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down?”
    “What do you mean? Of course.”
    “No, I don’t mean when you comb it out at night and instantly trap it back into a severe plait again. Have you ever let down your hair and run along a beach in your shift? Or pulled out your pins because a warm breeze is blowing from the summer sky and you want to feel the long tendrils caress your bare arms? Have you ever let down your hair in front of a man?”
    The flood of uncomfortable heat coursed through her body. “Oh, good gracious! This is absurd and outrageous, sir.”
    He grinned and the odd mood was broken.
    “Yes, it is, isn’t it? Yet I would still like to know, though I have no idea why. Forgive me, Miss Drake. I am just a scoundrel from the sea. But when you suggest that I might do some harm to the child, it makes me forget my better manners. I beg you will accept my most humble apology, if my talk runs wilder than my more honorable intentions.”
    He gave her a glance so full of contrition that Prudence felt her indignation die away, although her uncertainty and the flush in her blood remained. Truly, how could this man do Bobby any damage? Was she—ignobly—jealous, that he had so very simply and quickly earned the child’s confidence?
    “Very well,” she said. “I realize that all this must be very hard for you, too. Not knowing who you are or whence you came. How do you suppose you acquired your ease with children? Do you think you have a little boy of your own?”
    “Good God! No! At least, I don’t believe that I do.”
    He looked down at his hands and spread the fingers, long, slim, square-ended. Naturally elegant hands, undamaged but for some scrapes and blisters of recent origin. Hardly the hands of a sailor!
    “I’m not wearing a wedding ring,” he said.
    “Not is there the trace of one, sir, so I do not think you are married.”
    He glanced back at her, and she knew that even if he had asked for forgiveness, she was not entirely forgiven.
    “Not that the lack of a wedding precludes bastards, of course.”
    Prudence flushed scarlet with chagrin. He was baiting her deliberately. She refused to rise to it.
    “Perhaps you have brothers and sisters, then.”
    “John,” he said suddenly. His expression opened, as if touched with genuine revelation. “I have a little brother, John. And sisters.”
    “What are their names?”
    “Matty, and—” He stopped and looked blankly at her. “I’m not sure if that’s right.”
    “Matty who? John who?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What other names come to mind, sir?”
    He stepped up to the stove and opened it. The glare cast red light over his high cheekbones and touched sparks of fire in his hair. He loaded more fuel.
    “Helena.” The word escaped with his breath, soft as a caress.
    “Who’s Helena? A little sister?”
    “I don’t think so.” He ran one hand over his head. “Dear God, how absurd this makes me!”
    Prudence felt a surprising rush of compassion. Dear Lord, whatever he was, what a frightful predicament this must be for him!
    “You must choose a name for yourself. We can’t go on referring to you as the drowned gentleman, can we?”
    “Very well, what do you suggest?”
    “You said your name began with ‘P’, or maybe ‘H’. Peter, Paul?”
    He grinned at her. “Percival, Philoctetes? Hector, Hyperion, Hercules? Polycrates, Plutarch? Ah, Miss Drake, how nice to see you smile again. Hannibal?”
    Prudence forced her brows together in a frown. “Percy, Philip, Patrick? Hugh, Henry, Harold? Does nothing ring a bell?”
    “Henry, Harold—the bell begins to tinkle somehow. Oh, dear God, of course! ‘Harry the fifth’s the man, I speak the truth.’ I believe I am named after Prince Hal, angel. ‘Hal’ rings a distinct bell. In fact I believe it rings a carillon, enough to shake the bell tower and deafen the campanologist. You may call me Hal, Miss Drake, if you please.”
    “Hal who?”
    His expression closed, whether from desperation, frustration, or