Well exactly, said Iona. That’s what you want him to get you to say.

SO ISLA HAD washed her hair, even though that was pointless, as it had to be scraped back, and curled her eyelashes and put on makeup, and she’d seen him looking at her again and now it was just overwhelming. Could it . . . could it really be happening? She wiped the lipstick off. Then reapplied it. Then wiped it off again. Then absolutely fell out with herself. This was ridiculous.

She thought about her mother, who was always warning her about putting it about or showing off.

Oddly, this was the thing that steeled her resolve. She was an adult, not a child. And her mother’s rules didn’t seem to bring her much happiness. It was nearly Christmas, there was a party to go to, and a handsome man outside who wanted to take her. Did it have to be more complicated than that?

Yes, whispered her treacherous, terrified brain, but she resolved, just this once, to ignore it. Sometimes, being an introvert . . . it just got too much. That was all.

She reapplied a very thin layer indeed and blotted it so it was almost, but not quite, gone, then forced herself out of the bathroom and back into the raucous, warm, cheery kitchen, where even Gaspard, who was firmly of the belief that scones were not patisserie and never would be even vaguely acceptable, and questioned whether they were a sandwich or a cake or quoi c’est quoi ça, was tucking into one of Konstantin’s scones piled high with local elderberry jam.

She smiled tentatively.

“Okay!” said Gaspard, as they loaded up the trays to put them in the van. “Thees ees a party for tiny children and old people, and I do not know who are the crazy people who leeve on this island so far from the theater because it is horrible and cold, you know, it is a bad, bad island.”

He stopped himself suddenly, completely distracted. Outside, without anyone realizing, it had started to snow again. The whole world was a blur.

Delighted, everyone ran to the windows.

“Look how beautiful that is,” said Konstantin.

“Like home?” said Isla a little nervously.

He turned, delighted she was talking to him again. “Not a bit,” he said. “But I like it anyway.”

“But!” said Gaspard, who hadn’t finished. “It is still a party. In few days we start and we open.

“But today, you should be happy and have fun.”

And they all rushed to the door and started pulling on their hats and coats, almost as excited as the children.

Chapter 50

M eanwhile, up at the school, the nativity was unfolding with its usual quota of tears, attention grabbing, and stupefied confusion, typified this year by Conal Feachan of primary one standing stock-still facing out at the audience throughout, one finger stoically up his nose as his horrified parents desperately tried to mime him to remove it, which only caused him to root around slightly harder.