“Your ma was bragging about the big case you’ve got coming up,” Mr. Collins said. “What sort of man would battle the Blackstones in a rumpled old suit like the one you’re wearing?”

Patrick tried not to wince. “Let’s not go tossing that name around, okay? No one is supposed to know about this yet.”

Even the Blackstones didn’t know about it yet. They were the most powerful family in New York City, and they would come after him the instant they found out what was brewing. Surprise was one of the few advantages Patrick had, and he wanted to keep a lid on this case until the last possible moment.

“Fiona, come out here and take Mr. O’Neill’s measurements,” the tailor called toward the back of the shop.

Patrick braced himself. He’d hoped to escape this appointment without the tailor’s daughter waiting on him. Fiona was a pretty nineteen-year-old who looked at him with hot eyes and a hungry expression. She approached him with a tape measure, and Mr. Collins brought out a few bolts of cloth for Patrick to choose from.

“Those people are going to make mincemeat of you, boy-o,” Mr. Collins said in a worried tone. “They’ll send you running straight back to the seminary.”

“No!” Fiona tossed a measuring tape over Patrick’s shoulders and ran her hands across his back to straighten the tape. “Nobody wanted to see you become Father What-a-Waste. Turning away from the priesthood is the best thing you ever did.”

Last year Patrick had balked only two weeks shy of his vow to enter the priesthood, and guilt still plagued him. Father Doyle had paid for him to go to college and law school. They let him practice law the entire time he’d been in seminary because everyone assumed he would become a lawyer for the church. He owed them, but as his final vows loomed, so had his incessant, unquenchable longing for a family.

He wanted a wife. He wanted children of his own, not just the chance to minister to others. He wanted a huge, rollicking family with kids climbing all over him when he returned from work and a pretty wife waiting for him at home.

Patrick was thirty-four and still unmarried, which caused people in the neighborhood to hurl their daughters in his direction. At the moment, Fiona’s hands were traveling in a dangerous direction as she measured the length of his inseam.

“Fi,” he said, feeling his face flush, “a little decorum, please.”

Mercifully, her father grabbed the tape measure and shooed Fiona to the other side of the shop.

Patrick nodded to the basket of eggs. “The eggs and my help with getting the landlord off your back last month will make us square for a new suit, won’t it?”