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caught him and he found his balance. Face white and teeth bared, he glared at the man who had bested him without even raising two hands.
    “Damned whore,” he snarled. “I’ve money as good as yours or anyone’s and I’ll be—”
    “You will be doing nothing that insults whoever lives in this house. Now walk on, and do not come back here, or I will have to come back as well.”
    The boys shuffled off. Tom darted forward, palmed some nails and coin onto the step in front of the door, and ran away. Mr. Albrighton picked up the money and nails, then knocked on the door.
    Celia swallowed her humiliation as best she could and opened the door. She could see the boys watching from down the street.
    “These were left for you.” Mr. Albrighton’s smile tried to make light of the incident, but she thought she saw some pity in him too. That only embarrassed her more. She held her own smile with difficulty and summoned the illusion of good humor.
    She took the nails and glanced to the boys. “It appears the whole world assumes that I am thoroughly my mother’s daughter.”
    “Your tenant assumes nothing of the kind. And, unlike callow boys, he does not pass quick judgment on the choices a person makes in life, no matter what they end up being.” He removed a calling card from his coat and handed it to her in a way that ensured the boys saw it. “If you have further trouble with them, you must let me know.”
    She fingered the card so it would not be missed by the eyes watching. He bowed and strolled away. The boys left too, and turned down a side lane.
    She looked down at the card. Other than his name, it was blank. Opaque. The card, for all its quality, revealed almost nothing. A bit like the man who had just handed it to her.

Chapter Five
    T he coffeehouse near Gray’s Inn was crowded at twelve o’clock. Solicitors and apprentices with chambers nearby read newspapers and smoked cigars. Cups hitting saucers added musical notes to the hum of conversation.
    Jonathan spied Edward on a divan against the far wall and went to sit with him. Edward’s greeting consisted of raised eyebrows forming an unspoken query.
    “There have been a few unexpected elements added to my mission,” Jonathan said. “The daughter has taken residence in the property on Wells Street. She rarely leaves. It may be some days before I can enter to thoroughly search whatever belongings Alessandra left there.”
    Edward did not know about that attic chamber. No one did. The vagueness regarding where he lived had begun as a caution during the war, and become a habit that permitted privacy. Jonathan preferred to meet people in their worlds, not invite them into his.
    “You have made no progress, in other words,” Edward said.
    “I have looked in most of the attic. There was nothing there of interest.”
    “And the other house?”
    “I went in the night of the funeral, but someone had been there before me. The daughter, for one, and someone else, she thinks. It is impossible to know if she is correct in her suspicions. The dearth of private papers there leads me to think she may be. Or else Alessandra did not leave anything of note in the house. She knew it would be searched by an executor, even if no one else did.”
    Edward sipped the thick liquid in his cup while his brow puckered. “Which do you think it was?”
    Jonathan thought about the worldly woman with whom he had sometimes conversed. Like many, Alessandra had confided sometimes, but not anything that would bear on this mission. “I think that, knowing the end was near, she would either burn or hide whatever might reveal her true self. Even the account book is missing, if she even kept one, according to her daughter.”
    “That daughter has to leave the other property eventually, but of course you can hardly camp in the garden and wait for it. Odd that she has chosen to live there. I would have thought by now she would have concluded that running away like she did as a girl was a