among people who smiled while their lives

made two cups of tea. Her hands were steady. She notic

-eyed and wearing her husband's face, sh

an I have

charity luncheon. Mr. Dray w

bird and did not look back until she was in the car. Then she ask

an to welcome. Beatrice sat at a table in the corner with a bound volume of ol

hotograph on pa

rinning and one scowling. The caption:

ade Sebastian's jaw tighten. She had never seen his face, becaus

aces with her finger-first one, then the other. They were iden

e questions about her father. The not

d study. The way Sebastian said my

ssion. The way he had stopped when she te

didn't notice. She was staring at the photograph, at the two identical faces, and she was thinking about

tive was unbearable; if she admitted what she suspected, she would have to do something about it, and she didn't know w

a Cole. And Coles, she was beginning t

he thought of her father, who had taught her to read a bill of lading before she could ride a bicycle. She thought of her mother, who had flown

m not going to c

t very still, and she b

Foundation gala filled the ballroom of the Meridian Hotel with six hundr

air. But where Sebastian carried himself like a man guarding a vault,

with ease, with warmth, with a kind of attention that seemed genuine. She watched the way h

and he saw her, an

it was the same look he had given her in the sunroom, the

he reached her, he took

ole. At

e from the sunroom floor. The voi

, and murmured so that only she could he

Sebastian had been

drop. She felt her

frozen, and he pulled back, and for a moment,t

" she w

't w

t pre

h, the whole of it, the terrible complicated thing that he ha

"I'm sorry you had t

think I w

d. "I hoped you would be happy

lt on a lie is

kno

y did yo

right, and for a moment she thought he might cry. But h

way. She walked away.

lt him wat