“Vineyards. The ones worth visiting between Calais and Rome. I have ranked them by quality. The ones marked with a star have excellent cellars and tolerable innkeepers. The ones marked with a cross should be avoided entirely.” She paused. “Drink well. Write often. And if you find yourself in Florence, visit the Uffizi on a Tuesday. The crowds are thinner.”
“Thank you, Aunt Margaret.”
“Do not thank me. Thank the Marchioness of Loring, who compiled the original list. I merely annotated it.”
They hugged. Aunt Margaret held her tightly, and the embrace lasted longer than any her aunt had offered before.
Lord and Lady Brimsey departed with promises to write and a final round of tears from Lady Brimsey and emotional perspiration from Lord Brimsey. Her aunt followed, pausing at the door to give Lily one last look that communicated, without words, that she saw through every lie her niece had told that afternoon and was choosing, out of love, to let them stand.
The door closed behind them.
Sophia appeared from the corridor where she had been waiting with the practiced patience of a woman who had known this moment was coming and had prepared accordingly.
She took Lily’s arm and guided her into the small parlor off the main hall. She closed the door. She turned to her sister.
“Tell me what is happening.”
“Nothing is happening. I am traveling.”
“Lily.”
“Sophia.”
“You have just told our parents that your husband will join you later, and you smiled while you said it, but the smile did not reach your eyes. I have known you for twenty-three years, and I know what your face looks like when you are lying to protect someone you love.” Sophia’s voice was gentle and immovable. “Tell me.”
Lily opened her mouth to repeat the lie. The words formed on her tongue, polished, practiced, and ready to deploy.
They dissolved before she could say them.
“He shut me out.” Her voice cracked. “I asked him about his past, about Sebastian, about the deficiency Lord Sudberry mentioned, and his voice broke, Sophia. It broke on a single word, and I could see how much it frightened him. Instead of letting me help, he told me to leave. He told me to go and never ask again.”
Sophia’s expression did not change. She listened the way she always listened, with her entire body, absorbing every word and filing it and waiting for the full picture to emerge.
“After that, he disappeared. He sleeps in his study. He dines at his club. He comes and goes like a ghost in his own house, and when I told him I wanted to travel, he arranged everything within a day. Lodgings, letters of introduction. He did not ask me to stay, Sophia. He did not even hesitate.”
The tears came. She fought them and lost.
“Please do not tell Edward.” She wiped her face. “Hugo needs Edward. Their friendship is the only real thing Hugo has besides Dorado and a house full of locked doors, and I will not be the reason it suffers.”
Sophia pulled her into her arms. Lily pressed her face against her sister’s shoulder and let herself be held. Sophia’s hand moved through her hair the way it had when they were girls, and the world was smaller and the problems were things that could be solved with a hug and a biscuit.
“I hope you find what you are looking for,” Sophia whispered.
“So do I.”
Sophia pulled back and held Lily’s face between her hands. Her dark eyes glistened.
“If you do not find it in France, come home. If you do not find it in Italy, come home. If you do not find it anywhere in Europe, come home, Lily. I will still be here.”
“I know.”
“Always.”
“Always.”
They held each other for a long time, and the drawing room was quiet, and the afternoon light slanted through the windows, and somewhere in a study across London, a man sat alone at a desk and did not know that the woman he had married was weeping in her sister’s arms because he would not let her love him.
That evening, Lily went to Thornwaite House alone.
