“Goodness,” she said. “You’re an awful flirt.”

Matthew looked offended. “Not at all,” he said. “I’m a diabolically excellent flirt. I’ve learned from the best.”

Cordelia couldn’t help but smile. “Anna?”

“And Oscar Wilde. The playwright, that is, not my retriever.”

The barmaid returned with their drinks and a sparkle in her eye. She set them down before scampering off behind the bar. Cordelia took a sip of her ginger beer: it was spicy-hot on her tongue. “Do you know anything of Anna and Ariadne? There is clearly a story there, history between the two of them, but I have always felt awkward inquiring. Anna is so private.”

“It was some years ago. Anna was in love with Ariadne—very much so, I gather—but Ariadne did not return the feeling. It seems the tables may have turned, but…” Matthew shrugged. “It took quite a bit of asking for me to learn that much. Anna has mastered being entirely open without ever revealing anything significant about herself to anyone. It is why she is an excellent shoulder to cry on.”

“And have you made use of it?” She studied him: his dark green eyes, a faint scar on his cheek, the wisps of blond hair that curled at his temples. It was rare he stayed still enough for her to really look at him. “Anna said you had a habit of getting your heart broken.”

“Crikey,” said Matthew, turning his half-empty glass in his hand. “How unfeeling. She probably means Kellington.” He looked at her sideways, as if gauging how she’d react to this news. Cordelia wondered what Matthew would say if she told him in turn about Alastair and Charles. It was odd to know something so personal about Matthew’s brother, and not be able to say so. “Not long after my first visit to the Ruelle, Kellington offered me a private concert in the Whispering Room.”

Cordelia felt her cheeks turn pink. “And that became a broken heart?”

“That became an affair, and the affair became a broken heart. Though I am, as you see, entirely recovered.”

Cordelia remembered Matthew in the Ruelle, Kellington’s hands on his shoulders. She remembered the look on Lucie’s face too, when Anna had said, Matthew seems to prefer a hopeless love. “What about Lucie, then? Did she break your heart? Because she wouldn’t have wanted to.”

Matthew rocked back slightly in his chair, as if she’d pushed him. “Does everyone know about that?” he said. “Does Lucie?”

“She has never told me anything indiscreet on purpose,” Cordelia reassured him. “But in her letters, she has often revealed more than I think she meant to. She has always… fretted over you.”