If the police ever caught up with her now, they’d find she was dead. She had a new name, a new identity. Now it was time to move on to a new city, far away. And a new life.

She was free, and it amused her. That’s why, as New York was lost to sight, she’d thought one last and final time of Frank Master and whispered: “Good-bye, you old fart.”

Old England

1896

ON A WARM June evening, in the year 1896, Mary O’Donnell, looking very grand in a long white evening dress and long white gloves, walked up the steps of her brother Sean’s house on Fifth Avenue. As the butler opened the door, she smiled at him.

But her smile masked the terrible fear that was gnawing within her. At the foot of the sweeping staircase stood her brother, looking very elegant in white tie and tails.

“Are they here?” she asked quietly.

“They’re in the drawing room,” he said, using the English term.

“How did I let you get me into this, you devil?” She tried to make it sound lighthearted.

“We’re just having dinner.”

“With a lord, for God’s sake.”

“Plenty of those where he came from.”

Mary took a deep breath. Personally, she didn’t give a damn about any English lord. But that wasn’t the point. She knew why the English lord was there, and what her family expected of her. Normally, she coped well enough with social occasions, but this would be different. Questions might be asked, questions that she dreaded.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” she murmured.

“Chin up,” said Sean.

It was five years now since Mary had finally given in to her brother and left the employment of the Masters. And she’d only done that because she knew it was what the younger generation wanted.