Later, I told Lady Caroline and, judging by her sly smile, I’d say she understood.

We spent most of the day putting the portraits into frames. Some of the pictures had gone to a professional framer, but the rest fitted into frames that Cory had used previously and stashed in a box-room. A couple of nights ago, while I was asleep, he’d brought them into the studio and propped them up around the walls. All of them were empty, but you could tell they’d been used before because the backing pins were askew.

It was a time-consuming and dusty job—working out which frame could be matched with which painting, cleaning it up, backing it and stringing it with cord. I didn’t mind. If I was pasting brown paper onto a board, or twisting a screw into a hanger, then I wasn’t expected to talk, or return kisses, or exchange little smiles with Cory.

Midafternoon, I went downstairs to make coffee, and when I came back there was a frame sitting on the easel, facing the door. He must have fetched it while I was gone. It was grander and more decorative than any of the others, with its golden apples and moulded leaves. It was unmissable, unforgettable—redolent of an August evening when I was hot and befuddled in a long green dress, the sun had set the sea on fire, and I thought I’d glimpsed my sister’s face in a mosaic of glue and torn-up paper.

Cory looked round nonchalantly as I stood in the doorway with a mug in each hand. Was he watching for a reaction? I don’t think I gave him much, if so. Anyone would pause, wouldn’t they, faced with a flashy showpiece like that? I only looked at it. I didn’t raise my eyebrows, or gasp, or comment. I handed him his coffee, and retrieved my pencil and ruler from the table.

“It’s a nice frame.” Cory stopped in front of it, his arms folded across his chest. “Don’t you think so?”

“Hmm.”

“Shame none of the portraits quite fit,” he said.

I could only see the back of it now, from where I was kneeling. There were crooked pins all along the inside edges, sticking out at wonky angles where the previous picture had been dislodged. He can’t have removed it carefully; he must have clawed and bashed until it tumbled onto the floor.

“Shame,” I agreed, returning to my work. I’d already measured the strip of backing paper, but there was no harm in measuring it again. It gave me an excuse to lower my eyes.

“There.” Cory turned the easel round, as if it mattered that I could see it properly. “Perhaps we could adjust one of the Freyas to fit? If we backed one of the smaller paintings onto a larger board . . . It seems a pity not to use it, don’t you think?”