“I find that infinitely hard to believe.” If anything, Ivy quickened their pace on the stairs, rather than slowing in thought.

“It’s the truth. He hasn’t told me anything about what drove him here. He’ll talk a bit of childhood memories, but that’s it.”

Her sister sent her a strange look over her shoulder. One that, instead of being commiserating, seemed confused. “What else do you expect, Lil? Clarke hasn’t talked to me of battles and fears and close scrapes either.”

Not uncommon for a soldier who’d been in the thick of things, she knew. It was too hard to process the dichotomy—the trenches, where they became mere animals, and then London again, where the world had kept on spinning. Where people had dinner parties and went to the theater and planned house parties for the weekends. “It’s different.”

“I really don’t think it is.” Ivy’s words themselves might not have made Lily take any particular notice, but the tone demanded it. “Whatever Clarke saw at Jutland, whatever led to the pneumonia that brought him here to London, that shaped him. But it’s painful. And if I’ve learned anything from Daddy, it’s that men don’t often like to speak of what happened. Not to us, anyway. Whatever your Russian went through, it’s no doubt the same. His country is embroiled in a civil war, Lily, and he was obviously caught up in it enough that he had to escape or be killed. You think that caused him no pain?”

“Of course it did. It separated him from his brother, for one thing.” And she knew that the silence from Paris weighed more heavily on him every day.

“After he fled, yes. But what led up to it?”

“I don’t know! That’s my point!” And it was that, wasn’t it, that made Hall view him with caution?

Ivy sighed, tugging her around the landing and to the next flight of stairs. “No, you’re missing the point. He may never tell you—or maybe not for years. Not because he doesn’t trust you, but because he can’t talk about it. Did you know that Daddy never told Mama about his role in the Sudan until we were in school? Ten years of marriage before he could talk about it with her. And I certainly hope you’re not going to say that Daddy didn’t trust her.”

Lily’s breath abandoned her. “How did you learn that?”

Ivy pulled Lily onto the same step and wove their arms together. “I had the same fears as you, you know. With Clarke. He never mentions the war, the battles, the . . . anything from when he was on a ship. Sometimes he’ll mention a friend or relate a funny story. But nothing real. Nothing ugly. So I asked Mama.”