Just as she was remembering—too late—that the wretched McGuire was presumably a friend of Charlotte’s as well as Max’s, in which case her remarks were doubly untactful, Gini said in a dry voice: “If you want to forget him, Lindsay, why mention him? No one else did. You harped on him the whole way down in the car.”

“I did not!”

“I’ve never even met the man, and I already know more than I need. I could describe his appearance, the sound of his voice—”

“Yes. Well.” Charlotte was rearranging cushions energetically. “Lindsay doesn’t know Rowland very well. I do. And he’s—” She hesitated oddly. “He’s very nice. Not devious at all.”

Lindsay was about to expostulate—“nice,” in Charlotte’s book, was high praise, though in Lindsay’s view Charlotte’s benevolent nature awarded the term too often and too easily. She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. A car had just passed, on the road beyond, and Lindsay saw that Charlotte, having heard it, had instantly tensed. How odd, Lindsay thought, and then it struck her that Charlotte, always so serene, was on edge. Anxiety about Max on the highway, Lindsay thought. Rising, and moving to the windows, she looked out.

It was dark outside, and the moon was already rising. Lindsay pressed her face to the glass. Behind her, Charlotte was fussing with the tea things, and wondering whether, when he arrived, Max would want tea or a stiff drink.

Lindsay looked out at the garden and tried to construct familiar patterns from the shift of moonlight and shadow. She could feel an early evening sadness, an inexplicable and vague regret, creeping in on her. There was the yew hedge, she told herself, and that pale blur was an urn, and that was the curve of the drive that divided, one arm leading around to the front of the house, and a second leading to the stables and garages at the back. There was the drive, and there—suddenly—were lights. She glimpsed the familiar outline of Max’s car as he paused where the driveway forked.

“Max is home,” she began, and then frowned. “And I think he’s brought someone with him, Charlotte. Were you expecting that? I’m sure I saw someone in the passenger seat.”

“Oh?” Charlotte had risen to her feet. She was looking about her in apparent consternation.

“Whoever could that be?” she said.

“Rowland! I don’t believe it! What a lovely surprise!” Charlotte swung around as Rowland and Max entered, and embraced McGuire with fervor. It did not escape Rowland’s notice—or, he thought, Lindsay’s—that Charlotte was crimson in the face: clearly, she was privy to this “surprise.” Rowland, in response to a fierce nudge from Max, hung back. Lindsay was standing by the window, hands tightly clenched. On the sofa next to her, and directly facing Rowland, was a woman who had to be Genevieve Hunter. As he entered, she raised a pair of clear gray eyes to look at him. That inspection, acute, he would have said, but without interest, disconcerted him. As Max began speaking, she looked away toward the fire. Firelight moved against her hair. Her hands, long-fingered and ringless, were folded in her lap.