve years, I have, which means I know how to be discreet, I do. If you’re wishful of having a look around, you’re more than welcome. But if not, I’ll understand that, too. There’s many who’d as soon make their arrangements and then be on their way, never to look back.”
Hero stared at the woman, puzzlement giving way to understanding as it dawned on her that Prudence Blackadder had leapt to the inevitable conclusion that Hero was here to make arrangements to abandon some unwanted infant into the woman’s care. The result of an illicit affair, presumably—either her own or some relative’s or dear friend’s.
“Well,” said Hero, her gaze drifting around the quadrangle’s cluster of neat stone-walled barns and sheds, “I would like to see where you keep the little ones you’re currently caring for.”
“Of course, my lady,” said Mrs. Blackadder, extending a hand toward the flight of shallow steps that led up to the house’s main front door. “Right this way, if you please. I’ve told my Lucy to put the kettle on, so’s after you’ve had a good look around we can go into the parlor and have us a nice cup of tea while we take care of details.”
“Thank you,” said Hero as the woman ushered her into a picturesque, low-ceiled entry hall that probably dated back a hundred years or more, with flagstone flooring and a large fieldstone fireplace that ranged across most of one wall. The newer part of the house stretched away to the left, but the woman led Hero down an old corridor to an oak-wainscoted room with heavy dark beams overhead that was probably the original house’s sitting room.
“We’ve not too many of the wee ones at this moment,” said the woman as she stood back to allow Hero to enter the room first. Drawing up inside the doorway, Hero counted eight baskets and several larger cots. The cots and two of the baskets were empty; the rest contained tightly swaddled infants, none of whom looked older than three or four months. All were sleeping soundly.
Hero looked around. “And where are the older children?”
“Older children?” Prudence Blackadder’s small, nearly lashless gray eyes widened. “Well, you may’ve seen little Eliza there by the kitchen door when you drove up, while I sent Jane off to feed the geese before you came. And of course the boys are down at the barn with my Joseph, putting up the hay.”
“Oh? How many older boys do you have?”
“Two.”
Hero felt her stomach tighten. The woman was currently looking after six tiny infants. But despite having been—as she herself said—taking in babies for nearly twelve years, she currently had only one toddler and three half-grown older children. By law, the parishes were required to leave their foundlings and orphaned infants in the country until they turned four. So then why, with the exception of the one- or two-year-old child in the yard, were all her babies so small?
“Now, if you’ll step into the parlor, my lady,” Prudence Blackadder was saying, “we can have a nice little chat.”
The parlor was new and spacious and expensively if garishly decorated, with thick, vividly colored Turkey carpets on the floor and a superabundance of heavily carved chairs and settees opulently covered in red damask. Yards and yards of the same damask covered the walls and hung at the windows, while a pair of large, rather hideous Sèvres vases graced a marble mantelpiece. Fostering infants was obviously a lucrative business—particularly if the infants left in one’s care could be kept liberally dosed with opium to dull their appetites and make them sleep. And when no one cared or even noticed if they quietly died.
“My, what an . . . extraordinary room,” said Hero. “Have you recently had it redone?”
“Last spring,” said the woman, smiling proudly as she led the way to a grouping of chairs gathered around a table loaded down with a tray bearing a heavy silver tea set and delicate china cups and saucers. “Do have a seat, my lady, and we can get comfortable.”
Hero chose a chair that put her back to the windows. “Thank you.”
“Just so you know,” said Prudence, settling herself before reaching for the teapot provided by the unseen Lucy, “this can be handled in one of two ways. There’s some who like to pay by the month and come every now and then to visit their little ones, like Eliza and Jane. But most prefer to make one up-front payment and then leave the child in our loving care. That way they can put it all behind them and leave the past in the past, as the saying goes. Frankly, we’ve found it to be by far the best option for everyone involved.”
Hero yanked off her gloves and set them aside. “Yes, I can see how that would be more convenient. For everyone.”
Prudence smiled and handed her a cup of tea. “And when should we be expecting this infant you’ve decided to entrust to our loving care?”
“Well, before we get to that, I did have one or two questions.”
Prudence Blackadder looked up from pouring her own tea. “Oh?”
“Your name was given to me by several different sources, obviously. But I must admit to being a trifle concerned about some of the things I’m told Lady McInnis was recently heard saying.”
“Oh, that woman!” Rearing back, Prudence Blackadder threw both hands up into the air, then let them fall to her lap. “She was a foolish woman—foolish to the point of being demented, that one. Came here a week or two ago, she did—on fire, like some demon-possessed madwoman. Accused us of all sorts of unchristian evils. But it’s the outside of enough to hear she was spreading her malicious lies all around, too. I’m sure I’ve no need to tell you, my lady, that there’s not a morsel of truth in any of the wicked things she was saying. The thing is, you see, a good many of our babies come to us from St. Martin’s workhouse. The Lord knows we do our best with them, but the sad truth is they’re a weak, sickly lot. I fear most are born in sin and abandoned by their unnatural mothers.” She gave a sad sigh. “Unfortunately they are not long for this world.”
“Is that why Lady McInnis came here? To accuse you of neglecting the babies given into your care?” Hero almost said killing them, but caught herself in time.
“Who knows why she came?” said Prudence, setting the creamer down with a thump. “I tell you, the woman was mad.”
“Do so many of your babies die?”
Prudence touched the corner of her apron to one eye, as if wiping away a tear. “There’s no denying we always lose some, I’m afraid. Many of the ones who come from the workhouse are in their last days before they reach us. But it still breaks my heart every time.” She sighed again. “Although our good reverend, he’s always telling me not to take it too hard, for he says he has no doubt most would only have grown up to be hanged anyway.” She leaned forward to whisper, as if imparting a dread secret. “It’s in the blood, you know.”
“So I’ve heard.” Hero took a slow sip of her tea. “I must say, I’m impressed with how quiet your babies are. No one would guess you’ve six just down the corridor. I haven’t heard a peep out of any of them. However do you manage to keep them sleeping so soundly?”
“It’s the fresh air, my lady. Nothing like fresh country air and food to keep the little ones healthy.”
“And yet so many of them still die. How . . . tragic.” Hero took another sip of her tea. “There is one other thing I’m curious about.”
“Yes?”
“The ones that die. What do you do with them?”
“Oh, they’re given a good Christian burial, my lady. No need to worry about that.”
“You relieve my mind, Mrs. Blackadder.”
The woman smiled. “Now, when did you say we could be expecting our new wee one?”
Hero set aside her teacup. “I fear you’ve been laboring under something of a misapprehension, Mrs. Blackadder. I’m not here to make arrangements to abandon some poor child to your care. You see, your name came up in connection with the recent deaths of Laura and Emma McInnis.”
For a long moment, the woman stared at her, her face going blank with confusion. “You’re not here to make arrangements for a child?”
“No. But I would like to hear more about your visit from Laura McInnis. You never did say what had made her suspect that you were basically killing the children left in your care.”
A deep crimson color rushed into the woman’s face. “I think you should leave,” she said, pushing back her chair.
“Do I take it you find the subject uncomfortable?” said Hero, reaching for her gloves as she rose to her feet. “Why is that, I wonder?”
Prudence’s mouth tightened into a thin line that swallowed her lips. “I tell you, the woman was mad. I take good care of my babies. All of them. Always have, always will. Anybody who says otherwise either doesn’t know what they’re talking about or is mad.”
“That is certainly one explanation,” said Hero, walking toward the front door.
She was pausing at the base of the front steps to jerk on her gloves when a man came at a trot from around the corner of one of the stone-walled sheds. He looked to be somewhere in his fifties, with thick graying hair and a jowly face darkened by his years in the sun. His clothes were those of someone who was not afraid of working, but his air was that of a man accustomed to being in control of those around him, and Hero didn’t need to see the look that passed between him and Prudence to know that this was the owner of Pleasant Farm.
“Lucy come t’ tell me we had a fine lady here,” said Joseph Blackadder, his eyes lighting up as he took in the glories of Hero’s yellow-bodied barouche and team of well-bred horses.
“The lady was just leaving,” snapped his wife. “She only came to ask some downright nasty questions about Lady McInnis’s visit.”
The avaricious gleam died. “Oh?”
His wife drew a deep, angry breath that swelled her shelflike bosom. “Why, she all but came out and accused me of killing my babies!”
The farmer’s eyes narrowed. Joseph Blackadder might be less educated than his wife, but he was obviously considerably shrewder. For while Prudence’s reaction to Hero’s questions had focused entirely on the woman’s reputation as a foster mother, her husband was smart enough to see the danger of having it known that they’d quarreled with a murder victim days before her killing.
“We read about what happened out at Richmond Park,” he said, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. “Told Prue here I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Bow Street is lookin’ into Basil Rhodes himself for it. Didn’t I tell you, Prue?”
“Basil Rhodes?” said Hero. “You can’t be serious.” Basil Rhodes was a flamboyant, well-known personality. Boisterous and loud, with a reputation as a wit and bonhomme, he was a popular figure in the ballrooms and gentlemen’s clubs of Mayfair. Ostensibly the son of the late Peter K. Rhodes, a onetime boon companion of the Prince of Wales, Basil was actually one of the Prince’s favorite by-blows. Anyone who doubted the relationship had only to see Rhodes’s curly auburn hair, full face, feminine lips, and stocky Hanoverian build to know the truth.
“Saw him arguing with her just last Saturday, I did,” Joseph Blackadder was saying. “Right in the middle of Bond Street. Everyone could see he was mad as fire at the woman, shakin’ his fist at her and yellin’ till he was as red in the face as a man can be.”
“Yelling about what?”
“Couldn’t hear it all. Somethin’ about her needin’ to mind her own business, and how if she didn’t shut her mouth, he was gonna shut it for her.”
“Indeed,” said Hero. “And how do you happen to know Mr. Basil Rhodes?”
“Brung us one o’ his by-blows, he did. A few months back.”
So much for the couple’s famous discretion, thought Hero with a wry glance at Prudence Blackadder’s closed, angry face. Aloud, she said, “You have his child here now?”
“Unfortunately, no,” said Prudence with a warning glance at her husband. “The poor wee thing was never well.”
“Ah. Mr. Rhodes paid an up-front sum, did he?”
The insinuation was not lost on Joseph Blackadder. Swearing under his breath, he took an aggressive step toward Hero, but drew up sharply when one of her waiting footmen moved to close the distance between them. The farmer might be big and brawny, but Devlin’s footmen were all tall, broad shouldered, and in the prime of life. Blackadder eyed the man thoughtfully, then brought his gaze back to Hero. “I think it’s past time you was leavin’.”
Hero let her gaze drift around the sun-filled, idyllic-looking farmyard with its tidy stone-built outbuildings and sweetly scented tumbles of climbing roses and honeysuckle and jasmine. “Yes, I’ve seen more than enough. We’ll let you know if we have any further questions.”
“ ’We’?”
“Didn’t I say? My husband, Viscount Devlin, is assisting Bow Street in their investigation of the recent murders. Exactly how far are you from Richmond Park, by the way?”
“Two miles,” growled Joseph Blackadder. “Or thereabouts.”
“Interesting,” said Hero, carefully lifting her skirts as she turned toward the steps of the waiting carriage.
“We didn’t have nothin’ to do with what happened out there,” the farmer shouted after her. “You hear me? Nothin’.”
Hero paused at the top of the steps to look back at him. “I don’t recall suggesting that you did,” she said, and watched the color drain from the big man’s face.