Thomas⭐️

You attended lectures between rehearsals, accepted private work whenever it appeared and continued taking shifts at the New Inn because orchestras paid considerably less than people imagined. When you were not performing music, you were writing it. The melody you had first recovered in dreams remained with you in perfect detail.

You played it often, although never casually. There was something within it that refused to become ordinary. No matter how frequently you returned to the opening phrase, the final passage still carried the same weight. Grief lived within the notes—not the immediate violence of new loss, but something older and quieter. Grief preserved so long that it had become part of the person carrying it. You did not understand why it made you think of your father’s friend.

You remembered his presence in the dream only indistinctly. A pale figure dressed in black. A voice confirming that you had finally found the correct ending.

Sometimes, when you played the final passage, you remembered impossible eyes filled with distant stars. Then the image vanished. You began writing another piece several weeks later.

Unlike the first melody, this one did not arrive complete. It came in fragments. A sequence for the violins appeared while you were travelling on the underground. You wrote it across the back of an old receipt before it could disappear.

A passage for the woodwinds occurred to you while you were behind the bar. You wrote that one on an invoice and nearly caused Hob to submit half a musical movement with the monthly accounts. At night, the piece followed you into dreams. You dreamed of an enormous chamber built from dark stone. Its ceiling rose so high that it disappeared into mist, and the music did not come from musicians but from the architecture itself.

The strings lived within the walls. The brass sounded beneath the floor. Voices moved among the arches overhead.

At the centre of the chamber stood a black tree. There were no leaves upon its branches. Instead, sheets of music hung from them, turning softly in a wind you could not feel. Some contained passages you had already written.

Others held music you had not yet discovered. You reached for one of the pages. A pale hand removed it before you could touch it.

You looked up. Your father’s friend stood on the opposite side of the tree. He did not look entirely as he had in the New Inn.

His black clothes moved as if they had been cut from smoke and shadow. His skin appeared almost luminous against the darkness, while his eyes contained not merely points of light but vast, turning skies. You should have been frightened. Instead, you were annoyed.

“I was about to read that.”

He held the page between long white fingers.

“It is not yet written.”

His voice seemed to come from the stone around you.

“Then why is it hanging from a tree?”

“Because you have dreamed it.”

You moved around the trunk, but he remained opposite you.

“May I have it?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you must find it yourself.”

You frowned at him.

“You gave me the ending of the other melody.”

For one instant, something entered his expression. Pain. It was ancient and immense, but gone so quickly that you were uncertain whether you had seen it at all.

“That song was not yours to create,” he said. “You merely found it again after it had been lost for a very long time.”

“And this one is?”

“Yes.”

You looked up at the pages shifting among the branches.

“Is it good?”

His gaze settled upon you.

“Why does that matter?”

“Because I am writing it.”

“You ask whether it is good because you wish to know whether others will admire it.”

His voice remained calm. That made the judgement in it worse.

“You have not asked whether it is true.”

You stared at him.

“That is unnecessarily severe.”

“Is it inaccurate?”

You opened your mouth. Nothing came. He extended the page towards you.

You reached for it. Before your fingers touched the paper, it folded in upon itself and became a white moth. It flew through your hand and vanished among the dark branches.

“That was irritating.”

“You will remember what is required.”

Silver light split the trunk of the tree. The music inside the walls grew louder. You looked at him through the widening fracture.

“Will I remember you?”

The chamber began to collapse into mist. He watched you as the darkness drew him away.

“Perhaps.”

You woke with your arm extended above you and your fingers closed around nothing. You remembered the black tree. You remembered the moth.

You remembered speaking to someone, although his face faded the moment you attempted to hold it. The music did not. You wrote until nearly midday.

By the time Hob entered the kitchen, you had covered the table in manuscript paper. He stopped in the doorway with a cup of tea in one hand.

“Another one?”

You did not look up.

“I think so.”

“You think so?”

“This one is being difficult.”

Hob crossed towards the table and looked down at the pages. He had never learned to read music fluently despite possessing seven centuries in which to do so. He claimed he understood enough. You suspected this meant he could identify when the notes moved upwards.

“Is it like the other melody?”

“No.”

You tapped the end of your pencil against the page.

“The other one felt as though I was remembering something. This feels like I am searching for something that has not happened yet.”

Hob’s mouth tightened.

“Peculiar.”

You glanced up.

“What is?”

He gestured vaguely towards the manuscript.

“All these songs coming to you in your dreams shortly after my immortal acquaintance surfaced again.”

You stared at him.

“You think he has something to do with it?”

Hob hesitated.

“Not purposefully, probably.”

“Probably?”

He sat opposite you.

“His return may have had something to do with you dreaming.”

You lowered your pencil. The suggestion should have sounded ridiculous. It did not.

“I saw him in two of my dreams. Possibly more.”

Hob became very still.

“You did?”

“Yes.”

“Which ones?”

“The music ones.”

His expression changed in a way you could not interpret.

“Did he speak to you?”

“Only in the last one. I think. I cannot fully remember.”

You frowned, attempting to recover the memory.

“He helped me finish the first melody. In another, he would not let me read a piece I had not written yet.”

Hob stared at you and chuckled.

“What is he?” you then asked.

Hob looked down at your manuscript.

“That is not for me to share.”

“So he is not like you?”

A strange sound escaped Hob. It might have been a laugh.

“No.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he is slightly more important than me.”

You leaned back in your chair.

“Slightly.”

“Considerably.”

“Is he a vampire?”

Hob looked at you in disbelief.

“What?”

“I am merely asking.”

“No.”

“He is pale, dresses entirely in black and apparently enters dreams.”

“He is not a vampire.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

Hob rubbed one hand over his face.

“And let’s just say that, if you see him in your dreams, it is not as random as you think.”

You frowned.

“What does that mean?”

“It means he was there by choice.”

You stared at your father.

“That is not how dreaming works.”

Hob held your gaze.

“It is when it concerns him.”

The room became strangely quiet. You thought of the pale figure at the edge of the rehearsal room. The black tree.

The voice that had known precisely which piece of music you were trying to find.

“He chose to enter my dreams?”

“It would appear so.”

“Why?”

“That,” Hob said slowly, “is something I intend to ask him.”

You studied his face.

“Should I be concerned?”

Hob did not answer immediately. That concerned you more than an immediate denial would have. At last, he reached across the table and turned one of the pages towards himself as though he understood anything written upon it.

“He is not careless with those who dream.”

“That was not an answer.”

“No.”

His gaze returned to you.

“But if he intended you harm, I doubt he would have helped you finish a song.”

You thought of the sorrow in the final passage.

“It was not merely a song.”

Hob noticed the change in your voice.

“What was it?”

You shook your head.

“I don’t know.”

You gathered the pages together.

“But I think it belonged to someone he loved.”

********

The new composition developed over the weeks that followed. You did not see the stranger again. Not in waking life.

Not clearly in dreams. Occasionally, you sensed someone at the edge of them. A figure standing beyond the range of the stage lights.

A shadow beneath the arches. A presence listening without interrupting. Whether it was truly him or merely your imagination, you could not tell.

You completed the composition without further help. The final movement emerged one rainy morning while you were walking towards rehearsal. You stopped beneath the awning of a closed shop and wrote it with the paper pressed against the brick wall. By the time you reached the conservatoire, the ink had bled in several places and the sleeve of your coat was soaked.

The music remained. Maddy heard the first orchestral reading two weeks later. She sat in the otherwise sparse recital hall holding two coffees and a paper bag containing pastries. She was not musical, beyond a few childhood piano lessons she described as psychological warfare, but she attended almost every performance you gave.

She had strong opinions regarding composers. She liked Tchaikovsky. She tolerated Brahms.

She claimed Wagner made her want to invade a neighbouring country. Your composition began with a violin alone. The other strings entered gradually, forming themselves around the melody without consuming it. Woodwinds followed, hesitant and searching. Beneath them, the cellos introduced a second theme—warmer, darker and somehow older than the first.

The two melodies circled one another. At times, they appeared to argue. At others, each seemed to exist solely because the other was present.

They came together for only eight measures. Then they parted. The violin continued alone until the final note disappeared.

Silence followed. The conductor did not immediately lower his baton. The musicians remained still.

Professor Steven O’Callaghan sat in the third row with your score open across his knee, his pen motionless in his hand. At last, the principal cellist exhaled. The sound seemed startlingly loud.

Maddy waited until you reached the corridor before catching both your arms.

“What the hell was that?”

You nearly dropped your violin case.

“Good afternoon to you too.”

“No. You do not get to behave as though that was normal.”

“It was an orchestral composition.”

“It was five minutes of emotional devastation.”

You took one of the coffees from her.

“That seems excessive.”

“The horn player cried.”

“The horn player cries frequently.”

“Professor O’Callaghan looked impressed.”

You glanced towards the closed doors.

“Professor O’Callaghan always looks as though he is deciding whether someone deserves to survive.”

“Today he decided you did.”

You laughed softly and began walking. Maddy followed.

“Where did it come from?”

“I wrote it.”

“I understand the basic principle. Where did you get the idea?”

You adjusted your bag over your shoulder.

“A dream, mostly.”

Maddy stopped.

“Again?”

You continued towards the courtyard. She hurried to catch up.

“Was he there?”

You looked at her.

“Who?”

“The weird, hot one.”

You nearly walked into the door.

“What?”

“Your father’s strange friend. The pale one who looks as if sunlight personally offended him.”

“I only vaguely remember it.”

“But he was there again? Just like in the last dream?”

“Yeah.”

Maddy stared.

“You have dreamed about the same man twice?”

“Apparently.”

“And what was he doing?”

You pushed open the courtyard door. Cold air moved around you.

“Listening.”

“That is either romantic or deeply sinister.”

You laughed despite yourself.

“It was odd. It felt as though he already knew the music and was waiting to see whether I could find it.”

“Perhaps your subconscious chose him because he frightened you.”

“Perhaps.”

You took a cautious sip of coffee.

“Dad said—”

You stopped and bit your tongue. Maddy’s eyes narrowed immediately.

“Your dad said what?”

“Nothing.”

“That was not nothing.”

You hesitated. Hob had not expressly forbidden you from telling anyone what he had said. He had merely made it very clear that the truth belonged to his strange friend and was not his to share. Besides, telling Maddy that the man had possibly entered your dreams deliberately would lead to questions you could not answer without revealing considerably more about Hob than she had ever been permitted to know.

So you lied.

“Dad said dreams are sometimes strange and that I shouldn’t overthink them.”

Maddy stared at you.

“That was the dramatic secret?”

“It was not a dramatic secret.”

“You stopped halfway through the sentence and looked as though you had nearly revealed a state conspiracy.”

“I momentarily forgot how unhelpful his advice was.”

“It is extremely unhelpful.”

“Exactly.”

Maddy continued to watch you suspiciously.

“Did he say anything about his friend?”

“Only that he has always been peculiar.”

That, at least, was true.

“How long has he known him?”

You concentrated upon replacing the lid on your coffee.

“A long time.”

“That was evasive.”

“I don’t know the precise answer.”

Also true.

“Your father is extremely odd about that man.”

“My father is extremely odd about many things.”

“Fair.”

You continued across the courtyard. Maddy remained beside you.

“But your father is right. Dreams can be strange,” she said. “I dreamt something entirely absurd last night.”

You glanced towards her. Her expression changed.

“Actually, never mind.”

“No. You cannot introduce an absurd dream and then refuse to explain it.”

“It was inappropriate.”

“Even better.”

Maddy groaned.

“It involved Sven.”

You stopped. Sven Dahl was the orchestra’s assistant conductor, a broad-shouldered Swede with an austere face and an unnerving ability to silence an entire brass section merely by removing his glasses. He had spoken to Maddy perhaps six times.

Four of those conversations had concerned where she was permitted to sit during rehearsals. You stared at her.

“Sven?”

“I told you it was absurd.”

“What happened?”

“I am not giving you details.”

“Were there details?”

Maddy covered her face.

“Unfortunately.”

You began laughing. She struck your arm with the pastry bag.

“Stop it.”

“Perhaps your subconscious is trying to tell you something too.”

Maddy glared at you.

“Like what?” she asked. “Unlike your father’s weird friend, Sven isn’t exactly scary.”

“I don’t think Dad’s friend is scary.”

Maddy’s expression changed immediately.

“So you think he’s hot too.”

“I did not say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

You took another sip of coffee and decided to change the subject before she could become any more insufferable.

“That old book I was reading when Dad’s friend first appeared—I dreamed the actual ending.”

Maddy lowered her hands.

“The house with the people in the walls?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know it was the actual ending?”

You thought of the sentence that had appeared beneath the final printed paragraph. The house was gone, but what had lived within it had learned her name. You had never told anyone about that.

“It matched what he described.”

“He might have invented it.”

“I found a surviving letter online confirming that the ending had been changed.”

Maddy considered that.

“That is strange.”

“I also found out the author was delirious for several days before the final manuscript was submitted.”

“Clearly.”

“He apparently kept talking about voices moving through the walls.”

Maddy stopped walking.

“You might have mentioned that part sooner.”

“It was probably the fever.”

“Or your father’s terrifying friend knows far too much about obscure dead authors.”

“Both possibilities are equally comforting.”

Before you could say anything more, the door behind you opened. Professor Steven O’Callaghan stepped into the courtyard. He wore a dark wool coat buttoned neatly over his suit. His silvering hair had somehow remained untouched by the wind.

His gaze moved first to you and then to Maddy.

“Miss Gadling.”

You shifted your violin case against your hip.

“Professor.”

“May I speak with you?”

Maddy looked at you.

“I can wait.”

Professor O’Callaghan’s smile was professionally polite.

“It may take some time.”

Maddy hesitated. You nodded towards the gate.

“I’ll call you.”

She squeezed your arm before leaving. Professor O’Callaghan waited until she had gone.

“Walk with me.”

*********

Steven O’Callaghan had taught at the conservatoire for nearly eighteen years. His reputation extended far beyond the institution. He had discovered soloists, secured grants for composers and introduced promising musicians to patrons whose approval opened doors throughout Europe.

Students he favoured received opportunities. Students he disliked tended to find those opportunities disappearing. You had attended two of his courses. His criticism was merciless, precise and usually correct, which made it difficult to dismiss.

You followed him into his office. Scores covered one wall. Framed photographs showed him beside celebrated conductors, composers and musicians whose biographies you had studied. He gestured towards the chair opposite his desk.

You sat.

“Your work today was exceptional.”

You looked at him. Praise from Professor O’Callaghan was ordinarily followed by an insult.

“Thank you.”

“It lacks discipline in places.”

There it was. He removed his coat.

“The transition preceding the final recapitulation is indulgent. Your use of the horns is emotionally effective but structurally unjustified.”

“I can revise it.”

“You should.”

He moved behind his desk.

“However, the central idea is gifted.”

The word landed harder than you expected. You lowered your eyes briefly.

“Thank you.”

“Do not become embarrassed. False modesty is tedious.”

You looked up.

“It was not false modesty.”

“Good.”

He sat.

“You are talented, Miss Gadling. More talented than several people who already possess the career you imagine for yourself.”

You remained quiet.

“But talent is rarely enough.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

His gaze remained fixed upon you.

“The profession is crowded. Institutions release hundreds of competent musicians every year into an industry without enough space for them. Most will teach children, play weddings or abandon performance.”

“There is nothing wrong with teaching or playing weddings.”

“No. But that is not what you want.”

You did not respond. He leaned back.

“You want to compose.”

“Yes.”

“You want serious orchestras to perform your work.”

“Eventually.”

“Eventually is what people say when they do not know how to proceed.”

His voice softened.

“I know how.”

Hope entered you before caution could prevent it. Professor O’Callaghan possessed connections you could not create for yourself. A recommendation from him could accomplish more than years of applications.

“There is a residency in Vienna next spring,” he said. “Four composers. Full funding. Professional performances at its conclusion.”

You knew the programme. Every student composer did.

“Applications closed months ago.”

“Officially.”

You looked at him.

“One of the successful candidates has withdrawn.”

“And you select the replacement?”

“I advise the committee.”

Your fingers tightened around the strap of your bag.

“Would you recommend me?”

Professor O’Callaghan smiled. It was not a kind expression.

“I might.”

The hope cooled.

“What would you require?”

He rose from his chair.

“Commitment.”

“To the residency?”

“To your development.”

He came around the desk. Something in your body understood before your mind did. Your shoulders stiffened.

He stopped beside you. Too close.

“You are young,” he said. “You have not yet learned how often careers are built outside formal auditions.”

You stood.

“I should leave.”

He placed one hand against the back of your chair, obstructing the easiest route towards the door without quite touching you.

“You misunderstand me.”

“I do not think I do.”

His expression hardened.

“Do not be childish.”

Disgust moved through you with such force that it became physical. You were suddenly conscious of the closed door and the quiet corridor beyond it.

“Move.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“You should think carefully before choosing indignation.”

His other hand settled against your waist. You stepped away so quickly that the chair struck the desk.

“Do not touch me.”

He removed his hand. His composure made it worse.

“Nothing has happened.”

“You offered me a residency in exchange for sleeping with you.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Then recommend me without this conversation.”

Silence. His eyes cooled.

“You are gifted, but difficult.”

“Meaning?”

“You lack patience with authority. Your manner is abrasive. You are too quick to interpret correction as attack.”

“This was not correction.”

“This tendency to dramatise discomfort will not serve you.”

You reached for the door. His voice followed you.

“Vienna would change your career.”

Your hand stopped upon the handle. For one terrible moment, you saw everything he was offering. A residency.

Professional musicians performing your work. Access to a world you had spent years trying to enter. Then you remembered his hand on your waist.

You opened the door.

“Then I will have to change it myself.”

You stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind you. You did not run. You wanted to.

Instead, you walked through the conservatoire with your back straight until you reached the street. Only then did you breathe. Your hands were shaking.

Maddy answered on the second ring.

“How did it—”

“Where are you?”

Her voice changed immediately.

“The café opposite the station. What happened?”

“I’m coming.”

**********

Maddy wanted you to report him. She also wanted to return to the conservatoire and pour coffee over his head. You prevented the second plan.

You were less certain about the first.

“He will deny it.”

“Of course he will. Men like that practise denying things before they do them.”

You stared into your untouched tea. Maddy sat opposite you in the corner of the café. Her anger had made her frighteningly calm.

“Did he lock the door?”

“No.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“Not directly.”

“Did he touch you?”

You swallowed.

“My waist.”

Maddy closed her eyes.

“I am going to kill him.”

“You cannot kill a professor because he touched my waist.”

“Watch me.”

“That would cause additional administrative difficulties.”

She opened her eyes.

“You are making jokes because you feel sick.”

You looked towards the window.

“Probably.”

“Tell your dad.”

Your answer came immediately.

“No.”

“Why not?”

You imagined Hob hearing what had happened. He would believe you. He would not ask whether you had misunderstood, what you had worn or why you had entered the office.

That certainty should have made telling him easier. Instead, it made you imagine what he would do afterwards. Hob had adapted to modern laws.

He had not entirely abandoned older ones.

“Because Dad would do something.”

“Good.”

“Something bad.”

“Also good.”

“He occasionally abides by laws that stopped existing in the fourteenth century.”

Maddy considered that.

“Can he frighten O’Callaghan without committing a felony?”

“I am not confident he distinguishes between those activities.”

She reached across the table and covered your hand.

“You cannot do nothing.”

“I know.”

“Write down everything that happened.”

You nodded.

“And never meet him alone again.”

“I have no intention to.”

“Good.”

You drew in a slow breath.

“Do not tell Dad.”

Maddy’s mouth tightened.

“For now.”

“Maddy.”

“For now,” she repeated. “But if O’Callaghan threatens you, harms your work or comes near you again, I am telling Hob. Then I am helping him select the most appropriate medieval punishment.”

You nearly smiled.

“Thank you.”

“Do not thank me. I am still considering the coffee.”

**********

You did not tell Hob. You wrote down every detail. You sent a copy to Maddy and saved several more.

Then you changed for work. The New Inn was quiet that evening. Rain had discouraged most customers. A two-person folk band occupied the small platform beside the fire, playing for several regulars, a young couple sharing wine and an elderly woman who appeared to have fallen asleep.

The musicians were siblings named Niamh and Conor. Niamh sang and played guitar. Conor moved between a bodhrán, mandolin and fiddle with the relaxed competence of someone who had learned music in crowded rooms rather than formal lessons.

You had heard them before. They were good. You preferred classical music. You liked structure, discipline and the intimacy created when dozens of musicians surrendered themselves to the same written intention.

But folk music possessed a freedom you envied. Nothing remained fixed. A tune could change according to the room and the people playing it.

You were wiping the bar when Conor approached during their break. His gaze dropped to your left hand.

“You play.”

You looked at your fingers.

“Is it that obvious?”

He held up his own callused fingertips.

“Fiddle?”

“Violin.”

“Same thing.”

“Do not say that near anyone from the conservatoire.”

He grinned and held out his fiddle.

“Play the next set.”

You laughed.

“No.”

“Why?”

“I’m working.”

Hob spoke from the other end of the bar.

“You are not working especially hard.”

You looked at him. He had been distracted all evening, glancing towards the door every few minutes. Someone was expected.

You knew who before the door opened. The room changed. The flames sank slightly in the fireplace.

The elderly woman woke, looked towards the entrance and promptly closed her eyes again. The stranger stepped inside. He wore black.

His pale face was as severe as you remembered, his hair untidy above eyes that caught the dim light in an impossible way. Recognition moved through you. Rain against tall windows.

A black tree. A white moth. Then it was gone.

Hob straightened.

“You’re late.”

The stranger approached the bar.

“We agreed upon no hour.”

“I said evening.”

“It is evening.”

Hob looked pointedly towards the clock.

“Barely.”

The stranger glanced towards the quiet table Hob had reserved for them. Then his attention moved towards the stage and the fiddle in your hands.

“I thought we could sit over there,” Hob said.

“No.”

Hob blinked.

“No?”

“I shall remain here.”

Conor extended the fiddle towards you again.

“One tune.”

You looked at Hob. He shrugged.

“Go on.”

“You pay me to work.”

“I pay you poorly enough that I cannot reasonably object.”

You took the fiddle. It was heavier than your violin, its varnish worn where countless hands had held it. You tested the strings.

Conor’s eyebrows rose.

“Classical?”

“Mostly.”

“Try to forget that.”

“I have spent fifteen years being told not to.”

Niamh laughed from the stage. You stepped onto the platform. Maddy emerged from the back carrying clean glasses.

She saw you holding the fiddle. Then she noticed Hob’s friend at the bar. Her eyes widened.

She mouthed, the weird hot one. You ignored her. Niamh began with a familiar tune.

You listened through the first repetition and entered on the second. Conor watched you closely at first. By the third repetition, he stopped. He moved to the bodhrán and allowed you to carry the melody. The tune quickened.

You followed. Niamh changed the rhythm. You answered.

Without a conductor or written score, the music loosened beneath your hands. Nothing existed except the next phrase and the certainty that the others would meet you there. At the bar, Hob poured himself a drink. Dream stood beside him and listened.

Hob watched you for a moment. Then he turned towards his friend.

“She told me you appeared in her dreams.”

Dream’s gaze remained upon the stage.

“Did she?”

“Twice.”

“Yes.”

Hob waited. Dream offered nothing more.

“Did you give her melodies?”

Dream looked towards him.

“No.”

“Then why is she dreaming music no one else recognises?”

“She found them herself.”

Hob frowned.

“You helped her complete a piece she had thought about.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

The fiddle tune ended and another began almost immediately. Dream watched you adjust to the unfamiliar melody.

“She came seeking answers within my realm.”

“She was asleep.”

“Nevertheless, she sought them.”

“Once?”

“Again and again.”

Dream’s voice remained quiet.

“She returned to the same melody. She rejected every ending her own mind attempted to create because she knew none of them were true.”

Hob looked towards you. You were smiling as Conor called out a change half a moment before making it.

“So you gave it to her as a favour, because she is my daughter?”

Dream’s eyes returned to Hob.

“No.”

The answer came without hesitation. Hob’s expression changed.

“Then why?”

For several seconds, Dream said nothing. The room seemed to recede around him.

“Because she possesses a gift I have not witnessed in a mortal for thousands of years.”

Hob stared.

“What sort of gift?”

Dream’s gaze shifted back towards you.

“Music does not merely occur within her. She perceives what lies behind it. Memory. Story. Truth. She hears what has been forgotten and sometimes what has not yet been created.”

Hob’s fingers tightened around his glass.

“You have seen this before.”

“Yes.”

A pause followed.

“The last mortal in whom I witnessed such a gift was my son.”

Hob turned towards him. Surprise briefly overcame his concern.

“You had a mortal son?”

Dream did not answer. His gaze remained fixed upon you. The tune had slowed. You stood beneath the low stage lights, your eyes half closed as you followed the melody into a quieter passage.

After a moment, Dream said:

“Her gift will mature in time.”

Hob studied his face, recognising the deliberate change of subject but choosing, for now, not to challenge it.

“What does that mean?”

Dream considered the question.

“Often, nothing.”

Hob looked at him.

“Nothing?”

“Some mortals are simply gifted. They create works that outlive them. They touch the dreams of others and never understand how.”

“And the others?”

Dream’s face became unreadable.

“Some are something else.”

Hob lowered his voice.

“Are you concerned?”

Dream looked at him.

“If I were concerned by every gifted mortal in every galaxy, Robert Gadling, I would have little time for anything else.”

“That is not the same as saying no.”

“No,” Dream agreed. “It is not.”

Hob watched him.

“And you do not know which she is.”

“Not yet.”

On the stage, you completed the song. Applause moved through the room. Dream did not look away.

*********

You remained for the rest of the set. By the end, several more customers had gathered near the fire, drawn by the music from the rain-dark street. The trouble began shortly afterwards.

Four men entered already drunk. You knew it from the volume of their voices and the exaggerated care with which one of them leaned against the bar. Hob served them a single drink each.

He refused the next round. The largest man stared at him.

“We’ve only had one.”

Hob collected their glasses.

“You had several before you arrived.”

“You following us?”

“No. You smell like a distillery fire.”

Maddy turned away to hide a smile. The man struck the bar with his palm.

“Get another round.”

“No.”

“We are paying.”

“Still no.”

Conversations quietened. Hob remained calm.

“Time to leave.”

One of the man’s companions pulled at his arm.

“Come on, Dean.”

Dean shook him off.

“I said we want another drink.”

“And I said you’re leaving.”

Dean reached across the counter. Hob caught his wrist. The movement was so fast you almost missed it.

“Let go.”

“Gladly, once you agree not to swing at anyone.”

“I wasn’t going to swing.”

“You were thinking about it.”

“You don’t know what I was thinking.”

Hob’s mouth curved without humour.

“I have been in more tavern fights than you have eaten dinners. I know exactly what you were thinking.”

Dean tore his hand free. His elbow struck a glass. It fell and shattered across the floor.

Beer spread between the fragments. Maddy swore. You stepped from behind the bar with a cloth and dustpan.

Dean looked at you.

“You work here?”

You looked pointedly at the cloth in your hand.

“Plainly.”

“Tell your boss to stop being a prick.”

Hob moved between you.

“Leave.”

Dean laughed.

“What, she your daughter?”

Hob’s face became still. Of every possible question, the man had chosen the worst one.

“Yes.”

Dean looked you over. Your skin crawled.

“Could do better than working in this dump.”

You crouched to collect the glass.

“I am beginning to understand why you require three friends to accompany you into public.”

Conor made a choking sound from the stage. Dean stepped towards you. Hob blocked him.

“Enough.”

“She said—”

“I heard her.”

“Teach her some manners.”

“I attempted to. She resisted.”

You looked up.

“Consistently.”

Dean shoved Hob. It was a poor decision. Hob moved half a step backwards.

Nothing more. His face changed. For an instant, you saw the older man beneath him: violent, experienced and entirely unsurprised by confrontation.

He seized the front of Dean’s coat. Before he could do anything else, your father’s friend spoke. His voice was quiet.

Everyone in the room heard it.

“You will leave this place.”

Dean turned towards him.

“Who the hell are you?”

Dream stepped forward. The lights within his eyes appeared brighter.

“You have dreamed of a river for eleven years.”

Dean’s anger faltered. One of his companions went silent.

“Every night,” Dream continued, “you stand upon the bank and hear your brother calling from beneath the water.”

The colour left Dean’s face.

“Shut up.”

The flames bent low. Shadows lengthened.

“You tell yourself you could not have saved him.”

Dream’s voice did not rise.

“But in your dreams, you remember that he was still breathing when you left.”

Dean stumbled backwards.

“How do you know that?”

Dream’s expression held no mercy.

“He will be waiting when next you sleep.”

Dean turned towards the door. His companions were already leaving. He followed them.

The door slammed. Silence filled the pub. Maddy whispered:

“What the fuck?”

Dream looked at her. She lowered her eyes.

“Sorry.”

Hob released a slow breath.

“I did not need help.”

Dream regarded the broken glass and Hob’s clenched hand.

“Clearly.”

“You could have told him to leave without excavating his worst trauma.”

Dream returned to the bar.

“He required persuasion.”

Hob looked towards the closed door.

“Is his brother truly waiting for him?”

“Yes.”

“That seems cruel.”

Dream’s gaze settled upon him.

“The dead are not always cruel merely because they wish to be remembered.”

Hob said nothing more.

*********

The remaining customers left soon afterwards. Niamh and Conor packed away their instruments. Maddy disappeared into the back, though your phone vibrated almost immediately.

THE WEIRD HOT ONE IS A DEMON. A second message followed. OR PSYCHIC.

Then: STILL HOT. UNFORTUNATELY. You put your phone face down.

Hob took the dustpan from you.

“I’ll clean that.”

“You are terrible at sweeping.”

“I owned an inn before modern brooms existed.”

“That explains the problem.”

He crouched beside the broken glass. You wiped spilled beer from the bar. Dream remained.

You expected him to sit with Hob. Instead, he approached you carrying a book. You had not seen it in his hands before.

Its binding was dark green, old but carefully preserved. No title appeared upon the cover. He placed it on the counter. You looked at it.

Then at him.

“What is this?”

“An earlier work by the same author.”

“The author of the house novel?”

“Yes.”

You touched the cover.

“I could not find any others.”

“This was published under another name.”

You opened it carefully. The title page read The Drowned Orchard by E. L. Vane. Brown ink filled several margins.

“For me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

His gaze remained upon you.

“Because I believe you may enjoy it.”

The answer was almost ordinary. From him, it felt significant.

“Does it have another false ending?”

“No.”

“A happy one?”

“That depends upon what you consider happiness.”

“Does the heroine marry an untrustworthy solicitor?”

“No.”

“Promising.”

Something shifted faintly at the corner of his mouth. You looked at him more closely. The fragments of your dreams stirred again.

“I had a strange dream about the ending of the other book after you visited last.”

His attention sharpened.

“What did you dream?”

You described the house. The former inhabitants trapped within its walls. The solicitor feeding names to something beneath the cellar.

You did not mention the final sentence appearing in the waking book. Some instinct urged you to keep that part to yourself. Dream listened without interruption.

“When I woke, it felt as though I had actually read the ending,” you said. “Not invented it.”

“Perhaps you did.”

“In a dream.”

“Dreams preserve many things believed lost in waking.”

You studied him.

“You speak as though dreams are a place.”

His eyes appeared to darken.

“Do they not feel like one?”

You thought of the vast chamber. The black tree.

“Sometimes.”

You ran your fingers across the edge of the book.

“I have had other strange dreams.”

“About what?”

His question came more quickly than you expected.

“I dreamt about composing. About playing the violin. Entire compositions appear, or pieces of them.”

“Do these dreams frighten you?”

“No.”

You considered the first melody.

“One made me sad. I woke crying, although I did not know why.”

Dream’s face became utterly still. You remembered the final passage and the grief held inside it.

“There was someone in that dream.”

His gaze did not move from yours.

“Was there?”

“I think it was you.”

The words sounded absurd when spoken aloud. You looked down.

“God. Why am I telling you this?”

“You believe it was me.”

“Vaguely. You looked different.”

“How?”

You tried to hold the memory.

“Your clothes moved although there was no wind. Your eyes…”

For one instant, you saw them. Galaxies turning in endless darkness. The image vanished.

“They were not human.”

Dream said nothing. Behind you, Hob had stopped sweeping. You could feel him listening.

“You were watching me play,” you continued. “I could not find the ending, and then it appeared.”

Dream’s eyes lowered briefly.

“You played it.”

It was not a question.

“Yes.”

“Do you remember it?”

“Every note.”

Grief passed across his face. This time, you did not imagine it. It was too vast to belong to an ordinary man.

“Was the melody yours?”

“No.”

“Someone you knew?”

Silence gathered around him.

“You do not have to answer.”

His gaze moved towards the rain-dark windows. He said nothing. You watched him for a moment, but his expression had closed completely, leaving no indication of who had composed the melody or why it affected him so deeply.

Realising you had stepped too close to something private, you quickly changed the subject.

“Do you like classical music?”

His gaze returned to you.

“I do.”

You reached beneath the bar for your bag. Several concert programmes were folded inside the outer pocket. You removed one.

Then hesitated. Dream watched you.

“This may seem strange.”

You held out the programme. He looked at it without taking it.

“It is a concert next Thursday.”

“I can read it.”

“Yes. Obviously.”

You nearly withdrew the paper. Instead, you continued.

“We are playing Mahler and Mendelssohn. We are also performing the new piece I composed.”

His gaze moved to your face.

“The one you found amongst the leaves of a tree.”

The phrasing struck you as peculiar.

“Yes.”

You tightened your fingers around the programme.

“Please do not think I am being strange. I simply have this feeling you might enjoy it.”

Dream remained silent. That made you speak faster.

“I don’t know why. Perhaps because of the dreams. They felt too real, and you were listening, and now I am inviting you to a concert because my subconscious apparently has opinions. But please don’t read anything into it. I am only—”

“You are only what?”

You faltered.

“I don’t know.”

Hob straightened behind you.

“You should go,” he told Dream. “You will appreciate it. Most of the programme comes from the nineteenth century, when music still possessed structure.”

You looked over your shoulder.

“Music still has structure.”

“Some of it.”

“You are not qualified to hold that opinion.”

“I have listened to music for seven hundred years.”

“Mostly while drunk in taverns.”

“That remains listening.”

Dream accepted the programme. His fingers brushed yours. They were cold.

Not unpleasantly. Merely absent of the warmth you expected from living skin. He examined the details.

“You are not attending your daughter’s performance?” he asked Hob.

Hob grimaced.

“I attend many of them.”

“He does,” you admitted.

“I have a private function that evening,” Hob said. “It has already been postponed twice, and apparently the stability of a local charity depends upon my supervision of forty accountants with access to an open bar.”

Dream folded the programme once and placed it inside his coat.

“I shall consider it.”

You nodded.

“That is all I meant. There is no obligation.”

“I am aware.”

Hob came around the bar.

“You are leaving already?”

“I have remained longer than intended.”

“You always say that.”

Dream regarded him.

“We have met twice within five months.”

Hob smiled.

“At this rate, people may assume we are friends.”

A stillness passed over Dream’s face. Then he said quietly:

“Perhaps they would be correct.”

Hob’s smile became softer. Dream turned towards you.

“Good night, Y/N Gadling.”

“Good night.”

His eyes rested briefly upon the green book.

“Do not read the final chapter before sleep.”

You frowned.

“Why?”

“You dislike it when characters ignore warnings in stories. I wondered whether you would be any wiser when given one yourself.”

Before you could respond, he crossed the room. The door opened at his approach. He stepped into the rain-dark street and disappeared.

At precisely four minutes past four, Denise entered.

She looked much as Jess remembered her: polished, carefully dressed and carrying herself with the confidence of someone accustomed to entering other people’s spaces as though invited.

Her dark coat was belted neatly at the waist. Her hair had been styled despite the wind outside. She held her phone in one hand and scanned the room before spotting Jess.

Jess did not stand when Denise approached.

Denise hesitated beside the table.

“Jess?”

“Denise.”

“Thank you for agreeing to meet.”

Denise removed her coat and sat opposite her.

A server appeared before either woman could continue.

Denise ordered tea. Jess said she did not need anything else.

They waited until the server had moved away.

Jess folded her arms.

“What’s this about?”

Denise glanced around the café.

Jess watched the movement and immediately disliked it.

“You know Y/M and Tom are engaged.”

Jess stared at her.

“That is not news. It’s online.”

“I am aware.”

“Then why are we starting there?”

A faint line appeared between Denise’s eyebrows.

“Because what I saw happened less than a week after the engagement.”

“What did you see?”

Denise placed her phone on the table but kept her hand resting over it.

“You know that photographer Tom was with in the past?”

“Frank Conner?”

Yes?”

“What about him?”

“He was staying at the estate for Arthur’s wedding as well. Him and Leo are friends.”

“And?”

Jess waited.

Denise lowered her voice.

“And I saw him leaving their bedroom suite the morning of the wedding.”

Jess did not move.

The reaction happened privately, sharp and immediate beneath her ribs.

She kept her expression neutral.

“You watched him walk out of their room?”

“Yes.”

Denise’s mouth tightened.

The server returned with the tea.

Denise thanked her, waited until she was gone and began pouring milk into the cup.

Her hand remained steady.

Jess watched her.

“What time?”

“Shortly after seven.”

“Why were you there?”

“One of my children woke early. I had gone to ask whether breakfast could be sent up.”

“And Frank?”

Denise placed the milk jug down.

“He was barefoot in a hotel robe.”

Jess said nothing.

“Did he see you?”

“No.”

“Did anyone else see him?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Did you take a photograph?”

For the first time, Denise looked away.

“Not at that moment.”

Jess leaned back.

“So you did not actually photograph the only thing you claim proves that there is some kind of story.”

“I was surprised.”

“You were apparently not surprised enough to stop thinking about it.”

Denise lifted the teacup but did not drink.

“I know what I saw.”

“That is not evidence.”

“It is evidence to me.”

Denise met her gaze.

“And I thought you might know whether it was likely.”

There it was.

The real reason for the meeting.

Jess took a slow breath.

“Why would I know?”

“Because you were involved with Tom.”

The sentence was delivered carefully, disguised as fact rather than accusation.

Jess still felt it.

“Previously.”

“Yes.”

“And what does that have to do with Frank?”

“You may know whether Tom and Frank continued seeing one another after Y/N entered the picture.”

Jess’s eyes narrowed.

“Why would he have told me?”

“Perhaps he didn’t need to.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Denise stirred her tea even though the milk and tea were already thoroughly combined.

“You knew him intimately.”

Jess gave a short laugh.

“That is not the same thing as knowing him well.”

“You sound angry with him.”

Jess recognised the satisfaction Denise tried to hide. It appeared briefly at the corners of her mouth.

Jess held her gaze.

“I am.”

Denise relaxed almost imperceptibly.

“Then perhaps you may wish to help me.”

Jess nearly laughed.

“Help you with what?”

Denise glanced around the café before lowering her voice.

“Selling the story.”

Jess stared at her.

“Selling it?”

Denise’s fingers moved along the edge of her phone.

“Your experience with Tom would add credibility. Along with what I saw, it could be a strong story. Perhaps even a little revenge after the way he treated you.”

“Are you insane?”

Denise’s expression tightened.

Jess picked up her coffee and forced herself to pause.

Walking away now would mean never knowing what Denise actually had. Better to let her believe she was interested.

Jess slowly set the cup down.

“All right.”

Denise watched her cautiously.

“All right?”

“Show me what you have.”

Hope flickered across Denise’s face.

She unlocked her phone and opened a folder. The photographs had been separated from the rest of the wedding pictures and carefully organised.

The first showed Frank and Tom near the garden fountain. Frank’s hand was raised near Tom’s collar, and Tom was smiling.

Jess enlarged it.

“What am I looking at?”

“Frank touching Tom.”

“His hand is near his collar.”

“Look at Tom’s expression.”

Jess did.

Tom looked relaxed and comfortable. He also looked exactly like a man whose old friend was fixing his jacket.

“They have known each other for years.”

“And slept together for years.”

“Everyone already knows that.”

Denise swiped to the next photograph.

Frank stood near an archway in the guest corridor, fully dressed and holding his phone.

“This was near their suite.”

Jess looked at Denise.

“It is a photograph of a man standing in a corridor.”

“His room was in the opposite direction.”

“He was speaking to a member of staff.”

“Exactly.”

“Which probably means he was asking the staff member something.”

Denise’s mouth tightened before she moved to the third photograph.

You stood between Tom and Frank near the ballroom doors. Tom’s hand rested at your waist. You were touching Frank’s arm while he leaned closer to speak over the music.

All three of you were smiling.

Jess studied your face.

You did not look deceived, uncomfortable or excluded.

You looked happy.

She returned the phone.

“You have nothing.”

Denise’s eyebrows rose.

“You looked at that one for a long time.”

“Because Y/N is my friend.”

“You have not spoken to her for months.”

Jess went still.

“How do you know that?”

Denise hesitated.

“She mentioned that things had become difficult between you.”

“That does not mean I want to destroy her.”

“I thought you might want Tom exposed after the way he treated you.”

Jess picked up her handbag.

“I am still angry with Tom. I was baffled by the proposal, and Tom Sturridge suddenly deciding to settle down after behaving like a complete dick to me remains personally irritating.”

Denise leaned forward.

“Then help me.”

“No.”

“But you just said—”

“I said I am angry with him. I did not say I wanted to ruin his life or hers.”

Denise’s expression hardened.

“What if he is cheating on her?”

Jess nodded toward the third photograph.

“He clearly is not hiding Frank from her.”

“You believe Frank spent the night with them.”

Jess did not answer directly.

“Even if Frank is sleeping with Tom, that photograph suggests Y/N knows perfectly well what is happening and, knowing her, she’s probably participating.”

“That does not make it acceptable.”

“Acceptable to whom?”

Denise said nothing.

Jess stood and pulled on her coat.

“Do yourself a favour, Denise. Do not destroy your relationship with this family over three meaningless photographs and the possibility that Y/N, Tom and Frank might occasionally have a threesome.”

Denise’s face became cold.

“You do not understand my position.”

“As far as I know, Y/N’s parents have been good to you. They have treated you like family.”

“That does not mean—”

“And you are considering repaying them by selling a story about their daughter’s private life.”

Denise looked down at her phone.

“I know what I saw and ajournalist could investigate.”

“With what? A photograph of Frank adjusting Tom’s collar and another of all three of them talking at a wedding?”

Jess placed enough money on the table to cover both drinks.

“If it is money you are after, you will not get much for this.”

“There are publications that would be interested.”

“Then best of luck.”

Jess picked up her bag.

“But do not contact me again.”

*********

The cold struck her as soon as she stepped outside.

Jess moved quickly down the pavement, passing shops glowing beneath the grey afternoon sky. She did not stop until she had turned twice and the café was no longer visible.

Her anger carried her for several streets.

Then uncertainty replaced it.

Denise believed she had witnessed something.

The details were uncomfortably specific.

Frank crossing the corridor at seven in the morning.

In a robe.

Trying to move quietly.

Jess knew enough about Tom to believe it was possible.

She knew enough about you to wonder whether you had encouraged it. Because she could actually picture you watching Tom with another man.

The photograph of the three of you refused to leave her mind.

You had not looked deceived.

You had looked included but, even though you were included, did not change the danger.

Denise needed money.

Denise had already begun gathering photographs.

She had approached the person she assumed was most likely to hold a grudge.

If Jess did nothing, Denise would approach someone else.

Perhaps one of Tom’s former partners.

Perhaps a member of staff from the estate.

Perhaps a journalist willing to publish allegation as implication.

Jess stopped beneath the awning of a closed shop and opened her phone.

Your conversation remained exactly where she had left it months earlier.

Your final message sat unanswered.

I hope you’re okay. I’m sorry everything became so messy.

Jess had read it countless times.

She had never found a reply that felt honest.

She missed you.

She resented you.

She knew you had not deliberately taken anything from her.

She knew Tom had never belonged to her.

Knowing those things did not make them painless.

She began typing.

I met Denise today.

She deleted it.

Too abrupt.

Someone is trying to sell a story about you.

Deleted.

Too alarming without explanation.

She stared at the empty message field.

Then typed:

Congratulations.

It was awkward.

It was inadequate.

It was also the only beginning she could manage.

She sent it.

**********

You were on the sitting-room floor when the message arrived.

Scripts and rehearsal notes surrounded you in several untidy piles. Maddy’s wedding spreadsheet remained open on your laptop, though you had promised Tom you would spend the evening learning dialogue rather than comparing florists.

Tom sat on the sofa behind you, wearing glasses an optometrist had recently prescribed him for reading, and reading the latest revision of his script. One bare foot rested near your hip.

Your phone vibrated beside a yellow highlighter.

You picked it up without much interest.

Then you saw Jess’s name.

For several seconds, you simply stared.

Tom noticed the change in your posture.

“What is it?”

You turned the screen toward him.

His eyebrows rose.

“Jess.”

“Yes.”

He read the single word.

“What does she want?”

You looked over your shoulder.

“That is very suspicious.”

“She has not spoken to either of us for months.”

You returned to the screen.

Your fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Thank you.

You sent it.

Tom attempted to return to his script.

He lasted approximately eight seconds.

“Has she answered?”

“No.”

“You should put the phone down.”

“You are watching it too.”

“I am reading.”

You lowered the phone beside your knee.

Tom’s gaze followed it.

You smiled.

“Very convincing.”

The phone vibrated again.

Jess had replied.

I miss you.

The words tightened something in your chest.

You read them twice.

Then typed:

I miss you too.

The typing indicator appeared.

Disappeared.

Appeared again.

I didn’t know how to talk to you after everything.

You sat up straighter.

Tom closed the script over one finger.

“What did she say?”

“That she didn’t know how to speak to me.”

Tom’s expression shifted.

Guilt moved through it quickly.

You typed:

I’m sorry for how everything happened. I never wanted to hurt you or make you feel that you didn’t matter.

Jess replied:

You didn’t do anything wrong.

You swallowed.

It didn’t feel that way.

This time the response took longer.

I was angry with him.

A second message followed.

Sometimes I was angry with you because it was easier.

You looked back at Tom.

He watched your face.

“What?”

“She says she was angry with you.”

Tom nodded once.

“Fair.”

“And me.”

His eyebrows drew together.

“Less fair.”

You placed one hand on his knee.

“Tom.”

“It is.”

You turned back to the conversation.

Jess continued:

I’ve realised feelings are sometimes impossible to prevent. That doesn’t make them anyone’s fault.

Your eyes burned unexpectedly.

You typed:

I didn’t plan any of it.

I know.

Then another message appeared.

There’s something else.

The warmth disappeared from your chest.

You sat very still.

Tom noticed immediately.

“What?”

You waited.

Jess typed:

Denise contacted me.

Your stomach dropped.

Why?

The response arrived in several parts.

She asked to meet in Soho today.

She knows I was involved with Tom.

She assumed I might be willing to help her.

Your fingers tightened around the phone.

Tom placed his script aside.

“What happened?”

You did not answer yet.

Another message appeared.

She says she saw Frank leaving your suite at Arthur and Leo’s wedding.

The room seemed to contract around you.

Tom saw your face.

“What did she say?”

You turned the screen toward him.

He read the message.

All expression left his face.

His hand closed over the edge of the sofa.

“She saw him.”

You nodded.

The phone vibrated again.

She believes Tom and Frank are still sleeping together. With or without your knowledge. She wants to know what the story is worth.

Tom’s jaw tightened.

You stared at the messages.

For one strange second, your first thought was not of the press.

It was of that morning.

Frank leaving quietly.

Tom asleep beside you.

You half awake, warm beneath the sheets and unaware that someone was standing at the far end of the corridor constructing a weapon from what she had seen.

“Oh, God.”

Tom leaned forward.

“What else?”

“She wants to sell it.”

“Jess said that?”

“She said Denise wants to know what it is worth.”

You typed quickly:

Did she show you anything?

Jess replied:

Three photographs.

Your stomach turned.

Of what?

Frank with Tom in the garden.

Frank near the guest corridor.

The three of you talking at the reception.

Another message followed.

None of them prove anything.

You glanced at Tom.

“She has photographs.”

His expression hardened.

“Of Frank leaving?”

“No.”

He exhaled, but the relief was slight.

“Then she has nothing.”

“She has the story.”

“A story she cannot prove.”

“She does not need to prove it if someone wants the headline enough.”

Tom looked away.

You could see him thinking through every possible version.

Tom cheating on his young fiancée with his former male lover.

Tom maintaining a secret relationship with Frank after publicly becoming engaged.

You knowingly allowing it because you were too inexperienced, unstable or desperate to object.

Frank intruding upon a relationship the press already treated as scandalous.

The truth would not necessarily help.

The truth involved all three of you willingly choosing something the public would feel entitled to judge.

Tom reached for the phone.

“Ask Jess to send the photographs.”

You typed the request.

Jess answered almost immediately.

I took pictures of her phone. They aren’t perfect.

Three images arrived.

You opened the first.

Frank’s hand was near Tom’s collar. Tom was smiling.

You remembered the exact moment.

Frank had told him the collar was folded underneath his jacket.

Tom had accused him of behaving like a disapproving valet.

The second image showed Frank in the corridor.

The angle made him appear closer to your suite than he probably was.

The third showed the three of you near the ballroom doors.

Frank leaning toward Tom.

Your fingers around Frank’s forearm.

Tom’s hand at your waist.

Nothing happened in the photograph.

Everything could be suggested by it.

Tom studied the images.

“They mean nothing.”

“To us.”

“To anyone.”

“You know that is not true.”

His mouth tightened.

You returned to Jess’s messages.

I told her I wouldn’t help her.

Then:

I thought you should know.

You closed your eyes for a moment.

Thank you.

Jess replied:

I’m sorry.

You typed:

You have nothing to apologise for.

You hesitated before adding:

I’m glad you told me.

The typing indicator appeared.

I did not know whether you would want to hear from me.

Your throat tightened.

I always wanted to hear from you.

There was no immediate response.

You put the phone down.

Tom watched you.

“Are you all right?”

You stared at him.

“Are you?”

“I asked first.”

“She could expose you again.”

His eyebrows drew together.

“I have already been exposed.”

“Not like this.”

“You are the one Denise will humiliate.”

“I don’t care about me.”

Tom’s voice sharpened.

“I do.”

You stood from the floor too quickly and began pacing.

“They will say you cheated.”

“They will say you let me sleep with him because you were too young to stop me.”

You stopped.

Tom rose from the sofa.

“That is what she wants.”

“You do not know that.”

“Of course I do.”

His voice remained quiet, which made the anger beneath it more visible.

“She has already decided that any choice you made could not have been yours.”

You folded your arms around yourself.

“And Frank?”

Tom’s expression changed.

The anger gave way to concern.

Frank had already endured having his private history with Tom printed, photographed and dissected. The last scandal had affected his work, his clients and every old photograph he had taken of Tom.

This would not merely revive it.

This would attach him to your engagement.

Your wedding.

The film campaign.

Every interview in which you and Tom were asked whether you trusted one another.

“We have to tell him,” Tom said.

“Tonight.”

“Yes.”

“And Arthur.”

Tom looked at you.

“Why Arthur?”

“Because Denise was at his wedding. Because she is part of my family. Because she may have taken other photographs.”

He moved closer.

“You should sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit down.”

“You look pale.”

“I am angry.”

“You can be angry sitting down.”

You looked at him.

Despite everything, the sentence nearly made you smile.

He took your hands.

“I am sorry.”

Your expression hardened.

“For what?”

“For bringing Frank into our room.”

“We brought Frank into our room.”

“It was my history with him that made this dangerous.”

“No. Denise made this dangerous.”

Tom looked down at your joined hands.

“I should have known someone might see him.”

“You were asleep.”

“That is not a defence.”

“It is when you are blaming yourself for corridor surveillance.”

His mouth twisted faintly.

You squeezed his hands.

“Do not turn this into something you did to me.”

“I do not want you humiliated.”

“And I do not want you made into a liar or a cheat because someone thinks your sexuality is an easy scandal.”

Tom’s eyes lifted to yours.

“You are worried about me.”

“Of course I am.”

“I am worried about you.”

“That is inconvenient.”

“Very.”

He drew you closer.

You rested your forehead against his chest.

For several seconds, neither of you spoke.

Then your phone vibrated again.

Jess had replied.

I miss you more than I wanted to admit.

You stared at the message.

Then typed:

Can we talk properly soon?

Her answer came almost immediately.

Yes.

You placed the phone down.

The friendship was not repaired.

Not yet.

But it had survived enough to warn you.

For the moment, that mattered.

***********

The following evening, you met Frank at Leo’s gallery after work.

The drinks had already been arranged before Denise became a problem. Frank was exhibiting a selection of new photographs, and the five of you had planned to view them privately once the gallery closed to the public.

By the time you and Tom arrived, only a few low lights remained on, illuminating the white walls, polished concrete floors and collection of large abstract paintings. The empty gallery made the conversation waiting ahead feel far more dramatic than it needed to be.

Frank had arranged five chairs around a low table near the rear office. A bottle of wine stood open beside several glasses, along with a half-finished plate of cheese and crackers.

Arthur entered a few minutes later with Leo. He stopped almost immediately and stared at the vast red painting hanging behind Frank.

“That looks like a nervous breakdown.”

Frank glanced over his shoulder.

“It sold yesterday for eight thousand pounds.”

Arthur looked at it again.

“An expensive nervous breakdown.”

Leo removed his coat.

“Can we please discuss the attempted blackmail before Arthur insults your inventory?”

“She has not blackmailed anyone yet,” Tom said.

Frank poured wine.

“Preliminary exploitation, then.”

You sat beside Tom and handed Frank your phone.

“These are the photographs Jess sent.”

Frank took the phone. He examined the first image in silence. Then the second. Then the third.

You watched his expression carefully.

His eyebrows rose. His mouth twitched. Then he began to laugh. Not loudly at first. A quiet exhale that turned into unmistakable amusement.

Tom stared at him.

“What is funny?”

Frank turned the phone around.

“This is her evidence?”

“She also saw you leave our suite,” you said.

“Yes. Not my finest exit.”

Arthur accepted a glass of wine.

“Why were you in their suite?”

Frank looked at him.

“No reason.”

Arthur considered that.

“Uh-huh.”

Tom leaned back in his chair.

“You all seem remarkably calm.”

“Would you prefer if we panic?”

“Concern would be reassuring.”

“I am concerned.”

Leo looked at him.

“You are smiling.”

“The conditions can coexist.”

Frank enlarged the first photograph and shook his head.

“And this…this means nothing.”

You took the phone and opened the corridor photograph.

“This one worries me.”

Frank studied it.

“I was asking a member of staff where I could charge my phone.”

Leo tilted his head.

“Near their suite?”

“The member of staff was near their suite. I did not position him there for dramatic effect.”

Arthur pointed at the archway.

“Your room was the other direction.”

“Yes. But on the same floor and my power point didn’t work.”

Tom took the phone.

“She followed you.”

The amusement faded from Frank’s expression.

“Possibly.”

Silence settled over the group.

You opened the final image.

“This was during the reception. The band was playing.”

Arthur looked at it.

“You are all standing very close.”

“We were trying to hear one another.”

“Your hand is on Frank.”

You looked at the photograph.

“I touch people when I talk.”

All four men looked at you.

You frowned.

“I do.”

“Constantly,” Tom said.

“Thank you.”

“That was not criticism.”

Frank took his wine.

“Again. The photographs prove nothing.”

“But they create a pattern,” Leo said.

Frank glanced at him.

“Only if accompanied by Denise’s account.”

“Which she will provide.”

The room became serious.

Frank placed his glass down.

“Jess was correct. Denise will not receive much from these images alone.”

You looked at him.

“But?”

“But someone may still publish the allegation.”

Tom’s fingers moved restlessly against his knee.

“On what basis?”

“On the basis that allegations involving sex, infidelity and people who have already been publicly linked are easy to package as questions rather than facts.”

Arthur frowned.

“Meaning?”

Frank’s expression became dry.

“‘Is Tom’s former lover threatening his engagement?’ ‘The mysterious wedding photographs raising questions.’ ‘Inside the unconventional relationship.’ They do not need to say anything definite.”

You closed your eyes briefly.

“Wonderful.”

“The more significant problem is not what she already has,” Frank continued.

Tom looked at him.

“What is?”

“What she attempts to obtain next.”

The words settled heavily.

Frank leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees.

“She believed there was a story before she had the photographs. The images have not proved it. If she needs money badly enough, she may continue watching.”

You folded your arms tightly.

“We are not doing anything now.”

Arthur looked at you.

You corrected yourself.

“Nothing she can photograph.”

Leo lifted his glass.

“An extremely reassuring distinction.”

Tom gave him a warning look.

Frank continued.

“She may approach other guests. Estate staff. Drivers. Anyone who saw us together.”

Tom’s face hardened.

“Jess will not be the only person.”

“Probably not.”

“Who else would she contact?” you asked.

Frank thought about it.

“People who dislike Tom.”

Arthur glanced around the room.

“That seems broad.”

Tom stared at him.

Arthur lifted one hand.

“I meant professionally.”

“That was not better.”

Arthur cleared his throat.

“Either way, we should involve Dad.”

You turned towards him.

“Are you high?”

Arthur blinked.

“No.”

“You want to tell Dad that Denise saw Frank leaving our bedroom at seven o’clock in the morning?”

“Yes.”

You stared at him.

“He will ask questions.”

“Then you answer them.”

“Saying what, exactly? ‘Yes, Dad, I enjoy watching my fiancé have sex with his former lover and occasionally participate’?”

Leo took a slow drink of wine.

“I knew it.”

You turned towards him.

“You knew what?”

Arthur looked faintly offended.

“We have known since game night.”

“You absolutely have not.”

“Not every detail,” Leo said. “But enough.”

“What does ‘enough’ mean?”

Arthur leaned back in his chair.

“You disappeared to Frank’s loft with Tom after spending half the evening making increasingly transparent suggestions.”

“We went to look at photographs.”

Frank lifted his glass.

“Technically, photographs were present.”

Tom closed his eyes.

“Please stop helping.”

Arthur continued.

“Then Tom could barely sit properly the next morning.”

Tom’s eyes opened.

“I was tired.”

Leo gave him a sympathetic look.

“Of course.”

“We had been drinking.”

“Naturally.”

Tom looked towards you.

“Why am I defending myself?”

“Because apparently my brother has been conducting a private investigation into your ability to sit.”

Arthur held up both hands.

“I did not investigate anything. It was obvious.”

“It was not obvious.”

Frank considered that.

“It was moderately obvious.”

Tom stared at him.

“Whose side are you on?”

“I was unaware there were sides.”

Arthur leaned forward again.

“The point is, this is not exactly shocking information to us. And we know how to keep things private.”

“It will be shocking information to Dad.”

“Perhaps,” Arthur said. “But Dad has the resources to make this disappear before Denise gets anywhere.”

You folded your arms.

“Dad cannot make everything disappear.”

“He knows lawyers, editors, publicists and at least three people who owe him significant favours.”

Leo nodded.

“He also understands how to frighten people without technically threatening them.”

Tom looked uneasy.

“Your father also owns a rifle.”

You turned towards him.

“What?”

“I have seen it.”

Arthur frowned.

“Why have you seen Dad’s rifle?”

“He showed it to me during the weekend at the country house.”

You stared at him.

“He showed you a rifle?”

“He said he was cleaning it.”

Frank’s mouth twitched.

“While his daughter’s much older boyfriend was staying under his roof?”

Tom looked at him.

“Yes.”

Arthur nodded thoughtfully.

“That sounds deliberate.”

“It was extremely deliberate.”

You rubbed your forehead.

“This is precisely why we are not involving Dad.”

Arthur shook his head.

“You are focusing on the rifle rather than the lawyers.”

“The rifle is difficult to ignore.”

Leo looked towards Tom.

“Did he point it at you?”

“No.”

“Did he discuss ammunition?”

Tom paused.

“Briefly.”

Frank began laughing.

“That man likes you.”

“I would hate to see what he does to people he dislikes.”

Arthur gestured towards the phone on the table.

“Which is exactly why Denise may reconsider if Dad speaks to her.”

You told everyone this repeatedly.

You told Arthur when he sent you the details of the florist he and Leo had used in France.

You told your mother when she forwarded you three country estates, two London hotels and a castle in Scotland with the alarming comment that it was surprisingly reasonable.

You told Maddy when she arrived at the house carrying two bridal magazines, a garment bag and the expression of a woman who had already arranged several things without consulting you.

Most importantly, you told Tom every time he looked faintly alarmed by an email containing the words wedding package.

There was no urgency.

You had only just become engaged. Tom was preparing to begin another film, you were in rehearsals for a television series shooting across London, and the campaign schedule for the film you had made together had finally arrived.

The premiere was in three months.

There would be interviews, photographs, festival appearances, magazine shoots and several carefully controlled opportunities for journalists to ask how the two of you had moved from playing lovers on screen to becoming engaged in real life.

The schedule was twenty-three pages long.

Tom read three of them before placing it face down on the kitchen table.

“No.”

You looked up from your coffee.

“No to which part?”

“All of it.”

“That seems difficult from a contractual perspective.”

Tom pushed the pages toward you.

“There are six interviews on the first day.”

“Yes.”

“Why do they need to speak to us six times?”

“Different publications.”

“They can share.”

You smiled and continued reading.

The house was still carrying evidence of the holiday. A suitcase remained half unpacked near the stairs. A bottle of wine from the estate sat unopened on the kitchen counter. Your engagement cards had begun occupying every available surface, despite Tom insisting that the mantelpiece was not designed to hold that many photographs of rings.

He sat opposite you in an old T-shirt, his hair still damp from the shower. The domestic ordinariness of him made the campaign schedule seem faintly absurd.

In three months, hundreds of cameras would be pointed at both of you.

At that moment, Tom was eating toast over the sink because he did not want to dirty a plate.

You turned another page.

“There’s a joint magazine cover.”

Tom looked suspicious.

“Which magazine?”

You told him.

His face tightened.

You laughed.

“We’ll be fine.”

“You always say that shortly before something becomes deeply uncomfortable.”

“That is because we are usually fine afterward.”

Tom returned to the table and sat down.

He glanced toward your left hand.

His eyes rested on the ring for a moment, as they still frequently did.

Then he reached across the table and touched it lightly with one fingertip.

“Three months.”

“Until the premiere.”

“Everyone will know then.”

You raised your hand.

“People already know.”

“Not like that.”

He meant the carpet. The lights. The photographs that would move around the world before you had reached the cinema doors.

The engagement had been announced quietly during Arthur and Leo’s wedding weekend after several guests began congratulating you publicly. A representative had confirmed it in one sentence. No details had been offered.

The simplicity had not prevented hundreds of articles.

Most were affectionate.

Some were incredulous about the speed of the relationship.

Several had carefully calculated how long you had been dating, how recently you had moved in and how much older Tom was than you.

One had referred to you as his young fiancée seven times.

Tom had stopped reading after the second paragraph.

You folded the campaign schedule closed.

“Are you worried?”

“About the film?”

“About us promoting it while engaged.”

Tom thought about that.

“I’m worried they’ll make it seem as if the relationship was part of the publicity.”

“Anyone who thinks you proposed for publicity has never watched you on a red carpet.”

His mouth twitched.

“I am perfectly capable on a red carpet.”

“You stand there like someone has asked you to identify a body.”

“There are a lot of people shouting.”

“They’re shouting your name.”

“That does not make it less unsettling.”

You reached across and took his hand.

“We know what happened. Everyone important knows what happened.”

Tom’s thumb moved against your fingers.

“Ellie knows.”

“Ellie is thrilled.”

His expression softened immediately.

Ellie had been the first person after Maddy to know that Tom intended to propose.

She had also been the first person to discover the ring, which she had found inside a zipped compartment of his overnight bag while looking for a charger he had specifically told her was not inside it.

For weeks, she had maintained the secret with an intensity that nearly destroyed her.

When you and Tom returned to London, she had arrived at the house before lunch the following day.

She had not even removed her shoes.

“Show me.”

You had held up your hand.

Ellie had stared at the ring for approximately three seconds before launching herself at both of you.

“You actually did it.”

Tom had looked offended.

“You knew I was going to.”

“Knowing you planned it is different from knowing you didn’t panic and throw the ring into the sea.”

“Why would I throw it into the sea?”

“You overthink things.”

You had hugged her tightly.

“He only nearly ruined it six times.”

“Five.”

“There was a frog.”

“That was not my fault.”

Ellie had pulled away and taken your hand again.

“Can I tell people?”

Tom had answered immediately.

“No.”

You had answered at the same time.

“Some people.”

Ellie looked between you.

“This marriage will be very organised.”

“It will not,” Tom said.

“It might be,” you said.

Ellie had grinned.

“Can I be in the wedding?”

You looked at her.

“Obviously.”

“Doing what?”

“Whatever you want.”

Tom frowned.

“Within reason.”

“What if I want to perform a song?”

“Then reason has already failed.”

Ellie ignored him.

“Can I wear a suit?”

“Yes.”

“Or a dress?”

“Yes.”

“Can I decide later?”

“Yes.”

She beamed.

“Can I give a speech?”

Tom’s answer came too quickly.

“No.”

Ellie turned toward you.

“Can I give a speech?”

“We’ll review it first.”

“That means yes.”

“It means your father is frightened.”

Tom looked between you.

“I am not frightened.”

Ellie smiled at him with open menace.

“I have stories.”

He had been frightened after that.

Not of the wedding itself.

Of Ellie having access to a microphone.

Her happiness had been uncomplicated. She wanted to discuss clothing, music, food and whether her hamster could be included in the photographs.

She had suggested walking down the aisle holding him.

Tom had refused so firmly that you suspected he believed it was a genuine possibility.

The only difficulty came three days later, when Ruth asked Ellie why she had begun saving photographs of black suits to a folder on her phone, which was about a week or two before the first public announcement.

Ellie told her.

Ruth called Tom that evening.

You were in the sitting room reviewing scripts when his phone rang. He looked at the screen and went still.

You did not need to see the name.

“Ruth?”

Tom nodded.

“You should answer.”

He stared at the phone for one more ring.

Then he did.

“Hello.”

You tried not to listen.

It proved impossible almost immediately.

Ruth’s voice was not loud enough for you to distinguish every word, but it carried the particular sharpness of someone trying and failing to remain calm.

Tom stood and moved toward the kitchen.

You returned your attention to the page.

You read the same line four times.

From the kitchen, Tom said quietly:

“I was going to tell you.”

A pause followed.

“No, I didn’t think Ellie should be responsible for telling you.”

Another pause.

Tom rubbed his forehead.

“We have been away.”

Ruth said something long enough that Tom lowered his hand and stared through the window.

“Because we were at a wedding, Ruth.”

His voice remained controlled.

That was usually when he was most irritated.

“No, I did not propose at Arthur’s wedding. I proposed before it.”

You closed the script.

Tom looked toward you briefly.

You raised your eyebrows.

He shook his head as if to say it was under control.

It clearly was not.

“I understand that it seems quick.”

Ruth interrupted him.

Tom’s jaw tightened.

“I am aware of how long we have been together.”

Another interruption.

“She is not a stranger to Ellie.”

This time, Ruth’s voice carried clearly enough that you heard the response.

“She has known her for a few months, Tom.”

You looked down at your script again.

Tom remained silent for a moment.

“They have spent a considerable amount of time together.”

“That does not make her family.”

Tom’s expression changed.

“She is going to be my wife.”

“Exactly.”

Ruth’s voice sharpened.

“You have decided that after less than six months. Ellie has barely had time to understand that you are in a serious relationship, and now she is apparently expected to adjust to a stepmother who is closer to her age than she is to yours.”

Tom looked at the ceiling.

You covered your mouth.

It was not funny.

It was slightly funny.

Ruth continued.

“She is twenty-four.”

“I know how old my fiancée is.”

“And Ellie is a teenager.”

“Also information I possess.”

“Can you stop being defensive for one minute and listen to what I am saying?”

Tom closed his eyes.

“I am listening.”

“You have made an enormous decision very quickly, and Ellie is confused.”

Tom opened his eyes.

“Ellie is happy.”

“She is excited. That is not necessarily the same thing.”

“She asked to be in the wedding.”

“Children become excited about weddings. She may not understand what it means for her life.”

Tom’s hand tightened around the phone.

“She is not a child.”

“She is our child.”

That silenced him.

You remained where you were.

This was not a conversation you wanted to intrude upon, but leaving now would make your listening more obvious.

Ruth’s voice softened slightly.

“Tom, she came home talking about dresses and speeches and whether she will have to call your fiancée her stepmother. She does not know what is expected of her.”

Tom’s irritation shifted into concern.

“Nothing is expected of her.”

“Have you told her that?”

He hesitated.

“Not in those words.”

“Then perhaps you should.”

Tom looked toward you.

You nodded once.

Ruth continued before he could respond.

“I am not trying to ruin this for you.”

Tom gave a tired exhale.

“It sounds remarkably similar.”

“I am trying to make sure you have considered what this means beyond being in love and buying a ring.”

“I have considered it.”

“Have you?”

His voice became quieter.

“Yes.”

“Because from where I am standing, you went from not seeing anyone seriously to moving a twenty-four-year-old actress into your house and proposing within months.”

You looked away.

Tom’s face hardened.

“Do not speak about her as if she wandered in from the street.”

“That is not what I said.”

“It is what you meant.”

“I meant that this has happened very quickly.”

“Yes. It has.”

“And that should concern you.”

Tom looked at the ring on your hand from across the room.

“It did.”

Ruth became silent.

Tom continued.

“It still does, occasionally. I know exactly how it appears. I know what I would say if somebody else told me they were doing this. But I am not confused about her.”

His gaze remained on you.

“And Ellie is not being replaced, displaced or required to feel anything she does not feel. She is happy. I will speak to her again and make sure she understands that nothing is expected of her. But you do not get to use her discomfort as evidence if she has not expressed any.”

Ruth answered more quietly.

“She expressed confusion to me.”

“Then I will speak to her.”

“You should have spoken to her before proposing.”

Tom’s mouth tightened.

“She knew before I did it.”

Silence.

Then Ruth said:

“What?”

Tom realised his mistake.

“She found the ring.”

Tom rubbed his face.

“And, either way, I’m sorry you heard it from Ellie.”

“You should be.”

A pause followed.

When Ruth spoke again, the anger had dulled into something more complicated.

“Is there a date?”

Tom glanced toward you.

“No.”

“Are you planning to have children immediately as well?”

Tom’s eyes widened.

“That is none of your business.”

“It becomes my business when it affects Ellie.”

“It does not currently affect Ellie.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Neither do you.”

Another long silence.

Then Ruth said:

“Speak to her.”

“I will.”

“Without your fiancée there.”

Tom looked at you again.

You gave a small nod.

“All right.”

“And Tom?”

“What?”

“Being happy does not make every decision wise.”

His expression became unreadable.

“No. It doesn’t.”

The call ended.

Tom remained in the kitchen with the phone in his hand.

You waited a moment before walking in.

“How bad?”

He placed the phone on the counter.

“She thinks I have lost my mind.”

“That is hardly new.”

“She thinks Ellie is confused.”

“Ellie might be confused.”

Tom looked at you.

“You think Ruth is right?”

“I think Ellie can be happy and still have questions.”

He leaned back against the counter.

“She asked to give a speech.”

“That does suggest dangerous levels of enthusiasm.”

Tom did not smile.

You moved closer.

“Talk to her.”

“Ruth said without you.”

“Then talk to her without me.”

His forehead creased.

“You don’t mind?”

“Of course I don’t mind. She should be able to tell you if something feels strange without worrying that she’ll hurt me.”

Tom looked down.

“I should have done that already.”

“Probably.”

He raised his eyes.

“You are meant to reassure me.”

“I am reassuring you that you can fix it.”

Tom took your hands.

“Do you feel strange about being called her stepmother?”

You considered it.

“Yes.”

That surprised him.

“You do?”

“I’m twenty-four, Tom. Six months ago, I was pretending I knew how to live alone. Now someone is asking whether I intend to become a teenage girl’s stepmother.”

His grip loosened slightly.

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

“I mean it. You don’t have to take on a role you don’t want.”

You looked at him.

“I want a place in her life. I love her. But I don’t want to arrive and start acting like her mother. She already has one and I think that, acting like a second mother to her, will definitely make her feel uncomfortable at that age.”

Tom nodded slowly.

“That is what I want too.”

“Then we tell her that.”

He pulled you closer and rested his forehead against yours.

“You are being far too sensible.”

“It will pass.”

**********

Tom took Ellie out for lunch the following Saturday.

He returned three hours later carrying a shopping bag from a record store and looking considerably less tense.

You were sitting cross-legged on the living-room floor surrounded by scripts, highlighters and notes for the television series.

Tom dropped onto the sofa.

“She’s fine.”

You looked up.

“Actually fine or pretending-to-be-fine because you bought her something?”

“The record was unrelated.”

“Of course.”

He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees.

“She was confused about what to call you.”

“Reasonable.”

“And whether she would have to spend Christmas differently.”

“Also reasonable.”

“And whether we would have a baby immediately.”

You stared at him.

“Why is everyone asking that?”

“Apparently marriage leads to babies.”

“Someone should inform Arthur and Leo.”

Tom gave you a look.

“I told her we have no immediate plans.”

“Good.”

“I told her she never has to call you her stepmother.”

“Excellent.”

“She said she was going to call you by your name because calling you Mum would be weird and possibly cause Ruth to commit a crime.”

You laughed.

“Accurate.”

Tom reached down and picked up one of your highlighters.

“She is happy.”

You studied his face.

“I believe you.”

“She also wants to know whether she can bring someone.”

“To the wedding?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“She claims she hasn’t decided.”

“That means she has decided and doesn’t want you interrogating her.”

Tom dropped the highlighter.

“I do not interrogate her.”

“You once asked a boy what his five-year plan was.”

“He was sixteen and had none.”

“Most sixteen-year-olds don’t.”

“That is what concerns me.”

You moved your notes aside and leaned against his legs.

“Ruth?”

His hand settled in your hair.

“Still angry.”

“She’ll calm down.”

“Will she?”

“Eventually. Or she’ll remain angry but become quieter about it.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“It is sometimes the best available outcome.”

*********

Tom’s parents reacted very differently.

Phoebe telephoned you directly a week or so after you came back from France.

She did not ask whether Tom was there.

“I have been informed that neither of you has begun planning.”

You looked toward Tom, who was sitting beside you on the bed reading his new script.

“We’ve been engaged for three weeks.”

“Yes. That is sufficient time to decide whether you are having a church.”

Tom lowered the script.

“Do not engage,” he whispered.

You turned away from him.

“We haven’t discussed a church.”

“Tom was christened.”

From the bed, he said:

“Against my will.”

Phoebe heard him.

“You were an infant.”

“Exactly. I could not consent.”

“Do stop being dramatic.”

You bit back a smile.

“We haven’t decided what kind of ceremony we want.”

“That is entirely understandable. I am not interfering.”

Tom mouthed, She is interfering.

“I only wanted to mention that your grandfather’s cufflinks are available if Tom wants them.”

You looked at him.

His expression shifted.

“That’s lovely,” you said.

Phoebe continued.

“And there is a family veil.”

Tom sat upright.

“No.”

“I wasn’t speaking to you.”

“She doesn’t want a family veil.”

You covered the phone.

“I might.”

He stared at you.

You smiled.

“You don’t know.”

“I do know.”

Phoebe spoke loudly enough to be heard.

“It is lace, late Victorian and extremely beautiful.”

Tom whispered:

“It is haunted.”

“It is not haunted,” Phoebe said.

“Three marriages involving that veil ended disastrously.”

“One ended because Uncle Henry died at ninety-two.”

“Still ended.”

You laughed.

Phoebe sighed.

“Charles also wants to know whether there will be a morning suit.”

Tom leaned toward the phone.

“There will not.”

From somewhere beside Phoebe, Charles called:

“There ought to be.”

“Why?” Tom demanded.

“Tradition.”

“Whose tradition?”

“Ours.”

Tom looked at you with an expression of profound betrayal.

“We should elope.”

Phoebe ignored him.

“You need not decide now. I simply thought you should know what is available.”

“Thank you. I’d like to see the veil.”

Tom closed his eyes.

Phoebe sounded delighted.

“I shall bring it next weekend.”

The call ended before Tom could object.

He looked at you.

“Why?”

“I want to see it.”

“It is enormous.”

“Have you worn it?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t know.”

“I have seen photographs. It consumed Matilda.”

You took the script from his hands and placed it on the bedside table.

“Your mother is excited.”

“My mother has been waiting for one of us to provide a socially acceptable event she can organise.”

“You have been married before.”

“She disliked nearly every decision we made.”

“Perhaps this is her chance for redemption.”

Tom stared at you.

“You say that as though my wedding is an educational opportunity for my mother.”

“All weddings are educational opportunities for mothers.”

He reached for his script again.

“Elopement.”

“Noted.”

**********

Maddy was worse.

Maddy did not inquire about your intentions.

She arrived with a plan.

You opened the front door and found her holding a laptop beneath one arm, a garment bag over the other and two takeaway coffees in one hand.

“Move.”

You moved.

She entered the house.

“Where’s Tom?”

“Upstairs.”

“Good. We can establish the facts before he contributes opinions.”

Tom appeared halfway down the stairs.

“I have opinions.”

Maddy looked up.

“You have anxieties. They are not the same.”

She placed everything on the dining table.

Tom descended slowly.

“What is in the bag?”

“Nothing for you.”

“That is not reassuring.”

Maddy opened her laptop.

“First, we need to separate the wedding from the film campaign.”

You sat opposite her.

“They are already separate.”

Maddy gave you a patient look.

“Emotionally, yes. Publicly, no.”

Tom remained standing.

“Why not?”

“Because the premiere is in three months, she will be wearing the ring, you will both be asked about the engagement and every photograph will be examined for wedding clues.”

Tom looked appalled.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that if she wears white, they will say it is bridal. If she wears black, they will say she is rejecting tradition. If she wears anything loosely fitted, they will say she is pregnant.”

You looked down at yourself.

“I wear loose clothing constantly.”

“Exactly. You have been pregnant online four times this year.”

Tom sat down beside you.

“Four?”

“One article counted a handbag being held in front of her stomach.”

“I was carrying a handbag.”

“The internet considered that evasive.”

Maddy turned the laptop toward you.

A document filled the screen.

At the top was written:

ENGAGEMENT, WEDDING AND CAMPAIGN SEPARATION STRATEGY.

You stared at it.

“You created a strategy?”

“Someone had to. Because your publicist has been useless and I am your official unofficial fashion advisor.”

Tom read the title.

“No one had to.”

Maddy continued.

“The premiere wardrobe needs to acknowledge the engagement without looking like a rehearsal wedding dress.”

“I was planning to wear clothes,” you said.

“That is why I am here.”

She unzipped the garment bag.

Inside were fabric swatches, photographs and a preliminary sketch.

Tom leaned closer despite himself.

“That’s nice.”

Maddy pointed at him.

“Do not sound surprised.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

You examined the sketch.

It was elegant, dramatic and nothing like a wedding dress.

“I love it.”

“Good. It photographs well beside a dark suit, so Tom will wear one.”

Tom frowned.

“I usually wear a dark suit.”

“Then this will be a rare event where instinct and competence align.”

He sat back.

“I liked you before you became involved in the wedding.”

“I am not involved in the wedding yet.”

Maddy clicked to the next page.

A list appeared.

Venue.

Guest count.

Date.

Security.

Dress.

Second outfit.

Ceremony photography.

Private photography.

Official announcement.

Potential exclusive.

Social-media boundaries.

Tom looked at the list.

Then at you.

“Elopement.”

You ignored him and looked at Maddy.

“All right. So you are my official unofficial fashion adviser and apparently my wedding planner now?”

Maddy considered this for less than a second.

“Certainly. I accept.”

“I did not formally offer you the position.”

“You did enough.”

She began typing.

“There is one condition.”

You narrowed your eyes.

“What?”

“You make me maid of honour.”

Tom looked between you.

“That sounds suspiciously like extortion.”

“It is negotiation,” Maddy said.

“You have already created a wedding spreadsheet without permission.”

“Which proves I am qualified.”

You looked at the increasingly alarming collection of tabs across the bottom of the screen.

“What exactly would you do as maid of honour?”

Maddy glanced up.

“Everything you forget, avoid or underestimate.”

Tom nodded slowly.

“She is qualified.”

You turned toward him.

“Whose side are you on?”

“The side most likely to prevent you from losing the marriage certificate.”

“I would not lose the marriage certificate.”

Both of them looked at you.

You folded your arms.

“Immediately.”

Maddy held out her hand.

“Do we have an agreement?”

You stared at it.

“You are not permitted to become unbearable.”

“That condition is too vague.”

“You are already unbearable,” Tom said.

Maddy continued holding out her hand.

You finally shook it.

“Fine. Maid of honour.”

“Excellent.”

She immediately opened another document.

Tom watched the screen change.

“What is that?”

“Venue shortlist.”

“Elopement,” he repeated.

“Rejected,” Maddy said.

“By whom?”

“The wedding planner.”

“You became the wedding planner thirty seconds ago.”

“And I have already made significant progress.”

By the time Maddy left that evening, you had selected a date, provisionally reserved a venue and created a guest list that Tom insisted was at least twenty people too long.

You also had a preliminary colour palette, three possible photographers, a reminder to contact a registrar and a separate spreadsheet devoted entirely to wardrobe.

Tom stood at the front door as Maddy disappeared down the steps with her laptop beneath one arm.

He closed the door slowly.

Then he turned toward you.

“We were not planning a wedding this morning.”

You looked at the confirmation email on your phone.

“Apparently we are now.”

“We have a venue.”

“Provisionally.”

“And a date.”

“Also provisionally.”

Tom stared at you.

“This is how governments fall.”

You smiled and slipped your arms around his waist.

“You proposed.”

“I did not realise it would involve this many spreadsheets.”

“You should have researched more carefully.”

He rested his hands against your back.

“We could still elope.”

“Maddy would find us.”

Tom considered that.

“She would.”

“And she would bring fabric samples.”

His mouth twitched despite himself.

“Next May, then.”

You looked up at him.

“Next May.”

*********

The date remained unofficial.

You did not tell the press.

You did not announce it to extended family.

You told Ellie, who immediately asked what she was wearing.

You told Arthur and Leo, who responded by creating a group chat titled The Next Wedding.

You told your parents over dinner.

Your father smiled and opened a bottle of champagne.

Your mother asked why you had chosen late May before confirming the availability of several relatives you had not yet invited.

Tom told Phoebe and Charles the following Sunday.

Phoebe became emotional.

Charles asked whether Tom had considered a morning suit.

Tom ended the conversation shortly afterward.

For all his protests, the date affected him.

He began referring to next May differently. It was no longer merely a month in which he might be filming or travelling or avoiding another public appearance.

It was when you would become his wife.

At night, when the house was quiet and scripts had been abandoned on both bedside tables, he sometimes touched your ring and said it aloud.

“Next May.”

You would turn toward him.

“You sound surprised.”

“I am.”

“You chose this.”

“I know.”

“You’re allowed to change your mind.”

His face would tighten immediately.

“I don’t want to.”

You would smile.

“Then stop looking terrified.”

“I’m not terrified.”

“You look slightly terrified.”

“I am thinking.”

“That is usually when you look most terrified.”

Then he would pull you closer and kiss your forehead.

“Next May.”

**********

While you and Tom adjusted to schedules, fittings, rehearsals and the first appearance of Maddy’s expanding spreadsheet, Denise waited.

She did not contact a newspaper.

Not yet.

The photographs from France remained stored in a hidden folder on her phone.

Frank’s hand close to Tom’s collar.

You standing between them at the reception.

The three of you talking closely near the ballroom doors.

None showed a kiss.

None showed anyone entering or leaving a bedroom.

The most suggestive photograph was also the least useful: Frank standing at the far end of the guest-room corridor, alone, fully dressed and apparently looking for someone.

Without the knowledge of what Denise had seen that morning, it meant nothing.

With the story attached, perhaps it meant more.

She had considered approaching your mother.

That risked being dismissed as jealous or malicious. Your mother might disapprove of Frank, but she was also protective of family reputation. She might warn you before Denise could do anything with the information.

A journalist would want evidence.

A gossip account might publish speculation, but speculation alone would disappear quickly unless someone credible reinforced it.

Denise needed someone connected to you.

Someone who understood your private life.

Someone who might know whether Frank’s involvement had continued after Tom began seeing you.

She thought of Jess.

Jess had once slept with Tom. She knew that because it became a family discussion.

Jess knew you. She knew Jess. Jess had been in your life since high school. Denise even knew that you and Jess have history. So this could be perfect.

And more importantly, Jess was not family.

Denise found her details through social media.

She followed the public account first.

Then she sent a message.

Hi Jess. We’ve met very briefly through the family. I’m Denise.

She watched the message remain unread for several hours.

That evening, Jess opened it.

No response came.

Denise sent another.

I’m sorry to contact you unexpectedly. There is something involving Tom and Y/N that I believe you may be interested in and I would love to get your help for a story.

This time, the typing indicator appeared.

Then vanished.

A minute later, it returned.

Jess’s reply was brief.

What exactly are you asking me?

Denise looked at the photographs again.

She selected none of them.

Not yet.

Instead, she typed:

I saw something at Arthur’s wedding. I think Y/N may be making a serious mistake and I know you and her had a fight. So this might be a good opportunity for you to tell your story as well.

Jess read the message almost immediately.

For several minutes, there was no response.

Then one arrived.

Let’s meet in person.

The quiet stone courtyard where everyone had lingered over wine the previous evening was now filled with florists carrying armfuls of cream roses, caterers balancing trays of glassware, and members of the wedding party moving in every direction with expressions of mounting importance.

The morning light spread warmly across the pale walls and terracotta roofs. Beyond the estate, rows of vines ran down the hillside in neat green lines, fading into a soft haze beneath the summer sky.

It was, by every visible measure, going to be perfect.

Inside your suite, however, perfection was proving difficult to organise.

Tom stood in front of the mirror in trousers and an unbuttoned white shirt, attempting to fasten one cuff while watching you search the sitting room for an earring you were certain you had placed beside your handbag.

“It was here.”

“You said that about your shoes ten minutes ago.”

“And I found the shoes.”

“In the bathroom.”

“Which proves I was right to continue searching.”

Tom looked at your reflection.

“That is not what it proves.”

You dropped to your knees beside the sofa and peered beneath it.

“You are being remarkably unhelpful for a man who is still only half dressed.”

“I am mostly dressed.”

You glanced back at him.

His shirt was open almost to his waist. His tie remained draped over the back of a chair. One cufflink was fastened. The other sat between his lips while he struggled with the cuff.

“You look like someone interrupted you during an affair.”

Tom removed the cufflink from his mouth.

His eyes met yours in the mirror.

A pause passed between you.

Then his eyebrows lifted.

“That is an interesting choice of observation this morning.”

You grinned.

“No idea what you mean.”

“Of course not.”

There was no awkwardness between you after the night before. If anything, there was a private softness to the morning, an ease formed from shared exhaustion, too little sleep and a secret neither of you felt remotely guilty about.

Frank had slipped away shortly after seven.

You had barely stirred.

Neither had Tom.

Neither of you knew that Denise, returning from the kitchen after asking whether breakfast could be sent to her children, had paused at the far end of the upper gallery and watched Frank cross quietly from the direction of your suite to his own room.

She had not called out.

She had not confronted him.

She had simply stood behind a stone column, staring as Frank unlocked his door while wearing nothing but a robe.

By the time Frank disappeared inside, Denise had already constructed an explanation.

It was not the correct explanation in every detail.

It was close enough.

Inside your suite, you finally found the missing earring tangled in the edge of the bedspread.

“Found it.”

Tom looked over.

“Where?”

“Somewhere completely reasonable.”

“The bed?”

“I said reasonable.”

He gave you a look but allowed the matter to pass.

You stood and approached him, taking the cufflink from his hand.

“Let me.”

Tom lowered his arm obediently.

You fastened it through the cuff, then smoothed the sleeve into place.

He watched you rather than the mirror.

“You look beautiful.”

You were not fully ready. Your hair was pinned loosely, with several sections still waiting to be fixed, and you had only put on half your makeup.

“You have very low standards.”

“I do not.”

“I am wearing one earring.”

“It is an excellent earring.”

You smiled and reached for his shirt buttons.

“Are you nervous?”

“It is not my wedding.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Tom looked down as you began fastening his shirt.

“Slightly.”

“Why?”

“Weddings are emotionally aggressive.”

You laughed.

“Emotionally aggressive?”

“Yes.”

You finished the final button and flattened your hand briefly against his chest.

“You can stand beside me.”

Tom’s expression softened.

“I was hoping to.”

Someone knocked firmly at the door.

You and Tom both looked toward it.

“If that is my mother, pretend we are not here.”

The knock came again.

“It’s Arthur.”

You immediately crossed the room and opened the door.

Arthur stood in the corridor already dressed in his wedding suit, his tie slightly crooked and his complexion several shades paler than usual.

You stared at him.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“You look ill.”

“I am getting married.”

“Yes. We have known for some time.”

Arthur glanced past you toward Tom.

“Is he dressed?”

Tom stepped into view.

“Mostly.”

Arthur looked relieved.

“Good. I need a man.”

You put a hand to your chest.

“I am wounded.”

“I need a man who is not my father, my future husband or one of the six people currently telling me to breathe.”

Tom picked up his jacket.

“That is a rather specific category.”

Arthur gestured impatiently.

“Please.”

Tom looked at you.

You nodded.

“Go. I’ll finish getting ready and come find you.”

Arthur turned at once.

“Thank you.”

Tom followed him into the corridor, but leaned back before the door closed.

“Do not lose the other earring.”

“Leave.”

His smile remained visible until Arthur pulled him away.

***********

Arthur had been calm through every stage of planning.

He had negotiated the guest list, approved menus, resolved a disagreement about table linen and managed Leo’s relatives with the serene confidence of a minor European diplomat.

He had insisted repeatedly that he was not nervous.

By nine-thirty on the morning of the wedding, he was standing in his room while Tom retied his tie for the third time because Arthur kept pulling it loose.

“I cannot breathe.”

“That is because you keep tightening it.”

“It feels wrong.”

“The tie?”

“Everything.”

Tom paused.

Arthur was staring toward the open balcony doors, beyond which the vineyard shimmered in the morning heat.

Tom adjusted the knot carefully.

“Do you not want to marry him?”

Arthur looked appalled.

“Of course I want to marry him.”

“Then everything important is right.”

“That is an offensively sensible thing to say.”

“I occasionally manage one.”

Arthur swallowed.

“What if I cry?”

“You probably will.”

“That wasn’t reassuring.”

“I could lie.”

Arthur looked at him.

Tom straightened the tie and settled it against Arthur’s collar.

“You love him.”

Arthur’s face changed.

The panic did not entirely disappear, but it softened around something deeper.

“Yes.”

“And he loves you.”

“Yes.”

“Then you walk down there, say the words and spend the rest of your life irritating each other.”

Arthur’s mouth twitched.

“That is your idea of marriage?”

Tom glanced down, then toward the corridor as though he could somehow see you through several walls.

“It may be one version.”

Arthur drew in another breath.

“Do I look all right?”

“You look very handsome.”

“You’re not attracted to me, are you?”

Tom stared at him.

“No. But I am very attracted to your sister.”

Arthur’s composure cracked into a nervous grin.

“Sorry. I don’t know why I asked that.”

“Nor do I.”

“I think I may be having some kind of episode.”

“You are getting married.”

“Apparently that is the episode.”

The door opened and your father stepped inside.

He stopped upon seeing Arthur.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Your father had been restrained throughout the preparations. He had asked practical questions, checked transport arrangements and made several unnecessary inquiries about rain despite the forecast being clear.

Now, looking at his son in his wedding suit, his expression folded quietly.

Arthur noticed at once.

“Dad.”

Your father cleared his throat.

“Your mother says we need to leave in fifteen minutes.”

“That is not why you came in.”

“No.”

Arthur’s eyes shone.

Your father crossed the room and adjusted Arthur’s lapel, although there was nothing wrong with it.

“You look wonderful.”

Arthur gave a small, unsteady laugh.

“Tom already said handsome.”

“Wonderful outranks handsome.”

Tom stepped discreetly away toward the balcony.

Arthur’s voice lowered.

“Are you all right with this?”

Your father looked at him.

“I have been all right with this for years.”

“Mum—”

“Your mother loves you.”

Arthur nodded.

“I know.”

“She also has a remarkable ability to complicate things she loves.”

From the corridor, your mother called his name.

Your father closed his eyes briefly.

Arthur laughed.

“You had better go.”

Your father leaned forward and embraced him.

The hug lasted longer than either of them appeared to expect.

When they separated, your father looked toward Tom.

“Thank you.”

Tom nodded.

“He only needed his tie fixed.”

Arthur glanced down.

“Three times.”

Your father’s mouth twitched.

“Runs in the family.”

*************

You found Leo in the eastern drawing room with his sister, two cousins and several glasses of untouched champagne.

Unlike Arthur, Leo appeared entirely composed.

He stood near the tall windows in a cream dinner jacket, speaking calmly to the photographer while someone fixed a small flower to his lapel.

When he saw you, he smiled.

“There she is. The recently engaged distraction.”

You kissed his cheek.

“I have been instructed not to draw attention to myself.”

“By whom?”

“Me. Repeatedly. No one is listening.”

Leo looked down at your ring.

“I can see why.”

Leo took your hand and examined it.

“Arthur cried when he saw the photograph.”

“Arthur cries at adverts involving old dogs.”

Leo smiled.

He looked perfectly calm. Impossibly calm.

You narrowed your eyes.

“You’re not nervous.”

“I am prepared.”

“That sounds worse.”

“Everything is organised. Everyone is here. The weather is perfect. Arthur has not fled.”

“Arthur is currently having an emotional collapse upstairs.”

Leo’s composure flickered.

“What?”

You laughed.

“He is fine. Tom is with him.”

“Why is Tom with him?”

“Because Arthur demanded a man who wasn’t Dad, you or anyone telling him to breathe.”

Leo stared toward the door.

“Should I go to him?”

“Absolutely not. Apparently you are the source of the problem.”

“I am the source of the wedding.”

“Exactly.”

Leo looked momentarily concerned.

Then he caught your expression.

“You’re enjoying this.”

“Deeply.”

His sister approached with a glass of champagne.

“Drink.”

Leo accepted it.

“I don’t need it.”

“Then hold it decoratively.”

He took one small sip.

“Arthur really is all right?”

You squeezed his arm.

“He loves you so much that it has temporarily affected his ability to function.”

Leo’s face softened.

For the first time that morning, he looked nervous.

“That is not helping.”

“Good. It was unsettling when only Arthur was suffering.”

***********

The ceremony was held in the estate gardens beneath an old stone pergola covered in climbing roses and pale green vines.

Rows of wooden chairs faced the vineyard, each decorated with small bunches of olive leaves and white flowers. The late-morning sun filtered through the pergola, breaking across the aisle in shifting patches of gold.

Guests gathered slowly, speaking in low voices while musicians played near the garden wall.

Your parents sat together in the front row.

That had not been guaranteed.

Your mother had initially suggested that she might sit with Denise and the children so your father could sit closer to Arthur’s oldest friends. Your father had responded that they were Arthur’s parents and would sit together.

The discussion had continued privately for nearly twenty minutes.

Now they occupied the same bench, shoulders almost touching.

Your mother’s posture was immaculate. Your father’s hand rested loosely over one knee.

They disagreed about almost everything that had happened in the past six months: you, Tom, the engagement, Frank’s presence, your mother’s continued suspicion that the entire family had abandoned good judgement.

But when Arthur appeared at the far end of the garden, your mother reached for your father’s hand.

He took it without looking at her.

You noticed.

So did Tom.

His fingers tightened around yours.

He stood beside you in the second row, his jacket buttoned, his hair still slightly disobedient despite his efforts. When you looked at him, his gaze had fallen to your ring.

Again.

You leaned closer.

“You keep looking at it.”

Tom did not deny it.

“I like it.”

“You chose it.”

“I also like that you’re wearing it.”

“I was considering keeping it in a drawer.”

He turned toward you.

“That would have made the proposal significantly less successful.”

The music shifted.

Everyone rose.

Leo stood beneath the pergola, still composed, smiling politely as the first members of the wedding party made their way down the aisle.

Then Arthur appeared.

Leo stopped breathing.

You watched it happen.

Every trace of his calm vanished the instant he saw Arthur walking toward him between the rows of guests.

His mouth parted.

His eyes filled.

Arthur, who had spent the previous hour convinced he would be the first to cry, saw Leo’s expression and immediately began crying as well.

A soft ripple of laughter moved through the guests.

Arthur laughed through it, wiping quickly beneath one eye.

Leo did not attempt to hide his tears.

When Arthur reached him, Leo took both his hands.

“Hello.”

Arthur’s voice shook.

“Hello.”

“You look—”

Leo stopped.

Arthur smiled.

“Wonderful apparently. It outranks handsome.”

Leo laughed, and several guests laughed with him.

“You look like my husband.”

Arthur’s face crumpled again.

“We haven’t done that part yet.”

“I’m getting ahead of myself.”

The celebrant waited patiently while they recovered.

Beside you, Tom’s thumb moved slowly over the back of your hand.

The vows were warm, sincere and only occasionally interrupted by Arthur trying to make Leo laugh before emotion overwhelmed him.

Leo spoke first.

He described Arthur as the person who had made every unfamiliar place feel like home. He promised to listen even when Arthur began a story halfway through and expected everyone to understand the missing beginning. He promised to support his ambitions, defend his terrible taste in reality television and continue pretending not to notice when Arthur stole his clothes.

Arthur looked down at Leo’s jacket.

“This is mine.”

Leo glanced at it.

“Not anymore.”

The guests laughed again.

Then Arthur’s turn came.

He unfolded a page from his pocket.

It trembled visibly in his hands.

“I wrote this six times.”

Leo smiled.

“I know.”

“You were not supposed to know.”

“You left three versions on the printer.”

Arthur closed his eyes.

“I am marrying a spy.”

“Please continue.”

Arthur looked at him.

The humour faded into tenderness.

“Before I met you, I believed love was something dramatic. Something that arrived in one enormous moment and changed everything at once.”

Leo’s eyes filled again.

“But loving you was quieter than that. It was coffee already made when I woke up. It was you remembering the things I forgot. It was discovering that every ordinary day became the part of my life I wanted most.”

Your throat tightened.

Tom glanced at you, then once more at your ring.

Arthur continued.

“You have seen every version of me. The confident one. The impossible one. The frightened one. The one who says he does not want dessert and then eats yours.”

“Frequently.”

“And you have loved all of them, even when several appeared on the same day.”

Leo laughed wetly.

“So I promise to love every version of you too. I promise to choose you when life is easy and when it is inconvenient and when you are objectively wrong.”

“That last promise feels conditional.”

“It is extremely generous.”

The celebrant let the laughter settle.

Arthur’s voice softened.

“You are my home, Leo. You have been for years. Today I only get to say it in front of everyone else.”

Your mother covered her mouth.

Your father stared straight ahead, blinking hard.

Tom’s hand closed around yours.

When the rings were exchanged, Arthur dropped Leo’s.

It struck the stone beneath the pergola and rolled toward the celebrant’s shoe.

There was a collective gasp.

Arthur froze.

Leo stared at the ground.

Then the celebrant bent, retrieved the ring and placed it back in Arthur’s hand.

“We will treat that as the final opportunity to escape.”

Arthur clutched the ring.

“No. Absolutely not.”

Leo laughed.

“Good answer.”

When they were finally pronounced married, Arthur kissed Leo before the celebrant had finished the sentence.

The applause rose around them.

Tom leaned close to your ear.

“He was waiting for that.”

“So was Leo.”

“Leo looked ready to climb him during the vows.”

You turned toward Tom.

“Emotionally aggressive.”

He smiled.

“Exactly.”

************

All throughout the ceremony and afterwards, Frank behaved impeccably.

That was, Denise decided, the most infuriating part.

He arrived at the ceremony alone, sat beside an elderly aunt of Leo’s and spent ten minutes discussing French landscape photography with her. He applauded at the appropriate moments, laughed at Arthur’s jokes and offered your father his seat during the photographs when the older man complained about the sun.

There was nothing furtive in the way he spoke to Tom afterward.

Nothing intimate.

Nothing that suggested he had crossed the corridor from your suite early that morning without shoes.

During the drinks in the garden, Denise watched Frank approach Tom beside the fountain.

They spoke for less than a minute.

Frank adjusted something near Tom’s collar.

Tom rolled his eyes.

Frank laughed and stepped away.

Denise raised her phone discreetly and took two photographs.

In the first, Frank’s hand was near Tom’s neck.

In the second, Tom was smiling.

Neither image proved anything.

They could have been friends.

Former lovers. But still friends.

Denise studied the images and felt irritation settle beneath her ribs.

She had expected them to be nervous around one another. She had expected avoidance, secret glances, some visible indication that they shared a private understanding.

Instead, Frank wandered across the garden and joined a conversation with Leo’s uncle about vintage cameras.

Tom came directly to you.

“Your brother has already lost his husband.”

You glanced around.

Arthur was greeting guests beneath the pergola while Leo had been intercepted by relatives near the terrace.

“They’ve been married for nine minutes.”

“An ominous beginning.”

Frank passed behind you carrying two glasses of champagne.

He handed one to you without stopping.

“You looked empty-handed.”

“Thank you.”

“Tom has one.”

“I noticed.”

Frank continued toward another group.

Tom watched him go.

“Completely normal.”

“Painfully.”

“It’s almost convincing.”

You took a drink.

“Almost?”

Tom gave you a sidelong look.

“I know him too well.”

From several metres away, Denise photographed the three of you within the same frame.

Frank was already walking away.

You were facing Tom.

There was no touch between any of you.

Still, she saved it.

*******

The reception spread across the estate’s lower terrace and adjoining ballroom.

Long tables were dressed with linen, candles and loose arrangements of summer flowers. French doors remained open to the garden, allowing music and conversation to drift between the rooms.

Arthur and Leo entered to loud applause and immediately argued over which of them had stepped on the other’s foot.

“You walked into me.”

“I was following you.”

“That was your first mistake as a husband.”

“It is too late for annulment.”

Their first dance was affectionate, slightly uncoordinated and repeatedly interrupted by Arthur laughing whenever Leo attempted to guide him.

The speeches began over dinner.

Your father spoke first.

He had promised to remain brief.

He did not.

He described Arthur as a child who had once attempted to run away from home but returned after twenty minutes because he had forgotten to pack snacks. He spoke about Arthur’s determination, his loyalty and the way Leo had become part of the family so naturally that your father could no longer remember which traditions had existed before him.

Your mother sat very still beside him.

When your father spoke about learning that a child’s happiness did not always take the form a parent had imagined, her expression tightened.

But when he finished by welcoming Leo as his son, she applauded before anyone else.

Leo’s sister followed with a collection of stories that grew steadily less appropriate.

Then you were called forward.

You had written a speech.

You had misplaced it.

Tom discovered it folded inside his own jacket pocket.

“Why do you have it?”

“You gave it to me.”

“I have no memory of that.”

“That is why you gave it to me.”

You took the pages and stood.

Arthur pointed immediately at your hand.

“Before she begins, no one is permitted to ask about the ring.”

Several people laughed.

You looked toward the guests.

“Thank you, Arthur. I had planned to open with a twenty-minute presentation.”

“This is my wedding.”

“Yes, and after years of waiting, Leo has finally agreed to take responsibility for you.”

Leo raised his glass.

“I was misled regarding the terms.”

You looked at Arthur.

For all the jokes, emotion rose quickly.

You spoke about growing up together, about Arthur defending you even when he thought you were wrong, and about the years in which Leo had become not merely Arthur’s partner but your family, friend and occasional co-conspirator.

Arthur’s eyes watered again.

“Stop.”

You smiled.

“I haven’t reached the embarrassing story.”

“You have already made me cry four times today.”

“That sounds like a personal weakness.”

Then you put the paper down.

“Arthur, you have always loved loudly. You make people feel chosen. Leo, you are the first person I have ever seen make him feel safe enough not to perform that love every second.”

Arthur stared at you.

Leo reached for his hand beneath the table.

“You are both irritating, dramatic and far too involved in my life.”

“Correct.”

“But I love you. And I cannot imagine either of you without the other anymore.”

Arthur stood before you had finished and pulled you into a hug.

The guests applauded.

Over his shoulder, you saw Tom watching.

His expression was soft.

His gaze fell once more to your ring.

*******

By late afternoon, the formality began to dissolve.

Jackets came off. Children ran between the terrace and gardens. Your father danced with Leo’s mother while your mother pretended not to watch.

Frank remained sociable and entirely unremarkable.

He spoke with Arthur.

He danced once with Leo’s aunt.

He joined Tom and your father in a discussion about a director they all disliked.

Denise continued observing him.

At one point, Frank excused himself and headed toward the interior corridor leading to the guest rooms.

Denise waited several seconds before following.

She found him near the staircase, speaking to a staff member about where he could charge his phone.

The corridor beyond led toward your suite.

Denise stopped at the corner and took a photograph.

Frank stood alone near the archway, his profile turned away from the camera.

Again, the image proved nothing.

He was a guest staying in that part of the estate.

He had every reason to be there.

When the staff member pointed him toward the library, Frank turned and walked in the opposite direction from your room.

Denise lowered the phone.

She was certain of what she had seen that morning.

Certainty, however, was not evidence.

Not yet.

At the reception, she found you standing between Tom and Frank near the open ballroom doors.

The three of you were speaking closely because the band had begun playing and the music made ordinary conversation difficult.

Frank said something into Tom’s ear.

Tom laughed.

You touched Frank’s arm while answering.

Denise took several photographs in quick succession.

In one, all three of you were smiling.

In another, Tom’s hand rested lightly at your waist while Frank leaned close.

In the third, Frank’s face was turned toward Tom.

Nothing overt.

Nothing undeniable.

But perhaps it did not need to be.

Tom’s public history with Frank already existed.

Your engagement was new.

The suggestion might be enough.

A photograph did not need to prove a story if the story made people look at the photograph differently.

Denise saved them into a separate folder.

Then she returned her phone to her handbag and approached as though nothing had happened.

“Having fun?”

You turned.

“Very much.”

Frank smiled politely.

“It’s a beautiful wedding.”

Denise looked at him.

“You’ve settled in comfortably.”

“I usually manage.”

Tom glanced between them.

“How are the children?”

“Overstimulated. One has eaten six macarons.”

You looked toward the dance floor.

“Only six?”

Denise’s smile tightened.

“I stopped counting after that.”

Frank lifted his glass.

“Probably wise.”

He behaved as though her attention meant nothing.

As though he had no secret.

As though she had not watched him leave your room.

Denise excused herself first.

The moment she was gone, you looked at Frank.

“What was that?”

“Denise being Denise.”

Tom watched her disappear into the crowd.

“She seems particularly interested in you.”

Frank shrugged.

“I am fascinating.”

“You are a photographer in a room full of people who prefer being photographed.”

“Exactly. An object of mystery.”

You laughed and took Tom’s hand.

None of you noticed Denise glance back.

************

Night settled slowly over the estate.

Strings of lights illuminated the terrace. Candles burned low across the tables. The vineyard beyond the garden disappeared into darkness while the ballroom filled with music, laughter and the soft chaos of people who had been drinking champagne since midday.

Arthur had abandoned his tie.

Leo’s jacket was missing entirely.

Your father was arguing amiably with Frank about a film neither of them had liked.

Your mother was dancing with Arthur, one hand resting on his shoulder.

Whatever conflicts remained between them, they were hidden for the evening.

Tom found you near the ballroom doors.

He held out one hand.

“Dance with me.”

You looked toward the crowded floor.

“You hate dancing.”

“I hate dancing where people can see me.”

“There are forty people in there.”

“Most are drunk.”

You placed your hand in his.

“Excellent reasoning.”

Tom led you onto the floor.

The song was slower than the one before it, though not slow enough to require anything formal. You slipped your arms around his neck. His hands settled at your waist.

For a few moments, neither of you spoke.

Around you, Arthur and Leo moved through the guests, stopping every few steps to embrace someone else.

Tom looked down at you.

Then, predictably, at the ring.

You smiled.

“Again.”

“I know.”

“Are you checking it hasn’t disappeared?”

“Possibly.”

You lifted your hand between you.

The stone caught the light.

“Still here.”

Tom touched the ring gently with his thumb.

“Good.”

You rested your forehead near his.

“Today was lovely.”

“It was.”

“Even the emotional aggression?”

“I survived.”

“Arthur cried approximately fourteen times.”

“Leo cried first.”

“Arthur will use that in every argument for the next decade.”

Tom’s mouth curved.

You moved closer as the music softened.

“Do you think ours will be like this?”

Tom’s eyes lifted to yours.

“Ours?”

“The next wedding.”

He swallowed.

Despite the proposal, despite the ring and every conversation since, the words still affected him.

“You are assuming ours is next.”

“Who else is getting married?”

Tom glanced around the room.

“I am not sure. Maybe Sam?”

You laughed.

“Sam is single.”

His hand moved slowly along your back.

“Do you want something like this?”

You considered the flowers, the candles, the music and Arthur laughing in Leo’s arms several feet away.

“Some of it.”

“Which part?”

“The people we love. Good food. Enough wine that no one remembers the speeches properly.”

“Reasonable.”

“No seven-hour photography schedule.”

“Agreed.”

“No releasing doves.”

Tom frowned.

“Was that under consideration?”

“It is now prohibited.”

“Good.”

You smiled up at him.

“And you.”

His expression softened.

“I should hope so.”

“You seem like an important component.”

“I would prefer not to be replaced.”

You laughed and kissed him lightly.

Across the ballroom, Frank happened to glance over. He smiled into his glass and turned back to your father.

Tom followed your gaze.

“He would give a very good speech.”

“He would make you uncomfortable for at least half of it.”

“That is precisely why I am concerned.”

You rested your cheek against Tom’s shoulder.

“The next wedding might be ours.”

His arms tightened around you.

“It will be.”

You drew back enough to see his face.

“Very confident.”

“You accepted.”

“I could change my mind.”

Tom’s eyes narrowed.

“You could.”

“I won’t.”

His expression eased.

You kissed him again, slower this time, while the music continued around you.

Beyond the ballroom doors, the estate glowed beneath the summer night.

Arthur and Leo were married.

Your parents were still sitting together.

Frank was behaving with flawless innocence.

And Denise, unnoticed near the edge of the room, watched you and Tom dance while her phone held a collection of photographs that proved absolutely nothing.

For the moment, that was enough.

She believed the story hidden between them would be worth far more than proof.

Not literally.

The aircraft had fallen a long time ago.

Fourteen years ago today, in fact.

But anniversaries were strange things. They collapsed time. They found the memories you had packed away carefully and pulled them apart until the past no longer felt like something that had already happened.

The glass turned between your fingers, the polishing cloth whispering against its surface.

Outside, London had dissolved into rain.

Water ran down the tall front windows in crooked silver streams, breaking the pedestrians beyond them into blurred coats, umbrellas and hurried shadows. Traffic hissed over wet roads. The sky was already darkening despite the early hour, heavy clouds pressing low over the city.

Inside, the pub was warm.

The evening crowd had not yet arrived, but several tables were occupied. Two elderly men were arguing amiably over a newspaper. A university student sat near the window with a laptop, an untouched pint and the despairing expression of someone facing an imminent deadline. At the far end of the room, your father was pretending to inspect an invoice while actually listening to every conversation taking place around him.

The New Inn smelled of wood polish, beer, rain-damp coats and the stew Hob had started cooking before lunch despite being repeatedly reminded that the pub had a kitchen and staff who were perfectly capable of feeding themselves.

It was home.

It had been home for most of your life.

You placed the polished glass beneath the bar and reached for another.

On the television mounted above the far shelves, the afternoon news continued silently beneath a stream of captions.

You had muted it half an hour ago.

They had been showing the memorial.

Aerial footage of the field where the wreckage had fallen.

A line of white flowers against a stone monument.

Relatives standing beneath umbrellas as the names of the dead were read aloud.

Two hundred and twenty-three people.

You had always hated the number.

It was too large to understand properly and too precise to ignore.

Two hundred and twenty-four people had boarded the aircraft.

Two hundred and twenty-three people had died.

And you, a six-year-old girl seated near the centre of the passenger cabin, had survived.

You were still twenty now, although your twenty-first birthday was only three weeks away.

That meant you had lived more than twice as long after the crash as you had before it.

The thought unsettled you every year.

Most people considered surviving a miracle.

You had never known what to call it.

A miracle implied purpose. Benevolence. Some divine hand reaching down through smoke and fire to save a child.

You remembered no hand.

You remembered falling.

The wineglass slowed between your fingers.

You rarely allowed yourself to think about the flight in detail. Not because the memories were clear, but because they were not. What remained came in fragments that never seemed to belong to one another.

A blue fabric seat beneath your legs.

Your shoes not quite touching the floor.

A woman beside you humming while she turned the pages of a magazine.

You thought she had been your mother.

There were photographs of her in the files the social workers had eventually given your adoptive parents, but the face in the photographs never quite matched the woman you remembered.

Perhaps that was normal.

You had been six.

Memory changed people.

It polished them down or distorted them according to whatever the mind needed to survive.

You remembered the woman fastening your seat belt.

You remembered her fingers trembling.

You remembered asking why the plane was shaking.

After that came scattered impressions.

The overhead lights flickering.

A bag falling from an open compartment.

Someone shouting from the rear of the cabin.

The sharp, metallic cry of the aircraft itself as though the machine had become a wounded animal.

The woman pulling you against her.

Then darkness.

Not unconsciousness.

Darkness.

A darkness so complete that it had seemed to possess weight.

Sometimes you remembered stars inside it.

Not stars beyond the window. Not distant lights in the night sky.

Stars surrounding you.

Cold points of white light scattered through an endless black expanse while something vast moved beyond them.

You had never told the investigators that part.

You had not told your therapists.

You had not even told Hob.

It sounded ridiculous, and you had spent enough of your childhood being studied by people who thought every silence concealed a symptom.

The official version of events was simpler.

The plane had encountered a severe storm shortly before beginning its approach to London. Communications became confused. The aircraft lost altitude, clipped a line of trees and struck the ground with enough force to scatter wreckage across more than a kilometre of farmland.

There had been fire.

There had been no response from the cabin.

Emergency crews arrived expecting a recovery operation rather than a rescue.

They found you shortly before dawn.

You had been standing in the mud beyond the outer edge of the wreckage.

Barefoot.

Still wearing the dark blue dress you had boarded the plane in.

There was blood on the front of it, but none of the blood belonged to you.

You had no burns.

No broken bones.

No internal injuries.

Not even a meaningful bruise.

The investigators calculated where your seat had been located and concluded, in the carefully restrained language used by official reports, that your survival was inexplicable.

The newspapers had been less restrained.

MIRACLE CHILD WALKS FROM INFERNO.

THE GIRL DEATH FORGOT.

THE LONE SURVIVOR.

You had been too young to understand the articles, but old enough to recognise your own face on the front pages.

For several days, the hospital had been surrounded by reporters.

You remembered flashes beyond the windows.

You remembered nurses closing the curtains.

You remembered waking to find police officers sitting outside your room.

Mostly, you remembered refusing to speak.

It had not been a deliberate decision. Words simply seemed impossible. The adults around you asked questions faster than you could understand them.

What was your full name?

Who had you travelled with?

Did you remember the crash?

Did you have grandparents?

Aunts?

Uncles?

Where had you lived?

Did you know your address?

You knew your first name.

You knew the woman beside you had been your mother, or at least that you had called her Mum.

You knew there had once been a man whose voice you could almost remember, though investigators could not determine whether he had been on the plane.

Everything else was missing.

The passport recovered from the wreckage gave your surname and date of birth. It identified the dead woman beside you as your mother.

The address listed in the documents belonged to a flat that had been vacant for years.

Telephone numbers led nowhere.

The school named in your papers had no record of you.

Your mother’s identity existed on paper, but the further investigators looked, the less substance they found beneath it. No employment history. No medical records before the previous year. No relatives who could be located.

There had been no father listed on your birth certificate.

No one came to claim you.

For six weeks, you remained in hospital.

Not because you were injured, but because the authorities had nowhere else to place the famous child who had survived when everyone else had died.

Doctors examined you repeatedly.

They tested your hearing, your reflexes and your memory. They scanned your brain. They monitored your sleep.

One doctor noted that you never appeared to dream.

Your eyes did not move beneath your eyelids as expected. You did not talk in your sleep. You never woke frightened by nightmares, despite everything you had endured.

You simply closed your eyes and disappeared into stillness.

Later, therapists told you the absence of dreams was probably your mind protecting itself. Or something else. Some people simply did not dream. Maybe you were just one of them.

You had accepted the explanation because you possessed no better one.

The newspapers eventually moved on.

The flowers outside the hospital wilted.

The police presence diminished.

And one rainy afternoon, Robert and Elenore Gadling came to meet you.

Hob always claimed Elenore had volunteered them both before he properly understood what she was suggesting.

According to him, she had seen a report about you on television and telephoned the local authority the next morning.

Elenore had worked with children for years. She had been a teacher, then a counsellor, and she and Hob had previously provided emergency foster care when placements were scarce.

Their home had space.

Their records were excellent.

They had no young children of their own.

They could take you temporarily while the authorities continued searching for family.

The first meeting took place in a hospital consultation room that smelled of disinfectant and overbrewed tea.

You sat on a plastic chair with your knees drawn to your chest.

Elenore sat across from you.

She had been forty-nine then, with dark hair threaded by grey and kind brown eyes that did not stare at the faint scar near your temple.

Hob sat beside her.

He looked approximately thirty-eight.

He had always looked approximately thirty-eight.

At the time, you did not know there was anything unusual about that.

Neither of them asked about the crash.

That was the first thing you noticed.

Elenore placed a small cloth bag on the table and opened it. Inside were coloured pencils, paper and several books.

“You don’t have to speak to us,” she said.

You watched her.

“We can sit here for a little while, and then we can leave. Or you can draw something. Or read. Or do absolutely nothing.”

Hob leaned towards the bag and examined its contents.

“She neglected to bring food.”

Elenore looked at him.

“We are in a hospital.”

“Exactly. The food here is terrible.”

“Hob.”

“It is. I’m not criticising the nurses. I’m criticising whoever decided jelly constitutes a meal.”

You had looked at him then.

He noticed.

His expression changed, but he did not smile too quickly or praise you for responding.

He simply took a pencil from the bag.

“Do you know how to draw a horse?”

You did not answer.

“Neither do I.”

He attempted one anyway.

It looked like a dog with extremely long legs.

You had almost laughed.

Almost.

During their second visit, Elenore brought you a small wooden music box.

The melody was simple. A lullaby you did not recognise.

You turned the handle twice, listened, then reached for a sheet of paper.

Instead of drawing, you wrote the notes down.

Elenore watched without interrupting.

Hob leaned over her shoulder.

“What is that?”

You spoke for the first time in twenty-three days.

“Music.”

Hob sat back.

“Right. Of course it is.”

Elenore cried in the corridor afterwards.

You learned that years later.

They took you home three weeks after that.

The placement was temporary.

Everyone said so.

The social worker repeated it in the car.

Elenore explained it again when she showed you the small bedroom at the back of the house. Nothing would happen without you being told. No one expected you to call them Mum or Dad. You could stay until the authorities found the right permanent arrangement.

The bedroom had pale walls, a narrow bed and shelves filled with books chosen for children both younger and older than you because Elenore had not known what you liked.

The door did not have a lock.

You asked her to leave it open.

For the first year, you could not sleep with a closed door.

Hob removed it entirely for several months.

He stored it in the attic until you asked for it back.

The temporary placement lasted twelve weeks.

Then six months.

Then a year.

Investigators searched internationally for relatives. Notices were published. DNA samples were compared with missing-person databases. Every lead ended in nothing.

The woman believed to be your biological mother was buried with the other passengers, and no one attended the funeral except officials and two reporters.

Elenore took you.

Hob stood on your other side and held your hand throughout the service.