* * * *
Giles met Hugh in the foyer at Covent Garden. They only just made it into the theatre in time—Hugh had been having drinks with some friends and just hadn’t been able to get away—so they didn’t get a chance to speak until later.
Not quite able to work up the courage to broach the subject of his parentage during the first interval, Giles listened instead to Hugh’s scorn at the vocal capabilities of the mezzo-soprano (a rather pleasant-looking lady, Giles had thought, but he supposed that didn’t really count for anything in opera). At the second interval, however, fortified by champagne, Giles forged ahead.
“Hugh, I’m adopted,” he blurted out, inadvertently interrupting Hugh’s amusing anecdote about how he’d got one over on one of his father’s employees—but then, Giles had heard it
