There was finished quietness. Marie looked across the space to Enrique, who was as yet drooped in a seat, his head in his grasp as his better half talked.
'I thought,' Annika proceeded, 'or rather I trusted a lot of that would be a finish to it. Yet, it wasn't, obviously.' She gazed upward and met Marie’s eye. 'Since Ariana had been there from the start, in the kitchen where we were talking, was stowing away in the following room, paying attention to our discussion. She had heard everything Robert and I said. She was seven years of age and she knew it all – who her genuine guardians were, the way her mom had passed on. Everything.'
Marie put her hand to her mouth. 'Good gracious, that helpless child.'
Annika looked at her with the littlest glimmer of disarray, nearly, Marie thought, as
