“I am eating.”
“You are eating two bites of toast and a quarter of an apple, and your maid told my maid this morning, when my maid called for you at half past nine, that you had not finished a single mealsince Tuesday. Alice, you cannot starve yourself before your wedding. It is unsisterly.”
“I am not starving myself.”
“You are.”
“I have been busy.”
“With what?”
Alice could not answer that question honestly.
She had been busy with not thinking about her wedding, with not thinking about her wedding night, with not thinking about the orange trees in her parents’ orangery, and with not thinking, above all, about the conversation she had extracted from Cassian at the end of that encounter.
She had been busy with these several not-thinkings for four days. The not-thinking had taken up so much of her attention that she had not had much left over for ordinary things like toast.
She did not say any of this to Joanna.
“I have been busy with letters.”
“What letters?”
“Letters to my aunt in Bath. Letters to the housekeeper at Langton. Letters to?—”
“Alice.”
“Yes?”
“You are not a very good liar this morning.”
“No.”
“You are usually a much better liar than this. I have watched you lie a great deal over the years, and on the whole, you have been very accomplished at it. This morning is not your best.”
“No.”
“Are you well, Alice?”
Alice, who had been holding herself together for four days with the bright competence she brought to most difficult things, looked at her best friend, who was watching her with the particular unsentimental attention she only turned on people she actually cared for, and felt the competence slip about three inches sideways and not quite catch.
She had decided four days ago that she would not, on any account, fall apart in front of her sister, her mother, her maid, or her best friend.
“I am well, Joanna.”
“You are not.”
“I am—” Alice drew in a breath.
She had not meant to say it. In fact, she had not meant to say it to anyone ever. But Joanna was looking at her steadily with all that unsentimental affection of hers, and Alice, who had been the eldest sister since she was five years old and had not in twenty years told her sister anything that might worry her, found that she could not hold any further this morning.
“I am having second thoughts, Joanna.”
Joanna did not answer at once. She set the small piece of Brussels lace she had been holding back on the velvet square. “Nonsense, Alice.”
“It is not nonsense.”
“Itisnonsense. Listen to me. We shall be sisters. We are very nearly sisters now. Cassian will make sure you are well taken care of for the rest of your life. My brother is a great many things, but he has never in his life been a man who did not take care of a thing he had decided was his. And hehasdecided you are his, Alice, so you will be very well taken care of. If you break off the engagement now, you will be ruined.”