The book she had agreed to write for Braeburn and Smithson was to discuss general principles of good design, interspersed with photographs and small essays using the renovated Liefdehuis as an example of those principles. Those sections would have to wait until the house was completed (and she couldn’t allow herself to contemplate the house not being completed), but work on the more general chapters could begin immediately. She had already accumulated extensive notes on a chapter about the ideal layout of rooms, and for the last day, since her cowardly retreat from Liefdehuis, she had been attempting to write it.

It wasn’t like she didn’t have opinions on the proper layout of rooms or about their relationship to one another. She had dozens of opinions. She even had an outline. No, the problem was every time she started a sentence, a memory of Sam Moore popped into her head and made all the words scatter like gazelles on a savannah.

The sitting room door banged open and Liza sailed through it, weighed down with a tray.

“Here’s your lunch, ma’am, and the post as well, which was a surprise, let me tell you, what with Tompkins seeing Thomas the postman in the Blue Stag until well past midnight, if you take my meaning.”

Alva paused, unsure what meaning she was supposed to take, other than the clearly stated one. She settled for a vaguely encouraging response. “Oh?”

“It’s on account of his engagement with Sally May Reardon falling through, you see, although if you ask Sally May she’d say the engagement fell through on account of his drinking, so it’s a proper mess either way you look at it.” Liza busied herself setting the contents of the tray out on the desk, ruthlessly pushing the blank page out of the way and replacing it with a pot of tea, an empty cup, and a plate of delicate sandwiches. “And then there’s the contingent saying it’s because of Sally May’s old beau Roger Pepper coming home on furlough, and looking so very fine in his uniform. He’s in the Navy, you see, ma’am, and it can’t be denied he looked awful nice in his whites, and there’s something about a military man besides, wouldn’t you say?”

“Mmm,” Alva said, picking up the stack of mail.

“But of course he left, and so one way or another Sally May doesn’t have any beaus at the moment, having broken it off with one and had the other leave. It’s a proper kettle of fish, is what it is. Is everything all right, ma’am?”

“Hmm?” Alva stared at the delicate blue envelope in her hand, addressed to Mrs. Alva Webster. The return address announced that it came from Alfred Webster; the postmark informed her it had been mailed from Hyde Park yesterday, the morning after he’d visited her.