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replied, all innocence as she bent over her embroidery hoop. “I said it was a shame you had to bury yourself in your reports when we see so little of you.”
    Charlie had excellent hearing, also a soft heart.
    “Reading on the train is difficult in the best circumstances.” Dante took a place beside his sister on a silly undersized blue sofa bolted to the wall. Clearly, train cars had gender, and the paneled, dark, decantered car he’d left was for the fellows, while this space was for the ladies.
    For the back of the sofa curved exactly in the shape of a heart, or of a woman’s breasts at the top of her décolletage.
    Phillip, as ever, watched the exchange from across the room without saying a word. The boy had made gathering facts into a life’s work.
    “Would you like a chocolate, Mr. Hartwell?” Lady Joan held out a box of sweets, more silliness, but Dante suspected the polite thing to do was to take one.
    “Thank you.” Except the blasted confections were nestled among colored paper, so Dante had to dig to extract one—any one at random—and he nearly ended up causing Lady Joan to drop the lot.
    “Perhaps I might suggest one?” Lady Joan asked.
    Was that how polite people went about such an undertaking? In none of the etiquette books Dante had trudged through had he seen a discourse on the proper method of selecting a chocolate.
    He did not want a damned chocolate. He wanted to stand out on the platform until his temper and his cheeks cooled, and then stand out there until his awareness of Lady Joan cooled as well.
    Which could well see him frozen before they reached Aberdeen.
    “Any one will do.” Because he did not favor sweets, and had said so to more than one titled hostess. He did not say so to Lady Joan.
    “No, not just any treat,” she said, peering into the box. “For you, this one, I think.”
    In her hand was a treat for which the French probably had a name. Dante took it from her fingers and popped it into his mouth, aware that every other occupant of the car was watching him for a reaction.
    “Quite good…quite…” He’d had chocolate before, which came in varying blends of bitter and sweet, much like life. He didn’t care for it, but this was ambrosial. “What is it?”
    The flavor was interesting, substantial, appealing, and neither too sweet nor too bitter, and the pungent chocolate balanced whatever the filling was.
    “Marzipan,” Lady Joan said. “Mostly ground almonds, some sugar, eggs, a dash of vanilla, that sort of thing. I’m partial to it myself, particularly as the holidays approach. This box was a gift from a family friend.”
    She’d treated him to her favorite sweet. Any thought of returning to his reports evaporated, as did a pressing need to make a solitary visit to the frigid platform.
    “Shall you join our discussion of risk, Mr. Hartwell? Phillip raised an interesting point, about risk varying with the person taking it.”
    “Did he now?” Phillip was a man of few words, and fewer smiles, and yet, as Lady Joan spoke, the boy beamed at her.
    Beamed. When was the last time wee Phillip had beamed?
    And why hadn’t his father noticed?
    “I have a few opinions on risk,” Dante said as the last of the marzipan melted from his palate.
    “We thought you might,” Margs murmured. “About avoiding risk whenever possible.”
    His sister was twenty-five years old. She had never, as far as Dante knew, been kissed, and she was lecturing him about avoiding risk.
    “I’ll take a prudent risk,” Dante said. “Witness our holiday destination, Sister.”
    She might have stuck her tongue out at him, but for Lady Joan’s presence.
    “Phillip and I were discussing the risks inherent in a business that depends on women’s fashions,” Joan said, searching with an index finger through the box of chocolates. “Purely as an example of a difficult undertaking.”
    “Because women are fickle,” Phillip volunteered, his expression wary.
    “Fashion is fickle,” Dante