I scratch the edge of that dragon with my fingernail, over and over, irritation returning. “It’s a waste of time to even try. If they weren’t allowing helicopters here at the beginning of the war, they’re certainly not going to do it now. Even if the cease-fire is holding. Even if you’ve gone hunting with an MP.”

My voice has deepened in imitation of Hugh. Jo pretends not to notice.

I know she shares my aversion to snobbery, the clannishness and entitlement of the upper classes in Britain. The way class works here is subtle, not in your face at all, but sometimes it’s that subtlety that bugs me the most, the sense that they find their own superiority so obvious that it need not be mentioned. You can tell who’s old money here by how shabby their furniture is, how muddy their boots, how overrun their houses are with animals. You can tell by the little glances they give each other. Who they talk to and who they ignore.

Hugh’s not a “toff,” thank God. I wouldn’t have married him if he were. He’s got a polish to him mixed with landowner earthiness, but not that aloofness I see in so many of his friends. He cares what people think of him. He doesn’t use that title as a shield; in fact, I didn’t even find out he was landed gentry until after his dad died and I saw the obituary. Maybe he’s a little more normal because he grew up here, in this tiny, tight-knit community jutting out of the ocean. Even so, I do notice snobbery sneak in from time to time, especially when we’re visiting his sister in Surrey or meeting his friends in their country homes and London town houses.

I dread going to the mainland, is the truth. They tease me, thinking I’m too provincial, too American to notice, and all I can do is stay polite and play along to avoid making the waves that will only prove them right.

I never complain about it outright to Jo, only in oblique ways, a valve to relieve the pressure. And she never criticizes Hugh either, never complains about the upper classes directly. She talks about Britishness and how ridiculous it can all be, apologetically, as if she and the rest of the middle class were complicit, which in and of itself is extremely British.