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Hamish sipped his coffee without reacting, apparently unaware of the cascade of feelings bombarding Tia.

“Have you?” he asked, voice level.

Everyone was quiet, even the birds.

Eleanor’s laugh was sharp. “You don’t need to take that tone with me, Hamish. I haven’t actually organised it yet.”

“There’s nothing to organise,” he said, flatly.

Tia wasn’t following. Though she’d consumed only mineral water, she felt a little woozy.

“It would be small. Just a hundred or so of our closest friends. A marquee in the gardens, a late summer party, more than anything else. Exquisite food, of course, champagne, fireworks once darkness falls.” Eleanor turned her attention to Tia. “The bride in something exquisite—couture—to match her innate elegance.”

Tia could tell she was being drawn into this conversation as an ally, but she still wasn’t quite following.

“Who’s getting married?”

“We are,” Hamish said, his look one of impatience. “In my mother’s plans, anyway.”

“We’re already married. I was there,” Tia said.

“But I was not,” Eleanor’s voice took a quality Tia recognised. That of steel—just like Hamish’s, when he was adamant about something. “A registry office wedding doesn’t count.”

“The state of New York would disagree,” Hamish responded.

Cressida refilled her wine glass, took a long drink.

“We should have been included.”

“You, and a hundred of your closest friends?” he asked in a voice that was dangerous for how soft it was. Tia reached over and put her hand on his; Cressida’s eyes followed the gesture.

Eleanor’s lips compressed. “They’re your friends, too.”

Hamish’s laugh was a bark of disbelief. “Such good friends I didn’t hear from any of them when my world fell apart? Ah, of course. They were too busy offering their congratulations to the happy couple.”

The air was thick with an explosive heat. Tia’s gaze shifted to Ewan, who was looking truly miserable, and Cressida, who was silently seething. This poor family. One decision, all those years ago, and it was difficult to imagine how they’d ever recover.

But Tia was an expert in dysfunction and conflict, and defusing emotional bombs was hard-wired into her. “The thing with a wedding is that it needs to reflect the couple,” she said, offering one of her most practised smiles to Eleanor and Rupert. “Hamish and I both hate fuss, and to be honest, the big show of a wedding feels a lot like that. A show.” She lifted a hand to his cheek, stroking it with the appearance of love. “Our wedding was just officiating the start of our marriage—we didn’t see it as more than ticking a box.”

“Ticking a box,” Eleanor repeated, as though this had never occurred to her.

“We didn’t intend to hurt anyone’s feelings,” she added, encompassing them all. Which is more than Cressida and Ewan can say, she wanted to add.

“We’ll discuss it later,” Eleanor said, after a beat, in a voice that showed the matter was most definitely not over.

“Mother, our focus is no longer on the wedding.”

“You just got married,” she pointed out. “You’re practically still on your honeymoon.”

Tia almost laughed. Despite the beauty of the grounds, this emotional minefield of a weekend was not how she would have chosen to spend their honeymoon.

“We’ll discuss it later,” Eleanor said, and Tia was glad when Hamish didn’t respond. She knew from the set expression on his face that he had no intention of talking to his mother about this, or of going through with her suggestion.

And perhaps Rupert saw that too, because in one of his more socially aware moments, he shifted the conversation to a yacht he was thinking of buying, and Tia relaxed.

For a beat of time, anyway.

Because beneath the table, Hamish’s fingers were on her bare knee and then inching higher, to the soft skin of her inner thigh, and when she turned to face him, a simple lift of one brow told her everything she needed to know.