chapter 8

Practice Makes Seraphina

Adrian taught the way he did everything else, with precision and no wasted words.

“Again,” he said, from the other armchair in the library. It was Wednesday night, the third lesson, and the lamps made small gold islands in the dark. “Vivienne has just asked where you spent your summers.”

Wren straightened. “Wherever Charles sent me.”

“Too defensive.”

“I don’t spend summers.” She tried again. “We had a place in the country. It rained a lot.”

“Better.” He leaned back, studying her. “Never answer with more than the question asks. Vivienne collects detail the way other people collect stamps. Give her one, and she will spend a week building a house on it.”

That was the principle he drilled into her: say less, say it plainly, and when in doubt, ask a smaller question back. And what about you, Aunt Vivienne? Wren practiced it until the words felt like her own. She practiced Sera’s laugh too, and on the second night she produced it, a bright, mocking little trill, and watched Adrian’s jaw tighten.

“Don’t,” he said.

“I thought it was good.”

“It was perfect. That is the trouble.” He looked away, at the dark window. “If Vivienne wants Seraphina, she will find her in any mirror. Do yours. The real one is harder to disprove.”

On Thursday he made her walk the length of the room with a book on her head, a trick Sera had never taught her, and when she wobbled he caught her elbow. It lasted less than a second. Neither of them mentioned it, but she felt the warmth of his hand for the rest of the evening, as if it had been written on her skin.

Then Friday came anyway.

The dining room at Vivienne Lockhart’s townhouse was all dark wood and silver, with a table long enough to seat a regiment and a chandelier that had survived two wars. Eight places were laid. Wren counted the forks, remembered which one Sera had called the fish fork, and sat with her spine straight and her hands quiet. Adrian took the chair beside her. Under the table, for one moment, his knuckles brushed hers, a signal she couldn’t read.

The guests arrived in pairs, all silver hair and old money: a retired judge, two cousins, and a pale young man named Julian who was, Wren realized with a lurch, the actual Julian Lockhart, the husband she had been promised in place of Adrian. He bowed over her hand with a sly, apologetic smile.

“I understand I was supposed to marry you,” he whispered. “I am wounded, but relieved.”

Wren nearly laughed, caught herself, and felt Adrian go still beside her.

Vivienne started gently, with questions about the wedding flowers and the weather in the country, and Wren answered each in a sentence, the way Adrian had taught her. It was working. She could feel the table’s attention drifting toward the judge’s long story about a yacht. But Vivienne’s patient dark eyes never left her, and when the soup was cleared she smiled the smile of a woman who had been saving something.

She tapped her glass with a knife, and the table fell silent.

“I have a surprise for my niece,” she said. “A very dear friend of Seraphina’s. They were at school together in Lausanne.” She raised her cane toward the door. “Isabelle, my dear, come in.”

A woman entered in a green dress, tall and elegant, with black hair in a perfect knot. She smiled at Wren the way a cat smiles at a bird.

“Sera,” she said, in a voice like velvet over wire. “It has been years.”

Wren’s mouth went dry. Beside her, Adrian said nothing, and she understood that this one was hers to survive.

“Isabelle,” she said slowly, remembering the rule. A smaller question. “How have you been?”

“Oh, darling, you must remember the boat. The lake. Monsieur Fournier’s dreadful lecture on Tuesdays.” Isabelle’s eyes glittered. “You were so wicked about him. Do you still do the voice?”

Every face turned toward her. Wren could feel the trap closing, bright and elegant as a wedding ring. She could invent a memory. Sera would have. But she thought of the sixth line on a typed page, no lies, and of Edna’s voice in her head, and she put down her fork.

“I don’t,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’ve let go of a great deal of who I was back then. I would much rather hear about you.”

It was a small answer, graceful and entirely true. A murmur ran along the table, half surprise and half something like respect. Vivienne’s cane tapped once against the floor. Across the table, Julian lifted his glass to her, very slightly.

“Well done,” Adrian said, so quietly that only she could hear.

The rest of dinner passed in a haze. When the plates were cleared, Wren excused herself to the powder room, gripped the cold marble sink with both hands, and breathed. She was still there when the door opened and Isabelle came in and locked it behind her.

“That was clever,” Isabelle said, leaning against the door. All the velvet had gone out of her voice. “Almost as clever as the swap itself.”

Wren’s heart stopped.

“Sera and I speak every week,” Isabelle went on, examining her nails in the mirror. “She told me everything. The twin. The grandmother. The wedding.” She smiled. “She also told me how much the Lockharts pay for discretion. I will need fifty thousand dollars by Monday, Miss Calloway. Or I tell your husband’s family exactly who is sleeping under their roof.”

Wren looked at her own reflection, at Sera’s face, and for the first time wondered whether her sister had planned all of this from the start.