“Carter, one of the many things I most admire about you is your honesty. Which I’d like to return in kind. Because if we’re to keep seeing each other, which is something I’d like very much—very, very much—honesty will be key.”

“And? So?”

“I know. Once again, I’ve acted abominably, and I could recite my schedule and offer international excuses, but I won’t. Because . . .”

He was having trouble with whatever he was about to say, trying to organize his thoughts and pacing in the very small space.

“Here it is. After our dinner, which was an utter delight, I returned to London, where I was summoned by my grandmother for what she termed a ‘caring advisory,’ which means everything short of my being pistol-whipped. She’d been fully briefed on your existence and our behavior, which she judged to be irresponsible and disrespectful.”

When Edgar cited his grandmother, he was referring to the Queen of England. One of my grandmothers is dead and the other one lives in Vermont and sends me a cat calendar every year.

“Your grandmother was upset because we went to IHOP?”

“Because I exposed the Crown to possible rumour-mongering by placing myself in a far too public and down-market setting with what she kept referring to as a ‘questionable stranger.’”

I was stung. I was from New Jersey, and I had an unneccessary job, and I’d distracted myself from the Edgar situation by adding a silvery-gray streak to my hair, but being a “questionable stranger” made it sound as if I hung around schoolyards at recess.

“I know. I told her that you were gifted and smart and funny, but she got this look, it’s like a dinosaur with gout, it’s so unpleasant and intimidating—here, I’ll show you.”

He fished in his pocket for a five-pound note with a picture of his grandmother, Queen Catherine, etched on it in a dried-blood red. I saw what he meant.

“And then she had a proposal. She said that if I really wanted to continue, and that if our relationship held genuine promise, it could weather a test of time. She said I should wait a year, and if I still wished to see you, she might allow it. We bargained. I brought her down to one month, and she agreed, as long as I made no attempt to communicate with you. But after two weeks I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I was so ashamed of my spinelessness, and I’d been so rude, that I jumped on a plane and here I am. And I apologise, which is feeble. And now you know precisely how cowardly and constrained I am, so if you’d like to head right back into that ballroom, you have every right. Because I . . .”

He was searching for exactly the right damning word.