“Darling, I’m going to carry you into another room now.” Charlotte smiled exhaustedly, a flicker of a smile. Alex’s strong arms came under her and she gratefully laid her head against his shoulder. In her arms nestled their little baby, still suckling irregularly, although her eyes weren’t open anymore.

Alex laid his wife and child tenderly in the room Mall pointed out. When Charlotte’s maid appeared with a bowl of water, he waved her away and washed Charlotte’s body himself. She hardly seemed to notice as the warm sponge glided over her body. The baby was asleep now, its cheek tucked against Charlotte’s breast.

Finally Alex snuffed out most of the candles and climbed on the bed too. He couldn’t bear to be parted from them. In a gesture that broke his heart, Charlotte handed him their daughter, adjusting the babe’s little head against his arm. Then she snuggled against his side and fell instantly into a deep sleep. Alex lay awake a long time, staring blindly at the opposite wall.

An hour or so later Pippa trundled into the room, shrieking with delight to see her papa. Charlotte didn’t even stir. Alex showed Pippa the new baby, but she showed almost no interest. Instead she said, “Mama!” and crawled over Charlotte’s body so that she could nestle on her other side. She butted her head up against Charlotte’s shoulder, clutched a bit of Charlotte’s nightdress, and closed her eyes, absolutely blissful.

Alex nodded to Pippa’s nanny, who left. Then he leaned back against the headboard, sick with self-loathing. How could he have thought to separate this family? If Charlotte is generous enough to give me a place in the family again, he vowed with all the silent strength of his soul, I will guard it with my life and never, never be the one to pull it to pieces.

Alex lay unmoving in the huge bed until dawn began to creep through the curtains, rearranging the puzzle pieces of his life: the garden girl and how she led him to marry Maria, and Maria’s wild sexual gyrations, and how they had nothing to do with Charlotte. And perhaps most important, his own destructive rage at Maria, which he unfairly directed at Charlotte.