“You are too critical,” Claire said, shaking her head. “And you don’t like fiction.”
“Oh, don’t you?” Ember said sadly, as though Claire had just revealed Millie was very ill. “What’s life without a bit of fiction, Millie?”
She made a little huffing noise, her nose turning pink. “I just am rarely taken by it,” she said defensively. “It feels unproductive.”
“So what?” said Ember.
“It isn’t unproductive,” Claire returned, this familiar old refrain stoking the fire inside her that had been so suffocated by Freddy. “It is what makes us human. Do you think Papa could fight a case if he couldn’t tell a good fiction?”
“Papa isn’t a charlatan, Claire,” Millie replied with what sounded like the prelude to outrage, punctured before it could erupt by Dot’s tinkling laughter. “What are you laughing at?”
“The narrative,” Dot replied, her eyes sparkling. “Claire’s right. Every case has one. Even your father’s.”
“Notfictionalones!”
“Maybe not literal fiction,” Dot answered, shaking her head, “but certainly framed with the same structure. My own father taught me that lesson very early. If you can’t tell a good story, no one will listen to the point you have to make, no matter how true it is.”
“Well, this is fascinating,” Ember said, tapping her fork against her plate. “I’ll have to ask Joe.”
“Ah, Joe,” Dot echoed with a softness on her face. “He might be the only honest barrister in London, Ember, but it is why he often does casework, not courtroom arguments.”
“Are you saying my man doesn’t understand emotion?” Ember asked, raising her brows. “Are you suggesting he doesn’t know how to manipulate it to get his way? Because I can certainly tell you …”
“Oh, yes, do tell us,” Claire breathed, leaning forward in exactly the right amount of obnoxious interest to make Ember pause and then throw her head back with laughter.
“One day I might, you little vulture,” she warned. “And you won’t know what to do with it.”
“She’ll turn it into a fairy story,” Millie muttered. “Doubtless.”
“Joe prefers imps to fairies,” Ember said with an airy wave of the empty fork she still held. “But I suppose they’re all cousins at the end of the day.”
“I’m sure I could findsomethingto do with it,” Claire returned with a mischievous little smirk. “I’m still rather fascinated by Mr. Cresson.”
“Well,” said Ember with a snort, “keep your fascination at a respectful distance, lest you want to bleed.”
“Noted,” Claire said, letting herself grin for the first time in what felt like years. “Oh, I haven’t said it, have I? How very happy I am to have you all here. Thank you for coming. All of you.”
Millie sighed one more time. And said, “Oh, dear.”
“I am only sayingthat you agreed to be my accomplice,” Freddy said from the chaise in his mother’s room. “You did agree.”
“Accompliceis such an ugly word, dear.” Patricia Hightower frowned from her place in the mirror. “The connotations.”
“The connotations are entirely correct,” he reminded her with a laugh. “Wear the sapphire.”
“Oh, but is it bad luck?” Her frown deepened as she turned to hold the two necklaces side by side. “Your father gave me the sapphire.”
“He also gave you me,” Freddy said with a wave of his fingers. “And I’m going to be there. Am I bad luck?”
“Do you want me to answer that, Frederick?” she replied, a glint of something like antagonistic glee in her eye.
He glared at her, but she’d already turned back around. “You’re right, I suppose. The sapphire suits the gown better.”
“Of course I’m right,” he said with a sigh. “Besides, it’s something old. Something blue. Something to abet me, as promised by you.”
She spun back around, her eyes nothing but tiny, glittering slits, which made him grin.
“You don’t like my poetry?”
