That made Rosaline feel slightly better, but only slightly. “I still don’t think you should have gone out.”

“Yeah, but I did. Just TV, init? So we heading off or what?”

“I guess. We’ll need to get Amelie from my parents, though. To add insult to injury, I had to pass my child between two different sets of babysitters this week so I could be pressured into a threesome I didn’t want.”

“Not a problem, mate. Where do they live?”

“Kensingon.”

He chuckled. “Course they do.”

Truthfully—after everything that had happened in the last couple of days—Rosaline was not quite ready to face Cordelia and St. John. But it was the only way she could get Amelie back. So she had to.

“Blimey,” observed Harry as they pulled up outside Rosaline’s parents’ house. “Is your dad the bloke from Mary Poppins?”

Rosaline gazed somewhat sheepishly at the extremely desirable Earl’s Court residence in which she’d grown up. “What? Dick Van Dyke?”

“No, the one with the bowler and the moustache. Did Bedknobs and Broomsticks and all.”

“Yeah. My parents are kind of . . . actually incredibly rich now I think about it.”

“See.” He grinned triumphantly at her. “I said you was posh.”

“We’re not posh. They’ve just . . . both been very successful in their fields.”

“You know the two poshest things in the world?”

“Um, the Queen and Victoria Beckham?”

“Saying you ain’t posh,” he told her. “And saying the words ‘very successful in their fields.’ My dad’s successful in his field. But because his field’s electrics they say, ‘That’s Ringo Dobson. He’s an electrician.’”

There was a pause. “Sorry. Your dad’s called Ringo?”

“Yeah, my nan’s a big Beatles fan.”

“And you think my name is weird.”

“To be fair, mate, Ringo Starr is still alive, was actually in the thing he’s famous for being in, and ain’t a nun. Also, I reckon you’re stalling. You know, I can wait in the van if you want.”

She was stalling. But not because of Harry. “You don’t need to do that. Unless you want. Which you might. Because my parents can be . . . a lot?”

“Nah, you’re all right. Be good to stretch my legs.”

They stretched their legs—Rosaline’s quite reluctantly—up to the front door. Where she knocked and waited.

“Ain’t you got a key?” asked Harry in the brief silence that followed.

“If I had one to their house, they’d want one to my house, and that would be a whole big thing.” Rosaline hoped he wouldn’t ask for any more explanation, and as the mixed luck of the moment would have it, he never got the chance.

The door opened to reveal Cordelia Palmer in her at-home wear, which honestly wasn’t that different from her picking-her-daughter-up-from-a-baking-show wear, which wasn’t that different from her giving-a-speech-at-a-conference wear. “Rosaline,” she said, “who’s this?”

As greetings went, it could have been worse. And occasionally had been. “This is Harry. He’s from the show.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Palmer.” Harry offered his hand and Cordelia started at it, like it was literally covered in faeces.

“What happened to Alain?” asked Cordelia.

“You don’t want to know.”

“I do want to know. You just don’t want to tell me.”

Rosaline curled her nails into her palms. “You’re right. I don’t want to tell you. Can I have my daughter back, please.”

Sighing, Cordelia stood aside. “She’s in the upstairs drawing room with your father and her marbles.”

It was hard for Rosaline to meet Harry’s eyes after her mother had not only refused to shake his hand but also referenced the drawing room in a way that made it very clear they had more than one. Sliding past Cordelia, she led him up to the largest space in the house, which was now filled with the most complex and elaborate marble run Rosaline had ever seen. The Palmers made little secret of their desire to “get Amelie into STEM,” and so, over the years, they’d spent a small fortune on GraviTrax kits that Amelie loved and Rosaline tried not to feel betrayed that Amelie loved.

“Mummy,” Amelie called out from across the small forest of towers, ramps, and magnetic catapults. “Look. Look what me and Granddad made.”

“Granddad and I,” said Granddad, who was sitting on a nearby stool and assembling a flipper.

“Look what Granddad and I made. It’s a race. For marbles. And there’s a blue marble and a red marble and a green marble and they go whoosh. And we’re going to start the green marble here and the red marble here and the blue marble here and see which one wins because of gravity and momentum.”

Harry crouched to get a better look at the track. “That sounds well exciting.”

“Hello, Mr. Viking.” Amelie looked up from her construction project. “Look what Granddad and I made.”

“I heard, Prime Minister. It’s a race for marbles.”

“Rosaline”—St. John Palmer got his feet—“who’s this?”

“He’s from the show,” explained Cordelia, emerging from the stairwell. “Apparently Alain is out of the picture.”

St. John Palmer shook his head regretfully. “Pity. Seemed a good sort. What went wrong this time?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Rosaline told him as firmly as she could.

“Talk about what?” asked Amelie very loudly. “Who’s Alain?”

“Alain used to be a friend of Mummy’s. But he’s not anymore.”

“Why?”

“He turned out not to be a very nice person.”

Amelie thought about this for a moment. “Why?”

Oh God. “He pretended to be . . . the sort of person Mummy might like. But actually he was very selfish.”

Amelie still had that “why” look on her face, but Cordelia got in first. “He didn’t seem that selfish to me. He was encouraging you to make some very positive changes in your life.”

“Yes.” St. John Palmer chose, as ever, to act on his perennial conviction that what the world really needed was his opinion. “Your mother told me you were going back to university. I’ve looked into it, and an Open University level-two course is the best place to start. I’ll have a word with Edward—he’s been working for them since the last recession.”