Patrick bent forward and traced a finger across her cheekbone. “She was rather like you,” he said. “Small and delicate. I remember our nanny scolding because whenever mother came into the nursery, Alex and I would climb up on her lap and wrinkle her clothing. She was always very elegant, but she never minded it when we crushed her dresses. She used to wear hoops, I remember that. And she smelled like bluebells.”

“How old were you when she died?” Sophie asked.

Patrick’s hand dropped from his wife’s face. “We were seven. She died giving birth to a boy who did not live either.”

Sophie picked up Patrick’s hand and cradled it against her cheek, wriggling over a trifle so that her body fit warmly against his.

“I’m sorry, Patrick. I’m so sorry.”

Patrick turned his head in surprise. He had been staring at the wall, thinking back to those days. “It was a long time ago,” he said, smiling down at her. One could become addicted to a wife who snuggled under one’s chest like a chick going to nest, he thought.

“So, have you any other grand surprises for me, wife? Perhaps you speak Norwegian? Swedish?”

There was a heartbeat’s worth of silence in the cabin.

“No, oh no,” Sophie assured him, shaking her head vehemently. “No more surprises, Patrick.”

He rolled over on his back, pulling her across his chest. “It’s splendid to have such a knowledgeable wife,” he said dreamily. “Tomorrow we’ll dock the boat for a week or so. We will go to an inn and you can order all the food and argue with the innkeeper.”

Sophie’s cheek was resting against Patrick’s linen shirt. “Did you miss your mother dreadfully when she was gone?” She was suspiciously close to tears again.

“Oh yes,” Patrick said matter-of-factly. “I was rather a mama’s boy, I think. Alex used to be summoned to sessions with my father, since he was the heir, and then I would have Mother all to myself. It was supposed to be a consolation, since I wasn’t the heir, but in fact Alex would have given anything to be able to stay with Mother, and we both knew it.”

A tear rolled down Sophie’s cheek and disappeared into the creamy whiteness of Patrick’s shirt. She couldn’t bear thinking of a small Patrick missing his mother. She couldn’t bear it.

“Did you cry?” Her voice was suspiciously high, but Patrick didn’t notice. He was thrown back to the nightmarish week of his mother’s death.