I GO INTO St. Vincent’s with Sylvie. It’s lunchtime now, and the bar is filling up. Noise spills out through the half-open door—laughter and talk, a saxophone on the sound system.
We’re just at the foot of the stairs when the door swings wide behind us. A man is leaving the bar. I turn, intensely aware of him. There’s something about his self-assurance, his rather patrician manner, that brings Dominic instantly back to me. I can tell he’s not a visitor; he moves as though he belongs here. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, his hair touched with gray, his face just starting to age. He’s wearing a jacket that looks like it’s made from the softest cashmere, his linen shirt is the color of wheat, and he has a scarf of dark velvet that he wraps around his neck as he steps out into the cold. No one else in the village dresses so expensively.
He catches my eye, and his face relaxes into a slight, charming smile. I feel the blood hit my face.
“I hope you’re enjoying your stay here,” he says. His voice is cultured and deep.
“Very much, thank you,” I say.
Sylvie pulls away from me. She runs toward the staircase. I hear the rapid drumbeat of her footsteps on the stairs. I’m surprised she didn’t wait for me.
The man walks out through the doorway and turns to go up the hill. I realize I have turned, that I’m following him with my gaze.
There are footsteps behind me. Brigid has come to her desk. I give her a small, tight smile, feeling I’ve been caught out doing something illicit.
“You’ve met Marcus, then?” she says.
“Well, not met exactly . . .”
“I’ll introduce you properly sometime. He’s Marcus—Marcus Paul.”
It’s as though she expects me to recognize his name.
“Oh,” I say.
“You’ll have seen Kinvara House on the beach road?” she asks me.
“The house with the beautiful garden? The garden with all the flowers?”
She nods.
“That’s Marcus’s place,” she tells me. “Though he’s often away in Dublin. He has his businesses to run.”
“His businesses?” I’m intrigued by this.
“He has a gallery there,” she says. “Though, to be honest, some of the artists he shows are really too cutting-edge for my taste. And then there’s his designer boutique. He sells the loveliest things, though of course it’s all on the pricey side . . . Look, I’ve got a picture.”
It’s a page she’s cut out of Vogue. The article is about Dublin as a mecca for the fashion conscious.
“There you are. That’s Marcus’s shop,” she tells me.
The shop is called Papillon. It has scalloped blinds the color of vanilla ice cream, and bay trees flank the doorway. There are mannequins in the window, all clad in elegant black.
“There,” she says. “What a shame I got here too late to introduce you.”
When I go up to the landing, at first I can’t see Sylvie. I feel a flicker of panic. Then I find her in the farthest corner, sitting on the carpet with her back to the wall. She’s hunched, arms wrapped around her knees.
She looks up at me, and her face is pale and accusing.
“Where were you, Grace?” she asks me.
There’s an edge of outrage in her voice.
“Just talking to Brigid,” I say.
I unlock the door of our room, we go in. Her eyes are huge in her white face. It’s as though I have failed her in some terrible, total way.
“I hate it when you talk to people. You should have stayed with me, Grace.”
I wonder if the real reason she’s cross is because I spoke to Marcus. I remember what happened with Matt and feel a flicker of irritation at how possessive she is, how she always tries to stop me from doing anything independent.
“Honestly, Sylvie. I can’t not talk to people.”
“I don’t like people,” she tells me. “I don’t like people one bit.”
I feel an urge to shout at her. I try to swallow it down.
There are stains of chocolate around her mouth from the KitKat. I find a tissue and wipe her face. She must have got chilled on the seafront; her skin is very cold.