“I still hold out hope for Polly,” Ivy said. “Thomas Lacey is a younger son. It’s entirely possible his mother will let him go through with the marriage. It’s not as if it would make any real difference to the family.”

“There is no possibility that Polly Sanders is going to marry any son of Earl Lacey. The countess is far too proud,” Robert said. Robert Brandon was a man of principle who had once been a great political hope for the Conservative party. A staunch traditionalist, he had seemed on a fast path to greatness until he was charged with murdering his mentor, a man universally despised throughout Britain. Desperate and abandoned by all his former supporters, he’d summoned me to his cell in Newgate and asked me to help clear his name. I was more than glad to assist. The fact he was with us now was a testament to the success of my subsequent investigation.

I pressed my hands against my temples. “Let me understand. A woman of ill repute steps forward to claim she is Polly Sanders’s mother, and that Lord Sanders persuaded his wife to raise the child as her own?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing has happened,” Ivy said. “Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, raised her husband’s illegitimate daughter.”

“Ivy.” Robert shot her a sharp glare.

“It’s true,” Ivy said. The beadwork on her gown, made from Nile-green embroidered silk, sparkled as she moved to reach for her husband’s hand. “Even if it was a hundred years ago.”

“Why are we to believe this woman?” I asked. “What has Lord Sanders to say about the matter?”

“Unfortunately, he’s chosen to remain silent on the subject,” Robert said. “He left the ball without uttering a word. Which, naturally, leads those around him to assume the veracity of the woman’s story.”

“She decided to confront him in the Londonderrys’ ballroom?” I asked. “She couldn’t possibly have thought she’d gain admission.”