“No, I’m getting all of us out of here. We’re running.”
“Why?” Prudence asked. This was absurd. Leo had more than enough to keep everyone for blocks in comfort, let alone one old man.
“You don’t know how dangerous he is. How devious.”
“I saw him not two hours ago. The man is old and frail, and half of his face barely works.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Prudence sat quietly, trying to parse out what exactly made the old man with salt-and-pepper hair and bright blue eyesdangerous. He certainly seemed mortal enough. As for danger, honestly, if she pitted Georgie against Mr. Morgan, she would bet on Georgie every time.
But this wasn’t her fight. It wasn’t her father, it wasn’t even her country. This was a property dispute between two men, a Mr. Morgan and a Mr. Moon. No, this was Leo showing her exactly how little she mattered to him.
“He liked to seem like he was more than he was,” Leo finally volunteered. “That’s how he got my mother. Pretending to be a lord, titled and rich, handsome, all that. Everything a woman could want. I don’t know how he knew she had a tidy sum squirreled away, enough for her to live on as an old maid, because that’s what housekeepers generally became. They married their job, not a man.”
Mrs. Moon appeared in the doorway, looking regal and striking. “That—” she interrupted with an imperious command, “—is not your story to tell.”
“Mama,” Leo started.
“Put the money away, Leo,” she said, her tone stern and warning. “We are in London. In our home. We are safe here.”
Prudence saw his youth, suddenly, there under the surface of the man he was. The way he’d been mistreated and unmoored, the fear and panic never completely gone. There were some ghosts that haunted, no matter how much time had passed.
Leo tapped the stacks of paper. Prudence could see his hands shaking. But then he acquiesced and put the money back in the safe, locking it away for some other emergency.
“Miss Pendansky, is it?” Mrs. Moon hobbled over, bearing her weight on her cane, as if her knee bothered her more than usual. “Please pour me a cup, if you wouldn’t mind. No cream.”
Georgie did as she was told, and both Mrs. Moon and Leo joined them at the sitting area. Prudence glanced from mother to son and back again, waiting for someone to explain, but neitherspoke. She had missed her friendship with Mrs. Moon. The woman was incisive and sharp, and had a good mind for a funny quip. Perhaps one day Prudence could be friends with her again, but the rejection from Leo burned her from the inside out.
Prudence picked up her own teacup. “Leo once said that he held secrets that he would tell no one, not even me. I assume the identity of Mr. Morgan is at the root of that.”
Mrs. Moon took her cup from Georgie’s outstretched hand and looked over at Leo, who slouched in the chair next to her. “Well?” she prodded.
“Yes. My father was—is—a bad man.” Leo spat it out, as if it tasted bad to even speak it.
“He still gave me you,” Mrs. Moon said into her cup.
Prudence looked at the woman—truly looked. Leo had said she was a housekeeper? So she was in service, never expecting to marry. And then she ended up with a husband and a child, not to mention a beautiful house and social standing. That was quite a whiplash from her expectations.
“May I ask how you became a housekeeper?” Prudence didn’t want to be rude, but this was a story she didn’t want to miss. If this were the last time she would be able to visit Mrs. Moon, she wanted every juicy morsel from this woman.
“The way many young girls did. I went into service around the age of seven, scrubbing pots. Then I was a maid, and while I was young to be a housekeeper, it wasn’t that unusual, as more and more girls were leaving the countryside to go to the cities to work in factories, or find a man who worked in one. I was proud of myself for obtaining the position at such a young age.”
“As you should be,” Georgie said.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Moon replied.
Leo’s leg shook with nervous anticipation. He was so out of sorts. Prudence stared at him. He was like a completely different man—one she’d never known at all. Who was it thatshe’d known? A carefully curated disguise, and this was the real person underneath it all? Or was it the other way around?
“Perhaps you should go look out a window, make sure there are no lowlifes lurking about,” Prudence suggested. Mrs. Moon looked at her aghast.
But Leo was up in a flash, as if he could not bear to sit a moment longer. His mother watched him as he patrolled window by window, finally exiting the study to make a circuit of the house.
“It’s really quite unnecessary.” Mrs. Moon shook her head. “But let me continue the story. I haven’t been able to tell anyone, and I do adore a rapt audience.”
Georgie poured herself another cup of tea and grabbed an oatcake before settling back into the sofa, ready for a story, as if she were a child.
“I was a young housekeeper. Plain sort of looks, I think, but I ran a tight ship. The house was always clean, the larder stocked, and the butler and I worked well together. And then one day the master of the house brought home a guest.”
