She almost wanted to tell Alastair the truth—that James was sacrificing more than he guessed—but she could not, any more than she could tell her mother. He would be angry; Sona would be crushed. “I have what I wanted,” she said, unable to bring herself to say that she was happy, “but what of you, Alastair? What of your happiness?”

He glanced down at his hands. When he looked back up at her, his smile was crooked. “Love is complicated,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

“I know I love you, Alastair,” Cordelia said. “I should not have eavesdropped on you and Charles. I have only ever wanted you to talk to me, not to overhear you.”

Alastair flushed and rose to his feet, avoiding her eyes. “You should sleep, Layla,” he said. “You’ve had an eventful day. And I have an important matter to attend to.”

Cordelia leaned forward to glimpse him as he left the room. “What kind of important matter?”

He ducked his head back into the room with a rare grin. “My hair,” he said, and vanished before she could ask him anything else.

23 NO ONE WHO LOVES

Let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow.

—J. M. Barrie, The Little Minister

Lucie could not help but be impressed, despite her conviction that it was wrong to be impressed by one’s parents. Her mother had thrown together the traditional engagement party for James and Cordelia at a moment’s notice, but it was so lovely one would have guessed she had spent weeks planning it. The ballroom was bright with festive witchlights and candles, the walls hung about with ribbons in wedding gilt. Lace-draped tables bore plates of sweets, all in the theme of yellow and gold: iced lemon pastries stuffed with cream, cut-glass dishes of crystallized fruit, bonbons in fancy gold wrappings on an epergne, yellow plum and apricot tartlets. There were tumbling arrangements of flowers in urns on pillars around the ballroom: peonies, creamy camellias, sheaves of tall yellow gladioli, sprays of mimosa, pale gold roses and daffodils. The room was full of happy people—the quarantine was over, and everyone wanted to gather and gossip and congratulate Will and Tessa on the happiness of their offspring.

Yet Tessa, even as she slipped an arm around Will’s waist and smiled at Ida Rosewain, who had arrived in a simply enormous hat, looked worried. Lucie guessed most people wouldn’t see it, but she was a trained observer of her mother’s moods, and besides—she was worried herself.