“I’ll just be going,” Harry said, pulling on his gloves. “The lady has heard my offer, and she’s said what she has to say.” He tapped his hat onto his head and nodded to Tremont.

“We are finished for now,” Matilda replied. “You will hear from me, Mr. Merry… I beg your pardon. I forget the name.”

“Easy to do with passing acquaintances.” Harry bowed to her and moved to the door, then paused with his hand on the latch, his expression distant and dignified. “I wasn’t always like this. Believe that if you believe nothing else about me, ma’am. Good day and best of luck.”

Tremont escorted Matilda back to the waiting coach, then took the place beside her on the forward-facing bench. He rapped once on the roof, and the coach rolled forward at the walk.

“I do not care for reconnaissance missions,” Matilda muttered, “if that one was representative. Harry has aged, but he has not changed his spots. If anything, he’s grown harder over the years. What did we learn, Marcus, besides the fact that we can never marry?”

“We learned that Harry Merridew-man-whatever values his life more than he values coin. We learned that his back is to the wall, probably as a result of whatever happened in Ireland. He cheated somebody in a position to press charges, or he’d never willingly take ship for America. We learned that his enemies are legion.”

They had also learned that, by his own peculiar lights, Harry had made an effort to deal fairly—if not honorably—with Matilda and Tommie.

“Oh, very well, then. We learned all manner of interesting things,” Matilda said, removing her bonnet, “but, Marcus, what are we to do?”

He put an arm around her shoulders and scoured his memory for some fortifying wisdom courtesy of the philosophers, the Bard, or poets. A protracted search confirmed that they were as inadequate to the occasion as Tremont felt, so he simply gave Matilda the truth.

“I don’t know what to do, Matilda, but I am certain that I love you.”

“And I love you.”

Matilda had stashed all of her first pay packet into the same bank account that held her meager savings. She retrieved the whole of her means when she ought to have been taking her final turn in the MacKay nursery.

She would miss little John and his parents.

She would miss the men, the maids, and dear Nan, who was trying hard to remember her haitches.

She would miss stinky, crowded, bustling London, some.

She would miss the parishioners of St. Mildred’s, who in their way had been kind to her when she’d desperately needed kindness.

And she would miss Marcus for the rest of her days.

“I know that walk, Tilly, me love,” Harry said, falling in step beside her. “You are in a temper.”