The kitchen was silent except for the candle, which finally went out, plunging the room into the grey pre-dawn light coming through the window, and for a long moment nobody moved, nobody spoke, the words I wasn't talking about Saturday sitting in the air like smoke that wouldn't clear.
"What does that mean," my mother whispered.
Dorian set the phone down very slowly.
"It means," he said, and his voice had gone somewhere I'd never heard it go, "it means he's not coming to Saturday's wedding to meet his daughter."
He looked at me.
"He's coming to attend a different one."
The kitchen door opened and Elspeth came into focus. She stood in the doorway palely, holding an envelope, her hands were shaking as she held it out.
"This came through the letterbox," she said. "Just now. There's no
