“Okay!” shouted Gaspard. “Are we ready? To go? Thees is our first big night of service, so we are ready, table one, you go, table eight!”

The young waiters nodded, looking serious. Isla and Konstantin were plating up together. She sidled up, face flaming.

“Uh, sorry about . . .”

He gave her an extremely imperious look. “What would I care what you think?” he said, blinking.

Stung, Isla went bright red once more, hating him, and back to plating up. The waiters moved at lightning speed as Gaspard looked at the big clock on the kitchen wall and shouted, “Three, two, one, let’s go !”

Chapter 24

I n the dining room there was a pleasant hum of conversation. The pâté had been cleared away, and people were spreading napkins and refilling glasses, ready for the new course. There was a pleasant clink of conversation, dominated by Pam, who was also going to be starting the speeches afterward, as she kept telling everyone, and about how this was about the children really, which Flora knew already, and how amazing it was that Christabel was sleeping through the night so they could easily leave her with a sitter. Flora narrowed her eyes at this last bit. It couldn’t be true, could it? Well, maybe it was true, she thought, but Pam was following one of those evil regimented baby care techniques that involved them being left to cry themselves exhausted for hours on end. Flora decided this absolutely had to be it.

“Yes, they’re just so much happier in a lovely structure,” said Pam.

“I thought you never put the baby down,” said Flora, in a voice that came out much more accusatory than she’d intended. Pam blinked at her.

“Well, yes,” she said. “For the first few months. It made her happy and secure enough to be left whenever and however.”

She smiled beatifically as Flora ignored her phone, which was bleeping, almost certainly a message complaining that Douglas was yelling blue murder and Agot was joining in.

Flora headed over to speak to her friend Lorna, who was looking beautiful in a new green dress, earrings sparkling.

“Wow, look at you,” she said.

“I know,” said Lorna. “Too much?”

“Mrs. Docherty is wearing a diamanté fascinator and a jeweled comb.”

“Okay, compare me to somebody else.”

Flora gave her a hug. Lorna didn’t even pretend to hide what she was feeling; Flora was her only confidante.

“So he’s not coming.”

“I’m not sure he’s really a posh dinner kind of a person.”

“You don’t know what kind of a person he is,” said Lorna, too quickly, then bit her tongue. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” said Flora. “Don’t think I’m not sympathetic, because I am. Do you want me to fake a medical emergency so we can call him? Nothing disgusting, just a fainting fit or something?”

“No, don’t,” said Lorna, pointing at Mrs. Laird, Saif’s babysitter, who was wearing a gold dress with batwing sleeves from the 1980s and cackling wholeheartedly with her mates over a gin. “If we ruin Mrs. Laird’s night, she’ll start spitting in the flour.”