Sophie handed him back the ring that was too small, and waited as he fetched her coat and helped her into it. She told herself it was fine, and in fact it was flattering, if Gregoire was on fire to marry her.

Her eyes swept over his place; not her own taste, but definitely expensive. Gregoire was a proud man, she excused him; she looked at the portraits of himself, opening a Massot store, in a group of businessmen, even shaking hands with a former prime minister of France.

A chill crept over her heart; she looked a little closer. Gregoire was clasping M. Jospin’s hand in his, and smiling. He was dressed in a charcoal grey suit, a navy tie . . .

And a white shirt, with thin red stripes.

She’d seen it before.Very recently.

It was the shirt Lise had been wearing.

“Are you okay, my love?” Gregoire said tenderly, draping the coat across her shoulders.

Sophie wrenched her eyes away, and used Katherine Massot’s techniques of composure for the second time that evening.

“I’m fine—all the excitement, you know, darling,” she said. “See you tomorrow,” and kissed him on the cheek.

He opened the door, and Sophie, heart thumping, was thrilled to see her driver, still there, waiting patiently for her, his headlights dimmed.

He got out to open the back door for her, and Sophie climbed in. “Home,” she said, instantly.

“Certainly, Madame. I trust you had a pleasant evening?”

Sophie made no reply. She was looking at Gregoire Lazard as he stood on the steps. He seemed to have sensed that something was wrong. He was staring at the tinted windows of her car, as though he could see through them; and although, at first, she thought it must be fanciful, Sophie felt a sudden, frightening wave of malice.

But then her car moved off and he turned and went into the house, and she was able to breathe out.

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

“You do understand, M. Massot, that your position is a delicate one,” Leonard Elgin said.

Tom scowled; he hadn’t come all the way to London to have his grandmother teach him to suck eggs.

“Of course it’s delicate; that’s what I’ve been trying to explain to you,” he said impatiently.

They had put on the full-court press for him. The ancient chambers in Lincoln’s Inn were quietly, decorously abuzz with news of their new client. Tom had been ushered into the largest meeting room and ensconced in one of the leather-backed chairs under a fine Edwardian portrait of a judge. Both senior partners, Messrs. Leonard Elgin and Crispin Hartford, were present. Tom could see they were trying to contain their eagerness.

“The matter will certainly require the most discreet handling,” Hartford agreed. Like his partner, he was a man in his fifties, with a decorous, quiet air Tom approved of; precisely what he wanted after his mother’s behaviour.