He heard Rachel gasp, across the small inlaid table from him, but he didn’t look up at her. It was Susannah’s response he was interested in.

“If he’s alive, why hasn’t he turned up? Even a child of five knows who he is, where he came from. You’d think he’d have found a way home by now. Somehow.” Susannah was fidgeting with the fringe on her shawl, more from exasperation, he thought, than nervousness.

“Yes, there’s always that possibility. But he hasn’t. I’m just being thorough, that’s all. Did you ever hear stories of what happened on the moor? As you were growing up?”

“No, it wasn’t the sort of thing discussed around children, and by the time I was old enough to be curious about Richard, or Anne, or even my father, Rosamund always managed to change the subject. I remember my father, but of course not the early years, before he married Rosamund.”

“He was brought up a Catholic, I’m told. What about you? And Stephen. Or Cormac?”

“We’re all Anglican. Well, I suppose Cormac was born a Catholic, but he never practiced, as far as I know. What difference does it make?”

“Does he have close ties in Ireland? Has he ever talked about the rebellions and the uprisings? Michael Collins? The black and tans?”

“He’s not interested in politics. Never was, as far as I know. Cormac is typical of the City—he’s very good at what he does, he enjoys making money, and he behaves himself. Reputation is money, he says.”

“He’s an attractive man. Wealthy. Socially acceptable. Why hasn’t he married? In his position a hostess is almost indispensable.”

“Yes, I know, I’ve acted for him often enough. So has Rachel.” She shot a sidelong glance at Rachel. “I always wondered—growing up, watching them together—if there might be something between Cormac and Olivia. The tension between the two of them and the way they very carefully avoided each other. She never married. I thought perhaps he was the reason, I wondered if she was ashamed of her bad leg, and wouldn’t marry him. But wanted to, very badly.”

“You know that’s all in your imagination,” Rachel said, suddenly restless. She shifted so that her face was out of the light coming through the stained glass in vivid shades of port wine and honey, dappling the walls and the floor and her shoulder. “They never seemed to have much in common, and I was around them for years before you were born.”

“Which tells me,” Susannah said, “that they had a lot in common! Didn’t you find Cormac attractive? All my school friends were desperately in love with him! Everyone wanted to come down to the Hall for weekends.”

Jenny Beaton laughed. “I was fondest of Stephen. I had such a crush on him when I was twelve. Do you remember that?”