A New York Christmas (Christmas Novellas 12)
Author: Perry, Anne
Date: 2014-10-22T16:00:00+00:00
Publisher: Headline

Copyright © 2014 Anne Perry

The right of Anne Perry to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2014

All characters in this publication – apart from the obvious historical figures – are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

eISBN: 978 1 4722 1938 1

Jacket images © Getty Images (painting) and Shutterstock
Jacket: www.headdesign.co.uk

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

About Anne Perry

Also By Anne Perry

About the Book

Praise

Dedication

A New York Christmas

More mysteries from Anne Perry

About Anne Perry

Author Photograph © Diane Hinds

Anne Perry is a New York Times bestselling author noted for her memorable characters, historical accuracy and exploration of social and ethical issues. Her two series, one featuring Thomas Pitt and one featuring William Monk, have been published in multiple languages. Anne Perry has also published a successful series based around World War One and the Reavley family, and the standalone novel The Sheen on the Silk. Anne Perry was selected by The Times as one of the twentieth century’s ‘100 Masters of Crime’.

By Anne Perry and available from Headline

The Inspector Pitt series

Highgate Rise

Belgrave Square

Farriers’ Lane

The Hyde Park Headsman

Traitors Gate

Pentecost Alley

Ashworth Hall

Brunswick Gardens

Bedford Square

Half Moon Street

The Whitechapel Conspiracy

Southampton Row

Seven Dials

Long Spoon Lane

Buckingham Palace Gardens

Betrayal at Lisson Grove

Dorchester Terrace

Midnight at Marble Arch

Death on Blackheath

The Angel Court Affair

The William Monk series

The Face of a Stranger

A Dangerous Mourning

Defend and Betray

A Sudden, Fearful Death

The Sins of the Wolf

Cain His Brother

Weighed in the Balance

The Silent Cry

Whited Sepulchres

The Twisted Root

Slaves and Obsession

A Funeral in Blue

Death of a Stranger

The Shifting Tide

Dark Assassin

Execution Dock

Acceptable Loss

A Sunless Sea

Blind Justice

Blood on the Water

World War I series

No Graves as Yet

Shoulder the Sky

Angels in the Gloom

At Some Disputed Barricade

We Shall Not Sleep

Christmas Novellas

A Christmas Journey

A Christmas Visitor

A Christmas Guest

A Christmas Secret

A Christmas Beginning

A Christmas Grace

A Christmas Promise

A Christmas Odyssey

A Christmas Homecoming

A Christmas Garland

A Christmas Hope

A New York Christmas

Tathea

Come Armageddon

The One Thing More

The Sheen on the Silk

About the Book

New York, 1904. Jemima Pitt arrives in a city where new American money and old English aristocracy collide. She’s here to chaperone her friend, Delphinia, who has crossed the ocean to marry one of New York’s richest men, but Jemima discovers a secret that could destroy Phinnie’s future.

Drawn into the crisis, Jemima desperately wants to protect her friend. And she must use all her courage and wits to decide whom to trust, and how to thread her way through the snowy streets of this brash new city.

A New York Christmas is the enthralling new festive tale from the master of Victorian mysteries.

Praise for Anne Perry’s Christmas novellas

‘A bite-sized mystery that could be fitted in after your Christmas lunch’ Daily Telegraph

‘A novel approach to an oft-explored subject, this tale will delight Perry’s fans and bring her new ones’ Kirkus Reviews

‘The tale is redolent with Victorian atmosphere, from the hypocritical snobbishness to the rigid social conventions of the time’ Tangled Web

‘Delightful . . . The perfect gift for a whodunit addict’ Oxford Times

‘Christmas is traditionally a time of hope and heart and there is plenty of both on offer . . . A Christmas cracker full of rich storytelling, classic conundrums, timeless life lessons and the gift of forgiveness’ Lancashire Evening Post

‘If Christmas puts you in the mood for a good Agatha Christie, try Perry’ Glasgow Evening Times

‘[An] engaging historical mystery . . . a winner’ Booklist

‘This brief work has an almost Jamesian subtlety . . . it conveys a moral force in keeping with the season’ Wall Street Journal

To all the adventurers of heart

Jemima stood at the railing on the upper deck of the great ocean liner and gazed across the limitless sea. She had just turned twenty-three and was beginning what promised to be the first real adventure of her life.

She had grown up in London where her father was head of Special Branch. He had begun his career as an ordinary policeman, solving crimes that often included murder. Charlotte, Jemima’s mother, had sometimes helped him in that. Jemima could remember the excitement of it, and the heartbreak. Crime involved both adventure and tragedy. Later, when her father’s work became more concerned with official secrets, he had not been free to involve anyone else. That had not prevented Charlotte from participating, but certainly Jemima and her younger brother, Daniel, knew less about it.

Jemima was on her own adventure now. It was December 1904, and she was crossing the Atlantic to New York where she would stay for at least a month. Mr Edward Cardew had invited her to travel as a companion to his daughter, Delphinia, who was to marry Brent Albright, the son of Rothwell Albright, Mr Cardew’s international business partner. It would be the society wedding of the year.

Phinnie was nineteen and it was not at all suitable that she travel alone. She needed someone older and wiser who could be both friend and chaperone. Mr Cardew was an invalid and so unable to make the journey himself.

No one had even mentioned Phinnie’s mother. One allusion to her a few months ago had made Jemima think she had died when Phinnie was very young, not more than two or three years old. Nothing specific had been said but the reference had been hurried past in such a manner that she felt it would be clumsy to speak of it again.

Phinnie must have missed her most of her life, but especially now. Jemima was here to look after her, not only for the sake of propriety, but also to be the friend her mother would have been. It was a trust she vowed to fulfil to the best of her ability.

So Jemima had a passage to New York, and an invitation to stay with the Albrights. She would return to London early in January while Phinnie and Brent Albright went on honeymoon.

Jemima had grown up in London, the biggest city in the world and the heart of an empire that stretched across the globe. But she had heard that New York was big too, both raw and sophisticated at the same time, a city bursting with life and promise of all kinds of new experiences.

If she allowed herself to, Jemima might envy Phinnie her coming marriage, with its promise of happiness shared. Phinnie had met Brent Albright when he’d visited England the previous year. Within a month she was wildly in love. ‘He is handsome,’ she said, as she and Jemima sat together at afternoon tea. ‘And so much more than that. He makes me laugh. He knows so much about everything, and yet he is kind. I feel wonderful just thinking of him.’ She was too discreet to mention that he was also very rich, so would not have courted Phinnie for her prospects.

For Jemima prospects were different, although she had to admit that that was largely her own fault – or at least her choice. Like her mother, she wanted adventure, interesting things to do, and above all, love. She had no wish for a position in society. Perhaps, through tales here and there of her father’s experiences and opinions, she had learned too much of its frailties, and she saw even the most powerful of men and the most elegant of women as no less vulnerable to the weaknesses of human nature than the footman or the parlour maid.

She smiled to herself, and turned away from the railing, and the wind. She pulled up the collar of her coat and walked back towards the gangway down to the huge vestibule and many formal rooms of the liner.

I’m getting cynical, she thought. Twenty-three, and I’m thinking like a policeman! You would be proud of me, Papa . . . and horrified!

She was passed by an elderly woman in a magnificent winter dress. The woman looked her up and down briefly, then nodded an acknowledgement. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Pitt,’ she said coolly.

Jemima was surprised that the woman knew her name, and not certain if that was a compliment or not. Then she realised it was actually Phinnie she knew. Jemima was ‘the companion’. That was not entirely a pleasant thought.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Weatherby,’ she replied, lifting her chin a trifle higher, and walking on without waiting to see if there would have been a conversation.

She found Phinnie in their cabin, one of the more luxurious with not only a bedroom but a quite comfortable-sized sitting room as well. Phinnie was curled up in one of the chairs. She was smaller than Jemima and just a trifle plumper. She had large, dark eyes – her best features – and thick hair, almost black, with a natural curl that Jemima envied. Her own was a shining mahogany colour with gleams of amber she did not like. And it had to be vigorously encouraged to have any curl at all.

Phinnie looked up as Jemima came in. She had just finished writing in her diary, and now she carefully closed it and snapped shut the tiny lock.

‘I shall want to remember this,’ she said with a smile. ‘I shall not be a single woman much longer. I may forget what it feels like.’

‘I shall remind you,’ Jemima replied, closing the door behind her and taking off her coat. She was glad to be in the warmth again. The wind off the ocean had a very sharp edge to it.

Phinnie gave a tiny shrug of one shoulder. ‘Oh, you may not always be single,’ she said cheerfully. ‘You really should turn your attention more fully to the subject. You do not need to be as fortunate as I am in order to be well suited.’

A blistering retort rose to Jemima’s lips along the lines of what suits different people, and she bit it back with difficulty. Phinnie’s father was paying her fare, as she had been reminded twice already.

‘Indeed, you are quite right,’ she said, walking across to the cupboard where she would hang up her coat. She kept her back to Phinnie so she would not see the expression on her face. ‘I would be content with far less,’ she added.

‘That is very wise,’ Phinnie observed approvingly. ‘To know your own limits is half way to happiness.’

‘What is the other half?’ Jemima asked, hanging up her coat and turning round. ‘Knowing your husband’s?’

Phinnie was momentarily taken aback.

‘Perhaps it is being careful not to tell him,’ Jemima said lightly. ‘Tact is a priceless virtue. It can cover a multitude of misfortunes, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t know,’ Phinnie said instantly. ‘I don’t have a multitude of misfortunes.’

Jemima smiled. ‘Give it time. You are still very young.’

Phinnie’s smile vanished. Then with an effort she brought it back a trifle uncertainly. ‘You say that as if you think something awful is going to happen?’ There was a tiny whisper of fear in her voice.

Jemima felt guilty. She was having a wonderful trip at Mr Cardew’s expense, no luxury withheld.

‘Of course not,’ she answered the question. ‘Nothing awful is going to happen.’ She could not let it go entirely. ‘But you would still be better to learn a little tact. You are not the only one with feelings.’

Phinnie bit her lip. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m being selfish. I love Brent so much. I am incredibly fortunate that he loves me too.’

‘You will never please everybody, no one does, but you should aim for a majority,’ Jemima said more gently. ‘You need friends, Phinnie. We all do.’

‘Not everyone likes you,’ Phinnie pointed out. ‘You are very outspoken. Some people say you are opinionated.’

‘Indeed? And do they mean it as a compliment?’ Jemima enquired with a slight edge to her voice.

‘No, of course they don’t.’

‘Then I am surprised that you wish to copy me,’ Jemima rejoined.

Phinnie drew in her breath sharply and could think of nothing with which to reply.

Jemima felt victorious, and yet she had no pleasure in it. She went out of her way to be kinder to Phinnie that evening and listen to her without interrupting. She managed to sound impressed by the very considerable fortunes made by Albright and Cardew in their investments. It had been followed by a climb from mere respectability up to the pinnacle of power and influence in New York society.

‘Everyone respects them,’ Phinnie said with admiration. ‘Brent says we shall carry on the family tradition in all kinds of ways. It will be marvellous, don’t you think?’

Suddenly Phinnie was aware that she was speaking of opportunities Jemima did not have. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said humbly. ‘I’m being thoughtless again, aren’t I?’

‘Not at all,’ Jemima replied generously. ‘I would love to hear about the charities they have endowed. I imagine you will one day guide some of these charities yourself.’

‘Do you think so?’ Phinnie said eagerly, the warmth back in her eyes.

Jemima smiled. ‘I have no doubt.’

Phinnie looked down, a slight flush in her cheeks. ‘As long as I please Brent, that’s all I really care about.’

That Jemima definitely envied her. She had met a considerable number of young men, and liked many of them well enough, but she had never been really in love. She had felt a warmth, an excitement, but it had been brief, and she knew it was not accompanied by the deep liking that she had seen between her parents, the kind of friendship that strengthens with time and shared experience. She believed it was the foundation of all the love that mattered.

Perhaps that was why she found it so difficult to meet someone she wished to marry. She could not settle for something that seemed far less than the love she had seen in her own family all her life.

‘You’ll find someone,’ Phinnie said with sudden gentleness. ‘I know it’s taking rather long, but don’t let that discourage you.’

‘I won’t,’ Jemima promised, not with truth but with a more generous desire not to spoil Phinnie’s happiness with a selfish indulgence in her own feelings. What she meant, and intended to keep, was a promise to herself to look after Phinnie and make this adventure of hers as happy as it could possibly be. It was the only good thing to do. She would be truly ashamed were she to do less.

Two days later the ship arrived in New York. From the deck of the liner, the city did not look so very different from London. But as soon as Jemima was ashore she heard the different medley of languages and saw Oriental faces and a good number of black ones, and others that were fair, as if they were Scandinavian. Everyone was busy. There was an excitement, a tingle in the air and she fully realised that she had come to a new place, even a new world, and, at least for the moment, alone.

It was overwhelming.

Phinnie clung to Jemima’s arm as people eddied around them. Everyone else seemed to know where they were going.

Jemima felt a moment’s panic. Then a slender brown-haired man was standing in front of them.

‘Miss Cardew, Miss Pitt? My name is Farrell. I have come to take you to your home while you are in New York.’

He gave orders that their luggage should be brought and conveyed to the carriage that was waiting for them. Discreetly he passed coins to the porters, and their obedience was immediate.

‘If you will accompany me,’ he invited, ‘we shall go and take our places in the carriage so we may return home where Mr Brent is eager to see you.’

Phinnie’s eyes were bright with anticipation, and her cheeks flushed.

‘Oh, yes,’ she agreed. ‘That would be very nice. It . . .’ She took a deep breath. ‘It seems like ages since we last met.’

‘Much too long,’ Mr Farrell agreed. ‘But then the Atlantic is very wide, as I am sure you are acutely aware at this moment. However, you are most welcome.’ He turned to Jemima. ‘And you also, Miss Pitt. You will find New York a marvellous city, full of life and adventure, a meeting place for the world.’ He followed the porter across the open space of the wharf towards the way out, and the road.

‘Mr Albright has made sure that all the necessary paperwork is attended to,’ Farrell told them. ‘You will have nothing to do but show it to the officials as we leave.’

Phinnie smiled. ‘I shall thank him. He is so very . . . thoughtful.’

‘That would be Mr Rothwell Albright,’ Farrell corrected her gently. ‘He is a man of great influence here in New York. But there is no doubt you are already aware of that.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Phinnie nodded, covering her error easily. ‘My father speaks of him often, and with greatest regard.’

Farrell took her arm to help her up the steps, but he did not reply.

Jemima followed after them. Farrell did turn a couple of times to make certain she was not struggling, but the way was easy enough.

The ride from the dockside to the centre of Manhattan where the Albrights had their residence was so fascinating Jemima felt no wish to speak at all. The buildings were large and handsome, but newer than those she was used to at home, and taller. She counted one on Fifth Avenue at least twelve storeys high. How odd such fine streets should have numbers and not names.

But it was the people who held her attention. At a glance they were much like those of London. She was interested and somewhat comforted to observe the same fashions. At least she would not look as much a foreigner as she felt.

But there were also differences.

Once they were off the main thoroughfare she saw lots of shop signs not only in foreign languages but in lettering she did not recognise: Russian perhaps, or Hebrew? Some were undoubtedly Chinese.

On the narrow pavements groups of young men walked with a little swagger, an air of confidence. They looked around them, surveying their territory, as it were. Was that nervousness, or the arrogance of those who feel they have destiny in their grasp?

It was too late in the year for open carriages, but there were plenty of horse-drawn vehicles around, especially the wagons of tradesmen. But she also saw more motor vehicles than she could remember in London. Sputtering loudly, they moved at what she judged to be no more than ten miles an hour, not as fast as a good carriage horse.

‘It is your first time to New York, Miss Pitt?’ Farrell asked her.

Reluctantly she turned to reply. She was missing the sights. ‘Yes, I have been to Paris once, but never to America before.’

He smiled. ‘And how do we compare with Paris?’

She smiled back at him. ‘I think my American will be better than my French,’ she replied.

He laughed outright. ‘I deserved that. I have never been outside America, but I hear Paris is marvellous.’

‘I think this will be marvellous too,’ she said warmly.

They were passing through a more affluent area now and soon arrived at the Albright mansion. Jemima and Phinnie alighted from the carriage with only a moment to stare at the gorgeous façade before following Farrell up the steps and into the entrance hall. The chandelier hanging from the high, arched ceiling was the largest Jemima had ever seen. She made an instant decision to be charming, complimentary and unimpressed. She owed it to her national honour not to stare as if such things were not common at home.

They were met by Miss Celia Albright, a rather thin lady of uncertain age, who was to be their hostess.

‘Welcome, my dear Phinnie,’ Miss Albright said warmly. ‘And to you, Miss Pitt. I hope you will be comfortable here. Mr Cardew wrote to us to say how kind you had been in offering to accompany Phinnie so she would not have to travel alone.’ Her face was a trifle too bony to be handsome, and certainly neither her gaunt figure nor her rather ordinary clothes were those of a comely woman. Yet her thick, wavy hair was truly beautiful, and she moved her hands with grace. ‘I do hope you will enjoy your visit with us.’

‘I am sure I will,’ Jemima replied. Phinnie had told her only a little of Celia Albright. She was Mr Rothwell Albright’s unmarried sister yet, meeting her, Jemima thought she seemed to lack the confidence that such a close relationship would give. Perhaps there was some personal story she did not know.

Miss Albright turned again to Phinnie. ‘May I show you to your rooms? The footman will bring up your cases later. I hope you will find all that you need has been provided.’

Phinnie followed Miss Albright up the wide, sweeping staircase. She looked very small behind the older, far taller woman. Suddenly, Jemima, a few steps behind, had the feeling that Phinnie was a lost child, far from home, seeking a new safety. It was ridiculous. Phinnie was going to marry a young man who loved her and was offering her a new and wonderful life with every comfort she could wish. It was not as if she were among strangers. The Albrights and the Cardews had been in highly successful business together since long before Phinnie was born. It was almost like a dynastic marriage within an extended family, aristocrats of the financial world.

Jemima was the stranger here, the daughter of a senior policeman, but the granddaughter of a gamekeeper, for all that. Her mother was well born, but of gentry, certainly not either wealth or nobility.

But none of that was supposed to matter, here in the New World where all men were equal, where it was the future that mattered, not the past.

She drew in a deep breath of the clean, brisk air and followed Miss Albright onto the landing and to the first bedroom, which was to be Phinnie’s until the wedding.

When Phinnie was settled Miss Albright took Jemima to another, smaller room further along the passage. She opened the door and allowed Jemima to walk in past her.

The room was a surprise. It was dominated not by the charming dressing table, but by a window that looked out to the branches of a bare tree. She imagined in the summer it would be gorgeous, but even in the winter its fretwork of dark limbs against the sky was of great beauty.

‘I love it!’ Jemima said in delight. ‘It’s full of life!’ She swung around to face Miss Albright, and was startled to see the pleasure in her face. ‘I know that’s silly to say of a leafless tree,’ she went on, to cover what she thought was a moment of strange, deep emotion in the other. ‘But I love bare branches. It is as if the tree reveals its true self.’ She tried to think of further explanation, and saw in Miss Albright’s face that it was unnecessary.

‘I don’t know Phinnie very well,’ Jemima picked her words carefully, ‘but I am very close to my own mother, and I cannot imagine how lonely I would be if I were to come to a new country, no matter that they spoke my language, without at least one person I could confide in.’ She smiled. ‘Even if it were only to tell them how happy I am, and for them to tell me when I don’t look my best, or need advice. It is both a privilege and an adventure for me.’

Miss Albright relaxed at last. ‘I hope it will be both. If you wish to take a short rest before, dinner will be at eight o’clock. Your cases will be brought up and Betsy will unpack them for you. She is the lady’s maid who will be looking after Miss Cardew. We dress formally for dinner, but Betsy will advise you which of your gowns will be the most suitable. I dare say you would like a cup of tea?’

Jemima accepted with gratitude.

The dinner was, as Miss Albright had said, very formal for a meal that involved no one outside the family except Jemima. She had accepted the advice of Betsy, who proved to be both efficient and knowledgeable, and had suggested a warm gown of dark green silk velvet with a wide skirt and a most flattering cut at the waist. Jemima was concerned that she might outshine Phinnie, but she need not have been. Phinnie came down the stairs in a gown of apricot silk, which murmured seductively as she walked, and the warmth of its shading reflected on her skin, making her seem to glow with happiness.

Or perhaps she really did?

Brent Albright stood at the bottom of the wide staircase watching her. He was less tall than his elder brother, Harley, who waited a little further back, as suited the occasion.

Harley had thick, fair hair, and a strong face that was not well enough proportioned to be handsome. Brent, on the other hand, was almost as handsome as Phinnie had said he would be. His hair was darker than Harley’s, his eyes a deeper blue. But it was his smile that engaged immediately. He held out his hand to Phinnie and she took his arm as she reached the last step, brushing close to him for a moment. Then she lifted her chin and sailed on to be presented to Mr Rothwell Albright, who stood underneath his own magnificent chandelier, the light of it making his silver hair into a kind of halo.

‘Welcome to New York, my dear,’ he said to Phinnie. ‘I wish your father could be here to join our celebrations, but I understand his reasons for remaining at home. I hope he recovers fully and soon.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Phinnie said modestly. ‘I am sure he will do. The doctors are hopeful.’

Mr Albright turned to Jemima and regarded her with quite open interest. ‘And you are Miss Jemima Pitt, I believe. I am told that your father is a policeman of some considerable distinction. Is that true?’

‘Yes, sir, it is,’ Jemima said, and was about to add more, but realised that it was not appropriate at the moment. This evening was in honour of Brent and Phinnie. ‘I am glad Mr Cardew spoke so well of him,’ she added.

‘Indeed. But I have known Edward Cardew for more years than I care to recall. I trust him completely.’ He offered his arm. ‘Would you care to accompany me in to dinner, Miss Pitt?’

She accepted his offer and rested her hand on the fine wool cloth of his sleeve as he led the way into the richly decorated dining room.

Miss Celia Albright followed with Harley, and Phinnie with Brent.

Jemima had determined not to be impressed, but she was unable to help it. The room was beautiful, but that was merely an expression of money, and a degree of good taste. There was far more to the room than that. The silver on the table was old and had an elaborate ‘A’ engraved on all the handles. The condiment sets matched. Nothing had the unused look of being new. Contrary to her preconception, the Albrights had generations of being élite.

‘I hope you had a pleasant voyage?’ Miss Albright said to Phinnie. ‘The Atlantic can be a little rough at this time of year.’

‘Not enough to be uncomfortable, thank you,’ Phinnie replied.

It had been unpleasant at times, but of course Phinnie knew better than to say so. Jemima wondered if all their conversation was going to be so polite, and generally meaningless. She had a fear that some people’s lives were like that: words skimming across the surface of reality, like birds over the waves, without ever getting wet.

‘Our voyage to the Bahamas will be quite different,’ Brent promised with a smile at Phinnie. ‘We shall bask in the sun, as soon as we are far enough south. Have you ever seen a flying fish?’

Phinnie’s eyes opened wide in amazement, and yet total belief. She would have accepted anything he said.

Jemima thought for a moment how marvellous it would feel to be so much in love with anyone. Then she wondered if she could ever feel this overwhelmed with emotion. Perhaps she was already too old for it, a little too realistic. Or was it cynicism? That was an ugly thought. How could you find magic if you did not believe in it? She knew people who could look at the most amazing and beautiful things and not see them. She must not turn into someone like that. In a way they were the walking dead, passing through life untouched by its joy.

Celia Albright was talking to her, and she had not heard what she said.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she apologised. ‘I was daydreaming.’ She should add some explanation. She smiled. ‘We have been looking forward to this for so long it seems hardly real now that we are here.’

Phinnie shot her a look of gratitude.

‘We will show you some of the sights of New York,’ Harley Albright offered, although there was no question in his voice. ‘Miss Cardew will have arrangements to make, and I dare say Celia will accompany her. She knows everyone. Perhaps you would allow me to take you to luncheon at Delmonico’s, or the Hotel Astor? A walk in Central Park, if the weather remains clement?’

It seemed like a thoughtful offer, and it would be terrible to be here in this so very vital city and not see as much of it as possible.

‘That is most kind of you,’ Jemima accepted. ‘I should be delighted.’ He was a couple of years older than Brent, and she had no idea if he worked in the family business, or had as much leisure time as he wished. America was different. She had the idea that everyone was always busy, unlike half of London society, but that might be mistaken. ‘If I am not intruding?’ she added, and then wished she had not. The look on his face was gentle, but mildly patronising.

‘Not at all, Miss Pitt. You are our guest, and I should be delighted to show you something of our city, and perhaps a little of our history. There are parts that are very beautiful, others less so, but still of interest. We have just this year opened our subway, which is like your underground railway system. It has twenty-eight stations across town and has made an amazing difference. We really are one city now.’

She saw the pride in his eyes, the absolute certainty, and knew that anything but acceptance would be discourteous.

‘Then I am very happy to accept,’ she said warmly.

‘We have so many people to meet.’ Brent took over the conversation, looking at Phinnie as he spoke. ‘I am looking forward to showing you off to my friends. I don’t mean to rush you, but they are all so keen to make your acquaintance, and they are people we shall know for the rest of our lives.’ He let that observation hang in the air for a moment, so she might take the full meaning of it.

Phinnie lowered her eyes. ‘I look forward to it.’

Jemima knew he was letting her know that all New York high society was to be their social circle, and first impressions mattered.

Miss Albright mentioned a few names, ones that Jemima had heard even in London, or at least read in the court and social columns of The Times. Harley added a few more, and Brent continued with details of who was married to whom.

Jemima looked across the table and caught Celia Albright’s eye. There was humour in her, and a sadness. The Albrights were letting them all know exactly where they fitted in, at the top of the social hierarchy. It was a welcoming and conversational way of stating their family’s position, and their thinly masked pride in it.

Jemima looked occasionally at Phinnie and tried to read her expression. After doing so the third time, she was satisfied that Phinnie was happy and excited, and very little awed by the prospect of living up to such a role. Her eyes shone with trust as she looked at Brent, and there was a flush of happiness in her cheeks. This evening she looked truly beautiful.

Did Jemima envy her? Perhaps.

Did Celia Albright envy her? That was a harder question to answer. At moments Celia’s face reflected sorrow. Had she ever found anyone she could have loved, and who had been equal to the Albright heritage and pride? Or had she loved and lost someone whose heart she had never touched?

Did Jemima want to belong to this privileged circle? Only momentarily, as she sat at this family table and was the only stranger. The world she wanted was far bigger, more dangerous, and perhaps also lonelier. Might she end up like Celia, on the edge of things? And was it her own awkwardness, looking for a love like that between her parents, that put her there?

‘Do you have an opinion, Miss Pitt?’ Mr Albright was saying. It had been a political question about Europe and Jemima had not heard it except the last sentence.

‘Not yet,’ she replied with a smile. ‘I would like to learn a great deal more before I form one.’

He looked impressed. ‘How wise of you,’ he approved. ‘I should have known Cardew would pick a young woman of fine judgement to accompany his daughter on the way to her wedding.’ He seemed about to add something more, then quite clearly changed his mind; in fact, it was obvious from the sudden silence that followed. He could have mentioned Phinnie’s mother’s name without surprising any of them. The thought of her hung in the air like a presence.

‘Maria would have been very proud of you,’ Celia said gently, breaking the awkwardness and yet seeming to make it worse.

Mr Albright smiled at some memory he did not offer to share.

Harley raised his eyebrows and his voice when he spoke was chilly.

‘I doubt it, Aunt Celia. She contributed nothing whatever to Phinnie’s charm or spirit. They are entirely to her own credit, as we all know. Even Maria would not claim to have had anything to do with it.’

A dull stain of colour marked Celia’s face and she struggled for a moment to keep her temper.

‘I said “would have been”, Harley,’ she corrected him. ‘Any woman would be proud of such a daughter.’

Jemima was acutely embarrassed, both for Celia, who had been so publicly criticised, and for Phinnie, who hardly ever spoke of her mother, and only with pain.

Brent reached out his hand and laid it over Phinnie’s on top of the table where the gesture would not be missed.

‘You are about to become part of our family,’ he said to her, but sufficiently loudly for everyone to hear. ‘You will be mistress of the house, and mother to whatever children we may have. We shall all be proud of you.’ He looked at Harley, then at Mr Albright. He did not look at Celia.

Jemima wished she were anywhere else. The reference to Maria Cardew had been turned from a passing remark into a painful issue, and poor Celia had been publicly and very sharply reminded that her own place as hostess in the Albright house was about to end. How long it had existed Jemima did not know. Presumably since Mrs Albright had died, but she did not know when that had been.

Was the title ‘aunt’ literal, in that she was Mr Albright’s sister, or was she some more distant relative, perhaps a cousin, and it was merely a courtesy? Did she even have another place to go? How many female relatives were used that way, as unpaid servants, and only until someone else took over?

Phinnie looked slightly uncomfortable, but her happiness was too intense to be seriously disturbed by Celia’s predicament. ‘I can think of no greater honour,’ she said quietly. She turned for a moment to Brent, then away again, as if to ease the emotions and continue with the meal.

Jemima wanted to say something polite and meaningless that they could all grasp on to, like throwing a lifebelt into the sea, but she felt it was not her place. There was obviously some family issue that no one wished to name, and yet was under the surface all the time, and it had to do with Maria Cardew.

They ate in silence for several minutes. Every touch of knife or fork to the plate was audible. Even the movement of fabric against the padded seats of the chairs could be heard as much as felt.

‘I imagine Christmas will be celebrated wonderfully here,’ Jemima said at length. ‘It is a new beginning, and here it will be especially appreciated.’

Harley looked at her blankly. ‘I had always thought of Christmas as a time of tradition above everything else,’ he remarked. ‘It is nineteen hundred years old!’

‘It is the rebirth of hope, and gratitude,’ she replied, remembering something from a sermon she had heard, under protest, a year ago. ‘It is the promise that we can start again, wherever we are.’ Her look challenged him to argue with her, if he dare refuse the olive branch she held out.

‘Of course it is,’ Mr Albright said firmly. He smiled very slightly, but with a flash in his eyes of approval, for her tact, and perhaps also her theology.

‘We celebrate it with bells and garlands and music, just as you do,’ Brent agreed. ‘And, of course, wonderful food. It is a time for families to be together and rejoice.’

That was not what Jemima had meant, but she let it go. They spent the rest of the meal recounting Christmas experiences and traditions that were special to the Albright family. Maria Cardew was not mentioned again, although the late Mrs Albright was remembered often. It seemed Harley had been especially close to her, and clearly still missed her presence.

Jemima was sorry that Phinnie would not have an older woman to guide her around the pitfalls of society. She was profoundly grateful for her own mother’s advice, and even more for that of her aunt Emily, who was less of a rebel than Charlotte. It was very good to know the rules, even if you did not intend to follow them.

Much later in the evening, when she had already bidden everyone good night and was crossing the upstairs landing on her way to bed, she met Celia Albright.

‘Do you have everything you need, Miss Pitt?’ Celia asked.

‘Oh, yes, thank you,’ Jemima replied sincerely. ‘I’m sure I shall sleep very well. You have been most kind.’

Celia did not move, as if there were something else she wished to say.

Jemima also hesitated. It would have been a dismissal to have left, and she already felt a sympathy with the older woman, even if it was for a situation she only imagined and might not be real at all.

‘If you are worried about Phinnie, she may be too excited to sleep, but she is very happy and well-suited also,’ Jemima added.

Celia gave a tiny gesture of resignation. ‘I’m sure. She will not miss Maria because she never really knew her. A pity, because she was a beautiful woman. Oh, I don’t mean her face, although that was lovely too, I mean her courage, her gentleness, her laughter. Whatever else you hear about her, Miss Pitt, don’t judge her unkindly. Emotions can run . . .’ she searched for the words, ‘. . . in ugly paths sometimes. Assumptions are not always correct.’

‘About Mrs Cardew?’

‘She was a good woman, in spite of appearances.’ Celia bit her lip. ‘Sleep well.’ She turned away and hurried along the corridor and round the corner, her head high, her thin shoulders stiff.

Jemima went to her own room and closed the door. The curtains were drawn across the window, perhaps to keep out the cold on the glass as much as anything else, but she had liked the sight of the bare trees. It was something familiar and beautiful in a strange new place where she was very much alone.

No one spoke of Phinnie’s mother, as if the subject were forbidden. Phinnie herself was desperately in love with Brent and on the edge of a new life, with no one but Jemima here by her side. And yet Celia Albright seemed to feel intensely that Maria Cardew had been a good woman. If that were true, what on earth could have made her leave her only child, little more than a baby, and surely needing her desperately? Jemima could barely even imagine the loneliness of the child, the bewilderment, the confusion. Why would any woman do such a thing?

One thing she was sure of, and that was her own path. Whatever happened, however much Phinnie irritated her, she must be the friend she needed now. She must never be abandoned again.

For the next three days there were social events to attend where Phinnie was proudly introduced to some of the cream of New York society. There was a soirée with an excellent violinist, and of course the sort of pleasant conversation Jemima knew at home in London. It was like the most elegant stage, everyone acting on it as if he or she were the star, with polite laughter, sophisticated wit, calculated remarks. Jemima was both disappointed and relieved that it was so familiar. She had wanted adventure for herself, but she could see how well and how easily Phinnie would settle in here, and that was what mattered.

The weather was cold but still pleasant, and there were sightseeing trips around Central Park, which was really very attractive, and quite different from the London parks. For a start, it was enormous, and far more naturally scenic in spite of being in the very middle of the city. There were no formal gardens such as Jemima was used to, but some very beautiful walks, none the less.

There was also a visit to the Metropolitan Opera, very grand indeed, and the music was superb. On the fifth evening there was a ball, and for the first time Jemima was acutely envious of Phinnie. She radiated happiness and she had acquired a beauty that turned more than just Brent Albright’s head. Jemima ached to have someone look at her in that way, to feel the warmth of the heart’s safety in being so loved.

She forced it out of her mind and smiled as if she were enjoying herself. She danced with whoever asked her, even though it was more a matter of courtesy than whether she cared to.

On the following morning, to her surprise, Harley caught up with her as she was crossing the hall to go back up the wide, sweeping staircase to her room.

‘Miss Pitt,’ he said urgently, putting his hand on the carved newel post as if he intended to be there some minutes. ‘Are you engaged this morning?’

Surely he must know she was not? Celia Albright was taking Phinnie to a dressmaker to have further gowns made for her, with the winter season in mind. She had brought many with her, but one should not appear twice in the same outfit, if in company with people from another recent event. For Phinnie, the only child of a very wealthy man, cost was of no importance at all. Jemima herself had no need of more gowns, and while her family were now financially comfortable, they would remain so only if expenses were regarded with care.

‘No,’ she replied to Harley. ‘I thought I would take the opportunity to write to my parents and tell them what an exciting city New York is, and that your family has been most kind to me.’

‘It is our pleasure,’ he answered, although his smile went no further than his lips. ‘I’m delighted you find New York so . . . invigorating. It is my city, and I admit I am proud of it. I would welcome the chance to show you some of the more colourful parts of the city, such as Little Italy. You will be quite safe, and the food is excellent. Of course, it is best explored on foot. Or if you prefer, there is Battery Park, down by the water?’

It was a pleasant idea, and Jemima had no reason to refuse, although she admitted to herself that the invitation surprised her. She believed he made it more from good manners than a desire for her company. Perhaps his father had suggested he do so.

‘Thank you. If you are sure you can spare the time I would love to see Little Italy. I dare say I may not have the chance again.’

‘It would be my pleasure,’ he assured her. ‘Shall we meet here in half an hour? Please wear your overcoat. The wind is chill.’

Harley was quite right. As Jemima sat in the carriage beside him, on the way towards Little Italy, the wind was indeed sharp. However, she was too interested in the sights of the bustling streets to mind. He was a good host, explaining the recent history of many of the neighbourhoods including those they would not visit, such as Hell’s Kitchen, down by the river.

‘Started when they put the tanneries there,’ he told her. ‘Made the river filthy, of course, but industry does. Lot of Irish immigrants, fleeing the “Great Famine”. After the Civil War the population got a whole lot larger, and gang warfare started.’

Harley was more talkative than she had expected, and she enjoyed his stories of the city and its different areas. He loved the life, the variety and the courage of the people, and it animated his face as he spoke. She saw a glimpse of a very different man from the rather stiff one who occupied the mansion in which she was a guest, and Phinnie the prospective mistress. She wondered fleetingly what the arrangement would be when Harley married. He was the elder brother, so would Brent then find his own home? Or would they all remain under the one roof? The house was certainly large enough.

‘This is Little Italy, Mulberry Street to be exact. Would you like to walk a little?’ Harley invited as the carriage drew in to the kerb. ‘Perhaps we could have a hot cup of coffee? There is a place a couple of hundred yards away, not very glamorous, but the coffee is good.’

Jemima accepted with pleasure, and fifteen minutes later they were seated in a crowded but most agreeable small restaurant. All around her people were speaking in Italian, animated and musical, much of it loud. The walls were hung with pictures of Naples and Sicily, and there were Chianti bottles on the tables.

Harley leaned forward towards her. ‘Miss Pitt, may I confide in you? I am certain you have Delphinia’s happiness very much at heart, as I have my brother’s.’

Suddenly she realised why he had brought her here. It was far more than a matter of hospitality, or even pride in his city. He was deeply concerned about something and it showed clearly now in his face.

‘Of course,’ she agreed, putting her coffee down and giving him her full attention.

He considered a moment before he spoke again, as if carefully formulating his words.

‘I am not sure how much Phinnie knows about her mother, Maria Cardew, although that may not be her name now . . .’

Jemima was startled. Looking back, she had no reason for it, but she had assumed that Maria was dead, or at the very least she had disappeared from their knowledge.

Harley saw the expression and smiled bleakly.

‘I’m sorry to raise the subject, but you seem by far the best person to turn to. You clearly care for her, and are taking your role in her life most seriously. Your first concern is always her wellbeing.’

Jemima felt herself blushing. He was praising her where she felt she had not yet deserved it sufficiently.

‘You are modest,’ he said quickly. ‘But what I say is true. Also, if I have understood correctly, your father is a man of some wisdom and experience in matters of . . . I really don’t know how to put this delicately . . . of criminal acts . . .’ His phrasing was awkward, and yet he did not look discomfited. She realised with a rush of very mixed emotions that he was too confident in himself to care what she thought of him. His indifference stung.

‘He is head of Special Branch,’ she said coolly. ‘They are responsible for any threat to the safety of the nation in a criminal or espionage kind of way.’

He looked momentarily blank.

‘Not military attack,’ she added. ‘Do you think Maria Cardew is a danger to America?’

This time it was he who blushed, and a flash of appreciation gleamed in his eyes for an instant. He would not quickly underestimate her again.

‘No, of course not,’ he answered. ‘She is simply a woman of poor judgement and even poorer morals. I am afraid that she may turn up at the wedding, which would be natural, as Delphinia’s mother, but in appalling taste and desperately embarrassing. And goodness only knows who she might bring with her. Some of her associates were . . .’ He spread his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘It might be better if I left it to your imagination. I don’t wish to use language you would prefer not to hear.’

Jemima’s imagination was racing. What kind of a woman was Maria Cardew? If she had been impossible to understand before, now she was also frightening.

She could see in her mind’s eye the vision of a cathedral wedding, the high society guests in their gorgeous clothes, their stiff faces, their polite laughter. And then suddenly Maria Cardew, perhaps drunk, loud-voiced, announcing that she was the mother of the bride. Phinnie would never live it down. Ruin had been brought about by less.

How could any woman twice so injure her own child?

‘Is she mad?’ she asked quite seriously.

Harley Albright looked at her with something close to gratitude.

‘I see that you understand. Yes, I think perhaps she is, and more deserving of our pity than our anger. But the damage she would do to our family, especially Phinnie, who is about to become one of us . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t need to describe it. Even the kindest people would find it impossible to forget. The less kind would make it their business to see that no one else ever did!’

Jemima winced at the thought of it.

He misunderstood. ‘Of course we have enemies, Miss Pitt. It would be dangerously naïve to think that we didn’t. We have wealth and power. My father is a generous and good man, but he has been highly successful in business, far more so than some of his acquaintances. My mother was beautiful. That alone can sow the seeds of envy. There are those who would rejoice at our downfall.’

Jemima waited for him to continue. She sipped her coffee, but it had lost its magic.

‘That is why I ask you to help me,’ Harley said gently. ‘I believe you will, for Phinnie’s sake, not mine.’

She was puzzled. ‘What can I do? I can see perfectly how awful it would be if Mrs Cardew were to turn up at the wedding, but what could any of us do to stop her?’ She frowned. ‘Why do you think she even knows about it?’

‘Ah . . .’ he let out a sigh. ‘That is the crux of the whole situation. I am almost certain that she is in New York.’

‘In New York? That’s terrible!’ Now she could see it perfectly.

‘Yes . . . yes it is,’ he agreed. ‘I suppose we should have foreseen it. After all, the marriage of Brent Albright to Delphinia Cardew will be the wedding of the year. I imagine that even in other cities it will have been announced in the society columns of newspapers. If Mrs Cardew read of it she could be misguided enough to come.’

‘Surely she must see, after all these years, that she would not be welcome?’ Jemima protested. ‘I don’t know the circumstances of her leaving, but nothing alters the fact of it. Phinnie doesn’t want to see her. How could she?’

‘Exactly.’ Harley nodded grimly. ‘I am aware of the circumstances. My mother told me, shortly before she died. But I prefer not to discuss them. Sufficient to say that they could hardly be worse. Will you help me?’

‘Of course. But what can we do?’

‘I have given it a great deal of thought,’ he replied earnestly. ‘I can think of nothing else but to find her, and persuade her that she would hurt Phinnie, perhaps irreparably, if she were to appear at the wedding. If she wishes to see her, which I suppose is possible, we could promise to arrange it, but privately.’ His face registered extreme distaste. ‘I would even be willing to pay her a certain amount, if she remains several miles away, perhaps even in another city, and never makes the relationship known. I hope that will not be necessary, but as a last resort . . .’

‘Then she could extort money from you indefinitely,’ Jemima warned. The moment the words were out of her mouth, she wondered if she had been wise to say them.

Harley stared down at the table for several moments before meeting her eyes.

‘I had thought of that, Miss Pitt. That is why I hope to persuade her of the unpleasantness of that course. She would earn Delphinia’s undying contempt, to say the least. I am simply unaware of what has become of her and what manner of person she is now.’

‘And before?’ Jemima asked the question she knew her father would have asked.

‘At the time of her marriage to Cardew?’ His eyes widened. ‘A pretty and ambitious young woman who had already had more than her share of romantic adventures, with all manner of men, but who knew how to please an upper-class Englishman in a foreign country, who had no idea such women even existed.’

Jemima doubted very much that upper-class Englishmen were anything like as innocent as Harley Albright supposed, but this was not the time to say so.

‘I see. Now we are twenty years later, her looks may not be as attractive, nor her health as good,’ she pointed out.

His face tightened. He looked bleak and even a little frightened.

‘Of course. You are quite right. We need to find her, and then deal with her in whatever way seems best. I need you to help me, Miss Pitt. I need your common sense and imagination to find her, which, coupled with my reputation and my knowledge of New York, should be sufficient.’

She nodded. ‘I will do all that I can.’

‘When we find her I will need your understanding of women, and your presence to be a protection and a witness to whatever agreement we may reach with her.’

‘I am returning to England in the New Year,’ Jemima pointed out.

‘I know that,’ he said earnestly. ‘But Maria Cardew will not. And by then I hope we will have the matter settled. Will you help me?’

‘Of course I will. Where shall we start?’ New York was a teeming city full of all manner of people; this she knew after barely a week. Maria Cardew could be anywhere, and none of the Albrights had seen her for nearly two decades. She could have changed entirely since then. Most women do between their thirties and their fifties.

‘What would your father do?’ Harley asked with perfect seriousness.

Pitt would have sent one of his men on the job, but she did not say that. It was certainly not the answer Harley Albright was looking for. She thought hard while the minutes ticked away, and he waited, watching her intently.

She must concentrate her mind, think logically. Most important of all, she must rescue Phinnie from a ruinous embarrassment. Her whole future life in New York, and with Brent, would depend upon Maria not turning up and spoiling it all. Society here would be just like society in London: they would never forget a tragedy, and still less a scandal.

Also, in a way, she was representing the intelligence and the standing of her own family, and perhaps even remotely, England.

‘She will have found accommodation somewhere,’ she began thoughtfully. ‘Either she is staying with a friend, or she has rented somewhere, a house or a room. She will be aware that she is not welcome at the Albright home, and she will know where it is, but stay out of sight.’

Harley nodded but did not interrupt.

‘Before we begin to look for her it would be good to make note of all we know about her. We will have to ask questions of people. The more precise they are, the less time we will waste.’

He frowned. ‘She could be anywhere.’ His voice held a note of defeat.

‘No,’ she answered, far more firmly than she felt. ‘There are many areas she will not be, and even among those where she might be, some will be more likely than others. In London I could tell you, but here you will have to think of it.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘She will need to feel safe.’ Jemima had tested her ideas in her mind, and hoped she was as reasonable as she sounded. ‘If there is an area she stayed in before, she might choose it. We all prefer the known to the unknown. It is both easier and pleasanter. Also she must be able to afford it. Do you know her circumstances? How does she support herself?’ The moment the words were out of her mouth she regretted them. The answer was one she could guess, and preferred not to know. But, perhaps in her fifties, Maria had changed her ways. She might well be obliged to.

Harley pursed his lips into an expression of distaste. ‘She was always good at living off men, one way or another.’ His voice lifted. ‘But I see the point of your questions. That does narrow it down considerably. I shall think of them and give you answers. Is there anything else?’

‘Yes. What does she look like? Some things don’t change much. How tall is she? She may be grey-haired now, but eyes and skin tone do not change so much. What about her voice, her mannerisms? Where might she eat? Is there something she likes that would take her to a particular place?’

‘Likes? To eat?’ He looked uncertain.

‘Yes. When you are far from home, in trouble of any kind, it is natural to turn to something familiar and pleasant. Chocolates? A special kind of tea? A place where you can be alone? A view that has meaning? A particular park to walk in, pictures in a museum, anything?’

He began to smile. ‘Yes, I see what you mean. You are a credit to your father, Miss Pitt. Would you like another cup of coffee, or shall we return home and begin our quest?’

She rose to her feet. ‘I think we should begin as soon as possible, Mr Albright. We cannot afford otherwise.’

For the first time in their acquaintance, he smiled at her with genuine warmth.

The next three days were exciting and of absorbing interest to Jemima. Harley came up with an excellent account of all he knew about Maria Cardew, which turned out to be far more than she had expected.

‘She was apparently a very vivacious woman,’ he began. ‘Pretty in her own way, and very fashionable. Made herself most agreeable. I think she tried to keep her more eccentric opinions to herself, but she certainly did not always succeed.’

‘What opinions?’ Jemima asked, then saw his expression and wished she had not.

‘On racial matters, and people’s position in society, property rights. Which is amusing in a dry way, considering she met Edward Cardew in our house, and was quick enough to accept his proposal of marriage.’

‘Are you saying she was a hypocrite?’ Jemima asked as innocently as she could. The answer mattered too much not to pursue it.

‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I suppose I am. Her subsequent history rather proves my point.’

‘Yet Miss Albright speaks well of her,’ Jemima pointed out.

Harley’s expression was a mixture of anger and an attempt at patience.

‘Celia likes anyone who likes her, and Maria knew that.’

‘I see,’ Jemima replied, forming a strange and not very pleasant picture in her head of a selfish and manipulative woman who had deeply hurt her only child, whom Jemima now must protect.

Jemima was careful to say nothing to Phinnie about how she was spending her days. As far as everyone else was concerned, especially Mr Rothwell Albright, Harley was taking the opportunity to show Jemima around the city he knew and loved, and she was greatly enjoying it.

The weather had turned suddenly much colder. They woke up on the third day of their quest to find everything mantled in white.

‘I must show you Central Park in the snow!’ Harley said at the breakfast table, a gleam of excitement in his eyes.

‘Indeed,’ Mr Albright agreed. ‘It is a wonderful sight. If it is deep enough there will be people playing all manner of games. And if there is ice yet, there will be skating. I might come with you . . .’

‘Thank you, Father,’ Harley said with a very slight drop in his voice. ‘But we will be fine. I’m sure you have matters that need your attention.’

Brent stifled a smile; a complete misunderstanding, as Jemima knew. Harley had no interest in being alone in her company. What he had was an idea as to where they might find Maria Cardew. Something about the snow had awakened a memory in him. She could not afford to pass by this chance. She bowed her head slightly as if both pleased and self-conscious, and saw a fleeting look of alarm in Harley’s eyes.

‘Of course,’ Mr Albright agreed, as if he understood perfectly, and it pleased him.

Jemima concentrated on the anticipation of discovering Maria Cardew.

She and Harley set out as early as they could without giving rise to more comment, which she thought he found even more uncomfortable than she did. The air was very brisk and the wind had a new bite to it, but he did not ask her if she still wished to go out. It would have been courteous, even though he knew she would not refuse. The only one who noticed was Celia. Mr Albright appeared to be pleased; Brent and Phinnie were far too absorbed in each other, and their plans, to have noticed.

They took the carriage as far as Central Park, then dismissed the driver, saying that their plans were too open for them to estimate a time for him to return. He smiled and drove off.

Harley looked discomfited for a moment, then recovered himself.

‘As you have deduced, Miss Pitt, the snow this morning has reminded me that Maria Cardew used to enjoy it greatly, most especially when it was newly fallen and was still outlining the branches of the bare trees. If she is here in New York, as I am certain she is, she will be most likely to walk in the Park this morning. Of course we could well miss her – it is a very large place – nevertheless I know the best walks for such sights. If you are willing to go at a brisk pace, we have a chance of seeing her. Together, we will not draw any unusual attention, and we may follow her to wherever she is staying.’

‘That is an excellent plan,’ she agreed, walking rapidly beside him. ‘And people will be going carefully, watching that they do not slip, so she will be less likely to notice that the same couple is behind her over a considerable distance.’

‘Good,’ he agreed. ‘I had not thought of that.’ He offered her his arm.

She refrained from making the remark that rose to her lips, and took it as if it had been the most natural thing to do.

It was well into the afternoon and Jemima’s feet were aching when finally, thirty yards ahead of them, a woman of medium height turned towards them for a moment. She was staring up at the fading light through the snow-laden branches of the trees, her face filled with wonder.

Harley stiffened. His hand grasped Jemima’s arm so she stopped as well. Then as the woman continued her walk, he moved forward urgently. His pace increased so that gradually they closed the distance between them.

‘Do you want to confront her here?’ Jemima asked him breathlessly. ‘If she makes a scene, we will draw everyone’s attention, and if she leaves, we may not be able to follow her to wherever she is lodging.’

‘Ah . . .’ He let out his breath in annoyance, and slowed down again, allowing the woman in front to reach the edge of the Park and go along the pavement towards a crossing.

‘You are right,’ he said briefly, as the traffic eased and they followed the woman to the other side. She continued along the footpath and they moved a little closer to her so as not to lose her in the general crowd as they went eastwards.

‘Have you thought what you will say to her?’ Jemima asked, but she did not hear his reply in the crunch of footsteps in the snow.

Once she lost Harley in crossing a busy street whose name was merely a number, like most of them. A wave of panic swept over her. Then she remembered that she had money, she knew the address of the Albright mansion, and she was certainly quite capable of speaking the language and asking for assistance. There were public conveyances, just as there were in London.

Then the next moment he was there beside her.

‘You had better take my arm, Miss Pitt,’ he said a little sharply. ‘It would be disastrous if I were to lose you.’

‘It would be inconvenient,’ she corrected him. ‘I am afraid an elderly lady stepped between us and I could not move around her to keep up with you.’

‘It can’t be helped. I lost Maria, but I know where she went. We have found her residence. A few questions tomorrow, when we have prepared ourselves, and we shall find her exact rooms. Your detection has been of the highest order, Miss Pitt, and our whole family owes you a considerable debt.’ He started to walk back the way they had come, automatically taking her with him. ‘Phinnie will never know of it. I am sure you have more grace and tact than to tell her, but I shall not forget what you have done. I am truly grateful. Now if you are ready, we shall find a cab and return home. It is getting dark, and I think it is very much colder.’

Jemima was glad to agree.

Dinner was full of conversation about the wedding: were they sure the right flowers would be available? Was Aunt Mabel going to recover her health in time to attend? Was the cake perfectly iced yet? Jemima was asked politely about her day, but as soon as she had satisfied them that it had been enjoyable, and she was impressed by the beauty of the Park in its white covering, discussion returned to the wedding arrangements.

She felt a little left out, she knew none of the people referred to. But she reminded herself that she was here to look after Phinnie and see that it was truly the happiest day of her life. Above all, without Phinnie ever knowing, she must make certain that Maria Cardew did not spoil it. She had already done more than enough damage for a lifetime.

The face of the woman who had turned in wonder to stare at the snow-mantled trees did not look dissipated, or even angry or tired. But Jemima had been fifty feet away. Closer to, it might have betrayed all kinds of weaknesses, even the beginnings of disease. As she had heard her mother say, ‘At twenty you have the face nature has given you, at fifty you have the face you deserve’. Time has a way of carving your character into you so that all may see it at a glance. The lines of habit cut deep, for better or worse.

The next morning she set out with Harley to find and confront Maria Cardew. He assured her that he had decided exactly what to say to her, and a fall-back attitude to adopt if she should prove unreasonable. He was prepared to offer her money, in spite of Jemima’s advice to the contrary.

They were in a coffee shop a block and a half from the building where Maria had gone on the previous evening when Harley spoke of his plan.

‘I know which building it is, but I don’t know which rooms,’ he told her as they sat opposite each other, their hands around their hot mugs. ‘I will go and enquire. Perhaps it may be necessary to bribe someone to let me know exactly where she is. Also, of course, I don’t know how she is satisfying the landlord regarding her rent,’ he went on. ‘It is not a seemly place for you to come, except when I have actually found her. I regret that I have to involve you at all, and I am still hesitant, now that I see the neighbourhood in daylight. But I think you may be able to persuade her of the harm she would do Phinnie better than I can. I am ashamed to use your help, but I fear I cannot do without it.’

‘Mr Albright,’ Jemima said urgently, ‘please don’t apologise. We have come this far together, in a cause that is important to both of us. I am not afraid of a slight unpleasantness at the end. Life cannot always be fun. Let me know when you find her, and I shall come.’

‘I admire you, Miss Pitt, and I am most grateful,’ he replied, then he ordered another cup of coffee for her, paid for it, and left to go out into the gently falling snow.

It was a full half-hour later that a small boy came into the coffee shop and over to her table.

‘You Miss Pitt?’ he asked politely, but with so strong an accent from somewhere in Eastern Europe that she took a moment to deduce what he had said.

‘Yes, I am. Do you have a message for me?’ she asked eagerly.

He smiled, showing beautiful teeth, and passed her a slip of paper.

‘Thank you.’ She gave him a nickel coin out of her purse. He took it and hid it immediately, then gave her a nod and went outside again. She opened the note and read it. It contained simply an address a short distance away, but it included an apartment number.

She folded the paper, put it in her pocket, fastened up her coat and went out into the snow. It took her seven or eight minutes walking into the wind before she reached the building. She went in at the entrance and found herself in a tired and rather grubby hall. She had memorised the number. Since the first digit was a three, she expected it to be on the third floor. Harley was nowhere to be seen, so perhaps he had already gone up.

It was a steep climb, but in minutes she was at the top, and looking at the numbers on the doors. She found 309 at the further end. Harley was not here either. Had he gone in without her? He had previously agreed not to do that.

With some irritation she knocked on the scratched wooden door and waited.

There was no answer. Actually, it was not completely shut. She gave it a push and it swung wider.

There was a slight rustling sound from inside.

‘Mr Albright?’ Jemima called. She would have said ‘Mrs Cardew’, but she was not certain if that was the name Maria still used.

Again there was no answer, just a faint swish of movement, like the fabric of a long skirt over the floor.

She would have to use some name. Where on earth was Harley?

‘Mrs Cardew?’

Nothing but the swish of fabric on the floor again. This was absurd. The door was unfastened; there must be someone inside. Jemima pushed the door open the rest of the way and went in, calling again for Mrs Cardew.

The sitting room was pleasantly furnished but very shabby. One of the windows was open and a curtain blew in the wind, making a slight noise as it moved over the carpet and settled back. That was what she had heard.

She stared around her. There were plenty of signs of occupation: a number of books on the shelves, a bag with knitting needles and wool sitting neatly by one of the armchairs, a handmade rug for the knees folded up but where it could easily be reached.

Another door was open and she could see that it led to a tiny kitchen. Anyone inside would have been visible.

‘Mrs Cardew!’ she called again, going to the door on the opposite side. She knocked on it and waited, then tried the handle. What on earth could she say in explanation if she intruded into someone’s bedroom and found them there? She had no earthly excuse.

And yet she did it.

She saw the woman immediately. The bedroom was small and neat, with two single beds in it. One was neatly made and empty, as if it were not used. On the other a woman lay motionless. The skin of her face was bleached almost grey and her dark hair, streaked with white, was loose and tangled as if she had been moving restlessly only a short while ago. One thin, blue-veined hand rested on the covers.

Jemima felt a shock of grief. She knew the woman was dead, but what struck her most strongly was the difference between this half-sunken face, the life fled from it, and the one she had seen only yesterday, staring up at the snow-laden trees with such joy.

She stood looking at the woman until she heard a sound behind her and swung around, her throat tight with fear.

‘Miss Pitt?’ Harley’s voice broke the trance.

Relief overwhelmed her, then vanished again like a huge wave sucking back into itself.

‘I think she’s dead,’ she whispered. ‘Poor soul . . .’

Harley walked over to the bed and put his fingers to the skin of the woman’s neck. He looked across at Jemima. ‘Yes, she is, but she is still warm. It can’t be long. Maybe only a few minutes.’

She was amazed. ‘Just a few minutes? If we’d come sooner . . .’

Harley pulled the covers away from her chin and shoulders and suddenly all Jemima could see was scarlet blood, wide-spreading, wet, from a heart only just stopped beating. Dizziness overtook her and she had to fight to keep from fainting.

‘We had better call the police,’ Harley said grimly, his voice catching in his throat. ‘It was not a natural death. She’s been stabbed, but the knife, or whatever it was, doesn’t appear to be here, which means it was murder.’

Jemima nodded. She tried to speak but no sound came.

‘Come,’ Harley ordered. ‘There’s nothing you can do for her now.’

Jemima coughed and cleared her throat. ‘Is it . . . is it Maria Cardew? She looks so ill!’

‘Yes. Come. We must go and call the police.’ He held out his hand and obediently she stumbled the few steps to reach him. He gripped her firmly and guided her to the door and out into the passageway. Almost as if it were an afterthought he pulled the door closed but she did not hear the latch turn.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and there was no one in sight. Harley went to the front door and out into the street. He looked one way, then the other, then came back to Jemima.

‘I’m going to find the nearest policeman. I don’t think anyone around here will have a telephone. It’s not that sort of area. You stay here and don’t speak to anyone. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

‘Can’t I come with you?’ she asked, then heard her own voice and wished she had not sounded so plaintive. No backbone! ‘No,’ she said before he could reply, although the refusal was in his face. ‘Of course not. You’ll move far faster without me. I understand. Please go.’

He looked immensely relieved and turned immediately, starting to run as soon as he was on the open sidewalk.

Jemima stood in the hallway for what seemed like for ever. A man came out of one of the ground-floor apartments, said something to her, but she could not find her voice to reply. He went out of the door and disappeared. Two more people went by similarly.

Her mind was racing.

Who could have killed Maria Cardew, and why? Was it some part of the evil life that Harley had hinted at that had finally caught up with her? Where had Harley been? If he had been there sooner they might have saved her! Jemima should have felt outrage, even fear, but thinking of that ravaged face all she could summon was pity. She hoped Phinnie would not have to learn the whole truth. Was there any way they could keep it from her, at least until after the wedding?

She was still busy with that thought when Harley came back in through the front door, immediately followed by a young man easily his height, but dark-haired and with startlingly blue eyes. He introduced himself before Harley could do it.

‘Miss Pitt? I’m police officer Patrick Flannery. Mr Albright tells me that you discovered the body of a woman upstairs in apartment 309. Is that true?’

Jemima looked at him. His presence, his dark blue uniform, made it all suddenly no longer a nightmare but a reality – official, ugly and dangerous. How could they possibly keep Phinnie from knowing? If this young policeman had any brains at all he would ask what Harley Albright was doing here in the first place. And she knew from her father’s experiences that lies only made everything worse. He had said more than once that the lies a person told gave away more than most truths.

‘Yes, sir,’ she replied. Another thing her father had said was not to answer more questions than you were asked. It made you appear nervous.

Flannery nodded. ‘I see. Mr Albright said that he found you inside the apartment, in the bedroom with the dead woman. Is that right?’ He had a nice voice, with a lilt of the Irish in it. ‘Miss Pitt?’ he prompted.

‘Yes,’ she said quickly, trying to keep her composure. Perhaps Harley had had to say that? She had been there already when he arrived. ‘I didn’t touch her,’ she added, then wished she hadn’t. Was she so rattled she was going to forget all her father’s advice so quickly? If only he were here now!

‘Mr Albright says you’re English. Is that right?’ Flannery asked.

‘Yes. I’ve been here just a few days. I came over for the wedding of a friend.’

‘I see. That would be to Mr Albright’s brother? Do you know the dead woman, Miss Pitt?’

‘No. Mr Albright says she is Maria Cardew.’

Harley stiffened, but he did not interrupt.

‘The mother of Mr Brent Albright’s fiancée,’ Flannery said. ‘He mentioned that. Perhaps we had better go up to see her. I’ve sent for the police surgeon to take a look at her.’ He looked at Harley.

‘The family asks for your discretion and will deeply appreciate it,’ Harley said. ‘I will personally pay for a decent burial for the woman.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Flannery nodded. ‘I’ll do what I can. If you would lead the way upstairs, please . . .?’

Harley moved at last, and Jemima followed him with Flannery after her. It was then that she realised how much the whole affair had distressed her. She had expected an unpleasant scene, but not death: certainly not violence, blood, then the police. And now there was the fear that she would not be able to protect Phinnie from a grief that would deeply overshadow the wedding.

Harley pushed open the apartment door. The latch was broken and had not locked behind them.

‘Did you find it like this, sir?’ Flannery asked.

‘Yes. Miss Pitt was already inside. I told you.’

Flannery turned to Jemima, his black eyebrows raised.

Jemima felt a prickle of fear. ‘Yes. It was open when I pushed it.’

‘So you went in?’

‘Yes.’

Flannery looked unhappy. ‘Did you know Mrs Cardew?’

‘No. But I’ve known her daughter, Delphinia Cardew, for . . .’ It was not so very long, but she must finish the train of thought. ‘I am here with her for the wedding, to look after her until then. She is only nineteen. Her father is ill and cannot travel. She is . . . estranged from Mrs Cardew. She has no one else . . . except the Albright family, of course.’ Was she talking too much and making it even worse?

‘So you were trying to bring about a reconciliation with her mother?’ Flannery looked dubious. It was plainly at odds with what Harley had implied.

‘No. I wished to persuade Mrs Cardew . . .’ She realised with horror what she was about to say, and how it would sound.

‘Not to appear at the wedding and cause distress and embarrassment,’ Harley finished for her.

Flannery shot him a sharp look that was close to dislike, then turned back to Jemima.

‘Is that correct, Miss Pitt?’ he said gently.

There was no escape.

‘Yes.’ Her voice was hollow, as if she had no air in her lungs. ‘We hoped that she would realise that it would be far better, if she wished to meet with Phinnie again, to do it privately.’ Should she add that Harley had been willing to pay her not to cause a scandal? No. It sounded desperate.

Flannery nodded, then led the way to the bedroom. The dead woman was lying on the bed exactly as Jemima had left her, the sheet still pulled back to expose the terrible wound. She heard Flannery’s sharp intake of breath. He must have seen dead bodies before, but there was something horribly tragic about this elderly woman, so frail-looking, perhaps even dying anyway, who lay alone, soaked in her own blood, her greying hair spread across the pillow, her features sunken with pain.

Flannery looked at her closely without touching her, except one strong hand briefly on her pulse. He must have felt, as Jemima had, that she was still warm. He turned to Jemima, his face filled with pity.

‘Did you see any weapon, Miss Pitt? Did you move it?’

‘No! Of course not!’

‘It would be a natural thing to do.’

‘My father is a policeman, Mr Flannery. In fact he is head of Special Branch in England. I know better than to move a knife from the scene of a death.’

He looked bleak. ‘So you know quite a lot about crime?’

Another mistake. ‘No!’ she said hotly. ‘Only what I have overheard now and then. But if you think about it, it’s common sense.’ She must stop talking, stop telling him too much. She sounded guilty, when really she was only grieved and afraid for Phinnie.

‘I see,’ he acknowledged. He looked increasingly unhappy. He looked back at Harley. ‘You said, sir, that you arrived here later than Miss Pitt and found her standing beside the body, which you identified as that of Mrs Maria Cardew.’

‘Yes,’ Harley answered quietly. ‘I’m sorry, but that is so.’

‘Where were you, sir?’ Flannery met his eyes squarely.

‘I didn’t see anyone come in here, if that’s what you mean?’ Harley replied.

‘It’s part of what I mean. If you weren’t in the street outside, where were you?’ Flannery insisted.

‘I was late! Someone stopped to ask me directions, and I ended up having to take them part of the way,’ Harley replied a little sharply.

‘I see. And you found Mrs Cardew registered here under the name of Sara Godwin?’

‘Yes. That may be her name now, for all I know,’ Harley agreed.

‘When did you last see Mrs Cardew alive, sir?’

‘About twenty years ago, when she first met Mr Cardew. It was through my family that they became acquainted. My father and Mr Cardew are partners in business.’

‘Yes, sir, you mentioned that.’ Flannery’s face was pinched, his eyes bleak. He did not like Harley, but he was trapped by circumstances. He looked at Jemima again. ‘Is this all true, Miss Pitt?’

Jemima realised with a chill that made her feel sick exactly how it looked. There was nothing she could deny.

‘Yes . . .’ she admitted.

Harley spoke before Flannery could. ‘Miss Pitt, if you moved the knife, however well you meant it, it would be a good thing if you told me. I know your devotion to Miss Cardew, but this is extremely serious. I will do my best to protect you, but really, only the truth will serve now.’

He was making it worse, as if he thought she could have killed the poor woman. Why? It would hardly protect Phinnie. The scandal of having her mother turn up at the wedding would be small, compared with that of murder. Did he really think she was so stupid, so impetuous and hysterical as not to know that? She stared at him, and the answer was clear in the sad, puzzled expression in his eyes.

‘I did not touch her!’ Her voice sounded frightened, as if she were close to losing control. ‘I did not touch the knife, or anything else except to know that she was beyond help. I didn’t even know for certain that she was Maria Cardew.’

‘Yes, you did,’ Harley contradicted her. ‘We saw her in Central Park yesterday evening. We followed her. That’s how we knew where to find her today.’

‘We were fifty yards away!’ she protested. ‘She looks quite different close to.’

‘But it is the same woman, Mr Albright?’ Flannery said. ‘You are quite certain?’

‘Yes,’ Harley said decisively. ‘There is no doubt. I’m sorry. I . . . I understand your devotion to Phinnie,’ he said to Jemima. ‘I believe you did this to protect her. It is my duty to my family now to see that you don’t in any way suggest that she had any part in this. I know how intensely she is looking forward to—’

Flannery cut him off with a glance. ‘If you are looking to protect your family, sir, you would not serve that purpose by suggesting that anyone in your household had a part in this.’

A dull colour swept up Harley’s face, but he did not answer.

Flannery turned to Jemima. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Pitt, but I have no choice but to take you to the station for further questions.’

‘But I have no blood on me!’ Jemima protested. ‘I would have . . . if I had done that!’ She indicated the body on the bed, but could scarcely look at it.

Harley swivelled round to look at the kitchen where the corner of a wet towel was visible in the sink. He looked back at Flannery.

‘Please, Miss Pitt,’ Flannery said quietly as another policeman came in through the door, followed by a third.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ Harley said to Jemima, then turned on his heel without looking at Flannery or speaking to him.

The next few hours passed in a daze of misery. Jemima was taken in a closed carriage, her hands manacled together, down to the centre of the city where she was asked questions as to her identity, nationality and her purpose here in New York. She was finally charged with the murder of Maria Cardew, and her belongings were taken from her, except the clothes she stood up in, and a small handkerchief. She was then placed in a cell and left alone, trembling and queasy with fear and shock.

How could this have happened, in the space of a few hours? It was the middle of the day, and yet breakfast-time seemed as if it had happened in another era. Did Harley really imagine that she had killed Maria Cardew? With a knife from the kitchen? Did he think she was both stupid and cold-blooded enough to have committed murder rather than let Maria make a scene at the wedding?

Why? To protect Phinnie from embarrassment?

That was absurd, even insane.

Then, sitting on the hard bench that served as a bed, shuddering with cold in the bare, iron-barred cell, she knew the answer. Not to protect Phinnie from embarrassment at all, but to make certain that the wedding went ahead and Phinnie became part of the powerful Albright family, with its immense wealth. He had all but hinted as much to Patrick Flannery. Phinnie would reward her appropriately.

That, of course, had assumed she would not be caught! Now all she would gain was a length of rope to hang her or whatever they did with murderers in New York!

Would anyone tell her parents? Surely they would?

Then her father would come over and he would find the truth. He had no official status as a policeman, or anything else, here in America, but that would not prevent him. He would do anything to save her. She was not guilty of anything except . . . what? Foolishness? Over-confidence in her own ability? Perhaps pride? It was a miserable thought.

She was given supper; by then she was hungry enough to eat even this rough and tasteless stew. The bed was hard and lumpy and the whole cell was bitterly cold. She slept very badly and woke up so stiff she could not move without pain. And of course there were no clean clothes for her, nothing even to wash in except cold water.

About the middle of the morning, the woman in charge told her that she had a visitor, and to straighten herself up and prepare to be conducted to the room where she could speak to him. She did as she was told, wondering if it would be Harley Albright. What could she say to him? He had practically accused her of killing Maria Cardew in a secret agreement with Phinnie, to save her from any embarrassment in her new life. She hated him for that so much she felt as if she would choke on her words if she even tried to speak to him. He was the one who had asked her help in finding Maria. And yet, furious as she was, she also knew that he was trying to protect his family. That part she could believe, and even sympathise with.

But when she was conducted to the interview room, her hands again manacled behind her back, it was Mr Rothwell Albright who stood up from the hard-backed wooden chair, not Harley. He looked tired and so pale it was as if the cold had seeped through everything he wore and reached into his bones. Was it the prospect of scandal that affected him so much?

He looked at her with distress. ‘Are you all right, Miss Pitt? Unhurt?’

‘I am not physically anything worse than stiff and cold, thank you,’ she replied. She softened her voice. He had at least come to see her. She should be grateful for that. ‘Would you please contact my father to let him know what has happened to me? I have no way of doing so myself.’

‘Should it prove necessary, of course I will,’ he replied. His voice was gravelly, as if he had not slept either.

‘It is necessary,’ she said with rising panic very nearly breaking through. Had he no idea what was happening? ‘They have accused me of killing Mrs Cardew! I didn’t even touch her, except to make certain she was dead and there was nothing I could do to help her.’

‘I am afraid the evidence suggests otherwise,’ he answered slowly. ‘Poor Maria. She did not deserve to die in such a way. She was a good woman . . . misguided, perhaps, but not evil.’

There was a real grief in his face, in his eyes. It seemed that he did not share the family view of her, except perhaps Celia’s opinion. What had Maria Cardew really been like? She aroused intense feelings, for good or ill.

‘Mr Albright, I did not harm her in any way,’ Jemima said earnestly. ‘Mr Harley asked me to help find her and persuade her not to attend the wedding and cause embarrassment. That was all I attempted to do. I never saw her at all except for a brief glimpse in the Park, and then the next morning when she was dead. I have no idea who hurt her. Please . . . please tell Phinnie that . . .’

He avoided her eyes. ‘I am afraid Delphinia is very distressed. She has now lost all possibility of reconciliation with her mother, and this terrible manner of her death has cast a dark shadow over her forthcoming wedding. I asked her if she wished to send any message to you, perhaps of comfort or support. She declined. I’m . . . sorry.’

It was another blow. Maybe she should have expected it. Phinnie was a changeable as the spring weather at home. But this hurt. Surely Phinnie knew her better than to imagine she would have killed anyone, let alone a frail old woman she had never even met?

But of course Phinnie would not be thinking, only grieving, and fearing that the scandal of murder would affect the Albright family, and spoil the longed-for wedding to Brent.

‘I shall contact the best lawyer I can afford, Miss Pitt, and perhaps this matter may be dealt with before your family has to be informed.’ Mr Albright rose to his feet. ‘I am very sorry your visit to us has ended in this way.’

She watched him go out of the far door without turning back, his perfectly tailored shoulders stiff, his white hair gleaming in the light. He had said nothing about putting up bail to have her released. Perhaps, considering the charge, it was not possible anyway. She would stay here, hungry, aching and cold to the bone until such time as they brought her to trial, which might be after Christmas! Then what? Oh, please heaven he would tell her father, and he would come and shatter this nightmare!

Officer Flannery came to see her late in the afternoon, as it was already getting dark. She saw him in the same bare interview room where she had been charged, sitting on the same wooden-backed chair.

He looked different without his police hat. He had thick, dark hair with a heavy curl in it. He looked tired and cold.

‘Are you all right?’ He asked her the same question Mr Albright had, and with something of the same anxiety.

‘I cannot tell you anything further,’ she said more stiffly than she had meant to. It was her only defence against showing the fear and misery she felt. ‘I did not see Mrs Cardew alive, except for a moment in the Park the previous afternoon, when she turned back and looked up at the snow on the branches. I would not even know it was the same woman if Mr Albright had not told me. But he knew her, I did not.’

‘Are you certain that you didn’t, Miss Pitt?’ he said gravely.

‘Yes, of course I am. I’ve only just arrived in New York.’ Surely he must know that?

‘Actually you arrived over a week ago,’ he pointed out. ‘At exactly the same time as Miss Cardew.’

‘I know that!’ Then she felt the chill of a new apprehension. What did he mean? There was no accusation in his eyes, only sadness.

‘We have evidence that Miss Cardew knew that her mother was in the city,’ he replied.

‘What evidence? She didn’t know!’ Jemima protested. ‘That is what Mr Albright and I were trying to do: stop Maria Cardew from turning up and creating a scene, upsetting Phinnie at the wedding. Didn’t he tell you that?’

‘He seems to believe that she did know,’ Flannery replied.

Jemima was astonished. Suddenly nothing made sense. ‘Then he told her! But why would he do that?’ She was utterly confused. ‘He wanted the whole wedding to be a high society event, with no scandal affecting the family at all. He told me he was even willing to pay Maria Cardew to stay away.’

‘He made no mention of that,’ Flannery told her. ‘It would be an extraordinarily foolish thing to do. If she was the kind of woman he said, then she could extort him for the rest of her life.’

‘I told him that!’ She could feel fear sharpening her voice, building up inside her like a trapped thing, ready to lash out. ‘I said there would be no end of it!’

‘I want to believe you, Miss Pitt,’ Flannery said gently, ‘but all the evidence is on his side. The only thing in your favour is that he says Miss Cardew also knew not only that her mother was in New York, but that she also knew where she was.’

‘Then he told her,’ she said again desperately.

‘Yes, maybe . . .’

‘That’s the only way he would know that she knew,’ she pointed out. ‘And why did he tell her? He said to me that his purpose was that she should never have to know!’

‘Are you sure you didn’t tell her, even unintentionally?’ There was an urgency in his voice as if the grief of this tragedy touched him too. ‘Perhaps she would be able to piece it together from other things you said. Could she have guessed? Might she have known what you were doing anyway? If you mentioned where you had been that afternoon, could she have worked it out that her mother was there?’ Flannery looked as if he wanted it to be true almost as much as she did.

Jemima steadied herself with an effort. She must keep some control. Just at the moment it was her only chance to save herself.

‘If she had worked that out from something I said, how would Harley know that she knew?’

‘It would be in your interest if she did know, Miss Pitt. Then at least there is another person to suspect of having killed her.’ He looked at her steadily, his eyes intensely blue.

‘Phinnie wouldn’t do that,’ she said miserably. ‘And I’m not going to try to blame her. She can be selfish and a bit silly at times – she’s terribly young – but she wouldn’t stab anyone to death. She just wouldn’t. Apart from anything else, she hasn’t the courage or the emotional intensity.’

He smiled a little ruefully.

‘Honest, if not flattering,’ he said.

‘I don’t think I can afford anything else,’ she confessed. ‘And it would not be in my interest to blame someone I believe is innocent.’

Jemima wondered for a moment if perhaps Phinnie wanted the marriage to Brent Albright enough to have elicited the information from Harley, and then crept out to try to persuade her mother herself. Could she have offered to keep her in comfort for the rest of her life, if she just left the marriage to take place without upsetting anything? Once married to Brent, Phinnie would have the means. If the marriage did not go ahead, then she wouldn’t! If Maria Cardew were as greedy and ruthless as Harley had said, she would understand that.

Perhaps that wasn’t impossible?

She said all this to Flannery, stumbling over the words, hating the sound of them in her own ears.

He looked unhappy, but he did not argue.

She knew the inevitable ending to that train of thought. She gave it words before he could. ‘Then she had no reason to kill Mrs Cardew. Why would she? She would just pay her off until such time as the Albrights could deal with her more effectively.’

‘Maybe she didn’t want them to know?’ he responded. Now he was arguing to defend Jemima!

She shook her head. ‘Since it must have been Harley who told her where Maria Cardew was living, that doesn’t make any sense.’

He pushed his hand through his hair in a gesture of exasperation. ‘I’m trying to help you!’

‘Thank you,’ she said with a laugh that turned into a sob. ‘Are you sure you should be?’

‘I don’t think you killed her,’ he replied. ‘I just don’t know who did.’

‘The door was open. Anyone could have gone in.’

‘Why would they? Nothing was taken. There wasn’t much to take. No one else was seen. We spoke to all the other residents. No one saw anybody else.’

‘I didn’t touch her,’ Jemima said yet again. ‘She was dead when I got there.’

‘Have you had anyone tell your family you’re in trouble?’ Flannery asked her.

‘Mr Albright said he would, if we couldn’t sort it out quickly without their having to know. It would take my father a week or more to get here anyway. And what would he do?’ That was a possibility she had not even thought about before, and in spite of her best effort she could feel the tears prickle behind her eyes, and the lump in her throat become almost too large to swallow.

Flannery stood up. He looked stiff and awkward.

‘I’ll sort it out before then,’ he promised, the colour hot in his cheeks. ‘You won’t need him to come.’

Jemima remembered those words all afternoon sitting alone in her cell with its solitary window far above her eye level. She could hear other women prisoners shouting and sometimes even laughing, but it was a hard, raucous sound, totally without pleasure.

The white light, reflected off snow, was beginning to fade. She was finding it very hard to keep hope when one of the guards returned, brandishing the keys.

‘Your lucky day,’ he said without a smile. ‘Someone put up bail for you.’ He unlocked the door noisily and pulled it wide. ‘I guess that means we don’t have to give you supper.’

Mr Albright? Harley, relenting? It was his testimony that had put her here, at least mostly. Or Phinnie? Maybe she had prevailed upon Brent to come?

‘Thank you,’ she said to the guard, and went out through the iron bar door as quickly as she could. ‘How do I get . . .?’ And then she wondered if she would be welcomed back into the Albright house. Perhaps not. Where could she stay? She couldn’t leave the city because she was on bail, but she did not have sufficient money to pay for her own lodgings for as long as it might be before she came to trial. It was mid-winter, nearly Christmas. She would freeze to death without shelter. The streets would be worse than gaol.

The guard was looking at her. He sighed. ‘She’s out there waiting for you. You’d better get out of here before she changes her mind.’

Jemima’s heart rose. It must be Phinnie after all. Phinnie, of all people, would know that she could never have hurt Maria Cardew, let alone killed her.

‘Thank you,’ she said hastily to the guard. Then she followed him along the stone passageway and, this time, out as far as the entrance.

But it was not Phinnie who stood waiting for her, it was Celia Albright. She was wearing a very ordinary dark cape over her dress and a hat that could have belonged to anyone. She seemed to have shrunken into herself as if the cold ached in her bones. However, her face lit with relief when she saw Jemima and she moved towards her quickly, searching her face.

‘Are you all right? No one has hurt you?’

‘I am perfectly well,’ Jemima answered as levelly as she could, but her voice was thick with emotion. ‘Just cold and . . . frightened.’

‘Of course you are,’ Celia agreed. ‘Come, we must get out of here as quickly as possible. It is a dreadful place. The carriage is waiting around the corner; there is no room for it here.’ She led the way at a brisk pace and, all but treading on her heels, Jemima followed. It was getting dark and the streetlights, less elegant in this part of the city, were still bright and beginning to glow. It was ten days until Christmas.

As soon as they were seated in the carriage it moved away.

‘Thank you,’ Jemima said again, meaning it with a depth of feeling she could not conceal.

Celia’s face was unreadable in the shadows, but her voice was tense.

‘I would be grateful if you did not mention it to Mr Albright – in fact, to anyone in the family. It could lead to . . . unpleasantness.’

Jemima was puzzled. ‘Did Mr Albright not—’

‘No,’ Celia cut her off. ‘I did it myself, with Farrell’s help. Rothwell may guess that, but I would prefer that he did not know it. I doubt he will ask me.’

Jemima was stunned. The family had been prepared to leave her in gaol. Fight for her, pay a lawyer, perhaps, but then that might be to protect the Albright name. Since she was Phinnie’s friend, she was connected with them. But they were still prepared to leave her in gaol, perhaps even over Christmas!

‘Did Phinnie ask you to?’ she said impulsively.

Celia remained staring ahead. ‘No,’ she replied very quietly. Jemima had to strain to hear the words. ‘Please do not ask me any further, Miss Pitt. I prefer not to answer you. I do not know what happened to Mrs Cardew, but I don’t believe that you had anything to do with it, except unintentionally. But not everyone agrees with me.’

Jemima took several moments to weigh what she had heard. Why on earth would anyone imagine she would have so savagely killed Maria Cardew, a woman she had never met, and who did not have anything to do with her life? Could they really believe that Phinnie had asked her to do that? Whatever kind of person did they think Phinnie was? She was in love with Brent, certainly. Her only dream was to be his wife. Yes, she liked the wealth and the position in society, but not to kill for! The very idea was repulsive, and absurd.

The murderer must have been someone from Maria’s past life, whatever she had been doing over the years between leaving Mr Cardew and finding herself in the cheapest of lodging houses in New York. It was just the most wretched of misfortunes that Harley and Jemima had found her on the day of her death. Coincidences were rare, but of course they did happen.

What was it going to be like living in the Albright mansion from now until Christmas, and then the wedding, under the shadow of suspicion? She could hardly attend parties with people wondering if she had knifed a woman to death!

But would they know? What had the newspapers said? She needed to be aware of that before she arrived. She turned to Celia again.

‘Miss Albright . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘What have the newspapers said? Did they name me?’

‘No. Rothwell managed to prevent that. And of course Mrs Cardew was not named either. And he simply told Phinnie the barest of facts, which was both a sadness to her, and something of a relief from the anxiety of fearing that her mother might turn up at the wedding, or some of the parties, and cause the most acute embarrassment.’

Jemima tried to imagine it. ‘It would have been unfortunate,’ she agreed. ‘But not so terrible . . .’

‘Phinnie has been told that Maria drank,’ Celia explained. ‘So far as I know, that is not true. She has also been told that she was of extremely loose morals with regard to men. That is . . . questionable. I would have said of eccentric tastes, which is not at all the same as loose.’

Any further conversation was prevented by their arrival at the Albright mansion. It was completely dark. They were only a moment or two on the lighted front step, and then in the warmth of the bright hall. The butler greeted Celia with respect and Jemima with civility.

‘I am sure you would like something hot to eat,’ Celia said as they crossed the hall under the blazing chandelier. ‘The family are dining out. I am not hungry but you may have yours brought up to your room, or if you prefer, you can eat in the kitchen. I do that myself occasionally, and it is very pleasant, and rather more comfortable than a bedroom. I do not care for the odour of food remaining all night.’

‘Thank you,’ Jemima accepted. ‘The kitchen sounds a good idea, and will be less troublesome to the staff. You don’t think they will mind my presence?’

For the first time Celia smiled with genuine warmth. ‘You have always been most courteous to them, my dear. They will not mind in the least.’ There was a wealth of implication hidden in her words, but Jemima did not pursue it, although the ideas whirled in her mind later as she sat at a bench in the kitchen and enjoyed one of the best meals she had eaten since leaving home. Now she could hear Lucy, the chambermaid, giggling in the pantry and every now and then the footman’s voice singing a snatch from one of the latest musical shows – ‘Give my regards to Broadway, remember me to Herald Square . . .’

Cook was rolling her eyes and muttering, but nothing unkind. Violet, the scullery maid, was sweeping the floor, the broom making a swishing sound over the stones. Billy, the bootboy, was re-stoking the stove. It was warm and familiar in the way that well-used kitchens are.

The following morning at the breakfast table it was very different. Jemima arrived at the usual time that the meal was served. The last thing she wanted was to cause inconvenience by being either early or late. Everyone else was present. They all looked up as she came into the room and took the same chair as she had previously, the only one currently unoccupied.

‘Good morning,’ she said quietly.

Mr Albright looked up from his plate and replied politely, but without expression.

‘Good morning, Miss Pitt,’ Brent answered. He looked at her guardedly, his light eyes distant as though she were the merest acquaintance. Perhaps he was withholding judgement, but certainly he had not acquitted her in his mind.

Harley glanced at her without speaking at all, and continued with his meal.

Phinnie was very smartly dressed in clothes Jemima knew she had not brought with her. They were in the height of fashion, big-sleeved and wide-skirted, actually rather too old for her, dominating her youthful beauty.

‘Good morning, Jemima,’ Phinnie said coolly, then searched for something else to say, and found nothing.

It was only Celia who addressed Jemima directly. ‘Good morning, Miss Pitt. I hope you slept well?’

Harley glared at her but she ignored him, continuing to speak to Jemima.

‘I am going shopping in the middle of the day, and will take luncheon in town. Perhaps you would like to accompany me?’

‘Is that wise, Aunt Celia?’ Brent asked, frowning at her.

Celia’s temper was raw and she clearly held it in with difficulty. ‘What are you suggesting, Brent? That we require Miss Pitt to spend the rest of her time as our guest sitting in her room? It is still nine days until Christmas, and two weeks until the wedding.’

‘I am aware what day it is,’ Brent replied. ‘It is the middle of winter and everything is covered with snow. It is not a great hardship to stay in a well-heated house with a library and a music room, and servants to bring to you anything you might wish. Most people would count themselves very fortunate to enjoy such a life.’

Phinnie looked at him, her eyes soft and bright, then back at Celia. ‘Brent is right. I’m sure Jemima will be very comfortable, and grateful for your hospitality.’ Her voice quivered a little on the last sentence, but it was impossible to tell what emotion moved her. It could have been pity, fear of the future, an ever-increasing devotion to Brent, or anxiety that he thought Jemima guilty of some kind of complicity in Maria’s death. It might even have been grief. Even so, Jemima did not care for being spoken around, as if she were not present to answer for herself.

Harley looked at them one by one, and said nothing. He seemed to be watching, waiting for something.

Jemima looked at Celia. ‘Thank you,’ she said sincerely. ‘I would be delighted to come with you. To walk a little would be very pleasant, and I should enjoy your company.’

Jemima was in the hall, with her overcoat on, waiting for Celia, when Phinnie came over to her. Her brows were drawn down and her expression one of annoyance.

‘Jemima, are you deliberately trying to spoil my wedding?’ She said it quietly, so no nearby servant could overhear her, but with an edge of real anger in her tone. ‘Celia was being pleasant to you! Can’t you see that? The last thing she wants is to be seen with you in public. Mr Albright paid to have you released because he is a good man. That doesn’t mean anyone here thinks you are innocent!’

Jemima felt as if she had been slapped. No wonder Celia did not wish the rest of the family to know that it was she who had paid Jemima’s bail, presumably from her own money!

‘Indeed?’ Jemima said coldly. ‘And does that include you?’

‘What can I think?’ Phinnie demanded. ‘That it was some lunatic off the street? Why? From what Harley said, she had nothing to steal. She was found in her own bed, stabbed to death.’

‘I know that!’ Jemima snapped. ‘I was the one who found her, poor woman.’

‘She wasn’t a “poor woman”,’ Phinnie said bitterly. ‘She had everything, a good and decent husband with both honour and wealth, and she left him . . . and me . . . to go back to a life on the streets. No one made her, she was just a . . . a whore! She chose that, no one made her. Some women have no choice; she had every choice in the world.’ Now there were tears running down her face and her voice all but choked.

Jemima felt the burning pain and injustice of it, and a terrible pity for Phinnie. Her own childhood was filled with memories of love, safety, laughter and adventures of the mind, long days spent mostly with her mother, then with her brother, Daniel, as well. Phinnie had had none of that.

But Jemima had not hurt Maria Cardew, whatever she was, or had done that was selfish, even lewd or revolting.

‘I did not kill her, Phinnie,’ she said firmly. ‘I have no idea who did. I just found her.’

‘Why?’ Phinnie challenged. ‘Why were you even looking for her?’

‘Because Harley asked me to help him.’

Phinnie’s eyebrows rose. ‘Why would Harley want to find her?’

‘For heaven’s sake!’ Jemima said desperately. ‘To make sure she didn’t interrupt your wedding and embarrass you! Or embarrass the family, of course,’ she added, remembering that Phinnie must know Harley as well as she did.

The colour bleached out of Phinnie’s face and she looked stunned. ‘Harley asked you? That’s not what he said . . .’

‘Really?’ Jemima should not have been surprised. Except the thought came to her fleetingly to wonder whether it was Harley who was lying, or Phinnie. ‘Think about it,’ she went on. ‘How would I even know that your mother was in New York, let alone where to look for her?’

‘Then . . . then maybe it was Celia,’ Phinnie suggested. ‘She’s known my mother for years. She pretends to have liked her, but she’s very protective of the family. She would be: it’s her family too.’

‘You aren’t suggesting that Celia killed your mother, surely?’ Jemima was aghast. It was a monstrous suggestion. ‘Why, for heaven’s sake? It makes no sense at all!’ And the moment the words were out of her mouth, she knew that it made very ugly sense, even though she could not believe it.

Phinnie met her eyes boldly. ‘Yes, it does. When I marry Brent then I will be mistress of this house. What will she be? I could understand it if she were not willing to see that happen.’

Jemima looked at her icily. ‘Yes, I believe you could. You have the advantage of me. I hadn’t even considered such a thing.’

Phinnie’s face tightened. She recognised the insult. ‘There’s rather a lot you don’t consider,’ she retaliated. ‘You’ll probably end up like Celia, being hostess and housekeeper for your brother, if he marries and then loses his wife. Although of course he won’t have the Albright power or influence. Hardly anybody else has.’

‘You really value that, don’t you?’ Jemima stared at Phinnie as if she had not truly seen her before. ‘How far would you go to make sure you get it? The police thought you might have done it yourself, you know? I told them that was impossible. You were not the kind of person who would even think of such a thing. Perhaps I was wrong?’

Phinnie blushed scarlet. ‘You told them that?’

‘You’re right, I am naïve,’ Jemima replied. ‘But perhaps they will discover that for themselves.’ She turned to walk away, but Phinnie grasped her arm and held her back.

‘Jemima!’ She gulped. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m horribly confused. I hated my mother all my life, because she left me and my father. I know it hurt him too. He never even imagined loving anyone else. But now that she’s dead, and in such an awful way, I’m sad that I’ll never know her. I don’t think I wanted to, but I’m not sure.’ She gulped. ‘Above all, I love Brent so much it makes me sick to think that anything could go wrong with our wedding. I know what I said about the Albright name, but it really doesn’t matter to me. In fact, at times I wish we were quite ordinary, then there wouldn’t be all this pressure to do everything the right way all the time. It’s like . . . like being royalty. I don’t really want to be a princess. I just want to be with Brent.’

Jemima smiled in spite of her own confusion of emotions. Did she believe Phinnie? Yes, at least in part. Everything she had said was true. But there was a lingering presence there of passion to succeed, at any cost. She had been so quick to blame Jemima. The kind of love she felt was like a fever. It overcame everything else and destroyed the restraints she might normally have exercised.

‘Jemima!’ Phinnie said urgently. ‘You must believe me!’

‘Of course,’ Jemima agreed quietly, and it was almost true. Phinnie wouldn’t let Jemima go to trial for a murder she had not committed – well, probably she wouldn’t. Before Phinnie could see the doubt in her eyes, she turned and walked away. Phinnie called after her, but she pretended not to have heard. She was surprised how much it hurt, and how frightened she was.

That night she did not sleep well. She woke up often and, even though the room was well-heated, she felt cold and stiff. There was no sound, not even that of the wind and rain outside the window. She opened the curtains and saw everything cloaked with snow, the huge city lit as if it too were awake, but frozen into lifelessness. She had been here less than two weeks, but she had learned to like it, the vitality, the strange mixture of peoples. The sense of hope was wonderful.

And yet she was terribly alone, and accused of a crime for which they could take her life. Phinnie had protested that she believed her, but in the end that would make no difference. At best it would be taken for loyalty, at worst for equal guilt. There was no one to help her but herself.

If she was her father’s daughter, that should be enough! Pitt had been a regular policeman solving murders before he joined Special Branch, and then became head of it.

She went back to bed and lay with the covers up to her chin, trying to get warm again, and concentrated her thoughts. What would he advise her to do? Certainly not give up and wait for help, or lie here feeling sorry for herself and hope that the police went on looking for the answer. Why should they not accept that the foreign young woman who had found the body was not as guilty as she seemed? And maybe Celia was as guilty as Phinnie had said.

Patrick Flannery’s strong face with its gentleness and humour came into her mind, and she forced herself to dismiss it.

Her only defence was attack. In the morning she would get up early, have breakfast in the kitchen and then go out and begin to look for the truth. Nothing had been stolen, and a glance at Maria’s possessions and style of life would have been enough to know there was nothing worth taking. The knife, the violence of the wound that had killed her, made it clear that bringing about her death was the sole purpose of her assailant. So it was someone who knew her.

Then Jemima must learn to know her also. How long had Maria lived there? Who were her friends, and her enemies? Who might believe she had wronged them, or was a threat to them? And why? What could she know of anyone that was worth such a violent and terrible way of preventing her from telling it?

By nine o’clock in the morning, with the flat, white light reflected off the snow, Jemima was already at the apartment building where Maria Cardew had lived. She had made sure she had chosen different clothes from the ones she had had on when she was here with Harley, and she'd pinned her hair up in as different a style as it would take.

She had planned what to say. She was less than satisfied with it, but all the alternatives she could think of were even worse. It was always best to stick as close to the truth as possible. It was easier to remember, and one was less likely to make an irretrievable error. Apart from that, consistently lying took up a great deal of one’s emotional energy, and that in itself gave one away.

‘Good morning,’ she said cheerfully to the first woman she met as she stood in the hallway. Of course the one thing she could not disguise was her eminently English accent. Her voice would betray her every time.

‘Mornin’,’ the woman replied, at first barely glancing at Jemima, then stopping and looking at her again, more carefully.

Now was the time for the first invention. It might be passed around within hours, so she must not change it later. ‘I wonder if you can help me.’ She smiled tentatively. ‘The woman who died up on the third floor . . .’

The face of the woman in front of her hardened. ‘If you’re from one o’ those newspapers you can just turn around and go right back where you came from!’ she said tartly. ‘She were a good-livin’ woman an’ I got nothin’ to say.’ She started to move away.

‘I’m not!’ Jemima said sharply, taking a step after her. ‘She has English family. I want to be able to write to them and tell them that she was properly cared for, and there were people to speak well of her . . .’

The woman stopped and looked back. She surveyed Jemima up and down, and Jemima met her eyes with total innocence. So far what she had said was the truth.

‘So what do you want to know, then?’ the woman said cautiously. ‘She’s gone, poor soul. Can’t do nothin’ for her now.’

‘I can speak well of her reputation,’ Jemima replied. ‘I think I would want that, wouldn’t you?’

‘I s’pose,’ the woman conceded. ‘She deserved it, anyhow.’

Jemima smiled. ‘It’s a horribly cold morning. Would you like a cup of coffee? There’s a place about two blocks away from here. I would be pleased if you would join me.’

‘There’s a better one back there.’ The woman jerked her head, indicating the opposite direction.

‘Excellent,’ Jemima agreed immediately. ‘Please lead the way.’

‘Don’t look nothing from the outside,’ the woman warned.

‘That hardly matters,’ Jemima replied. ‘Is it warm?’

The woman smiled. ‘You bet! My name’s Ellie Shultz.’

‘Jemima Pitt. How do you do?’ She held out her hand.

The woman looked puzzled.

‘I’m English. That’s the way we say hello.’

The woman gave a little laugh and took Jemima’s hand.

They spoke little on the journey over the freezing pavements. Ellie nodded to several people and called greetings to others. She was right about the coffee shop. It was shabby, parts of the roof hung with icicles where the guttering had broken, but inside was warm and several people welcomed her. The black woman behind the counter gave them a brilliant white smile and offered them coffee. At a corner table a Russian man with a beard was laughing.

Ellie gave Jemima a questioning glance, but she found it exciting rather than strange, like several districts of London squashed into one.

The coffee smelled every bit as good as Ellie had said, and while it cooled Jemima asked about Maria Cardew.

‘That place wasn’t really hers,’ Ellie explained. ‘It was Sara Godwin’s, but she was so sick, poor soul, she couldn’t manage. Maria came to see her, and just stayed. Looked after her, she did. Couldn’t have been better to her if they’ve been sisters. Sat up with her all night sometimes, when she was really bad.’

‘What happened to Sara Godwin?’ Jemima asked, remembering the unused bed.

‘She got a bit better,’ Ellie said cheerfully. She blew on her coffee, impatient to be able to drink it. ‘Last time I saw her she were up and walking. Maria cooked for her an’ everything. Kept the place clean, washed the sheets and that sort of thing. Poor Sara was too sick to do it herself. Not that she wouldn’t have. Just couldn’t hardly move.’

‘She got better?’

‘Yeah. Don’t know if it was for keeps, poor thing. But cared for each other, those two. Sara’s husband was gone. Died hard, she told me once.’

She went on to tell stories of both the women and the more Jemima heard, the deeper her sense of loss became for Maria Cardew. She could not help seeing her face as she had looked up at the snow on the trees in Central Park, and the joy that had been in it. It was a sharp wound that she was no longer alive.

‘What happened to Sara Godwin?’ she asked at length, when they had finished their third cup of the best coffee she had ever tasted.

Ellie shook her head. ‘I dunno. Some man was looking for her, last I heard. Didn’t mean her any good, I’d bet. She must have gone to get away from him. Maybe she’ll be back. She didn’t take much with her.’

‘Did Maria tell you that?’

‘She said somebody’d followed Sara. Wish I knew she were all right. ’Course, she’ll be torn up to pieces about Maria.’ She sniffed hard. ‘A good few people will be.’ She looked hard at Jemima. ‘You see they speak right about her! I don’t know who did that to her, and likely they’ll never find out. Far as the police think, she was just another woman nobody wanted. But you can’t help it if you lose your folks and there’s no one to care. Woman on your own doesn’t mean you’re a whore!’

Jemima had a sudden vision of loneliness, poverty, judgement based on ignorance, the fight for warmth and a place to belong. Why on earth had Maria Cardew left all the safety of an excellent marriage in England, and her own small child who desperately needed her?

‘Thank you,’ she said with a wave of feeling. ‘If she was kind to someone in need, that repays a multitude of past errors . . . if there were any.’

‘You’ll say something good of her?’

‘I will.’

After leaving the coffee shop Jemima started to walk around the neighbourhood and think of the places where Maria might have shopped, eaten – specifically bought food, or medicines for her friend Sara Godwin.

She walked along the busy streets. In this poorer area they were far narrower than the avenues where the Albrights lived, but there was a variety in them that fascinated her. Strange foods were displayed like works of art, lots of pickles, cuts of meat she had never seen before, and every kind of sausage you could imagine, some with rich-coloured skins. She knew enough to recognise some Italian names, and some German. Others, she couldn’t even attempt to pronounce.

She saw women with different clothes, concealing their hair, and wondered if they would look half so mysterious dressed like anyone else. It concentrated her attention on their marvellous eyes, full of expression. She wondered what their thoughts were of her. With her fair skin and auburn-tinted hair she probably looked Irish to them!

After some questions, and a little laughter at her accent, she found an apothecary’s shop that seemed to stock a rich variety of medicines, all known by their Latin names. Perhaps that was to overcome the barriers of language.

She was trying to describe Maria Cardew to the woman at the counter when she heard an Irish voice behind her. She swivelled around and saw Officer Patrick Flannery standing about a yard away. He was not surprised to see her, although he would hardly have recognised her from the back. He must have heard her voice.

‘Are you ill?’ he asked with some concern.

‘No, not at all . . .’ Then she realised that she had little option but to tell him the truth. It was going to come out anyway, as soon as he spoke to the woman behind the counter. She must remember what her father had said about lies revealing more about you than the truth would do.

She saw the look of concern in his eyes. ‘I met a woman who knew Maria Cardew. I wanted to hear about her, so I asked. The woman said Maria looked after a sick friend, Sara Godwin. I thought she might have bought her medicines here.’

‘What difference would that make?’

‘It would be a record of Maria Cardew looking after someone with considerable kindness. It would show she wasn’t the kind of person Harley Albright said she was.’ Why did she have to explain that to him? Surely it was easy enough to understand. And why was she disappointed that he was so slow? She would probably never see him again, unless he came to arrest her!

‘Does that matter to you, Miss Pitt?’ His voice was still gentle.

‘Yes.’ She thought of the face of the woman in the Park. ‘Yes it does. I saw her alive only once, but there was something good in her. I want Phinnie to have at least one good memory of her mother. You can’t discard parents, even if you want to. They are part of who you are.’

For a moment there was raw emotion in Flannery’s face also, a mixture of pity and joy. ‘No, surely you can’t!’ he agreed. ‘And it’d be the last thing I’d want. My mother is the best woman I’ve ever known.’ Then, as if embarrassed by his feelings, he went on quickly, ‘But I doubt you’d persuade Miss Delphinia Cardew of that. She hasn’t a good word for her.’

‘Don’t take her too seriously,’ Jemima pleaded. ‘She’s never known why Maria left her as a tiny child. It seems nobody knows. And now, when perhaps she could have met her and made some reconciliation, Maria is dead and we’ll never understand.’

‘She might have killed Maria herself, and yet you’re out here in the snow, walking around the back streets trying to find out something good about Maria?’ he asked in amazement.

Now it was Jemima who felt embarrassed. ‘Yes, but not for that reason. Don’t you think I killed Maria? Nobody seems to be doing anything to prove otherwise. I need to defend myself, and the only way I can do that is by finding out who really did kill her.’

‘So you’re beginning by looking for every good thing she did, any kindness, maybe every lame dog she helped over a stile?’ he asked with a trace of humour.

‘I’m trying to find out anything I can about her!’ she said sharply. ‘She was stabbed to death with a big knife, probably from her own kitchen, or actually Sara Godwin’s. It was her apartment. Somebody hated her pretty badly. That’s who I’m looking for. I just haven’t done very well so far. I only started this morning!’

It sounded ridiculous, put like that, and not only stupid but also hopeless. Suddenly she felt small and cold and very silly. She should never have left London where she was safe and had her family to believe in her and help her.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and stared back at Officer Flannery. ‘Someone stabbed her, and whatever you think, I know it was not I!’

He looked at her as if she was a lost child. ‘I think it’s a good place to start,’ he agreed. He looked past her to the woman behind the counter. ‘What did you sell to Mrs Cardew, please, ma’am? We need to find as many people she knew as we can, so we can learn a thing or two about her. Then we’ll leave your shop, so you can be getting on with your business.’ He smiled at her, looking large and stubborn and very official.

The woman looked at her records and told him everything she knew. Maria Cardew had spent quite a lot of money on medicine for Sara.

‘And did she happen to mention her friend’s illness?’ Flannery asked.

‘TB,’ the woman answered. ‘The poor soul. No cure for that, but she made her a lot easier. Had some real good spells, she did.’

‘Thank you.’ Patrick Flannery smiled at her and the woman looked pleased.

Outside on the pavement he stopped, standing closer to the road than Jemima, protecting her from the splashes of passing vehicles.

‘And what did you plan to do next?’ he asked.

‘Food shops,’ she answered. ‘She might have bought special things. Maybe she knew other people and they might give us some names. There might even be a doctor . . .’

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ he said doubtfully. ‘You might find she wasn’t as nice as you think.’

‘Of course,’ Jemima said quickly. ‘If she was a total saint then why did someone kill her?’

‘Well, I suppose there’s the chance she knew something that was dangerous for someone,’ he agreed. ‘She might unintentionally have witnessed an argument or a fight, someone making an illegal deal or . . .’ He stopped abruptly, a faint colour in his cheeks.

She laughed, then instantly wished she had not. It would have been far more ladylike to have affected not to know what he meant. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said contritely.

He blinked and shook his head. ‘Don’t apologise. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said . . .’

‘Of course you should. She may very easily have seen somebody where they should not have been, or with someone. But how do we find out who? And if it really mattered so much.’

‘High society is very proper in New York,’ he told her quickly.

Was he insulted? She had not meant to imply that it was any less ‘high’ than London. How could she undo that impression? She really did not want to hurt him.

‘I know that,’ she said. ‘I am staying with the Albrights, remember? They are more correct than anyone I know at home. But . . .’

‘But what?’ he asked, now watching her very carefully, although she did not know what the intensity in his face meant. She was beginning to feel self-conscious.

‘But very often the higher up in society you get, the less “proper” you are,’ she answered. ‘My great, great aunt, Lady Narraway’s father was an earl, and she is the most outrageous person I know. I was going to say you would like her enormously, but that is a little presumptuous of me. I only think you would. I don’t really know you at all. I apologise.’

‘Do you like her?’ he asked with interest.

‘As much as anyone I’ve ever known,’ she answered without hesitation. ‘When she was young she was said to be the most beautiful woman in Europe. Now she is far older and I think she still is. But she is brave and funny and terribly wise, which is what matters.’

‘What to you is wise?’ He was asking because he wanted to know. There was no challenge in his voice, or in the expression in his eyes.

She thought for a moment. She wanted him to understand what she meant. It mattered to her, but she wanted to do Aunt Vespasia justice as well, and that was not easy.

‘She knows what matters and what doesn’t,’ she answered, choosing her words carefully. ‘She remembers what she receives, but never what she gives. She doesn’t hold grudges, and if she thinks something is funny, she will laugh, whether it is the “done thing” or not. She loves the opera, and gorgeous clothes. She is honest when it is fashionable not to be, but she is never unnecessarily unkind. And she will fight to the death for a cause she believes in.’

‘Do you wish to be like her?’ he said gravely.

She did not have to consider that. ‘Yes,’ she said instantly. ‘Yes, I would like that more than anything else.’

He looked both happy and sad at her answer, as if powerful emotions were in conflict inside him.

‘Then please take care of yourself,’ he said softly, ‘so that you may have the opportunity to do that. You’ve given me many ideas about where to look for whoever killed Maria Cardew. You need to be careful. Whoever it is won’t want to be found.’

‘Of course not,’ Jemima agreed. ‘And I am not at all sure that the Albrights wish the matter given any more coverage in the news than has already been given.’

‘Well, you are not going to wander around the streets in a neighbourhood like this, asking questions about a murdered woman,’ he said sternly. ‘That is the perfect way to get hurt.’

‘I’ll be careful,’ she promised.

‘No you won’t. You’ll follow any clues you find and walk all around here, up back alleys and into places where you won’t be welcome,’ he argued. ‘I can’t let you do that.’

‘But you can let me be convicted of something horrible that I didn’t do!’

His face looked pinched. She had hurt him.

‘I’m not going to let that happen either,’ he said rashly. ‘I’m coming with you. I’ll find whoever really killed her, and you’ll be safe.’

For a moment she saw in his eyes something beautiful, and then she looked away. She could not afford such thoughts. The New York police believed she had stuck a knife into the heart of Maria Cardew. If she were to survive, she must prove that she had not, and the only way to do that was to discover who had.

‘Thank you,’ she acknowledged. ‘Where shall we begin?’

He made a sharp little sound that she thought was laughter.

‘Continue,’ he corrected. ‘As you see very logically, it was a crime of deep emotion. Someone either hated her, or was frightened of her. The only reason for fear of an elderly woman in her state of health must have been that she had knowledge that could have ruined them.’

‘She wasn’t ill: that was her friend, Sara Godwin,’ Jemima pointed out. ‘Why can’t we find her? Wouldn’t she know who might have killed Maria?’

‘We’re looking for her, but she was pretty frail. She might be anywhere. Even dead, too. She must have had a hard life. She probably worked too much and didn’t eat very well. Too many nights in the cold.’ There was pity in his voice, and Jemima liked him for that. It made her think for a moment of her father. He was always sympathising with the wrong people – at least wrong as far as both police and society were concerned.

Then she forced that thought out of her mind. If she were to think of home and family at the moment, she would dissolve in tears and that would be both embarrassing and useless.

‘We need to know a lot more about her,’ she agreed. ‘Who did her knowledge threaten so much?’

They were sheltered where they stood, but it was time to move. For a start, walking would get the blood circulating again, and make them warm, even if it took them away from the narrow alley and into the broader, straighter streets where the buildings on either side made them into funnels for the east wind off the water.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked after several minutes.

‘Best local bakery,’ he answered. ‘Then the poulterer. She’ll have made chicken soup, maybe got bits and pieces many folk don’t want. My mother used to do that, when times were harder.’

Jemima kept up with Flannery’s pace with difficulty. He had not stopped to think that she was tall for a woman, but still several inches shorter than he, and wearing heeled boots and a heavy skirt. It was a kind of oblique compliment that she did not want to spoil by lagging behind.

She tried to think what kind of information Maria Cardew could have had that could be so dangerous. At her age and state of health she was hardly having inappropriate relations with anyone. If she knew of anyone else doing so, then they would be the person to kill. And anyone important enough to matter would not be frequenting this area. The locals around here were immigrants, the hard-working poor.

They reached the poultry shop, and yes, the owner knew Maria quite well, kept good pieces for her and occasionally slipped them in with the other bits he sold her cheaply. He was distressed to hear of her death.

‘She was a good woman,’ he said, pulling his mouth into an expression of disgust at such a tragedy. ‘Always got a pleasant word. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.’ He glared at Flannery. ‘And what are you doing about it, eh? Just one poor old woman, no money, no power, so what does it matter?’ He sniffed hard, shaking his head.

‘We’re going to find out who did it,’ Jemima said firmly. ‘But it isn’t easy. For a start, why would anyone do that? She had nothing worth taking.’

The poulterer stared at her. ‘Who are you? You talk funny.’

‘I’m English,’ she explained. ‘I know some of her family, and I liked her. I want to know what happened.’

‘She wasn’t English. She was as American as anyone, more than some. She was born here!’ He made it a challenge.

‘I know. But she lived in England for a while. She was married to an Englishman.’

‘Oh?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘She didn’t say anything about that. Only man I ever saw her with was black!’

There was a moment of total silence, then Flannery spoke.

‘Black? Did you know him?’

The man shook his head. ‘Not from round here. But he spoke regular, so he could have been from anywhere. He didn’t mean her harm. Spoke softly to her, and she to him.’

‘But she knew him?’ Flannery said.

‘Only saw him a couple of times. Like I said, not from round here.’

Flannery leaned forward a little. ‘Help me to find who killed her, sir. I need to know about her for that. It wasn’t any passing robbery. They did it violently and there was hatred in it.’

The man winced. ‘You could try Dr Vine, down the road a couple of blocks, number 416. His real name is something you can’t say, Russian or Polish, that sort of thing. She went to him for her friend.’

‘Thank you.’ Flannery accepted the advice and took Jemima by the arm, guiding her out into the windy street.

Dr Vine was as much help as he could be. He too was distressed to hear of Maria Cardew’s death.

‘Can’t tell you much, except that Sara Godwin would have died a lot sooner without Maria’s care.’ He shook his head. ‘Great shame. Don’t know how the poor soul will get on now. Have you seen her?’

‘No,’ Flannery said quickly. ‘We thought she’d gone before Mrs Cardew was killed.’ Now he looked anxious. ‘There was no sign of her in the apartment.’

‘Could be she died anyway, before Maria was killed,’ Dr Vine said unhappily.

‘I’ll check the city records,’ Flannery promised. ‘If she died, somebody will know. Thank you, Dr Vine.’

But no city records of recent deaths showed any sign of Sara Godwin. The following day, Jemima and Officer Flannery looked at the residential records. The clerk stood beside the bench with the ledger in his arms.

‘I don’t know what you’re trying to find,’ he said as if he were afraid of being overheard. ‘But you should be careful, sir.’ He spoke only to Flannery. ‘I suppose you already know it, but the woman who was murdered in that building was related to Miss Delphinia Cardew, her that’s getting married to Mr Albright.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Flannery answered. ‘Nobody seems to know much about her.’

‘No, sir, I suppose they don’t. But we know a lot about the Albright family, and most of us know enough not to upset them by asking a whole lot of personal questions. Do a very great deal for this city, they do. And doesn’t do to fall out with people with that kind of power, if you get my meaning?’

Jemima started to speak, but Flannery put his hand on her arm, closing his grasp firmly enough for her to fall silent.

‘Better to clear this up now, rather than later, don’t you think?’ he said politely to the clerk. ‘I’m sure he would like to have the matter settled, and then not raised again. Over with, if you see what I mean?’

‘Ah!’ The clerk nodded and the smile spread slowly across his face. He touched one finger to the side of his nose in a gesture of understanding. ‘Then I’ll just leave these with you, sir.’ He looked at Jemima. ‘Ma’am.’

Jemima realised with horror that the clerk thought Flannery was here to serve Harley Albright, not Maria Cardew. He had assumed that even the police were bought, one way or another.

‘Don’t look like that!’ Flannery let go of her arm. ‘Your face gives you away!’

She could not think of anything to say. He had read her thoughts perfectly, and it was at once both frightening and comforting. She wanted him to understand her. It was the end of a kind of loneliness, and yet it was the beginning of a new experience that could be too enormous to handle.

She swallowed. ‘Are the Albrights really so important?’

‘Yes. Didn’t you know that?’ He put his hand back on her arm, but this time lightly, with only a touch. She could see it on her coat sleeve rather than feel it. ‘Albright and Cardew makes millions of dollars. All the power rests in the two families. When the present generation dies, or retires, then it will pass to Mr Albright’s sons, Harley and Brent.’

‘And Phinnie,’ Jemima added. ‘I wonder what on earth happened to Maria Cardew.’

‘Somebody murdered her,’ Flannery replied. ‘And the Albright family, who found her an embarrassment, would like to have a quick and satisfactory solution to it, one that does not involve them.’

‘Why do you suppose she came back to New York?’ Jemima said thoughtfully. ‘She must have known they would not want her here. Was she hiding so close to them with the hope that they would never look for her on their own doorstep?’

He was looking through the ledger as he spoke. ‘I doubt it. America is a huge country, thousands of miles across. She could have gone west and disappeared. They wouldn’t ever have looked for her.’ He went on leafing through the pages.

‘Then she had a reason to be here,’ Jemima concluded. ‘It must have been a very strong one, Officer Flannery . . .’

He looked up. ‘You are not under arrest, Jemima. Do you think you could call me Patrick?’

She felt the colour burn up her face, but she liked the idea. In fact, it had been in her mind when she thought of him and she had had to remind herself not to use it.

‘Patrick,’ she began again, a little self-consciously. ‘She must have had a very important reason for coming back here.’

‘Perhaps she knew that Harley Albright would pay her well to stay away from the wedding.’

Jemima had not thought of that, and she liked him the better because he did not protect her from the truth, even though it was ugly. It was clear in his face that it hurt him, as it did her.

‘Then who killed her? Did he?’ she asked him.

‘Or Brent?’ he replied. ‘Or Delphinia herself? I know you hate the thought, but she’s a strong young woman. It wouldn’t be impossible for her to have driven that knife through her mother’s chest, especially since she would be the last one Maria would suspect. Face it, Jemima, she had the best motive of all. She’s in love with Brent. She might have convinced herself she was protecting him.’

‘If she were really protecting him she would have told him about Maria and let him make his own decision,’ she said hotly. ‘Or had a smaller wedding privately somewhere where Maria wouldn’t have known about it! She’s in love with being in love!’

‘Most of us would like to be in love,’ he said very gently. ‘Wouldn’t you, one day?’

She did not dare meet his eyes in case she gave herself away. ‘Oh, I expect so,’ she said as lightly as she could. ‘But I hope I wouldn’t ever think of doing anything so . . .’

‘Crazy?’ he suggested. ‘Probably not. But love can be pretty overwhelming. It can make you take risks you wouldn’t normally even think of.’ Then he looked a little uncomfortable, as if he had said more than he meant to. He turned away from her, facing along the street into the wind and snow.

For a wild moment Jemima wondered if he was still looking for who killed Maria in order to save her from suspicion because he cared for her. Then she dismissed it as a daydream she couldn’t afford right now. If they didn’t find the real killer, then the police were left with her. She was the one who had found Maria’s body. They certainly would not suspect any of the Albright family, unless they were absolutely forced to.

‘Do you think anyone is that much in love, in this case?’ she asked as sensibly as she could. ‘Brent, maybe?’

‘I doubt it,’ he replied, still facing down the street. ‘We need to know more about Maria. Her murder might be something to do with her own life, and it is only chance that it happened right now. Come on.’ He took her arm and started to walk along the pavement briskly, as if he had a specific destination in mind.

Jemima spent the rest of the day with Patrick. They learned more about Maria Cardew, but it was incidental to their search for Sara Godwin. They met many people who knew Sara and spoke well of her. She was quiet and kept to herself, but was willing to help anyone. Lately she had been increasingly ill. No one had seen her for several weeks, and frankly, they assumed she had died.

Jemima and Patrick arranged to meet next morning at the coffee shop to which Ellie Shultz had taken Jemima the previous day. Then Jemima went back to the Albright house feeling both tired and disappointed. She had not said so to Patrick – and she had learned rather too quickly to be comfortable using his name – but she was very much aware that they had little time before she would be arrested again, and tried for murder. It was only the closeness of Christmas that was allowing her even this long.

She hated going back to the Albright mansion, but she had nowhere else to stay. She certainly had not sufficient funds to find herself a room at a hotel of even modest comfort or safety. Added to which it was Celia who had paid her bail, but it was conditional upon her staying where the police could find her at any time.

She had taken off her heavy outdoor coat and was walking across the hall when one of the maids told her that Miss Celia would like to speak with her.

‘Thank you,’ Jemima said with a sinking heart. She had intended speaking with Celia anyway. She owed it to her to keep her apprised even of the little she had learned. When she went over it in her mind, it amounted to nothing that would help. Rather the opposite! Maria Cardew seemed to have been a good woman who was well liked, even respected. Only the Albright family, and Phinnie, had any reason to fear her. And now it looked as if Sara Godwin was also dead.

She went upstairs to her bedroom, washed and put on dry boots, then presented herself at Celia’s sitting-room door.

The room was warm inside, both literally from the fire in the hearth, and emotionally from the rich colours, the sheen on the polished wood of the furniture, and the wealth of books on the shelves. At any other time Jemima would have taken pleasure in it, and said so.

Celia was sitting in one of the armchairs. A piece of embroidery, half-finished, lay on top of a sewing basket next to her.

Celia smiled and gestured for her to sit opposite her. Jemima accepted gratefully, glad of the warmth, and also very happy to sit down at last.

‘How are you, Miss Pitt?’ Celia said with apparent concern. ‘I hear from Farrell that you have been out all day. Is that so? The weather is bitter.’

Jemima wanted to scream at the banality of the question, but she forced herself to keep calm and respond courteously. ‘Very well, thank you.’

‘Cold, tired, no doubt,’ Celia smiled. ‘I have sent for tea. It should be here any moment. I shall not ask you where you went. It is possible I prefer not to know.’

Jemima drew in her breath to say something, and no sensible answer occurred to her. She was saved from silence by the arrival of the maid with a heavy tray with tea, milk, hot water and two plates of food: one of delicate savoury sandwiches cut as finely as any she had seen in the high society of London; the other of individual little cakes of several sorts, some filled with whipped cream.

Celia thanked the maid and dismissed her, then without asking, poured the tea for each of them.

Jemima accepted a sandwich, for the sake of good manners, and found it delicious. This whole performance was absurd, and yet there was nothing remotely funny about it.

‘I’m so sorry about Maria,’ Celia said conversationally. ‘I was fond of her.’

‘People speak well of her,’ Jemima replied, wondering as she did so if she was playing a dangerous game. She could not work out if Celia was being honest with her or playing some game of her own. Looking at her thin, intelligent face with its almost hidden humour, she had an urgent feeling that it was the latter. But what was at the heart of it? Fear of losing her position in the Albright mansion? Did she even have any means of her own? How terrible! Jemima loved her brother, Daniel, but she had no intention whatever of being beholden to him for the rest of her life!

Celia was nodding. ‘They would do. She had a considerable charm.’

What did that mean? Was charm a way of saying Maria was manipulative? Even dishonest?

‘Did you know her well?’ Jemima asked. What had she to lose? The police were going to charge her if they didn’t have anyone else, no matter what Patrick did.

‘I believed so,’ Celia answered. Now she was smiling sadly, her thoughts clearly turned inward.

Jemima could not afford diplomacy. ‘But you had cause to reverse your opinion?’

Celia gave a very slight shrug of her thin shoulders. ‘I was surprised that she abandoned her husband and child. But I never had the opportunity to ask her why. How well does one ever know another person? You have to love without knowing, don’t you think?’ She looked at Jemima very directly, her gaze probing. ‘There are always things that are private, and should remain so.’ She was waiting for a reply.

‘Yes, I suppose there are,’ Jemima agreed.

‘When you are older, you will have secrets,’ Celia promised her. ‘That is one of the great burdens of a public life. Too many people know too much. One lives like a fish in one of those ornamental bowls.’

‘Goldfish . . .’ Jemima was struggling to understand the obliqueness of the conversation. She took another sandwich to give herself time to think.

Celia moved the plate a little nearer her.

‘It is the great drawback to political office, I think,’ she remarked.

Jemima was lost. ‘Political office? Has that something to do with Maria Cardew’s death?’

Celia’s eyes widened. ‘Oh my goodness, I hope not. I was merely making conversation. I wish I could offer you greater comfort. You came all this way from your own family, and now you seem to be caught up in our troubles, and I confess, I see no way out for you.’

Jemima felt the panic well up inside her. She was stupid to have imagined Celia was going to be any help. The poor woman was facing the end of her own manner of living. As soon as Brent took over from his father, Phinnie would take over from Celia, who would then have no function at all.

Jemima controlled herself with an effort. ‘I did not know Mrs Cardew,’ she said very levelly. ‘She was already dead when I found her.’

‘Poor Maria,’ Celia murmured, pain quite naked in her voice. ‘She always struggled, but mostly for other people.’

Jemima leaned forward. ‘Other people? What do you mean?’

‘So very idealistic,’ Celia said, not looking at Jemima but at some indefinable point on the far wall.

‘What kind of ideals?’ Maybe if she pressed hard enough Celia might tell her something that neither she nor Patrick could find out questioning people where Maria had lived. ‘It sounds . . . admirable. Could she have angered someone, do you think? One person’s ideals sometimes endanger someone else’s privileges.’ She was grasping desperately at straws.

‘Oh, indeed,’ Celia said heavily. ‘I’m afraid Harley did not agree with her. But of course he was not born when she was fighting her big battles. But lives don’t change so much.’

‘What battles?’ Jemima said a little huskily. Was this something real at last?

‘Thirty years ago.’ Celia avoided Jemima’s eyes.

Jemima’s heart sank. For a moment she had felt hope surge up.

‘Freedom for the slaves,’ Celia continued. ‘Real freedom, not just on a piece of paper. Even in the seventies and early eighties they found it very hard. There was so much bitterness here in New York. Never knew what it was like further south, except that it was worse.’

‘But Maria was white!’ Jemima protested.

‘Oh, yes,’ Celia agreed. ‘But she still fought for the blacks. Ran herself into quite a lot of danger. I don’t know a great deal about it, because my father was always very stern over such things. Just as my brother is, and Harley, of course. But you’ll know that because of his political stance.’

‘Political?’ Jemima was lost again.

‘Oh! Has he not told you?’ Celia seemed surprised. ‘Harley is expecting that Mr Roosevelt will appoint him, as soon as he is inaugurated in the New Year. I’m sure you know he just won the election last month.’

‘Really? I had no idea.’

Celia met her eyes, no amusement or deceit in them.

‘Oh, yes, very really indeed. Never doubt it.’

‘How . . . interesting,’ Jemima murmured, her mind racing. Could this possibly have anything to do with Maria’s death? Was Celia trying to tell her this, so obliquely that she could deny it later? Why? What did she know? Or was she deliberately leading Jemima astray?

She cleared her throat. This was an opportunity to learn more that she could not afford to pass by. ‘You think Mrs Cardew’s opinions were too radical?’

‘I?’ Celia said with surprise. ‘No. I admired her for them, as much as I understood what she was doing. I knew it could not succeed, and that it was dangerous for her.’ She hesitated so long Jemima thought she was not going to continue. Then suddenly she spoke again. ‘But I despised myself that I didn’t take the risk anyway.’

‘What was she doing?’ Jemima was perfectly aware that the question might be intrusive, but she had to try.

‘Helping black people in trouble to escape the consequences of raising their voices, trying to be like white people, own property, have opinions,’ Celia said. ‘After the end of the Civil War they didn’t do badly. But the resistance against change was too strong. The old ways came back again.’

‘She must have been very brave,’ Jemima said with awe.

‘And foolish,’ Celia added. ‘But I liked her for it.’

‘But Mr Albright didn’t?’

‘I really don’t know how much he knew,’ Celia answered, her voice lifting in surprise as if she had only just realised the fact.

‘And Mr Harley?’

Celia smiled. ‘Certainly not. He would be appalled. All he knew is that she had a certain reputation. I never thought he cared if it was deserved. Why don’t you try the cakes? They are one of Cook’s specialities.’

Jemima recognised that the discussion was closed. She took one of the cakes, and it was indeed delicious.

Dinner was long and wretched. Phinnie chattered about her wedding, and never once looked at Jemima. Harley talked about politics and Brent looked alternately happy and miserable. Mr Albright spoke to Celia about people Jemima did not know.

Jemima felt awkward remaining downstairs after dinner was finished, and the family retired to the sitting room. Phinnie sat close to Brent, as if she could not bear more distance between them than necessary.

Mr Albright senior sat in the largest armchair. Jemima imagined the very shape of it had moulded itself to his body. Perhaps his father had sat in it before him and his grandfather also. In time it would be Harley’s, who now stood by the mantelpiece, too restless to sit down.

Jemima took one of the smaller chairs, but after only a few minutes she rose to her feet again. Maybe she was running away, but she would rather have stood outside in the snow with Patrick Flannery than sit in this warm room with the stilted conversation.

‘It has been a long and interesting day,’ she said to Mr Albright. ‘Would you excuse me if I retire a little early?’

‘An excellent idea,’ Harley replied. ‘Good night, Miss Pitt.’ There was no warmth in his voice.

‘Good night, Miss Pitt,’ Celia echoed. ‘Sleep well.’

Jemima acknowledged the good wishes, then turned and walked out of the door, across the huge hall and up the stairs. She had just reached the landing when she was aware of someone behind her. She turned sharply and saw Phinnie a couple of yards behind her.

‘You’ve been asking about my mother,’ she accused, her voice harsh and bitter. ‘What are you trying to do? The police have been asking me questions, as if they thought I might have asked you to kill her, even paid you to do it!’

Jemima was stung by the injustice of it. ‘They will do,’ she retorted sharply. ‘They are bound to realise I didn’t do it. Why on earth would I?’

‘For me, of course,’ Phinnie responded.

Jemima was stunned. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Apart from the fact that we have known each other only a short while, why on earth would I do anything so terrible?’

‘So that when I marry Brent, I can pay you, of course!’ Phinnie replied. ‘Either in money, or by making sure you meet all the right people in New York. You are clever enough to have thought of that.’

‘Oh, yes!’ Jemima agreed. ‘And blackmail you for the rest of your life? Or would you, perhaps, be blackmailing me for the rest of mine?’

Phinnie gasped, her face pale. ‘You would, wouldn’t you?’

‘Well, I suppose if I’d killed poor Maria to stop her from bursting into your wedding and spoiling it, I would probably stoop to pretty well anything,’ Jemima said with anger close to despair. ‘But all I wanted to do was find her so Harley could pay her to stay away. He was afraid she might make a scene and embarrass everyone – ruin the family reputation and superiority over everyone else. And you never know, when Mr Roosevelt comes to consider him for high office, he might think you an inappropriate relative for a man in the public eye.’ She knew it would hurt Phinnie, and she meant it to. Phinnie had been willing enough to hurt her.

‘You . . . didn’t . . .’ Phinnie said slowly, the angry colour draining out of her face leaving her sickly pale.

‘No, of course I didn’t!’ Jemima snapped. She was about to turn away and go on to her bedroom when she realised that Phinnie’s amazement and relief were real. She had feared Jemima had killed Maria Cardew – which had to mean that she had not done it herself, nor did she know who had. ‘I saw her once, for a moment in Central Park,’ she said gently. ‘When we were following her, and she turned to look back at the snow on the trees. She had such joy at the beauty of them that for a moment she too was beautiful. The next time I saw her she was dead.’

Phinnie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I don’t want to like her,’ she whispered. ‘She left me! It took me all my life, until I met Brent, to stop wanting her to come back and explain to me what was more important to her than staying with me.’

Jemima wanted to put her arms around her, be even – for an instant at least – the sister she did not have. But it was too soon. It would seem like pity.

‘That is what I am trying to find out,’ she said instead. ‘I’ll start again tomorrow morning. I promise.’

Phinnie nodded, too close to losing control to speak.

The next day was bitter. The wind cut like the edge of a knife and there was ice in the breath of it.

Jemima would rather have stayed inside, even at the Albright mansion, but she had very little time left. After Christmas she would face trial, and then she would be able to do nothing. The memory of the prison always hovered at the edges of her mind like an encroaching darkness. Was it time she sent a telegram to her father and asked him to come? What could he do here anyway? He had no authority in America.

Stop panicking! Of course he would come, and he’d find a way to learn the truth and prove it.

She increased her pace, footsteps crunching in the snow. She was hardly even aware of how cold it was. A woman passed her on the pavement, walking briskly, bent forward and huddled into her coat. The man a few steps behind her had his hat jammed on his head and his scarf half over his face.

An automobile passed them all, the driver sitting up rigidly, having difficulty keeping the snow from blinding the narrow glass windshields. She smiled to herself, happy to be walking.

At last she reached the coffee shop, her hands numb so she could hardly grasp the door handle. A man opened it for her and she thanked him. Inside she looked around for Patrick. When she saw him her heart lifted and she found herself smiling as he stood up and came over to her.

‘Are you all right?’ he said anxiously. ‘I wish you could have stayed inside today . . .’

‘There isn’t time,’ she said simply. ‘And I have a lot to tell you.’

He guided her to the seat where he had been waiting, putting his arm around her shoulders. Even a day ago she would have moved away. Today she let it be. It was comfortable and she was willing to admit it. He held the chair for her, then ordered hot coffee, and more for himself.

Warming her hands on the mug, the chatter of all manner of languages around her, she told him what Celia had said about Harley and his ambitions, about Maria Cardew and her rescue of former slaves in trouble, and then Phinnie’s painful suspicion that Jemima had killed Maria.

‘So you are sure she didn’t?’ he said immediately. There was no time to be less than frank.

‘Yes, I am. We still need to know more about Maria. If she risked her life helping black people who used to be slaves, she will have made enemies.’

He smiled with wry, sad humour. ‘I know it’s 1904, but not everything has changed. Old wounds are slow to heal. We’re said to be “a melting pot”, but there’s a lot that hasn’t melted yet. Did Celia say anything about Sara Godwin?’

‘No. Patrick . . .’ She hated the thought but it must be faced. ‘Do you think Sara Godwin could have killed her? Are we looking for something much further away than we need to? Perhaps Maria’s death had nothing to do with the Albrights at all, but was because an old enmity of some sort between the two women?’

There was regret in his face. ‘It could even be that whoever killed her mistook her for Sara Godwin. I’ve been asking around to find anyone who knew them a bit better, and another woman in the same building said they were very careful, as if they were afraid of something. Sara Godwin said a man had been following her, and she was frightened he knew where she lived. I asked people, but she hadn’t described him.’

‘He could be anyone,’ she said with a wave of hopelessness overwhelming her. ‘How can we even look for him?’

Patrick reached across the table and put his hand over hers, holding her when she tried to pull away. She stopped pulling. His touch was warm and strong.

‘I don’t need to find him to prove he existed,’ he told her. ‘Two witnesses, independent of each other, and a little more about her past, will be enough to prove he could have killed her. We have to know what kind of woman she was, and that it was believable that he mistook Maria for her. They did look alike. That much I know already.’

‘Will it be enough?’ she said anxiously. ‘Won’t they still think it’s me, because I’m there and we don’t know anything about this man?’

‘I won’t let them,’ he promised.

She looked away. Did she care more that he believed her and not for a moment did he think she was guilty, or that she still might face trial for murder and not be able to prove her innocence?

He interrupted her thoughts. ‘Finish your coffee. We have a lot to do.’ He said it gently, but it was an instruction, almost an order.

Towards the end of the day they met with an old man, nearly blind, who had known Sara well. He had been a cobbler. He knew everyone’s feet.

Jemima and Patrick sat with him in his small tenement room sharing hot food that Patrick had bought from a shop in the narrow street opposite. It was very savoury meat cooked and then wrapped in leaves. He told her they were Russian immigrants and they had told him its name, but he couldn’t now pronounce it. It was delicious, and Jemima told him so.

The cobbler also ate his with relish.

‘Sara,’ he said with a smile of memory. ‘Good feet, she had. Terrible cough, though, even then.’

‘Even then?’ Patrick said quickly. ‘How long ago was that?’

‘Oh, ten years, maybe more. Had a hard time, Sara did. Wonder she lived so long.’ He blinked several times, as if to hide tears. ‘Wouldn’t have made it without Maria.’

Jemima leaned forward quickly. ‘I thought Maria was busy helping people fight against injustice? Is that not true?’ She felt a curious kind of grief, as if she personally had lost a dream. Too much was falling away.

The cobbler stared at her, a touch of anger in his eyes. ‘’Course she did! Both of them. That’s when it all happened. In the seventies, before they came to this part of the city.’

Patrick started to speak, then stopped. He nodded to Jemima.

‘If you knew them, then I’d really like to hear the truth,’ Jemima asked. ‘Her daughter is my friend and I think she deserves to hear something more than gossip, a lot of which is unkind.’

‘Unkind!’ the cobbler snorted. It was dim inside the small room. He burned a stove to keep the air from freezing but he clearly could not afford to burn a light as well, and the window was blurring over with snow. ‘That what you call it? Bastards deserve to be hanged themselves.’

Jemima waited. She did not even dare glance at Patrick, but she was acutely aware of his presence in the room, sitting opposite her, their knees almost touching.

‘Them as used to be slaves got into a bit of trouble back then,’ the cobbler began. ‘Blacks, you know? Some folks were fine, but we aren’t so very far from the south here, and ones who’d run away were here and there. Some folk didn’t think they should own things, like horses and land and such. You know?’ He looked at Patrick, his eyebrows raised questionably. He had caught Jemima’s English accent and did not expect her to understand.

‘I’ve heard,’ Patrick nodded. He was Irish; he knew immigrant discrimination.

‘Sara used to help people,’ the cobbler went on. ‘Got into it with Maria. There was one real bad time. Black man been a slave, owned a real nice place. Some folks got very upset about it. Spread around stories that he’d stole it. There was a big fight. Women and children in it too. One of them was Sara Godwin. Feller who used to be a slave fought to get the women out. Maria fought alongside and they got out, but one man was killed. Son of a bitch had it coming, but he was white. Maria fell in love with the man what did it, to save the children. Married him, she did. Some folks never forgave her for that.’

‘That was the scandal?’ Jemima asked, hardly daring to believe it.

‘It’s enough,’ the cobbler replied, pursing his lips. ‘Black don’t marry white. Some folks consider it unnatural, a sin against God, like.’

‘Where is her husband now?’ Jemima forced herself to ask, and yet she dreaded the answer. Maria had lived alone in the apartment where they found her, except for Sara Godwin. Could Sara possibly have thought it was a sin? In spite of all Maria had done for her?

‘Don’t know,’ the cobbler replied with a sniff. ‘He was taken down here in New York, to be tried for killing that son of a bitch who tried to murder the women and children.’

Jemima shivered at the word ‘trial’. She felt Patrick’s knees touch hers, just for a moment. Had he meant to, or was he just moving because he was stiff?

‘What happened?’ she whispered.

‘They told her he was dead,’ the cobbler replied, his voice hoarse. ‘But I heard after that he wasn’t. Don’t know what was true.’

‘What happened to Maria?’ Patrick asked.

‘Some rich white feller kind of looked after her. She were a real handsome woman. His name was All-something . . .’

‘Albright?’ Jemima filled in.

‘Yes, something like that. He was married, of course. Men like that always are. Got to keep the family going. Anyway, she married his business partner, or something. English . . . like you,’ he said to Jemima. ‘Is that why you’re asking all this?’

‘Yes. Maria’s daughter is my friend.’

‘Well, ain’t it a small world. And this daughter come here just as poor Maria’s killed. That’s a terrible shame. You tell her that her mother was one of the best ladies that ever drew breath, you hear me?’

‘Yes,’ Jemima answered. ‘Yes, I will. I promise.’

Outside again in the more heavily falling snow, Jemima turned to Patrick. He was standing to the windward of her, sheltering her from the worst of it. It blew against him and piled on his shoulders.

‘Do you think someone killed her because years ago she married a black man who used to be a slave?’ she asked.

‘I think that’s pretty likely,’ he replied. ‘Are you prepared for Delphinia to hear that?’

‘No!’ She looked away from him, down at the snow around her boots. ‘No. She might not mind, but imagine what the Albrights would make of it!’

‘Delphinia’s a Cardew,’ he pointed out. ‘Come out of the snow. We can find somewhere better than this.’ He took her arm as he said it, gently but too firmly for her to resist.

Jemima said nothing. It was difficult to talk out here in the street because the wind snatched her words and the freezing air almost choked her.

They walked side by side along the street until they came to a corner where they could turn into an alley and find room to stand in a doorway sheltered from the worst of the weather.

She remembered Harley Albright’s words to her, before they even found Maria’s body, when it was still a matter of stopping her from creating a scene at the wedding.

‘Marguerite Albright, Harley’s mother,’ she began. ‘He said to me that she had told him about Maria and what a terrible woman she was.’

‘Well, if the cobbler is right, then Mr Albright was very fond of Maria, so she was probably jealous,’ he pointed out.

‘Do you suppose she knew about Maria’s first husband?’

‘Possibly, in fact probably, if Maria was still looking for him in New York. What are you thinking, Jemima? That it was one of the Albrights after all?’

He was worried, she could see. It would be difficult to prove; might his superiors try to prevent him from even suggesting it? Jemima would be a much easier target, much more comfortable. Nobody in New York would care if she were convicted. Would it matter to them that her father was important in England? The fear came back over her like an icy wave.

Patrick saw it in her eyes. ‘Jemima, don’t! I won’t let that happen,’ he promised.

‘You might not be able to stop it,’ she replied. ‘If Harley’s mother told him the truth about Maria then he would care very much indeed that Phinnie didn’t marry into the Albright family.’

‘Then why didn’t he just tell Brent the truth?’ he asked. ‘It would answer all the things that don’t make sense now.’

‘What else?’ she asked, but she knew the answer. ‘If Marguerite Albright had written to Maria in England and told her that her first husband was alive after all, then she was not a widow! She was a bigamist! Her marriage to Cardew was not legal.’

He was watching her closely, trying to read what she was thinking now.

‘Then Phinnie would be illegitimate,’ she told him. ‘Brent Albright would never marry her then. And another thing, would she still be Cardew’s heir?’

‘She’s still his daughter!’ He was angry at the injustice and it was naked in his face. ‘Maria thought she was a widow. In fact we don’t know for certain that she wasn’t. Mrs Albright could have said her husband was alive simply out of . . .’ He stopped.

‘Out of spite?’ Jemima finished. ‘Revenge, for Mr Albright having liked Maria so much?’

He shook his head, his eyes very grave. ‘Not just that. More importantly, so the company power and money will stay with the Albright family.’

‘But she died long before Brent Albright proposed marriage to Phinnie Cardew . . . oh.’ Now it was there, real and cold as ice. ‘She told Harley. Of course. And if Brent married Phinnie, then between the two of them they would own three-quarters of the company: Phinnie’s entire Cardew share from her father, and Brent’s half of the Albright share. So effectively Brent would own three-quarters.’ She leaned forward and put her hands over her face, pushing her fingers through her hair, heedless of the mess she made of it. ‘Poor Phinnie.’

Patrick said nothing. He understood too well to say something meaningless.

‘She’s so much in love with him,’ Jemima went on. ‘Do you think he is even half as much in love with her?’ She did not look up at him. She was afraid he was going to struggle to find some comfortable half-truth.

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘If you really love someone you stick by them, no matter what. You don’t doubt them, or make a way to get out of it.’

Now she did look up. ‘Did he make a way to get out of it?’

‘Yes. When I questioned him he didn’t defend her, not completely. If anyone said that about you, I would have defended you, whether I had the right to or not.’

She tried to smile though the emotion that was beating so hard inside her it almost robbed her of breath.

‘They are saying it about me,’ she pointed out.

‘I know.’ Now his eyes hid nothing. ‘And I am defending you. I’ll prove you didn’t do it. We’re nearly there now. But you can’t help Delphinia, except maybe to make her see the truth about the Albrights, and to give her the knowledge that her mother was a good woman who got caught up in a tragedy that wasn’t of her making.’

‘Why did she leave Phinnie? She was only two years old!’ Jemima protested.

‘If Mrs Albright wrote to Cardew and told him all about Maria’s first marriage, to a black man who was still alive, Cardew may have given Maria no choice. And she certainly wouldn’t be allowed to take Phinnie with her, even if she had the means to look after her.’

‘I suppose I should have known that,’ she apologised. ‘It explains everything, doesn’t it?’

‘Except what happened to Sara Godwin,’ Patrick agreed. ‘Why did she run off, and where is she now? Hadn’t she enough loyalty to see that Maria at least had a decent burial?’

‘Perhaps she is afraid they’ll come after her too?’ Jemima tried to imagine the conflict in Sara Godwin. She owed Maria her life, but she was ill, alone now, and knew that Maria had been murdered. Perhaps she even knew who had done it. The woman in the same building had said Sara had been followed, mistaken for Maria.

Patrick must have been thinking the same thing.

‘We must find her,’ he said with sudden urgency. ‘If she saw the man following her, she might know who it was, or at least be able to describe him. I think we have the answer. It was Harley. He killed Maria and then very neatly organised it so you would be the one to find her. But we need to prove that.’

Jemima nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Why don’t you want to? Are you afraid we’re wrong?’ He put his hand over hers. ‘Jemima, we aren’t wrong. It all fits together and makes sense of all the bits we couldn’t understand before.’

She met his eyes. ‘I know. I just hate the thought of finding Sara Godwin, who owed so much to Maria, and then ran away when Maria was dead. I understand! Maybe I wouldn’t have done better. But I still hate it.’

‘I’ll do it,’ he answered.

She glared at him. ‘No, you won’t! I’m coming with you.’

This time he laughed, his face eased in relief. She realised it mattered to him, and the feeling was wonderful, as if the cold outside barely existed. She withdrew her hand from his. ‘Let’s begin.’

It took them all that day, and the next. It was almost Christmas when, after much questioning, pleading and even promises, they finally climbed up the rickety stairs in the tenement building where Sara Godwin had taken refuge. They had followed her largely through trailing her attempts to raise money by taking small jobs, never staying more than two days at most, as if she knew someone was pursuing her.

The snow had eased and the east wind dropped when finally, feet aching and bones cold, they knocked on the door of the smallest apartment on the top floor.

The door opened tentatively and a woman looked out, keeping her weight behind the door so she could close it. Her face was filled with alarm.

Jemima recognised her immediately. It was the same woman who had walked in Central Park and turned back to gaze up at the snow-laden branches with such joy. Suddenly she understood. It was only Harley who had said the dead woman was Maria Cardew.

‘Maria?’ Jemima said gently.

The woman’s face filled with terror and she tried to push the door closed.

Patrick leaned his weight against it, forcing it to stay open.

‘I’m Jemima Pitt,’ Jemima said gently. ‘I’m Phinnie’s friend. I’ve come over from England to be with her for her wedding. I understand that you can’t be . . . and why.’

Tenderness and grief filled the woman’s eyes. She must have been over fifty, and had certainly not had an easy life, but she was still beautiful.

‘You don’t know why,’ she said quietly. ‘I . . . wish I could . . .’

‘I do know,’ Jemima contradicted her. ‘Mrs Albright wrote to Mr Cardew and told him about your first husband. You had no choice.’

Maria’s grief was impossible to hide. She pulled the door open and Jemima and Patrick went inside. The room was tiny and the air was chill, but it was clean and there was a feeling of home in it because of the few belongings that were intensely personal. There were embroidered pillow covers on the narrow bed, half a dozen books on a shelf, and a photograph of a handsome black man, smiling, on the bedside table.

‘I never stopped thinking about her,’ Maria said as Patrick closed the door. ‘But I couldn’t even see her. Then she’d have known, and it would spoil things for her. Why have you come here?’

Jemima hesitated and it was Patrick who answered.

‘Because they are blaming Jemima for killing Sara Godwin, either with Phinnie’s help, or at the least, for her sake.’

Maria paled. ‘Why? That’s . . .’ Then she understood. ‘It was Harley, wasn’t it? I knew he was following Sara, and she knew it too.’ She closed her eyes and for a moment she swayed a little as if she might fall.

Patrick took hold of her, supporting part of her weight, and eased her to the one moderately comfortable chair.

She waited a moment, then opened her eyes. ‘Sara was dying,’ she said with difficulty, her voice thick with tears. ‘She tricked me, sent me on an errand to help someone, and she took my place. She wore my clothes – we were always the same size – and I suppose we look a bit alike. Harley hadn’t seen me for years.’

‘It wouldn’t matter if he had, and knew he was wrong,’ Patrick pointed out. ‘He identified the body as you, so it served his purpose well enough. You weren’t going to come forward and say he was wrong.’

‘I couldn’t! Not without Phinnie learning all about me, and that she was illegitimate,’ she said the word as if it hurt her. ‘Even though I thought Joe was dead at the time. I would never have left America if I’d known he was still alive.’

‘And Phinnie’s wedding?’ Jemima asked.

‘I just wanted to see her. I wouldn’t have spoken to her, just watched. There’ll be a crowd. No one would have seen me.’

‘And Sara Godwin?’ This time it was Patrick who asked the question.

‘There’s no one else to look after her properly. No matter what, I wouldn’t leave her to die alone – and yet that’s just what I did!’

‘She chose to,’ Jemima shook her head. ‘She did that for you, perhaps to thank you for all you’d done for her.’

‘I’ve got to bury her properly. They’re not putting her in a pauper’s grave. I’ve got nearly enough money.’ She looked from Jemima to Patrick. ‘Whatever you think of me, please see that that happens?’

‘We will,’ Patrick promised instantly. ‘But before that, we have to make sure we have all the evidence to prove it was Harley Albright who killed Sara, whether he thought she was you, or not.’

‘How are you going to do that?’ Maria asked doubtfully.

Patrick smiled at her. ‘You’re coming to the police station and you’ll tell my bosses the whole story, including that Harley was following you a day or so before Sara was killed. We all know he identified her as you. We know that Phinnie is Mr Cardew’s heir, and that when she marries Brent he will become heir to three-quarters of the Albright and Cardew business. The only way for Harley to keep his power and fortune is to discredit Phinnie, either so Brent doesn’t marry her and the shares stay equal among the three of them. Or better still, she is totally discredited as illegitimate, Mr Cardew has no heirs and the power all reverts to the Albrights.’

‘Poor Harley,’ Maria said with regret. ‘He was a nice child. So handsome, with all that fair hair. Marguerite adored him. One loves one’s children . . . so much.’

‘When this is settled, will you meet Phinnie?’ Jemima asked urgently.

‘Oh, no. I won’t spoil her happiness. It will be terribly hard for Brent to come to terms with his brother’s crime. He will need her support. And Celia will help. She was always strong . . . and loyal, as much as they would allow.’

Jemima glanced at Patrick and saw him nod very slightly. Did he really know her so well he understood what she was asking? She realised that the joy that Maria was alive, and the relief that she herself would be cleared of any suspicion, was suddenly horribly overshadowed by the thought of leaving New York after the wedding . . . if it happened! She might never see Patrick again, and that hurt more than she had thought possible.

Her own mother had come from a very good family, and scandalised them all by marrying a policeman, when they were socially regarded as little better than bailiffs or dustmen. Times had been hard and money scarce, but she had been and still was extraordinarily happy. And unlike so many women, she had never, ever been bored . . . or lonely.

This was ridiculous! Yes, she admitted to herself, she was in love with Patrick Flannery, very much in love. But he had not mentioned marriage, and probably not given it a thought! She was misinterpreting what he had said because she wanted to.

She looked at Maria, and read in the older woman’s eyes an understanding so complete it made the colour burn up Jemima’s cheeks. But then Maria had married the man she loved, in spite of the fact that he was black, and had once been owned, like an animal. It had not stopped her.

‘Brent might not marry Phinnie,’ she said aloud. ‘She deserves someone who loves her wholeheartedly, whoever her mother is and whatever the circumstances. You don’t become a different person just because you discover something about your birth. And money is nice, but it has nothing to do with real happiness. You and I both know that.’ It was a challenge and she wanted an answer.

Maria smiled and touched Jemima’s hand lightly. ‘Of course we do. Although hunger is hard, perhaps harder than you know.’

‘Isn’t hunger of the heart because you denied yourself even harder?’ Jemima asked.

‘I don’t know, because I was always rash enough not to try it,’ Maria answered. ‘And it cost me dear . . . but I never doubted it was worth it.’

Two days later, Harley was arrested. Brent delayed indefinitely his marriage to Phinnie. It was a polite fiction. Everyone knew that it would never take place. Celia stepped forward to comfort her family and support them, especially Rothwell, as she had done discreetly all their lives.

Phinnie and Jemima left the Albright house and took lodgings in the city, until they should find passage home, early in the New Year. Phinnie’s means were more than sufficient to look after all their needs.

Early on Christmas morning Jemima persuaded Phinnie to meet Maria.

It was awkward at first.

‘I don’t wish to,’ Phinnie said miserably. ‘I don’t know what to say!’

‘Start with “hello”,’ Jemima replied. ‘I know everything fell apart and nothing was the way you hoped it would be, but don’t let go of what is good. You have plenty of time to meet someone who loves you, no matter who your family is or what’s happened.’

‘I thought Brent loved me . . .’

‘I know. And maybe he thought so too,’ Jemima agreed. ‘But none of that has anything to do with meeting Maria. Come on.’

Very reluctantly Phinnie agreed. They put on their best winter coats and hats and walked down to Central Park, and the place where Harley and Jemima had seen Maria turn back to gaze at the snow-laden trees. They were edged with snow again today, glittering white for Christmas.

‘There,’ Jemima pointed. Fifty yards ahead of them she saw Patrick. It took her a moment to be certain it was him, because he was not wearing police uniform but a plain dark overcoat, and he was bareheaded. Beside him was Maria, looking at them as if she had known them even in the furthest distance. She took a tentative step forward, then another.

‘I’m frightened,’ Phinnie whispered to Jemima. ‘What if she doesn’t like me?’

‘She loves you!’ Jemima replied. ‘She always did. Come on!’ She stepped out, taking Phinnie by the arm and pulling her forward.

There were other people on the path as well, but none of them took any notice. It was only as they came much closer that Jemima realised that the black man a little behind them was the same man as she had seen in the photograph beside Maria’s bed. He was older, greyer at the temples, but the smile had not changed, nor the curious mixture of shyness, and inner confidence.

Phinnie stopped in front of Maria. They were the same height, and had the same soft features and dark eyes, the same grace of movement.

Maria held out her hands. Slowly Phinnie took them and held on.

When Jemima looked at Patrick she knew that it was going to be all right. She forgot about Phinnie and Maria, even about the man, Joe, whom Maria introduced quietly and with pride.

‘I think you brought Phinnie home after all,’ Patrick said, taking Jemima’s arm and beginning to walk towards the edge of the path and the first trees. He might have said something about high society, or money, but he didn’t, and she was glad of it. It was unnecessary.

‘What about us?’ he asked, stopping and turning to face her. ‘Are we going to be all right too?’

She looked up at him. She was almost certain what he meant. It was there in his eyes, his whole face, but she needed to hear him say it.

‘I don’t know,’ she answered. ‘Are we?’

‘I will be, if you marry me. Will you?’

‘I think I probably will.’

He looked startled. ‘What?’

She laughed and reached up to touch his cheek with her gloved fingers. ‘I will marry you, and I think I will probably be all right, for always.’

He leaned forward and kissed her.

The passers-by smiled, and in the distance the Christmas bells began to ring.