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She looks as though she’d like to throttle him, but gives up entirely and leans sideways into him. Alex, smug bastard that he is, takes this as his natural due, wraps an arm around her middle, and drops a kiss onto her forehead.

She tips her face up and mutters, “You soft-hearted bastard.”

He looks down at her, far too pleased. “Soft-hearted for you. No one else.”

He glances from James to me, grin widening. “Well. I suppose that’s all three of us, then.”

I frown. “All three of who?”

He looks at me like I’m the daftest man alive, then points lazily from himself to James and finally at me. “Fortune has smiled upon Trinity’s disgraced trio. Repeatedly, I hope.”

Róisín slaps him square in the chest. “Alexander, must ya be so crass?”

“What?” he says, laughing, catching her wrist before she can hit him again. “He knows what I mean.”

James leans back in his chair and folds his arms. “I’d like to ken who Robert could count himself among.”

Every muscle in me goes tight so fast it almost hurts.

I cut a look at Alex sharp enough to warn any sensible man off.

Alex, who has many fine qualities and sense among them only intermittently, misses it entirely.

“Charlotte,” he blurts without a second thought.

Silence falls hard.

Róisín breaks out of Alex’s embrace. Ellen’s hand slips from James’s shoulder. I straighten slowly from the table.

Róisín and Ellen’s expressions turn identical in a way that might be impressive if not directed at me.

“How,” I ask Alex, careful not to loosen my temper, “was that meant to remain between us if you insist on shouting it to a room full of people?”

His grin dies.

“I only thought now that we’re all⁠—”

“You only thought?” I snap. “Did you? That’s a welcome change.”

He winces at that.

“Charlotte Sutherland.” Ellen cuts in, staring at me now.

Then, in that dangerous tone women reserve for men who have made themselves contemptible, she adds, “Charlotte is married.”

I laugh once. Short. Disbelieving. “What?”

James stands to his feet now. “D’ye ken she was married?”

“I did not.”

“Everyone knows Charlotte is married,” Róisín says, each word sharpened. “Very married.”

“Well, plainly not everyone,” I shoot back, though there’s no heat in it. Only confusion, and a sick, creeping sort of horror crawling up my spine.

Alex, who has the look of a man preparing to be shot where he stands, adds, “I didn’t know either.”

Ellen gives a short, incredulous laugh. “Ye slept with her and kent so little?”