I should reread Gavin’s messages once more before writing to him—allow their significance to sink in. There might be something I’ve missed . . .

No. No time. Adam will be home any minute. And Gavin has waited long enough to hear from me. I might still matter to him as much as I did when he sent those emails; by tomorrow, he might have stopped caring. I don’t want to leave it too late.

I open his most recent message and press “reply.” My fingers are numb, unreliable. It takes me three attempts to manage “Hi Gavin” without typos. Then I delete it and write “Dear Gavin,” instead. “Hi” is too casual.

I’m so sorry I haven’t replied before now. Until today, I haven’t opened my Hushmail account for more than three weeks. I decided I couldn’t do what we were doing anymore. It was nothing you did wrong, so please don’t worry about that. I don’t want to go into detail, but I had a minor skirmish with the police that was kind of linked to my involvement with you. It shook me up and I lost what little courage I had. I decided we had to stop before something irreversible happened. In an ideal world, I would love for us to be in touch again. You saved my sanity and brought unexpected pleasure into the darkest patch of my life. But it’s just not possible. Once again, I’m so sorry. I wish you all the very best. N x

I press “send,” wiping away my tears with my other hand. There. I’ve done the right thing for once. I’m glad the urge to behave honorably doesn’t seize me more often if this is how it feels: like hollowing out my heart and stuffing it full of grayness.

The darkest patch of my life. Was that an over-the-top way to put it?

In February, thanks to King Edward—King Edward VII, to give him his full alias—I considered taking my own life. For a few days I wasn’t sure that even the thought of Sophie and Ethan, motherless, would be enough to persuade me to stay in this world.

I’m about to sign out of Hushmail when a new message appears in the inbox.

Gavin. Oh God. Christ, God. Of course it’s him: no one else knows I have this email address. I used to email King Edward from a Gmail account. I didn’t know Hushmail existed until I answered Gavin’s advertisement and he wrote back from a Hushmail account.

How has he managed to reply so quickly? Has he been sitting in front of his computer for three weeks and four days, waiting?

I hope he hasn’t. Almost as much as I hope he has.