Of course. Not possible. Of course. Pushed together. Marcus leaning on Em, confiding in her, despairing even. Em trying to comfort him—

“You really didn’t know?” Alice leaned back, not displeased by whatever my face revealed. “Well, I wouldn’t take it personally. People want variety, or the risk of getting caught, or just a bit of validation. So I don’t hate you, no more than I love David. There’d be something wrong with me if I did, after all these years.”

“Now you’re going to say I did you a favor.”

“Why not? It would be true. David and I weren’t together very long. It suited for a bit. Rob was always talking about him and he was charming. Nice-looking and charming, and just that little bit lost, and he listened—none of the men I knew ever actually listened to you—and he knew how to be entertaining. No, he wasn’t a bad man, but what else do you call someone who causes destruction wherever they go? That poor teacher at school. I doubt he ever taught again. And when you think about it, really think about it, what was he? Good with waiters. Charming to strangers. But it’s like a card trick. If you’re there watching all the time, in the end you’re going to see how it’s done. A man of no substance, my father would have said. Or did say in fact.

“I found all that charm a bore, and maybe that’s why he liked me, for a time. I was never enthralled. All that childishness you went in for, diamonds and hidden treasures and going on about how magical the manor was when it was a great, rotting, freezing money pit. Playing games then, and playing games now. I invited you down because Rob made me curious. How you’d changed. But I don’t see it. And it was all a cheat anyway.”

“What was a cheat?”

“That game. It was fixed.”

Alice reached out and took two more of the virtuous cakes from the rack. Without asking, she dropped one on my plate and ripped the paper casing from her own.