“It’s all right, Mama,” she said soothingly. “Whatever the problem is, it doesn’t matter. You see, I have made up my mind not to marry Alex,” she continued. “I have already refused his offer, and when it finally dawns on him that I really mean it, I’m sure that he will find some other woman to …” Her voice shrunk into silence.

Adelaide looked at Charlotte sharply. There was a good deal more going on here than met the eye. “If he was the one from three years ago,” she said hesitatingly, “might it not be a good idea to marry him? After all, he …”

“No.” Something about the closed tightness of Charlotte’s face made Adelaide discard the subject.

There was a pause. Charlotte gathered herself together and gently drew her mother to her feet. “Don’t worry, Mama. I’ll ask Sophie about it, and you can reassure papa that I do not intend to marry Alexander Foakes, no matter what his problem may be.” Although, she added silently, I don’t believe for a single moment that he has any impediment in that region!

Her mother hesitated at the door. “Charlotte, have you heard that Alexander has a twin brother?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think that perhaps you might have confused the two men?” Adelaide persisted unhappily. She simply had to suggest it. “They are as alike as two peas, you know. Even people who know them well can’t tell them apart.”

“I can’t believe you’re suggesting this! You know what happened that night. How can you possibly think that I wouldn’t recognize the man when I saw him?”

“But, darling, it was dark, wasn’t it? And it was years ago, and wasn’t he wearing a mask?”

“There’s … there is simply no possibility,” Charlotte whispered. “I even recognized his smell, and the shape of his cheekbones, and the curve of his jaw.”

“Sweetheart,” her mother said softly, gathering her into her arms.

“It’s him, Mama,” Charlotte said. “It’s he who doesn’t recognize me!”

Adelaide stiffened. She had never even considered this possibility. In her reconstruction Alexander recognized the beautiful maiden whose virtue he had blemished, and pursued her (despite his affliction) out of loyalty, or desire, perhaps. But not recognize her daughter? Her beautiful, exquisitely beautiful daughter! She looked at Charlotte in pure amazement.

Even now, with tears stealing down her cheeks, her daughter was objectively one of the loveliest women she had ever seen. Her face had grown more slender in the past few years, accentuating her cheekbones, and her new short haircut emphasized her large eyes. But all the essential parts of Charlotte were unchanged. Her eyebrows, her sweet, flying eyebrows that she had even as a newborn baby—how could he possibly have forgotten those eyebrows?

A surge of rage swept over Adelaide that was unlike anything she had experienced before. She knew precisely how mother tigers felt when their young were threatened.