“Right. Sorry. I didn’t mean it in a bad way. It’s just that Tilly’s so young and sweet and I mean, I’ve only met him twice, but he seems kind of…domineering. With my cousin, anyway. She’s always having a bitch about how he likes things his way in the office, how he gets cranky when she organises things the way she used to when the old vicar was there.”

Kate fixed her with a look.

“Sorry,” Molly said, sheepish. “I’ll stop talking.”

Kate cleared her throat. “That’s all right.” She scribbled a correction above a typo.

“I’m sorry,” Molly said again. “My head is kind of all over the place right now with this script. I’ve been so nervous I can barely eat and I think my blood sugar is low.”

It left Molly’s lips disguised as a joke, but it reached Kate’s ears as a cry for help. She looked up, brows knitted. “Are you okay, Mol?”

Molly’s lips pursed and Kate watched as a veil of deflection clouded her gaze. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Kate held her gaze for a moment before she looked back to the work before her. “You’d come to me if you weren’t?” Kate asked, her eyes scanning Molly’s words. “Right?”

Molly picked up her pen and scribbled a correction between the double-spaced lines of the new edits. “Right,” she murmured.

Tortured by the knowledge that Tilly’s engagement party was that coming weekend, Friday passed slowly for Kate. The conversation with Molly about the party played on her mind until the evening, when it got the better of her.

“Making tea at this hour,” she murmured, joining Tilly at the kitchen counter. “I’m surprised you’re still up.”

Tilly looked at her strangely. “It’s only quarter past ten.”

Kate reached for a glass and filled it at the tap. She looked out the kitchen window at the illuminated statue on the hill. “I just mean, you know, you’re probably exhausted. You probably have a lot to organise before your engagement party on Sunday.”

Tilly was quiet.

“The sisters haven’t asked me to drive them over to Declan’s—that’s where Molly tells me your party is—so I figured they weren’t invited either. I guess that’s probably for the best—it would be pretty awkward for Sister Ellie after the position he put her in. Probably not her idea of a party—”

“It’s not a party. It’s a small dinner.”

“Can’t be that small—Molly’s cousin is going.”

Tilly dunked her tea bag slowly. “I didn’t think you’d be interested, considering the way you feel about him.”

There was more to it than Tilly’s awareness that she couldn’t stand Declan. To not invite Kate was one thing, but Sister Ruth? With Sister Hattie’s death, Sister Ruth was the closest person to family Tilly had left. Would there be anybody there with whom she had shared more than a handful of polite hellos?

Tilly reached for the sugar. “And about Sister Ellie…I spoke to Declan this morning about his mission trip to Vanuatu,” she said. “He’s not even certain that he’s going. The whole thing was blown out of proportion.” There was a bitter edge to her tone. “So it’s all fine. Everything’s fine.”