Too used to having to swat off unwanted paws, her deeply ingrained Britishness had her rewarding such good manners with an automatic nod of consent.

On her other side, the groom cleared his throat and handed Esther a fresh drink. “Amends?”

“Thanks, but I’m actually looking for someone.” Esther waved the drink away. “Short girl, black hair, really cool . . .”

It was a frustratingly vague description, but the barista was nodding along, eyes flickering between Esther and the groom next to her. “Yeah. I think I know who you mean—saw her go upstairs a few minutes ago.”

“Oh. Yes.” The groom joined in. “Why don’t we help you look for her?” He pushed the drink into Esther’s hand once more. “You can bring your drink.”

Daisy had been scanning the crowd for Grace when she saw Esther emerge from the front room and head upstairs with a couple of boys.

Which seemed odd. Boys often flocked like moths to Esther’s beautiful moon-face, but Daisy had never seen her do anything more than make suggestive eye contact and shimmy provocatively in their direction. She never actually engaged with any of them.

(Except that one time—which all of them, Esther included, had put down to an extreme lapse of judgment due to emotional trauma.)

What if Esther was emotionally traumatized now?

As Daisy fretted, she saw the two boys high-five each other behind Esther’s bodiced back.

That didn’t seem right, but Daisy felt woefully out of her depth. There should be something on the national curriculum that dealt with these situations, with convenient multiple-choice options. Socializing had rules, but they weren’t ones Daisy understood.

A fleeting glimpse of a checked shirt through the crowd presented Daisy with the solution: Ask Susan. She knew everything.

It was even harder to move through the house than it had been earlier, but eventually Daisy reached the point where Susan had been. Only she wasn’t there. Glancing up the stairs, toward where Esther had disappeared, Daisy caught sight of the familiar red check halfway up in the shadows.

“Excuse me . . . sorry . . . oof . . . my face got in the way of your elbow there . . . please could I . . . ?”

But by the time Daisy had squashed past all the people sitting on the steps, she discovered this wasn’t the lumberjack she was looking for.

“Daisy!” McGraw looked pleased to see her. “You’re here. I just saw—”

“No, not you!” Daisy cut him off.

McGraw’s face fell, but it was herself that Daisy was cross with—of course this wasn’t Susan! His height had been obscured by the branches of a sexy sentient tree.

“Sorry, McGraw, you’re a perfectly lovely lumberjack, but I was looking for Susan . . .”