But James must despise her, she thought. She’d found herself backing away blindly down the hallway, her hand against the wall to steady herself. What a fool he must think her. Oh, he had affection for her, of that she was sure enough, but he must have guessed her feelings. No doubt he pitied her for them.

She had to get away.

She had slipped silently down the back stairs, passing the ground floor, making her way to the kitchen. It was full of warm yellow light. She could remember James taking her through the house on their wedding night, pointing out each painting, each piece of furniture, with love and pride. He should never have spoken like that, she thought. Like she had a future in this house, as its mistress. One day Grace would be in charge of all this; she and James would share a bedroom, and Cordelia’s room would be turned into a nursery for their certain-to-be-beautiful babies. Perhaps they would have dark hair and gray eyes, or blond hair and golden eyes.

She had stared around almost blindly, seeing the patterned china that had been given to her and James as a wedding present by Gabriel and Cecily, the samovar that had been her mother’s, the silver cup her grandmother had brought with her to Tehran from Erivan. Gifts of love and pride given in the expectation of a happy marriage. She could not bear to look at any of it anymore. She could not be in that house one more moment.

She had fled, into the garden and the darkness, and the streets beyond.

She could still hear James’s voice in her ears. I do not feel about you at all as I feel about Grace. What had she expected? She had woven a tissue of denial out of James’s kindness, his kisses, his desire for her. It had probably only ever been his desire for Grace, subsumed into the only form of expression he could allow it. She had only ever been a substitute. They’d never even given each other their second wedding runes.