concern her.
“I have tried to bring a woman from Ireland to help, yes.”
Sophia swept her arm to point at the bookshelves. “But these books are valuable. They’re to pass to Amelia, and I’ve been told some have been in your family for generations. How do you know this Irish creature won’t steal some and sell them for profit?”
“It’s not as if she is some St. Giles street urchin,” he said impatiently, rubbing at his throbbing knee. “She is Miss Harwood’s cousin. You remember her, don’t you? Mariah’s good friend.”
“Yes, I remember, James.” Sophia huffed. “However, I do not find you hiring a relation of Miss Harwood a comforting thought. The Harwoods may be wealthy and influential, but Claire Harwood herself . . . a reprehensibly immoderate do-gooder.”
“Joe, bring the gig out again,” he directed, turning away from Sophia’s pique. “I’ll go back to the docks with you to search for Miss Dunne.” Molly lurked near the doorway, a half smile on her face, apparently relishing the clash over the new arrival who hadn’t arrived. “And you may return to whatever you were doing, Molly.”
They both hustled off. James left the library and started down the stairs toward the back of the house, Sophia on his heels.
“You did not send this Miss Dunne the money for passage, did you?” asked Sophia. “If you did, she’s probably made off with it and never got on the boat at all.”
Such a typical comment; Sophia always thought the worst of everyone. “I didn’t send her money Miss Dunne paid her own way.”
“Even so, she hardly sounds competent. Getting lost when she has just arrived. You should just leave her at the docks. Or suggest to Miss Harwood she go and retrieve her cousin. Isn’t that what family is for?”
James gripped the finial at the first-floor landing and propelled himself down the stairs. Sophia’s thin-soled shoes slapped against the treads behind.
“I am responsible for her, Sophia, and I won’t just leave her at the docks.”
“There are plenty of perfectly fine English girls you could have hired.”
Abruptly James stopped, Sophia nearly skidding into him. “None with the skills Miss Harwood assures me her cousin possesses. Miss Dunne required a position, and I have one. It was a serendipitous solution for the both of us, and I’ll not pass it up.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Mariah always said you were too trusting. A strange Irish girl whom her London relatives have foisted upon you. Bah.”
“They haven’t ’foisted’ her. Miss Dunne is only half-Irish, and she isn’t a girl. She’s an aging spinster. Even more harmless.” James turned and marched down the hallway.
“I refuse to be swayed by your arguments. The Irish are dangerous, young and old. I cannot believe you would let her into your house.”
They swept through the back door, crossed the garden. He shot a glance at Sophia, struggling to keep up. “Are you intending on accompanying me to the docks to search for Miss Dunne?”
“I rather think not!”
“Then I must say good day to you.”
He entered the mews, leaving his sister-in-law to frown after him.
Traffic in the city was as miserable as ever. He might be grateful that the rain promised by the sky all day hadn’t come to pass, but James was too distracted to acknowledge that bit of God’s benevolence.
After an hour’s drive, Joe pulled the gig to a halt at St. Katherine’s Docks. James searched the crowd pushing and shoving past the crates of living—and some not-so-living—animals, the barrels of goods, the sweating wharf laborers and porters. What a wretched sea of humanity, many of them looking as if they’d swum to London rather than come on a boat, they were so bedraggled and salt-crusted. To be lost among this horde . . . disquiet buzzed along his nerves like a relentless wasp. Had Miss Dunne failed to get on the packet from Ireland or fallen overboard during the journey? Or had she been lured away when she arrived, another victim of the criminal element that plagued the city?
“Cor, sir, she’s still ’ere,” said Joe.
“Who? Who’s still here?”
Joe jerked his chin to the right. “That a one. In the dingy brown dress snoozin’ on the carpetbag. She were ’ere before. But she’s no old lady.”
He spotted the woman Joe was pointing out. “Shall I ask if she’s Miss Dunne, Joe?” he asked, only partly serious.
Joe shrugged. “Can’t ’urt, I s’pose.”
“No, it can’t hurt.”
James climbed down and went up to the woman, dozing on the bag she’d sat upon, her back propped against a