“Oh, good, you’re awake!”

Marie-Claire, Iris thought with her usual morning-induced irritability. Good Lord, what time was it, and why was she in Iris’s room?

Iris closed her eye.

“It’s half ten,” Marie-Claire said cheerily, “and it’s uncommonly warm out.”

Iris could not imagine what this might have to do with her.

“I thought we might go for a walk.”

Ah.

The mattress dipped under Marie-Claire’s weight as she perched on the end. “We really haven’t had a chance to get to know each other.”

Iris let out a sigh, the sort that would have been accompanied by the closing of eyes if she weren’t already facedown in her pillow. She had been thinking this very thing the night before. She just hadn’t meant to do anything about it before noon.

“Shall we?” Marie-Claire asked, just bursting with annoyingly chippy energy.

“Mmphghrglick.”

A very small silence, and then—“I beg your pardon?”

Iris growled into her pillow. She really didn’t know how she could have been more clear.

“Iris? Are you unwell?”

Iris finally rolled her body over and forced herself to enunciate as she said, “I am not at my best in the morning.”

Marie-Claire just stared at her.

Iris rubbed her eye. “Perhaps if we depart—what?” The last bit was not much more than a snap, really.

“Ehrm . . .” One corner of Marie-Claire’s mouth stretched out in a bizarre approximation of a grimace. “Your cheek.”

Iris let out an aggrieved sigh. “Pillow crease?”

“Oh. Is that what that is?” Asked with enough perkiness to make Iris want to reach for a weapon.

“Have you never seen one before?” she asked instead.

“No.” Marie-Claire frowned. “I always sleep on my back. I suppose Fleur does, too.”

“I sleep in many positions,” Iris grumbled, “but mostly . . . I sleep late.”

“I see.” Marie-Claire swallowed, but that was her only sign of awkwardness before she added, “Well, you’re awake now, so you might as well get up and meet the day. I don’t think there is any breakfast left in the dining room, but I’m sure Mrs. Hopkins can put together a cold collation. You can bring it with you.”

Iris looked longingly at her bed. She imagined this bed, tidy and sweet with a breakfast tray on it. But Marie-Claire had made a friendly gesture, and Iris knew she must accept. “Thank you,” she said, hoping her face did not belie the effort required to pry the words from her mouth. “That would be lovely.”

“Wonderful!” Marie-Claire beamed. “Shall I meet you in the drive, say in about ten minutes?”

Iris was about to bargain for fifteen, or better yet twenty, but then she thought—she was already awake. In for a penny, in for a pound. Ten minutes. Good Lord.

To Marie- Claire, she said, “Why not?”