“So, you’ve got friends in high places. Anyone else in the group I should know about? No pop stars hiding in plain sight?”

“No. Ameerah’s a barrister, and her date, Dev, is a model. Jeremy’s an entomologist, and his wife, Katie, is in conservation, but she’s not here yet. Pippa’s—”

“Oh, I’ve had plenty of phone calls with Pippa Harrington,” Isaac cut in.

That didn’t sound good.

“She’s the bossy wedding planner,” Isaac continued. “I didn’t realize she used to go to the school. Figures. She wanted me to rip up the front lawn to install the cables for thirty Parisian lampposts.”

“I didn’t notice any Parisian lampposts on the front lawn,” Nory commented.

“No, you didn’t.”

“Oh,” said Nory. That wouldn’t have pleased Pippa. “Well,” she said brightly. “Moving on, there’s Guy, who’s a journalist, and his interior designer wife, Camille. And last but not least is the groom, Charles. He’s an investment banker.”

Isaac sniggered. “Nobody with a normal job, then.”

“Define ‘normal.’ ”

“No waitresses or supermarket cashiers or farmers, you know what I mean, honest jobs. Jobs you graft at.”

“Oh my god, you sound like my dad! You are an inverted snob, my friend,” said Nory. “Let me just stop you in your bullshit tracks right now.”

“I don’t see that,” Isaac blustered, clearly a little deflated at being called out on his workingman spiel. The old rough-diamond routine might work on the usual female guests at the castle, but it didn’t wash with Nory. She’d been raised by Jake Noel; he’d practically written the inverted-snobs rulebook.

“You assume that because their labor isn’t manual it doesn’t count. That’s inverted snobbery. I should know, I’ve been dealing with it on one side or the other for most of my life. Graft comes in many forms, you know. My friends work bloody hard, all of them. You don’t get to belittle them because they don’t go home with mud beneath their fingernails!”

“Okay, okay!” Isaac held his hands up in surrender but then added, “You were obviously brainwashed by the Braddon-Hartmead education system.”

“I was not brainwashed! I can think perfectly well for myself, thank you very much, and I probably have a much more rounded view of things than someone who has spent their life nursing the giant chip on their shoulder.”

Nory began to walk away. She had enough of this shit from Thomas, she didn’t need it from Isaac as well. Maybe she was being oversensitive, but she didn’t care. Start as you mean to go on was—after many failed relationships—her motto.

“Nory, wait. Please.” He caught up with her beside a row of sprout trees. “I’m sorry. I was joking. Kind of. I guess old prejudices die hard. I don’t really mean it.”

Nory stopped.