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they would have said if they were free to. Did any of them know him better?
    After the service, the exquisite, soaring music, the words of comfort long familiar to everyone, even those who attended church only to be seen, Beata stood in the elaborate carved stone-arched doorway and accepted more tributes and condolences. Some of them were from men who were older than Ingram had been, struggling to stand upright. She was touched that they had made the effort to come. She wondered if their grief was for the fact of death itself, and perhaps for the family or friends they had lost. Their kindness was the one thing that made the tears prick her eyes.
    It was then that she noticed for the first time a man and woman together, obviously husband and wife, who were startlingly familiar. She was amazed that she could possibly have overlooked them before. He was well above average height and one of the handsomest men she knew. He had always been so, even twenty years ago when they had first met thousands of miles away in San Francisco, in the early days of the gold rush. It had been another world: raw, violent, exciting, and set on the most beautiful of coastlines.
    Aaron Clive, with his fine aquiline features and dark eyes, had drawn every woman’s glance then, and he looked to have changed little. There was perhaps a hint of gray at his temples, and the softness of youth had been replaced with a greater strength. He had owned some of the richest of the goldfields on the entire coast, virtually a small empire.
    And Miriam was beside him, as always. She was still beautiful in a way few women would ever be. The high cheekbones were the same, the rich mouth, the passion and the turbulence that arrested the eye. Her hair beneath her hat was the same shadowed chestnut with the gleaming lights in it as it had been then.
    As far as Beata knew, they had not known Ingram, and yet they came forward now to offer comfort in her supposed grief, as if the years between had telescoped into as many weeks.
    “Beata,” Miriam said warmly. “I’m so sorry. You must miss him dreadfully.” She met Beata’s eyes more directly than anyone else had done, but that had always been her way. Her eyes were dark gray, so dark some people mistook them for brown.
    “How kind of you to come,” Beata replied with an answering smile. “It’s wonderful to see you. It really is such a pleasure. I knew you were in London and had hoped to see you at some happier time.”
    That was true, not merely a politeness. When the three of them had first known one another, in what now seemed like another life, Miriam had been married to Piers Astley, her first husband. He had died tragically in the far reaches of one of Aaron Clive’s goldfields. He had managed much of the vast empire for Aaron. They were wild days. Gold fever gripped a raw, adventurous town. Good men and bad came from every corner of the earth, drawn by the magic of instant, dreamlike wealth.
    Beata had not known Piers Astley except to speak to on a few occasions, and regrettably death was far too common at sea, or up on the hills where life was hard and fortunes made and lost in days. But Miriam knew what it was to lose a husband, and her memories could only be painful.
    The moment passed and Beata turned to Aaron. Here he was one of many, not unique in his looks and stature as he had been in San Francisco, but she was still startled by the magnetism he seemed to exercise. She was aware of others looking at him also, some perhaps trying to place him, to estimate what his power or position might be. They would try in vain.
    Of course the women who were looking at him did so for different reasons: ones that had never needed explaining, and were as old as mankind.
    Beata smiled at Aaron, remembering to keep her expression suitable for a woman receiving condolences at her husband’s funeral. She must not forget that there would always be someone watching her.
    “It is nice to see you again after so many