CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ISABELLA
The Thorne family dinner is being held in a house that seems to have been built specifically to remind ordinary people that they do not belong there.
The estate is illuminated from the gates to the gardens even though night has not fully fallen. Columns at the entrance support a portico large enough to shelter my entire house, and two rows of windows reflect the London sky with an almost threatening symmetry.
Edmund used to arrange three of these gatherings every year. He said a family that met only at funerals eventually learned to talk about nothing but the dead.
After his death, Richard decided to continue the tradition.
I would rather pull out my own fingernails.
Unfortunately, the press already knows about the marriage and Lily’s existence. It is better for the family to meet her in a controlled environment than for some distant cousin to discover my daughter’s face in a tabloid and decide to introduce herself outside the school gates.
That was my argument, at least.
Alexander would have canceled the entire evening if I had asked. I did not, partly because I refuse to spend my life avoiding every place where someone might judge me and partly because I want to watch Richard when he believes he is among allies.
Lily is sitting between us in the car, wearing a green dress she chose after rejecting three others.
None of them carried an ostentatious designer label.
Alexander asked before buying anything and accepted my explanation that our daughter did not need to wear the financial equivalent of a small property development.
Progress.
She presses her face against the window when the house comes into view.
“Are there ghosts?”
“Probably,” I say.
Alexander gets out and opens her door.
“Only in the rooms on the east side.”
Lily’s eyes light up.
“Really?”
“Alexander.”
“There is no conclusive evidence,” he amends.
Lily takes her father’s hand the moment her feet touch the ground.
“Can we look for them after dinner?”
“If your mother approves.”
“Do not involve my parental authority in your lies about ghosts.”
“I never said they existed. I merely acknowledged the absence of evidence conclusively disproving the possibility.”
“He talks weird,” Lily tells me.
“I know.”
We climb the steps. The closer we get to the entrance, the more conscious I become of every window, camera, and person who might be watching us.
Alexander does not try to take my hand. He simply shortens his stride so he remains beside me.
When we enter, the volume of the conversations changes.
They do not stop, but there is a subtle shift, as though someone has turned an invisible dial. Faces turn in our direction, and several smiles arrive just a little too late to look spontaneous.
I recognize almost everyone.
Aunts, cousins, and people who sent gifts five years ago for a wedding that never happened. When the engagement ended, they disappeared with the same efficiency with which they now pretend my absence was a minor social inconvenience rather than the result of being thrown out.
A woman whose name I cannot remember approaches first. She air-kisses my cheek, compliments my dress, then looks at Lily with far too much curiosity.
“So this is the little surprise.”
Alexander tenses beside me.
“This is our daughter,” I correct before he can intervene. “Lily.”
The woman realizes her mistake and tries to recover by complimenting Lily’s dress. Lily answers politely but moves closer to Alexander’s leg.
His hand settles against her back.
Only after reassuring her does he look at me.
“Do you want to leave?” he asks quietly.
“We just got here.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“I don’t want to leave.”
Alexander accepts the decision without pressing, although from that point on he walks a little closer to me. Not enough to look as though he is escorting me, just enough to make it difficult for anyone to place themselves between us.
Marcus is one of the first relatives to show any genuine discomfort.
“Isabella.”
“Marcus.”
He looks a few years older than I remember, but he still wears the expression of someone who would like to apologize on behalf of his entire family and knows he lacks the authority to do it.
“Sorry about the circus.”
I look toward Richard, who is speaking to two board members on the other side of the room.
“Which one?”
Marcus almost smiles before crouching to speak to Lily.
“Hello. I’m Marcus.”
“Cousin?”
He looks at me for assistance.
“Some kind of cousin,” he says.
Lily seems satisfied.
“Do you know where the ghosts are?”
Marcus looks at Alexander.
“Now I’m afraid to ask.”
“East side,” Lily informs him. “But there’s no proof yet.”
“A responsible investigation, then.”
While Lily explains her search strategy, another group of guests enters the room. The area around the doorway becomes crowded, and someone bumps my shoulder.
Alexander’s hand comes to the small of my back.
The gesture is probably instinctive. He guides me only one step aside, moving me out of the way, but he does not remove his hand immediately.
Heat spreads through the fabric of my dress.
My body remembers before reason has time to object. During the years we were together, Alexander touched me like this at every event: a steady palm against my back, a silent assurance that he knew exactly where I was even when we were speaking to different people.
Back then, I interpreted the gesture as affection.
Now I can also recognize the possessiveness that sometimes existed within it.
Tonight, however, his hand does not push or decide where I should go. It simply protects me from the crush of people and remains open and light enough that I can move away whenever I choose.
I do not.
Alexander notices.
His fingers adjust almost imperceptibly against the curve of my waist, and the change catches my breath. He lowers his head toward me.
“Are you all right?”
His breath brushes my ear. It should be a simple question, but the proximity changes everything.
“I’m fine.”
My voice comes out lower than I intended.
His eyes meet mine, and for a moment the noise of the room seems distant beneath the awareness of his hand and the narrow space between our bodies.
Then Lily tugs at Alexander’s sleeve.
“Marcus says there’s real armor.”
His hand leaves my back.
The absence of contact is immediate and irritating.
“We can see it after dinner,” he tells her.
We make our way toward the dining room, and I try to convince myself that the warmth beneath my dress is merely the result of too many people in one room.
The table seats more than thirty. Lily sits between Alexander and me, a deliberate choice on my part to prevent any curious relative from turning her into the subject of an interrogation.
Richard sits at one end. He smiles at Lily, asks about school, and avoids mentioning the shares or the potential challenge. To anyone unaware of the events of the past few weeks, he would look like nothing more than an uncle taking an interest in the newest generation of the family.
I know better.
I watch the way he assesses every answer Alexander gives and how his eyes move toward me whenever the trust is mentioned indirectly. There is no open hostility. Richard is far too intelligent to offer a confession in the form of obvious dislike.
For almost twenty minutes, dinner goes well.
Lily explains to Marcus why marine reptiles are not technically dinosaurs, Alexander discreetly prevents a waiter from serving her a dish containing raw tomato, and I survive two separate conversations about business without informing anyone that my company is not a hobby I invented during motherhood.
Then Evelyn, Richard’s older sister, places her wineglass on the table.
“It is remarkable how things have a way of resolving themselves.”
My fork stops halfway to my plate.
Alexander notices.
“What do you mean, Aunt Evelyn?”
“Nothing negative, of course.”
Of course.
Evelyn smiles in my direction, although her words are clearly intended for the rest of the table.
“Only that Isabella disappeared for so many years and has now returned just as a succession issue emerged. It is quite an extraordinary coincidence.”
The silence is immediate.
Cold moves through me, but I do not lower my eyes.
Lily is busy building a mountain out of mashed potato. Perhaps she did not understand. I hope it stays that way.
Alexander places his cutlery carefully beside his plate.
“Go on.”
His voice does not rise. It never needs to.
Evelyn laughs, attempting to diminish the weight of her insinuation.
“Alex, don’t be dramatic. No one is accusing anyone of anything. I’m merely saying that, from the outside, the timing could appear convenient.”
“For whom?”
“Well, for Isabella and the girl.”
The girl.
Alexander’s hand rests on the table. His fingers close once, but his expression remains controlled.
“Her name is Lily.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean—”
“And there is no coincidence.”
Richard looks up.
My heart accelerates before Alexander continues.
“Isabella told me she was pregnant five years ago.”
The entire table goes still.
It is not merely an impression. A conversation at the opposite end actually stops halfway through a sentence.
Alexander does not look at me. His attention remains on Evelyn, as though he knows that if he searches for my reaction, he may not be able to finish.
“I didn’t believe her,” he continues. “She did not hide Lily, wait for an inheritance, or come back because of money. I threw her out of my home while she was pregnant, and I spent five years being wrong.”
My throat tightens.
Part of me wants to stop him, not because he is lying but because hearing the truth spoken in front of this family feels too intimate, like a wound exposed at a table where some of the guests will take pleasure in examining it.
Then I look at Lily.
She has abandoned the mashed-potato mountain and is watching her father.
Alexander notices at the same moment. The hardness in his expression disappears when he turns to her.
“This is an adult matter,” he explains calmly.
Lily frowns.
“Were you wrong again?”
“I’m talking about the same mistake I already told you about.”