“No,” said Flora. “No foie gras, it’s cruel.”

“Okay,” said Gaspard, not in the least bit perturbed. “Free-range goose.”

“Thank you.”

“Cacarrrrr!!”

“Honnnnkkkk!!”

I like him, thought Flora.

Chapter 12

I t had happened the previous month. Entirely with Joel in mind, Colton had left a large bequest to a fostering charity on his behalf. This was embarrassing enough in itself, but they’d also asked him to speak, which he did, about his own childhood and his new life in Scotland, with a baby, and Colton’s hotel.

Afterward, Joel had found himself next to a portly short Norwegian man.

“You have a new baby?” the man had asked him.

Joel nodded.

“How’s it been?”

Joel half smiled, which was more or less as demonstrative as he could ever get in company. He had been up with Dougie at four, giving him a bottle as Flora slept, happy as Larry. He’d reminded himself to get started on Colton’s Christmas lights—Colton had likewise requested that the island be made more Christmassy, a responsibility that fell on Joel as his foundation’s lawyer—and looking round at the smart room he was in in London, with a huge, chic silvery tree and cutting-edge modern baubles, he made a mental note to remind himself again. Unfortunately, someone had just offered the possibility of him showing off pictures of Douglas, which made it immediately fall out of his mind again.

He whipped out his phone to show pictures of the little dark-eyed baby boy.

“Oh, he’s . . . he’s amazing.” The man smiled sadly, then he sighed miserably. “Ah. Then they grow up.”

“You have children?” said Joel, who was of the unshiftable view of new parents: that their children would of course be different.

“A son,” said the man. “Layabout, more like.”

He blinked.

“He needs a job, in fact.”

There was a pause.

“What kind of job?” said Joel carefully. He wasn’t crazy happy about bringing on board people’s privileged children. They tended to take up more time than was strictly necessary and be frankly horrified that they were expected to work every single day, that people might occasionally tell them that what they had done wasn’t wonderful and perfect, and that they couldn’t just get immediately promoted.

“Oh, anything,” said the man. “He should really start at the bottom. He’s never held a proper job. Have you got anything an idiot can do?”

Joel smiled. “Probably, but I’m sure you wouldn’t want to . . .”

But the man took another swig of his wine and was warming to his theme. “No, do it,” he said. “Get him cleaning floors, washing pots. I insist! I’ll sponsor the charity too if you do it. Yes. This is it.”

And Joel could hardly refuse that. And so it was arranged.

NOW, ISLA STOOD in the kitchen, looking at her watch. It was time for the new kid Konstantin’s shift to start—everyone else was there, but he hadn’t shown up yet. Which was not ideal, considering he only lived upstairs. Gaspard was late too, but she kind of expected that. Still, it was frustrating.