Móirín nodded. “We’re good friends. I suspect there’s not much about him I don’t know.”
Stone neither confirmed nor denied it. His expression had, however, grown more earnest. Something about his question was important.
“If I thought he’d kept me a secret on account of being ashamed of me, that would’ve hurt, for sure and certain,” Gemma said to Stone.
“Then you don’t mind that it’s been a secret?”
She had minded a little. “It stings that he didn’t even tell his friends. It’s enough to make a person wonder if she’s been forgotten.”
Stone nodded as they walked, his brow furrowed in a look of deep pondering.
“Same as I told you,” Móirín said. “Keeping a secret from people who aren’t owed your confidence is one thing. Not telling your friends ... ’tis a hurtful thing to do.”
“I’ve toldyou,” Stone replied.
“But you’ve not introduced me.”
Gemma was piecing a great many things together. “Do you have a secret sweetheart?” she asked Stone.
He didn’t offer any verbal response, but she was sure she’d guessed right.
“Why is it you ain’t told anyone?” Gemma asked.
“Because he’s stubborn as a duck,” Móirín said.
While Gemma suspected that was true, her own experience made her wonder. “Are you ashamed of this secret love of yours?”
He shook his head firmly. “There’s parts of my life that I like keeping to myself.”
“Most of your life you keep to yourself,” Móirín corrected.
Stone smiled a little, something Gemma’d not seen him do, though he didn’t seem sour. “Then how is it you know so much?”
Móirín flashed a grin. “I’m exceptionally bright.”
Coming their direction was the policeman Parkington. Gemma had met him at the CALL charitable effort, but she’d kept her distance, kept turned a bit away from him. She didn’t think he’d connected her to her family, but he’d likely manage to if given too close a look.
She held back, moving closer to the iron fencing outside the row house they were walking past. This area of London, not quite all the way to Marylebone, was home to nibs and swells and people of rank and importance. Parkington’d likely haul her off simply for clashing with the local flavor. She tucked herself at the corner of the building and pretended to be buttoning her coat.
“Something the matter?” Móirín asked.
“It’s that blasted copper.” Gemma titched her chin in the man’s direction.
Móirín recognized him quickly. “Parkington. Shame such a handsome man chose to be a Peeler.”
Gemma could smile at that. “You think he’s dimber, do you?”
“Even the biggest troublemakers can be fine to look at.”
Stone was, at that moment, talking with the “troublemaker.” He seemed to be on as good terms with the man as Baz was.
“Why is it you don’t care for blue-bottles?” Gemma asked.
“’Tisn’t so much that I don’t care for them but more that they don’t overly care for me. Or wouldn’t if they knew a few things I make pains to keep to m’self.”
Gemma nodded, understanding the predicament in an instant. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something odd onthe walls of the building. Something dark in the shadows. Something hard to make out.
“Do you see that odd smudge just there?” She motioned to it as Stone reappeared at her side. He was tall and might manage a better look.