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I release a long, shaky breath. “One step. I can do that.”

We say little more as he walks me back to my door. Holding his hand is enough. But once we get there and he lets go, I feel myself crumbling once more.

He steps close and cups my cheeks in his hands. “One step.” He nods to the door. “I wish I could stay, but I’ll be expected back, and I can learn more there anyway.” He focuses upon me again. “I’m sorry, Gemma.”

“For what?”

“I should have told Chief Wilmot. You came to me at the constabulary and I—”

“No.” I lay a hand to his chest. “This is not your fault. I didn’t want you to talk to him. I tried to protect you from that, from sounding like a man listening to his crazy girlfriend. This is my fault. I—” I feel everything within me slump. “I mixed up fiction and reality and started to believe I was a real Father Brown.”

“Nora,” he whispers, then lays a light kiss upon my lips. “I’d much rather kiss a Nora than a Father Brown, if you don’t mind.”

I giggle, as I know he meant for me to do, and I’m swamped with gratitude that he’s trying to make light of what I’ve done, what I’ve possibly done to us.

“Go inside and lock the door. I’ll make sure that Chief Wilmot or I come with whomever they send to talk to you.”

“Thank you.” I rise on my toes and kiss him. Not light. Not short. I press close as if this will be our last kiss, and I want to cherish it forever.

He knows too. I can tell. As we pull back he gives me the tiniest shake of his head and whispers, “Don’t you dare think like that.”

I nod, completely unable to speak, and turn to unlock the door.

Chapter 28

Tuesday, 28 February 1950

I wake the next morning much too early for a day of waiting, but as I’ve hardly slept, I figure I might as well be up as not. I wash, dress, make my bed, tidy my room, make tea, drink tea, make more tea, drink more tea, straighten my room once more, then start everything all over again. All before eight o’clock.

And that’s as long as I have to wait.

I’m wiping a smudge from my front window with vinegar and a dash of cornstarch when Lady Marchmont’s sleek black Rolls pulls up to the curb. I watch as she gets out of the back seat, dressed in a beautiful emerald-green dress and matching coat. I assume she’ll go into the store, but she stops, gazes straight up to my window, and waves to me. That’s when I notice Chief Wilmot approach and gesture to the right. To the alley. To my door.

I reach the alley door just as Chief Wilmot pounds on it—it has to be him as Lady Marchmont would never hit anything so hard—and yells in his gruff voice, “Good morning, Miss Brown. Time to open up.”

I unlock the door and pull it wide.

“Hello, dear.” Lady Marchmont steps in as if I’m a stop on her usual rounds of social calls. “May we come up?”

“Of course.”

I follow the delicate tap of her heels, which almost get drowned out by the heavy clop of Chief Wilmot’s tread behind me. Once we reach my rooms, I realize how full three people fill my tiny home. I gesture to my only chairs and ask them to sit.

Chief Wilmot remains by the door. I look back to Lady Marchmont. “May I pour you a cup of tea?”

“No, thank you, dear. We won’t be long.” She lowers herself into my armchair, and I realize with a start how lucky I am she didn’t choose the other one—the one that sinks you so low your knees come up to your neck.

She lays her hands over her black patent leather handbag in her lap, so prim and proper, I almost expect her to ask about the weather or the baking committee. She does not. With a steady, serious tone she says, “We’re here about Ursula Kuczynski Beurton.”

I should be shocked, I think, at how smoothly Ursula’s full name slides from Lady Marchmont’s lips, but somehow I’m not.

“She’s gone. I’m sorry.” I say the only words I can. Down all the roads my thoughts and imagination took me last night, that’s the only conclusion I came to. No matter what Ursula did or is, this is my fault. I should be sorry. Sorry because I knew. Sorry because I wasn’t brave enough to let the professionals handle it.

For weeks I knew something was off. And for many days, I could make a darn good guess what it was. Yet other than sharing a bit of gossip and creating a silly “investigation” with Peggy, what did I do? Nothing. I kept Charlie at a distance, thinking I was protecting him. I handed off papers, yes, but a full week after finding them. And all along I knew she was leaving. Peter told me. Len confirmed it. Yet I treated it as a game, a puzzle, and now she’s won. She escaped.

Lady Marchmont watches me. “There was nothing you could have done. Nothing anyone could have done. At least at this late juncture.”

“So she gets away.” I sigh. “How bad was she? I mean, in terms of the Red Menace we read about, was she terribly bad?” My obvious need for reassurance feels pathetic, but it’s real. I need the reassurance she was a minor player in such a large game she had barely any influence on it.