‘Then I must pay on the return journey,’ Moira said in a firm voice.

Within a few minutes, the tram set off. Moira settled back, looking forward to seeing the city. She had always had a thirst for knowledge, a curiosity about everything.

When she was growing up, she’d had lessons every day with her half-brother, Lawrence; his mother had insisted on that. He was several years older than she, and so she got a head start very young. An image of Lawrence popped into her head. He would beat the estate near Bath now, where his late father had grown up. She thought of that lovely house, Waverly Priory, and a sudden rush of longing rippled through her, tinged with sadness. Until she had come to Leeds she had lived only there and on the large estate in Galway, which she had left so suddenly. Both had been her homes. Neither ever could be again.

Finn broke into her thoughts when he said, ‘I’m sorry about Blackie, the way he pestered ye with questions. He was being very nosy, Moira, the other day.’

‘I know that, and I did feel a bit persecuted …’ She broke off, laughed. ‘That’s perhaps too strong a word to use, I suppose. But he did irritate me.’

‘He meant no harm.’

‘Perhaps not, but it was rather bad-mannered.’

Finn turned slightly in the seat, staring at her, and blurted out, ‘But ye are different to us, Moira. Ye’re posh, the way ye speak, and how ye look …’ He broke off, wondering if he’d said the wrong thing, when he noticed an odd expression on her face.

‘Not so different,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m a human being, just like you. We have the same emotions and feelings. Why, we are just like the Romans were, except we wear different clothes, live differently, because our civilization has changed over the years … hundreds of years.’

He was silent, gaping at her.

Moira said, ‘I did grow up in a great house.’ She paused, could have bitten her tongue off. Improvising with the lie she had told before, she added, ‘I was a lady’s maid, my parents in service there before me.’

He nodded, ‘Well, then, that’s what Blackie spotted.’ He sat back, his mind racing, his curiosity about Moira Aherne aflame.

Once they arrived at the Blue Door Moira was tempted to prevent Finn from taking out the letter for Gladys. They didn’t need it. But she stopped herself, thinking of Patrick Kennedy. Finn was bound to tell him what she had done, and she knew this would most likely embarrass Kennedy. Better to refrain from interfering, she told herself. He is a fine man, and I wouldn’t want him to feel belittled or foolish. Anyway, I might need him … for something or other, one day.