He breathed a sigh of contentment as Margery set his plate before him. Cold poached salmon with dill sauce; hot buttered new potatoes; fresh young asparagus, crisply cooked before chilling-he would rue the day if he ever lost his ability to charm Grace. “And don’t tell me”-he put a hand to his breast as if overcome-“a lemon tart for afters?”

Still unrelenting, his mother attacked her fish in silence. Darcy concentrated on his food, content to wait her out. He took small bites to prolong the pleasure, and gazed out into the garden as he chewed. He’d brought Lydia here once, years ago, to his family’s Jacobean house on the outskirts of the village of Madingley. His father had been alive then, tweedy and self-effacing, his mother sleek in her success. It had been a spring day much like this one, and Margery and Lydia had walked together arm in arm in the garden, admiring the daffodils and laughing. He’d felt an oaf, a lout, excluded by their delicacy and by their aura of feminine conspiracy. That night he’d lain awake wondering what secrets they’d confided.

He remembered Lydia’s profile in the car on the way from Cambridge, pinched with nervousness at the thought of meeting Margery Lester, remembered her too prim dress and neatly combed hair-for once the rebellious young poet had become every inch the small-town schoolteacher’s daughter. It had made him laugh, but he supposed in the end the joke had been-

“Darcy. You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”

He smiled at his mother. He’d known her pique would pale against the appalling social prospect of a silent meal. “Sorry, Mummy. I was meandering among the daffodils.”

“I said, What did Dr. McClellan want to know about Lydia today?” Margery’s voice still held a trace of exasperation.