“I think that’s their uncle’s responsibility. Don’t you? He’s the one who kept it from them all these years. Let him do the explaining.”

After a pause, Richard nodded. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. Maybe I’ll just go and strangle Nina Sutherland instead.”

“Strangle my husband while you’re at it. You have my permission.”

Richard turned and spotted Hugh Tavistock reentering the ballroom. “Now what?” he muttered as the man hurried toward them.

“Where’s Philippe?” snapped Hugh.

“I believe he was headed out to the garden,” said Helena. “Is something wrong?”

“This whole evening’s turned into a disaster,” muttered Hugh. “I just got a call from Paris. A bomb’s gone off in Philippe’s flat.”

Richard and Helena stared at him in horror.

“Oh, my God,” whispered Helena. “Is Marie-”

“She’s all right. A few minor injuries, but nothing serious. She’s in hospital now.”

“Assassination attempt?” Richard queried.

Hugh nodded. “So it would seem.”

It was long past midnight when Jordan and Uncle Hugh finally found Beryl. She was in her mother’s old room, huddled beside Madeline’s steamer trunk. The lid had been thrown open, and Madeline’s belongings were spilled out across the bed and the floor: silky summer dresses, flowery hats, a beaded evening purse. And there were silly things, too: a branch of sea coral, a pebble, a china frog-items of significance known only to Madeline. Beryl had removed all of these things from the trunk, and now she sat surrounded by them, trying to absorb, through these inanimate objects, the warmth and spirit that had once been Madeline Tavistock.

Uncle Hugh came into the bedroom and sat down in a chair beside her. “Beryl,” he said gently, “it’s time…it’s time I told you the truth.”

“The time for the truth was years ago,” she said, staring down at the china frog in her hand.