Masked by Moonlight

They spent most of the walk home engaged in forced bursts of small talk, grasping for the close atmosphere they’d enjoyed earlier. It seemed just beyond their reach. By the time they turned the final corner to her house, the gaps of silence grew uncomfortable.

Ten steps farther he stopped. He fiddled with his pockets some more, then looked up at her and said, “Would you…would you like me to read you the episode? You said you enjoyed it so much the other night at dinner. There’s been so much rain, it seems a shame to go inside when the park looks so inviting.” She watched him fumble, trying to cover his all-too-obvious desire to set things right between them. “I suppose we don’t even need to discuss anything at all, just take in the view and…”

“Yes,” she agreed eagerly. “I’d like that very much.”

He smiled, a wonderful, warm smile. And when he pulled her hand into the crook of his elbow to cross the street, she felt the earlier glow come back.

He saw her seated on a wrought-iron bench under the shade of an enormous budding tree. He sat opposite her and made an amusing fuss of folding the paper to just the right spot. She sensed he was doing it purely to please her. What an appealing thing that was.

Clearing his throat so dramatically that it made her laugh, he began to read. Oh, gracious, his voice was wonderful when he read like that. Deep and refined, as if the words were both surprising and familiar at the same time. How can he dislike the story and yet read it like that?

“The night crept by, allowing him time to think of all he had done, and all he had lost. Justice seemed little comfort, and yet it was comfort enough. He could no more stand by and let evil run its course than he could quench his heartbeat.”

Covington stopped reading and glanced up at her with an almost baffled expression. He seemed as if he didn’t want to like her tale, but couldn’t help himself. The words—her words—were affecting him; she knew it. He began to read again, and his voice seemed to wrap around her in the crisp air.

Matthew Covington was an exceedingly handsome man.

Mighty nice.

Stuart congratulated himself again for having the foresight to build the Herald’s offices so near his home. He hadn’t realized until today what an advantageous view of the park the windows offered.

There was no mistaking the pair on the bench across from his front steps. Covington was reading the paper—his paper—to Georgia. And she was looking as if she enjoyed it immensely. Stuart smiled.

“Dex?”

“Yes, Stuart?” Dexter Oakman came up behind him, to stare out the windows.

“Will you look at that?”

“Seems your sister is playing hostess quite well. How’d you convince her to do it?”

Stuart turned. “My secret, Dex.”

Oakman smirked. “You and your secrets.”

“How far did Covington get in his audit this morning?”

“Halfway into last year’s first quarter.”

Stuart smiled with satisfaction. “I doubt it will be too difficult to see that he doesn’t get much further than that.”

“Sure looks like it.”

Stuart brandished his file like a banner as he sang,

“I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I’ve information vegetable, animal and mineral…”

Georgia set the paper down on the Grace House kitchen table and looked at Quinn. “Well, what do you think?”

The boy tore another large chunk of bread off the loaf she’d set in front of him before she began reading the original Herald installment aloud. He narrowed one eye as he pointed at her with the bread. “I knew somebody was watching.” He grabbed his mug of juice with the other hand. “But a girl? Who’s dumb enough to let a girl run the money home?” He took a gulp of milk large enough to make Georgia wonder if he was eating at all outside the meals she gave him at Grace House.

“That Bandit man’ll be busy if things like this keep happening,” Quinn said, raising his voice to be heard over the banging of pots and dishes in the mission’s kitchen. He thunked his mug down on the rough wooden table where Georgia had set a place for him after he’d missed lunch by turning up late for the second day this week. Georgia winced a bit at the lavishness of her own home compared to the squalor she saw South of the Slot. The more she got to know Quinn, the more desperate his situation seemed. And there were so many more like him.

“Really,” she said, still unable to find a way to convince him the Herald wasn’t reporting actual Bandit sightings. Quinn seemed to take such hope from the tale, she couldn’t find it in herself to try any harder to take it away from him. Not that she hadn’t attempted to. Quinn, it seemed, just wasn’t interested in being convinced. She gave in to his insistent belief, half because she couldn’t fight it, and half because she found she no longer wanted to.

“I hope Bandit Man gets to sleep during the day. If he’s out all night, he needs to keep his strength up.” The boy swiped his hunk of bread around the tin plate, picking up every last bit of food before he stuffed the bread in his mouth. “More egg?” he asked, his cheeks puffed out as he chewed.

Georgia rested her chin on her palm and raised an eyebrow at the grimy lad. He stared right back at her, until it apparently dawned on him what she was expecting.

“Fine.” He grumbled, swallowed, then sat up straight. “May I please have another egg?” A more reluctant show of manners could not have been conceived. He made a face, as if the words left a bad taste in his mouth. The fact that he acquiesced to “please,” “thank you” and napkins at all was further proof of how truly hungry he must have been.

Georgia smiled. “Most certainly. As a matter of fact, why don’t we wrap up half a dozen so you can take them home.” She leaned toward the boy as the house cook slid another egg—Quinn’s third—onto his plate. “Does everyone have enough food at your house, Quinn?” While the answer seemed obvious, she wanted to hear his assessment of his own situation.

The lad looked at her as if she’d asked if the sky had recently fallen. “’Course not. Who does? I mean, ’cept for here.” Somewhere in the background, Reverend Bauers’s off-key baritone resounded as he worked. Georgia often felt God had never created a man more enthusiastic but less gifted in song. Still, San Francisco was a good place for him. The city’s faults and vices could easily overtake a more sensitive soul.

“Da was yelling about being hungry just last night. Something about still not getting paid, but I think it was mostly his leg again. I sure hope he goes back to the docks soon. He’s sour about having to sit around all the time.”

A fight two weeks ago had injured Quinn’s father’s leg. The wharves seemed less safe with each passing week. Reverend Bauers had been patching up too many victims of dock fights recently. Georgia had to ask half her women friends to donate old shifts to be cut up into bandages. She’d even seen the reverend resort to whiskey to tend to wounds, because the medicinal alcohol was running low. Reverend Bauers had no musical talents, but he excelled at making do with what he had.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Quinn. I hope things will get better for you soon,” she told him. “I’ll see if Reverend Bauers can stop by and take another look at that leg.” No matter how one viewed it, things seemed to be going from bad to worse in San Francisco lately. How long would Grace House be able to keep up with the load? What would happen when its small team buckled under the strain? Heavenly Father, she sighed, stretch out Your mighty hand over this city. Things feel so desperate. What can be done?

Georgia couldn’t shake the sensation that God was answering when Quinn poked at the paper she was still holding. “Miss Waterhouse, would you read it to me again? I like the part with the swords and all. I haven’t seen his swords yet.”

Again she felt the necessity of telling Quinn the stories were just made up by a man at Stuart’s paper. And again, pity stopped her. If the Bandit kept one boy coming to Grace House, then the hero really was saving lives.

And Georgia Waterhouse could live with that paradox—at least for a little while.

Chapter Seven

“You can’t be serious!” Matthew bellowed, trying not to let his splintered nerves get the best of him. One more sleepless night and he was going to become a threat to himself and others.

“I’m afraid I am, sir. I’m woefully sorry, but there it is.”

“How? Exactly how did my whip go missing? It’s not as if I leave the thing lying around, Thompson.”

The valet, ever calm, seemed only mildly repentant—but then, the man’s face was so professionally inexpressive that he could have been miserably guilty over the mishap and Matthew might never know. “It is hardly the type of thing to be left out in the open,” Thompson said.

Matthew began overturning chair cushions. “Which is why I keep it locked up.”

“Indeed, sir, you normally do.”

He froze, cushion held midair, and glared at the old man. “‘Normally’?”

“I must admit I was quite astounded to see it lying about. Not having the combination to your arms case, I thought it best to at least put it out of sight. Under your linens, to be precise.”

Matthew dropped the cushion back in place, heading for the bedroom, until logic stopped him. “But it’s not there, is it?”

“I cannot see why the hotel staff would have thought to replace the linens twice in one day, sir. The bed had already been made. A mistake, I suppose. Change in chambermaids.”