With immense care and almost a hint of ceremony, he put a tiny picture in her hands. She was surprised by its weight—more substantial than she’d anticipated. She searched the face of a woman with dark hair, beautiful brown almond eyes, a richly needleworked bodice depicting stags and tiny trees on a blue background, the whole object only a few inches long and wide. Lucy couldn’t look away. A grandfather clock chimed the half-hour, and perhaps another minute passed before she consulted Alex.

“Who is this?” There was no volume in her voice.

“Some distant ancestress of my mother, we think—we’re not entirely sure. It was stolen from the house a few months ago, and it’s just come back through Interpol—my father’s not completely au fait with how they found it. We’d more or less given her up.” He looked at her with a half amused, half-serious expression. “Does she remind you of anyone?”

Lucy looked straight back at him. “Of course.” She sat down with the portrait while Alex made the tea. No one could miss the similarity. It was her own face.

She was aware of a powerful headache growing on her, and feeling dizzy, but she wouldn’t tell him. Since her operation she’d had these sensations before. She told Grace she thought it was because she’d come close to death and was now acutely sensitive to the pain of others. Grace joked that it was a near-death experience. No, she wasn’t turning into Joan of Arc, or St. Teresa, and she wouldn’t be mentioning it to her present companion either. But it was real enough, and holding on to the painting tipped the scales. He gave her tea; she felt nauseous. She would have liked to lie down, but refused to let another outing with Alex become disrupted by her poor health. He talked to her, but she couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying.

She looked once more at the lady’s face, the details of the picture. She left the sofa next to him, holding it distractedly. She made a few strides across the room and sat at the piano without asking if he minded, caressing a few keys absently with one hand. Some densely colored chords escaped. Alex was asking if she could play. She said something meaningless about having completed grade eight, but her words sounded thin and she stared back at him blankly. She was going to be sick. He was beside her in a second.