Turning, she looked around for her parents. People were streaming in from the chapel, but she didn’t see them in the crowd.
The room was set up with tables draped in pristine white linen. Pale yellow flowers topped every table.
Along one wall, buffet tables were piled high with food – charcuterie and sliced cheeses, cold roast chicken and at least a dozen salads. One entire table held just decadent desserts – cheesecake and chocolate puddings, something covered in blood red raspberries and glossy blackberries.
With the sunlight streaming in through the towering windows, it looked more like a wedding than a wake. Allie knew that was intentional. Lucinda would have hated people standing around weeping over her.
Waiters in black suits circulated with trays of red and white wine, and juice. Allie was accepting a glass of iced orange juice when her parents appeared at her side, looking a little red-faced and hot from the walk back from the church.
‘There you are.’ Her mother lifted a glass of white wine from a passing tray with relief in her eyes. ‘You disappeared.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Allie said. ‘Turns out I’m not so great at funerals.’
‘I’m the same,’ her father said, taking a glass of iced water. ‘Maybe you inherited it from me.’
‘I’m not sure bad manners are genetic.’ Her mother’s reply was tart but Allie smiled.
She hated their dysfunctional family relationship, but she’d been away from them both so long it was almost nice to encounter it again. The warm glow of familiar antagonism.
‘I’m glad you guys are here.’
If she’d said ‘I’m thinking of piercing my nipples’ they couldn’t have looked more astonished.
‘What?’ she said innocently. ‘I’m not allowed to like you?’
‘Well, it is a bit unorthodox,’ her father murmured, sipping his water, but he looked pleased.
Her mother recovered quickly.
‘Of course you’re allowed to like us. It’s virtually required.’ She took a gulp of wine and glanced at her husband, who inclined his head in some silent communication. ‘Actually, seeing as we are together… there are some things we need to discuss.’
Something in her voice made Allie’s stomach clench. Her moment of near-contentment evaporated.
‘What’s going on?’
The noise in the room was increasing – everyone was back from the church now.
‘Let’s step outside for a second,’ her mother said.
They walked together up the grand staircase to the landing, where Allie first met Lucinda, the night of the winter ball.
They stood at the banister, looking down over the hallway. A low rumble of voices rose from the grand ballroom below. But they were alone and could talk quietly.
‘So, what’s going on?’ Allie’s gaze skipped from her mother’s face to her father’s.
‘First,’ her mother said, ‘we owe you an apology for the way we handled things. I never told you who Lucinda was. Or about my connections with Cimmeria.’ She rested a hand cautiously on the highly polished oak banister, as if she didn’t quite trust it. ‘That was wrong. We should have told you the truth. But in all honesty, we never suspected things would turn out like this.’
‘It’s fine,’ Allie assured her, without hesitation. ‘I’ve kind of worked that bit through.’
‘There was a time when I thought I’d never see this place again,’ her mother said. ‘Hoped, even.’
‘And now?’ Allie shot her a sideways look.
Her mother’s lips curved into a tight smile. ‘I still don’t like it.’
Downstairs, someone laughed. She saw Zoe dash down the hallway barefoot in her little grey dress, shoes clutched in her hands.
‘And we are very sorry that you had to see… what you saw that night in London.’ Her mother dropped her gaze. ‘What happened to Lucinda was awful. And she wouldn’t have wanted you to see that.’
Allie thought of the look in Lucinda’s eyes as she’d clutched her wrist with bloody hands. A look of trust. Of acceptance.
‘Yes she would.’ Allie didn’t like the turn this conversation was taking. ‘I actually think she had a very good idea something like that might happen. She wanted me there to see it.’
Her father looked taken aback. ‘Why on earth would she have wanted that?’
‘So that I would understand what the stakes are.’ Allie hadn’t thought about this much before now – there hadn’t been time. But as soon as she said it, she knew it was true. ‘She wanted me to understand what I was facing. What I am facing.’
‘You’re not facing the same danger as Lucinda,’ her mother argued. ‘That’s absurd.’
Maybe she didn’t mean to sound as sharp as she did, but Allie’s temper flared with the speed of a match strike.
‘Do you have any idea what the last year of my life has been like?’ Her voice was low and cold. ‘Lucinda is not the only person who’s died. Jo died. And Ruth. Other people were hurt. Including me.’ She held up her hair so they could see the jagged wound at the edge of her scalp. ‘I amcovered in scars.’