Rose’s boudoir smelt of smoke. The ash from last night’s fire had made a snowy patina over the estate’s lawn and on the mosaic tiles of her Juliet balcony. She had not slept, chewing over an endless tumult of the same three questions all night. Did she want to marry Chet? Or did she just want to be the first woman at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts? Or was she marrying Chet to save her family?

She’d sat in the chair facing the horizon all night until the answers that had evaded the powers of her endless scrutiny these past few weeks had finally materialised along with the pink hue of the rising sun. Had it not been for the appearance of Ethan Salt last night, all these questions might have remained unanswered.

But now she knew. As certainly as she’d felt the touch of Ethan Salt’s skin on hers. And the sense that the universe had folded itself around them last night. Again. Had it happened but once, she would have considered it chance; twice, coincidence; but three times was enough for her to stop and listen. Their connection was alchemical. Inexplicable. Star-crossed. Kismet. Call it what you will. She had been given a second chance. And seeing Ethan Salt last night reminded her of who she was. She was the little girl who had once had a strong backbone, despite her crooked spine.

She did not love Chet.

And she knew now why she’d felt her stomach tumble the moment the bronzed doors of Olympus House had clanged shut behind her. She had stepped willingly into the cage she’d been so determined to avoid her whole life. She realised, too, that Chet Randall was a hunter, through and through. And she’d been his prey all along. He’d used every weapon in his arsenal to find her soft spots – he’d charmed her, beguiled her, amused and cajoled her until he’d found the perfect bait: the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. And she’d been foolish enough to take it. But there was one thing Chet had overlooked. One thing he couldn’t have known. Because she hadn’t known it herself. Not until now. That she valued something even more than the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

Her independence. The freedom to make her own way.

She knew the decision she’d come to might fracture her family forever. Was it selfish? Perhaps. Did she hate herself for putting her family in this position? Absolutely. But she would help them find a way out too. There would be no school in Paris for her, no wedding to Chet. But there would be plenty of work at Empress House, and if she were lucky, they would see the Kingsbury Smith name rise again in the progressive world of Nouveau architecture.

Rose peeled off the layers of the Randall finery Chet had clothed her in, put on a plain day dress, then fastened her little elephant choker back in place and touched it for courage.

Rose rapped on Chet’s bedroom door.

‘Not now.’ His voice ripped plain and sour through the timber.

‘It’s me, Chet, it’s Amber.’

Silence.

The door opened a crack and, though Chet’s eyes were red-rimmed and his face was drawn, he managed a smile for her, which seized the guilt camped in her stomach and sprinted it to her throat to form a lump that arrested her prepared speech.

‘My beautiful fiancée, come in. You are the only thing that makes this horror bearable. Come here, let me see your face – oh, the scratches.’

He was still in his torn suit. He’d obviously not slept either.

‘It’s nothing.’ She felt her lips quiver as he guided her towards the twin chairs by the balcony doors.

‘Sit with me, Amber.’

They sat in silence overlooking the scene of the disaster.

Pleats appeared in his forehead as he moved to touch her face, but she intercepted his hand and held it instead.

‘I’ve been thinking all night,’ he started.

‘Me too.’

‘We should marry right away,’ he ploughed on. ‘Forget all this pomp and take our vows in the chapel by the lake today. Let something good come out of this dreadful carnage.’

She sighed and shook her head. ‘No, Chet, I’m sorry. I don’t think so.’

‘What then? Wait until August? I don’t think I can—’

‘No. Neither.’ She met his eyes.

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying that I am truly sorry but I’ve realised that I can’t marry you.’ She squeezed his hand with sympathy and waited for his reaction – an outburst or a plea – the types she’d come to expect and the very types to which he knew she’d be susceptible. But he gave her the kind of indulgent, patient smile that a parent might afford a disconsolate child.

‘Oh. Give me a hug, beautiful.’ He leant across and folded himself around her. ‘You’ve been traumatised. That’s just what I love about you. Your soft heart. But a Randall doesn’t accept defeat this easily. Let’s marry today in private. Just ourselves and your parents to bear witness. I’ll summon the priest from Newport and we can start our lives together right now.’

She peeled his arms away and regarded him. ‘What I came here to say, Chet, is that I’ve made a mistake. I’ve dishonoured you by agreeing to marry you. Yes, I am immeasurably fond of you. But I don’t love you in the way a husband deserves to be loved. And I can’t marry you. And I don’t blame you if you are angry with me. Or even if you hate me.’ She took off his engagement ring and caught a glimpse of his dark eyes flashing about the room as if he’d just jumped off a hurdy-gurdy. She placed the ring in his palm and bent his fingers over it.

His lips pursed. ‘Amber, you’re being churlish. Now, come. Let’s adjourn downstairs and discuss this like adults. With adults. Let’s get your parents. You can’t just run at the first hurdle. You don’t just fall out of love in one moment of vexation.’

His eyes were glued to her as she stood and moved to the door.

‘That’s just it, Chet. I don’t love you like that and I never have. I’m so sorry. My parents and I will fetch our things and leave immediately.’

She placed her hand on the door handle and opened it but the door slammed with the force of Chet’s weight. He leant in so close to her she could smell the whisky laced in his breath.

‘We are engaged, Amber, and no matter what you say, I love you.’ He pressed himself hard against her. ‘You need me,’ he breathed in her ear.

She pushed him away. ‘Please, Chet.’

He stopped and straightened himself, then opened the door for her.

‘I won’t pretend to understand your outburst, Amber, but I will forgive it and give you a few days’ grace to recover from the shock of last night and for your mother to talk some sense into you. But we’ll keep the date as set and that’s final.’

She edged past him and walked quickly down the hall towards her parents’ room.

‘I will see you back in Manhattan next week, Amber!’ he yelled as she knocked on her parent’s bedroom door.

It had taken every fibre of Chet’s will not to erupt in front of her. But he knew that his temper would only frighten her and push her further out of reach.

She would need cajoling and patience, and it would be worth it.

But when he sat back down to contemplate his next step, his anger lashed out as a reflex that sent his hand to the eighteenth-century crystal decanter and forced him to hurl it. It shattered and spewed shards across the parquetry floor. The butler appeared with a broom and promptly dispensed with the mess.

Chet took a breath, collecting himself, then tented his fingers beneath his chin, thinking.

‘Bring Mrs Kingsbury Smith to meet me in the breakfast room, immediately.’

The speech Rose had prepared for her parents sat loosely in her subconscious, but facing them now, with the morning breeze fluttering the curtains on the fringes of their fragile tranquillity, all her carefully crafted words fled. Her father was the first to look up from the morning paper. The breakfast tray on the small table between Arthur and Edith was loaded with toast and tea, but her father hadn’t touched it. He appeared pale and wan in comparison to her mother, whose rested features now held a pointed expectation. She sat in the high-backed chair and took a dainty sip of her Earl Grey and waited.

‘What’s happened?’ her father said, reading her troubled expression over the gold rims of his eyeglasses.

‘Dear,’ Edith said, ‘please take a seat. We are all well and you’ve no need to fuss about us. How is Chet? How is Maude?’

Rose opened her mouth to speak but it was as dry as the Sahara. She licked her lips and sat down on their bed. ‘The wedding is off.’

It hadn’t been her intention to drop the news on them like this. But now the genie was out of the bottle, all her concerns sloughed off her shoulders and she felt an abiding calm wash over her.

Edith dropped the teacup. Its contents splashed about her feet, but the fine china was saved by the Persian rug. Her father peeled off his glasses and his lips made a thin seam.

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Edith, shaking her head. ‘How ridiculous. Chet would never call the wedding off. He’s practically one of the family now. He even calls me Mother.’

She had reacted as Rose predicted; she would cling to this wedding with every fibre of her being.

‘I called it off, Mother.’

‘Silly girl.’ Edith brought a hand to her chest, visibly relieved. ‘You gave me a fright! No. You’re just suffering from pre-wedding jitters. It’s customary to be nervous but, really, to go around saying it’s off is folly. We wouldn’t want Town Topics to get hold of this news. They’d have a field day at our expense. It will be bad enough as it is, with the news of the fire and a great elephant stomping all over everything. This will be fodder for the masses.’ Edith sat next to her and began rubbing her back. ‘Have a settling cup of tea.’

‘No, Mother. I’m afraid I’ve made up my mind. It’s off and we are leaving.’

Edith stiffened, eyes wide, like she’d just been slapped. She stood and put a frustrated hand on her hip. ‘Arthur, have you got something to say about all this nonsense? Don’t just sit there looking stupefied.’

‘Spook. Why now?’

‘Arthur!’ Edith spoke her father’s name like the stab of a dagger. ‘Take this in hand.’ She turned to Rose. ‘You will marry Chet Randall and that is an order.’

‘I will not. I cannot. I don’t love him.’ She stared at her mother.

‘Love? Ha! What has love ever had to do with being married?’ Edith’s face pulsed iridescent with rage. She searched the pockets of her trailing silk dressing gown for her phial of soothing medication and took a swig. ‘If this marriage doesn’t take place, then forget the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, forget everything. We will not fund your delusions. And you alone will be responsible for throwing us into the poorhouse. Is that what you want?’ Edith’s nostrils flared and her voice escalated to a razor-sharp shriek on the precipice of panic. ‘Well, is it?’

‘Edith, enough.’ Arthur tried to sound commanding, but the effort made him cough as he struggled to stand up from his chair.

‘No, Arthur. Don’t be foolish. Just when I have worked tooth and nail to raise this family up to these heights’—she swept her hand around the boudoir with its palatial ceilings and medieval tapestries, the four-poster bed topped by ostrich feathers, which were a European motif of royalty—‘you’re happy to watch her tear us all down. After all we’ve done for her. This is an abomination, a scandal. No normal daughter would betray us this way.’ Edith’s features twisted with contempt. ‘Well, I for one won’t stand by a minute longer and watch this family descend into a holy hell. I’m warning you, Arthur. Make her marry him or I shall leave. Go back to London and live the life to which I was born.’ Edith’s voice became reedy as she reached the crescendo of her threats. ‘I will not live in the poorhouse with a failure of a husband and a shrew for a daughter. And I will not see my name raked through the mud of Manhattan’s gossip papers.’

‘Edith, that’s enough!’ her father snapped.

‘No, Arthur. You make her marry him. You promised me.’

‘Mother.’ Rose stepped in between them. ‘Please. I’ve made a terrible mistake, that’s what’s happened. I may still marry one day, but it won’t be to Chet. Now, please can we discuss this at home? Let’s pack our bags.’

Edith looked right through her. ‘I’m staying right here.’ Her mother marched to the door and stepped into the hall, heedless of her state of undress. ‘And I’m not leaving until I’ve spoken to Chet.’ She slammed the door behind her.

And there was the rub, Rose thought. If Chet didn’t get her, her mother would.

‘I don’t love Chet,’ she said dolefully as she sank down beside her father’s chair.

‘You don’t need to convince me, Spook.’

She looked up at his sober face. ‘So you won’t make me marry him?’

‘No. The time has come for you to pursue your own dreams. Not . . .’ his voice faltered, as if trying to soften the words he was about to speak, ‘your mother’s.’

‘And Mother?’

‘We’ll see. Things have not been well between us for a very long time.’

‘And our finances?’

‘We’ll carry on. Things will be fine. You’ll see.’

She tried to give him a reassuring smile, but her lips refused to cooperate. He looked anything but fine. In fact, he looked withered, like an old peach. Deathly.