I splashed down the steps, hitching my skirt round my knees so as not to trip. Dad being Dad, when I seized him and flung my arms around his neck he undercut the moment by muttering, “Steady on, now,” and “Can’t this wait until we’re inside?” but his heart wasn’t in it. His heart—for that brief, brief moment—was in agreement with mine, and he hugged me back in spite of the rain.

It couldn’t last. “Come in!” Cory kept shouting, and in the second it took for me to shut the car door, the entire Lyell party—Zoë? Tom? Anyone else? I hadn’t had chance to notice—had been ushered inside, and another carful of arrivals had pulled up between us. By the time I got indoors, they’d disappeared into one or other of the galleries.

The wind burst with me into the house, making the paintings wobble on their hooks. I slammed the door shut and the hall went quiet, except that I could hear Cory’s voice, exuberantly loud, in the gallery to my right. He had dumped everyone’s wet coats and umbrellas in the corner of the hall any-old how, and some of the guests were glancing unhappily at the heap as they sipped their champagne. We ought to have thought about what to do with coats. Perhaps I ought to think about it now.

Someone shoved a tray of half-filled glasses into my elbow and muttered, “Drink?” The caterers had sent two waitresses along—school friends who smirked when they caught one another’s eye. They were meant to be handing out canapés as well as drinks, and I should have checked that that was in hand, but the girls moved on before I remembered. I took a swig from my glass and turned away from the wet coats so that I wouldn’t have to worry about them.

Nobody was mingling. The people who’d come in pairs or groups remained in pairs or groups; those who’d arrived alone were looking down into their glasses, or up at the chandeliers, or checking their phones. There was a small gathering round the portrait of Lady Caroline Augusta Fitzroy-Byrne, and when one person remarked of her, “Rather fine,” there was a grateful hum of agreement.

Most of the Freya pictures were in the rooms either side of the front door, but there were two in the entrance hall, including the one with the fancy gold frame. You couldn’t exactly miss them, and yet everyone seemed anxious to do just that. I heard a few people speaking kindly about Cory himself—“A relief to know the poor kid survived adolescence,” “Isn’t it just?”—but nobody mentioned his paintings, or not in my earshot.