Margot’s blood went hot. In Belgium, everyone belonged to the Catholic church—that was simply the way it was. But when the Germans had invaded, they’d made it clear that part of their hatred was rooted in what they called their different faiths—as if the same Christ had not bled and died for all. “I hope you broke their noses too.”

That wasn’t the attitude God would want her to have about it, she knew. No false equations flashed through her mind now to tell her so, but they had often enough before when she’d had such thoughts.

Drake’s grin looked better suited to the lad he had been than the man of twenty-four she knew him to be. “I may have knocked out a few teeth—baby ones, lucky for them. And got in a bit of trouble for it too.”

“I can imagine. Their mothers?”

“No. Mine.”

Margot chuckled. “Our mothers were much alike, I think.” She darted a glance to Lukas, who was smiling across the table at Red Holmes, saying something clever and witty, no doubt. No one would ever know, to look at how the two bantered, that they’d only met the other night, when Lukas happily handed over a suit of clothes that he claimed didn’t fit his current tastes anyway. Rosemary had made a few quick alterations, and the result . . . Well, the result was that Dot had been looking at Holmes even when conversation didn’t call for it.

Margot sighed. Whether to him or someone else, Dot would no doubt marry within a year or two. She’d move off into the world of housewives and mothers. Margot would shift into academia. Would they still be friends, when Dot was set on multiplying and Margot on limits? Simple arithmetic and calculus may have had a bit in common, but the one didn’t necessarily understand the other.

Drake leaned closer. Not by much, just an inch and a half, but it brought her gaze back to his face. It was serious now, the blue-grey eyes he shared with Dot absent the spark of jesting that tended to be there whenever he spoke. “I’m sorry, Miss De Wilde. For making you think of sad things tonight, when you ought to be celebrating.”

Smile, Maman said in her mind. Reassure him. But she couldn’t. She could only press her lips together and tilt the corners up a stingy few degrees. “It isn’t your fault. And really, I’ve never understood the need to celebrate another year going by. Age is a pointless measure of who we are, anyway.”

“Oh, here we go.” Willa rolled her eyes, stood—Dot had stood too—and reached for Margot’s empty plate. But despite her words, she was grinning. “You’ve got her started on age. I’m evacuating the table before she makes me feel alternately like an old biddy and like a child.”