she wondered, had she allowed herself to become the self-righteous snob the Binghams so relentlessly demanded her to be?
âMrs. Tremayne.â
Her head jerked back. âHow did you learn my name?â she demanded, concealing her perturbation with words. The sidewalk was filled with pedestrians she could cry out to forhelp, and her shopping bag, though not heavy, would serve as a weapon if words werenât sufficient. âSurely Mr. Hepplewhite wouldnâtââ
âNo, but one of his customers, a Mr. Fishburn, proved to be most helpful.â The man smiled down at her, a smile loaded with charm and not to be trusted. His gaze lifted in a sweeping search around them. âI take it you are unaccompanied, without a maid orâ¦your husband?â
Sometimes, usually when caught off guard, the uprush of painful memories would still crash over Jocelyn, stealing her breath as the waves sucked her backward into the past. âMy life is none of your business. Please let me pass. I have an appointment. Youâre making me late.â
âAh.â His head tipped sideways while he searched her face with an intensity that triggered a self-consciousness Jocelyn thought sheâd eradicated long ago.
Then he touched the brim of his gray bowler hat, one end of his mustache curling upward as he offered a crooked smile. âTake care, Mrs. Tremayne. God doesnât always choose to intervene in our circumstances, and life on Earth isnât always kind to innocence.â
Before Jocelyn could fry him with a scalding retort, he was half a block down the street.
âGod doesnât always choose to interveneâ¦â Bah! Jocelyn could have informed the man that God might exist, but He never intervened. For ten years sheâd carried the awful burden of her past, and God never supplied one moment of peace. All that religious doggerel was nothing but a lie to soothe simple minds.
As for the rest of the strangerâs insulting remarks, sheâd been deprived of innocence long ago, and she couldnât figure out why he had made the observation.
If she ever saw him again, which she knew was unlikely, but if she did, she planned to inform him that he was anincompetent bounder, a slavering wolf disguised as a gentleman in his three-piece woolen suit and natty red tie.
On the way home, when she realized she was pondering her encounter with the mysterious gray-eyed stranger as a curative for her growing sense of isolation, she ground her teeth together, and initiated a conversation with the person sitting across from her in the streetcar.
Â
Micah MacKenzie lost his quarry.
Frustration pulsed through him like an abscessed tooth, but he vented the worst of it by kicking over a stack of empty crates at the back of the alley where Benny Foggarty had disappeared. Benny, the glib-tongued engraver-turned-informant for the Secret Service, was now officially a fugitive, courtesy of Operative MacKenzie.
Thoroughly disgusted with himself, he retraced his steps back to Broad Street, then settled in the shadow of a bank awning. Shoulders propped against the brick wall, he tilted his bowler to hide his face, so he could survey passersby without drawing attention, and mull over his next move. Bennyâs dash into that store could have been deliberate, instead of a scramble to find a hiding place because something had made him bolt. After nine months, Micah thought he knew the way Bennyâs mind worked, but he acknowledged now that he may have been mistaken about the expression heâd glimpsed on his informantâs face.
Because of one particular womanâs presence in Clocks & Watches, a more thorough investigation not only of her, but of the other customers and Mr. Hepplewhite was required, regardless of Micahâs personal feelings.
Decision made, he expelled a long breath, allowing his thoughts to return to the woman heâd practically abandoned midsentence when he spotted
Christopher Leppek, Emanuel Isler