“ ‘No, don’t cry,’ I said. I got the box of tissue for her and set it down before her. ‘I totally can’t bear the thought of you shedding one tear and if you do I’ll swallow it, or I’ll dry your eyes with these. Now tell me why they wouldn’t let you go to Europe. I mean we’d have Aunt Queen as the perfect chaperone.’

“ ‘Quinn, I’m not just an ordinary Mayfair as I told you. I’m not just an ordinary witch. I’m what they call the Designée of the Legacy. And the Legacy is something that dates back hundreds of years. It’s a great fortune that is inherited by a new woman in each generation.’

“ ‘How big a fortune?’

“ ‘It’s in the billions,’ she replied. ‘That’s why it could endow Mayfair Medical, and right now the Heiress is Rowan Mayfair. But Rowan can’t have a child and I’ve already been named to succeed Rowan.’

“ ‘I see. They’re grooming you and guarding you for the day when you have to take over.’

“ ‘Precisely,’ she answered. ‘That’s why they want me to stop acting wild and sleeping with all my cousins. Since we got back from Europe I’ve listened pretty much. I don’t know what it is with me and sex. I just love it. But you get the idea. I have to occupy a position of honor, if that doesn’t sound too egregious. That’s why they wanted me to go to Europe, to be educated and cultured and—.’

“Again her face went dark, and this time the tears came up to stand in her eyes.

“ ‘Mona, tell me,’ I pleaded.

“She shook her head. ‘Something bad happened to me,’ she said. Her voice was breaking.

“I got up and I led her away from the table. I shoved back the bedclothes and the two of us kicked off our shoes and we climbed in against the nest of down pillows. Never had I loved my fancy bed so much as when I was lying under that baldachin over there with her. And you have to picture that we were fully clothed, except for the fact that when I started kissing her I opened her blouse all the way down, feeling her breasts, but she didn’t mind.

“But then we tapered off, principally because I was so tired, and then I brought her back to the subject.

“ ‘Something bad happened?’ I asked her. ‘Can you tell me what it was?’

“For a long time she was silent and then she started to cry again.

“ ‘Mona, if anybody hurt you, I’ll hurt them,’ I said. ‘I mean it. Goblin could even—. Tell me what happened.’

“ ‘I had a child,’ she said in a hoarse whisper.

“I said nothing but I could see that she wanted to go on.