“I apologize,” he told her. “I know. It is only that…” He picked up a pot of cold cream and turned it in his hands. “It feels as though since we came to Gedda you have been elsewhere, either in mind or body. Because of your work, and the campaign. And Stephen has been at school, not writing much. I thought we would have time during Solstice. To come together again.”

“We will,” said Lillian, stubbing out the butt of his straight.

“Even with your brother here?”

“You don’t think he can … come together with us?”

Jinadh paused in his fiddling with the cold cream to give her a worried look. «From what I know of him, he’s better at tearing things apart.»

It hurt all the more for being true. Rarely had the DePaul family gotten through a holiday, a trip, or even a quiet dinner at home without a tussle, Cyril inevitably at the center of the conflict. Gedda was just a bigger, nastier example of his mode of operation.

“I think he’s probably learned his lesson,” said Lillian, rising from her stool. “Unzip me?”

Jinadh’s fingers closed on the clasp at the nape of her neck, then moved down her back with the zipper. «I am sorry, moon-eyes,» he said, and kissed her neck.

She put a hand to his head and pressed her cheek to his hair: loosely braided for sleep, soft with scented oil. «Me, too. Bed?»

It wasn’t until she slipped beneath the covers that she realized how chill and bone-tired she was. The mattress pressed up to meet her, and Jinadh hissed when she tucked her feet behind his knees.

“Did Magnusson get that stain out of your dinner jacket?” she asked, unable even half asleep to let loose ends lie.

“He did.”

“You’re sure you won’t wear a kurta for the reception?” she said.

He lifted his eyelids a bare several centimeters. «Don’t try it on me, too.»

“Try what?”

«You’ve got Makricosta to dress your set,» he said. «And I’ve heard you talking with Honora over the phone; the guest list reads like Ospie Gedda turned inside-out. Immigrants and agitators, to an invitation. I’ll wear my dinner jacket.»

“Stones.” She put her forehead to his shoulder. «I’m sorry. I never should have asked.»

«No,» he agreed. «You shouldn’t have.»

“I just need a nod from Honora at the end of this. A letter, a word in the right ear. I can do a lot of the work myself, but it never hurts to have a phalanx at your back. And she’s good for ten soldiers at least.”

“You will find something,” he said. “Even if it isn’t the Cliff House. And we will not starve.”

“In this economy?” she asked. “Don’t be so sure. We’d have to sell off land, at any rate. And with my family history…”