Iris hooked a glass of red wine with a slightly wobbly hand and took a suspicious sniff. “It’ll pass,” she declared. “Help yourself while you’re at it,” she told Miriam. “Don’t just stand there like a rabbit in the headlights.”

“Um. Are you sure it’s wise to drink?”

“I’ve always had difficulty coping with my relatives sober. But yes, I take your point.” Iris took a moderate sip. “I won’t let the side down.”

“Okay, Mom.” Miriam took a glass. She looked up just in time to see Kara across the room, looking frightened, standing beside an unfamiliar man in late middle age. “Hmm. Looks like the rats are deserting or something. Olga?”

Beside her and following her gaze, Olga had tensed. “That’s Peffer Hjorth. What’s she doing talking to him, the minx?”

“Peffer Hjorth?”

“The baron’s uncle. Outer family, not a member.”

Iris whistled tunelessly. “Well, well, well. One of yours?” she asked Miriam.

“I thought so.” Miriam took a sip of wine. Her mouth felt bitter, ashy.

“Lady Helge, what a story! Fascinating! And your mother—why, Patricia? It’s been such a long time!”

She looked around, found Iris craning her neck, too. “Turn me, please, Miriam—” Iris was looking up and down: “Mors Hjalmar! Long time indeed. How are you doing?”

The plumpish man with a neatly trimmed beard and hair just covering his collar—like a middle-aged hippy uncomfortably squeezed into a dark suit for a funeral or court appearance—grinned happily. “I’m doing well, Patricia, well!” His expression sank slightly. “I was doing better before this blew up, I think. They mostly ignore me.” He rubbed his left cheek thoughtfully. “Which is no bad thing.” He looked at Olga, askance. “And who do I have the pleasure of meeting?”

“This is Lady Olga Thorold,” Iris offered.

“And you are of the same party as these, ah, elusive Thorold-Hjorths?”

“Indeed I am!” Olga said tightly.

“Oh. Well, then.” He shrugged. “I mean no offense, but it’s sometimes hard to tell who’s helping who, don’t you know?”

“Lady Olga has only our best interests at heart,” Miriam replied. “You knew my mother?”

Iris had been looking up at Mors all this time, her mouth open slightly, as if surprised to see him. Now she shook her head. “Thirty years,” she muttered darkly. “And they haven’t murdered you yet?” Suddenly she smiled. “Maybe there’s hope for me after all.”

“Do you know what she means?” Miriam asked Olga, puzzled.

“I, ahem, led an eccentric life many years ago,” said Mors.

Iris shook her head. “Mors was the first of our generation to actually demand—and get—a proper education. Yale Law School, but they made him sign away his right of seniority, if I remember rightly. Wasn’t that so?” she asked.