“Why, Judy, of course, darling.” Katherine smiled. “Your choice is certainly courageous. She’s so much older than you, so children may be a problem. And she isn’t well-regarded in Paris—no family, no status. A working girl I believe the term is.”

“That’s a term for a prostitute.”

“Really?” his grandmother drawled. “Some other expression, perhaps.”

“A career girl.”

“And yet, her career doesn’t seem to be doing all that well. In fact, from what my friends are saying, darling, she appears in the newspapers and on the radio saying nasty things about you. They say she supports you being fired . . .”

“She’s employed to do Massot’s PR.” He looked at Katherine, sharply. “I thought you didn’t know I’d been fired.”

Another minute pause.

“Of course I knew, darling, I said how shocked I was.You must listen, Tom.” Her eyes slid away again. “But perhaps it’s all for the best . . . I do think that maybe you weren’t the best person to run the company either. . . .”

He blinked. “What do you mean?”

Faubert arrived with the silver coffeepot; Tom leaned back in the seat and allowed himself to be served. His eyes did not leave his grandmother’s face. He was processing information, much of it unpleasant.

“Thank you,” he murmured to the servant. Faubert looked mildly surprised; Katherine, disapproving.

“You don’t thank someone for doing their job,” she snapped.

Tom was ashamed of her ill manners. He looked at Faubert, apologetically.

“You’re so like your mother,” Katherine said, angrily. Then she gave a little shimmy, and seemed to pull herself back together.

“And Judy—we were on the subject of Judy, weren’t we? She is very different from Sophie, I think. Do the two of them get on?”

There was an exaggerated innocence to this comment.

I need to get out of here, Tom thought. I have to get away—to think.

“I won’t be marrying Judy, Grandmother,” he said, flatly.

Katherine smiled, and for the first time since Tom had come, he thought it was genuine.

“I think that is a wise decision, Thomas,” she said, silkily. “No doubt Miss Dean has been interesting—and perhaps entertaining . . . but surely not suitable. . . .”

He stood. “Thank you for the coffee, Grandmother. I must be off.”

“Darling.” Katherine sat still; Tom went to her, bent down, and kissed her on the cheek; he could see the rouge carefully painted on her paper-thin skin. “Come again soon. You mustn’t be a stranger,” she chided. “We’re family.”

“Yes.” Tom straightened up. “We all need to remember that. I’m going to England for a few days, to visit Maman.”

Katherine sat bolt upright. “What? She is still with Hugh Montfort. Your father’s enemy.”

“Mother says he wasn’t Papa’s enemy. If she’s to marry him, I think I owe him at least a chance to explain.”