“She attended at St. Mildred’s,” Harry said. “Time you reacquainted yourself with divine services, Sparky. Sunday finest, end of the back pew for you. A few quiet inquiries. You knew the lady’s late husband and promised him you’d look her up if you were ever in London. He did dote on his missus, did old Harry.”

“Which ‘Arry was you then?” Sparky asked, signaling the girl at the bar. “Merrifield, Merribrook? Merrimount? I get them all confused.”

“Merridew, as in ‘I do.’ Don’t bungle that, my friend.”

The tankard arrived, and Sparky blew the foam onto the plank floor with practiced dispatch. “Merry Hell, you ought to call yourself. Why can’t you leave the lady in peace, ’Arry? She done nothin’ to you.”

“She married me, and that means I cannot marry elsewhere, not without risking the noose, so she owes me.”

Sparky downed a quarter of his pint and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “You married her, too, if I recall the particulars. Good ale. London ain’t all bad.”

“London as winter approaches is a trial. I wouldn’t be here unless I’d studied long and hard on the matter.” Then too, Dublin was a close-knit town, and Harry’s welcome had grown perilously tarnished there. “If I’m alive, Matilda doesn’t yet own that house.”

Sparky heaved up a resigned sigh. “You said the prop’ty came to her from an auntie. Aunties is always conferrin’ with solicitors, and solicitors is always creatin’ problems. Maybe your missus don’t own that ’ouse, but you don’t neither. I thought you swore off sellin’ ’ouses you don’t own.”

“I am the trustee. Matilda’s papa had taken her into disfavor by the time I married her, and there wasn’t anybody else who could serve. The lawyers didn’t like it, and they set it up so that the boy got the house if both parents died during his minority. Thought they were being clever, but Matilda cannot sell that house if I’m alive—only I can do that.”

Sparky took another pull on his pint and aimed a baleful expression at Harry. “You wasn’t that hard up in Dublin, mate. You coulda laid low, nipped up to Derry, but instead, you’ll swindle yer own widda outta her last mite.”

“I’ll do no such thing. I will split the proceeds with Matilda, assuming she isn’t some lord’s fancy piece or engaged to a prosperous cit by now.” St. Mildred’s wasn’t the sort of congregation to have fancy lords stacked three deep in the loft, but a retired sea captain or gentry scion would have been within Tilly’s reach there.

She’d gone somewhere with the boy, after all. Tilly was an attractive woman, when she wasn’t all pinched up and broody. She’d been sweet once, too, and appallingly trusting.