Less than two minutes after the Lizzie had landed, it was climbing back into the sky and banking sharply for the shores of England, Estelle hunched inside, braced for the thunder of guns that never came. She had wept silently as land had given way to the silver expanse that was the Channel. She had wept again after she had handed the little box of film to the woman named Miss Atkins in a Baker Street flat cloudy with cigarette smoke and explained why the agent named Celine was unable to do so. What she had sacrificed.

In front of her, William Seymour’s eyes remained unfocused, his breathing shallow but steady, his hands limp in hers.

“So you don’t get to give up now,” Estelle said. “Because Sophie never gave up on you. Do you hear me?” She leaned closer to William. “When people told her that, even if you had survived the downing of your plane, you would not have survived being taken. And even if you survived being taken, you would not have survived the days and weeks and months that followed in whatever nightmare you were cast into. They told her that you were dead, and she refused to believe them. Do you understand?”

William’s fingers twitched beneath her own before stilling again. His slack expression remained unchanged.

“You don’t get to give up,” Estelle repeated. She pulled her hands from his and stood, brushing at the bits of grass and earth that clung to the hem of her cream-colored skirt. She snatched her bag from the ground. A thready anger had gripped her, and it was better than the omnipresent sorrow. “I failed your sister, and I will never forgive myself for that. So don’t do what I did. Don’t fail her, not when you have been given this second chance at life. A chance she never got. Find a way to live again, William Seymour.”

Estelle turned and walked away from him because she was afraid that anything else she said would be a continued, unjustified assault of harsh words borne from her own guilt and weakness and regrets. She stopped in front of the booth again, staring at the collection of landscapes and seascapes.

The housekeeper emerged from behind the booth to meet her, wringing her hands, her face a mask of worry. “Did he say anything to—”

“I’d like to buy a painting,” Estelle said.

Imogen’s jaw slackened before it snapped closed again. “I beg your pardon?”

“One of Mr. Seymour’s paintings. I’d like to buy one.”

The housekeeper was staring at her like she’d lost her mind. “Don’t feel like you have to—”