She smoothed her lapels and let her cold, analytical gaze move over my face.

“You look tired, Clara.

The skin under your eyes is quite gray.

The Duncan family requires a certain standard of health for our public appearances.

We cannot have the bride looking gaunt in the local press.”

I said I was perfectly fine.

Jonathan came out of the living room to join us, and told his mother she should have called before driving over, and she handed him the thick cream envelope and said she had wanted to be sure I was not overwhelming myself with, as she put it, those silly accounting files.

Then she looked at me with an expression gone completely flat and delivered the sentence I would turn over in my mind for a long time afterward.