That is Sir Alfred’s niece?

She isn’t as pretty as her mother, is she?

Shame about the hair.

Before she could silence the impulse or consider its origin, she dabbed a bit of rose-tinted salve on her lips and cheeks and finished packing her belongings in a small carpet bag.

Lottie then savored the view from the bedroom’s window one last time. The very air seemed to call to her: Leaving so soon? She felt a faint pang of regret. Only days ago, the idea that she would leave so suddenly, and with Alec, would have been laughable. But now wasn’t the time for second thoughts. If life had taught her nothing else, it was that she could endure whatever fate held in store. Lottie then picked up her bag, straightened her shoulders, and marched from the room.

Downstairs a plate of freshly made custard tarts was set on the worktable. Marta must have discovered they were Alec’s favorite, but the woman was nowhere in sight. Lottie took a bite, savoring the buttery sweetness. She was seven the first time she ever tasted one. It was shortly after Alec had come to live at Uncle Alfred’s house.

“His parents are both gone, and he has nowhere else to go,” her uncle had explained beforehand, even more sober than usual. “It hasn’t been an easy life for him these last years. But I know you’ll be good to him, Lottie dear.”

She had lost her own parents the previous summer and was intrigued by meeting another child who might be able to understand the crushing pain that had become her constant companion, to help her make sense of this strange new world. Then Alec arrived: thin, sullen, and already handsome, with the most charming accent she had ever heard. He had the self-possession of a boy much older than his eleven years—and he made no effort to hide his contempt. But upon their introduction, Lottie saw the flash of wariness in his hazel eyes. Even at her young age, she recognized that perhaps this older boy needed comfort more than she did.

Lottie spent that entire first month trying her hardest to befriend him, but Alec thoroughly rejected her every overture.

After all, she was only a silly child, while he was practically a man.

They had nothing in common.

Nothing.

Until one day she asked him questions. About his home. About his mother. His father. Then he began to talk. Slowly at first, and then all at once, like a great, rushing waterfall. How lonely he must have been. And how angry, to keep so much inside. A part of her understood, but she did not yet have the words to explain, so she listened. That was how she learned about the tarts, and how he had them on Sunday afternoons when his mother was still alive.

Lottie asked the cook to make them for tea the next day and explained in great detail exactly how they should be prepared. The astonishment on Alec’s face when he saw them piled next to the scones and jam was well worth the weeks of barbs.