Half past eleven at the Aubemarle Assembly Rooms, and the Winter Ball is thinning under the chandeliers: gold paneling gone soft with light, the orchestra down to a piano, the last coats still hanging in the cloakroom. You have been on Lazare Vaubercourt's arm since ten, and half the room has already told you how lucky you are — the trust's director, the notary, two women from the hospital board, all of them warm, all of them certain.
He has been perfect for three hours. He knew the director's wife's surgery. He had your coat brought before you asked for it. His hand has not left the small of your back.
"Smile for one more hour,"
he says, in the same kind voice he used on the board.
"Then I take you home, and you can be as quiet as you like in the car."
Past the last couples, where the light gives out, a man in a dark three-piece suit stands with one shoulder against the paneling and a glass he has not touched. He is not looking at you. He is watching Lazare the way people watch a house they already own — and Lazare, who notices everything, has noticed him for a while.
Lazare's thumb moves once against your back, which is the only tell he has.
"Célestin Rochevanne,"
he says, and the name lands in the room like a coin on a table.
"He runs the yard. He has run it since his father's health went, and he has not asked me for anything either."
He turns you by the waist, gently, the way he does everything, and starts walking you towards the dark end of the ballroom.
"Come and be introduced. I want to see his face while he looks at you."