Cordelia looked over at Lucie, who smiled at her. It was a slightly shaky smile. There were shadows in Lucie’s eyes, as if something was bothering her. When she didn’t reply to Tessa, James moved a step closer to his sister, as though to put a barrier between her and further attention. “Cordelia was a great help to Barbara,” he said. “She was the one who had the idea to cut her corset away.”

Sona looked slightly horrified. “Cordelia has a tendency to throw herself into every situation headlong,” she said to Tessa and Will. “I’m sure you understand.”

“Oh, we do,” said Will. “We’re always speaking very sternly to our children about that very thing. ‘If you don’t throw yourself into situations headlong, James and Lucie, you can expect bread and water for supper again.’  ”

Alastair choked on a laugh. Sona stared at Will as if he were a lizard with feathers. “Good night, Mr. Herondale,” she said, turning both herself and her offspring toward the door. “This has certainly been a most interesting evening.”

It was long past midnight. Tessa Herondale sat in front of the mirror in the bedroom she had shared with her husband for twenty-three years, and brushed her hair. The windows were closed, but soft summer air seeped in under the sill.

She recognized Will’s step in the hallway before he came into the bedroom. More than twenty years of marriage did that.

He shut the door behind him and came to lean against one of the bedposts, watching her at the vanity table. He had shrugged off his jacket and undone his tie. His dark hair was mussed, and in the slightly blurred mirror, he looked no different to Tessa than he had when he was seventeen.

She quirked a smile at him.

“What is it?” he said.

“You’re posing,” she said. “It makes me want to paint a portrait of you. I’d call it Gentleman, Dissipated.”

“You can’t paint a line, Tess,” he said, and came over to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. Now that he was close up, she could see the silver in his dark hair. “Much less capture my glorious handsomeness, which, I hardly need to point out, has only grown with age.”

She didn’t disagree—he was as handsome as ever, his eyes still the same startling blue—but there was no need to encourage Will. Instead she reached up and tugged on one of the more silvered locks of his hair. “I’m well aware of that. I saw Penelope Mayhew flirting with you tonight. Shamelessly!”

He bent his head to kiss her neck. “I hadn’t noticed.”

She smiled at him in the mirror. “I take it from your insouciant manner that all went well in Seven Dials. Did you hear from Gideon? Or”—she made a face—“Bridgestock?”