mimic the curves of the Thames.”
“Thank you! What a brilliant idea,” I said.
“Of course it is,” Eleanor said. “Loaning you jewels will make them think I like you.”
The party was on the seventy-second floor of The Shard, a massive glass skyscraper designed to look like its name—as if a huge piece of debris had dropped out of the sky and embedded itself in the South Bank. It was the tallest building in London, and the open-air venue at the top boasted spectacular panoramic views of the city, making it a particularly apt choice for an organization devoted to, in its simplest terms, the layout of the world. The planners had chosen to let said view speak for itself, decorating only with well-placed antique maps of whichever part of the city we happened to be overlooking, all of which were part of the silent auction. We’d given everyone about an hour and a half to get buzzed at the open bar and overbid on a few things before we arrived and did our part: Each of us had a designated area to glad-hand as many would-be donors and society staples as possible in that radius—like zone defense, but for fundraising—and then otherwise pretend we didn’t know we were the subject of a mass gawking. Nick always said he felt like a zoo animal at these things, but I didn’t realize how dead-on the analogy was until I was in the cage with him. As I talked to each potential donor, it took all my concentration not to get distracted by the people around us craning their necks, leaning toward each other in what looked like a gossipy whisper, or, in one case, snickering in my direction at something that I had to hope wasn’t a piece of food in my teeth.
When I finally saw Richard veer from his zone to greet a cluster of his old pals, I recognized my cue to stop mingling with the toffs and start making our family circle look whole. Nick and I found each other near a north-facing window. That high up, London looked tiny and perfect, like a toy. I could have stood there for hours, looking for all the signposts of my life—the spire of Westminster Abbey, the Tower that I kept joking I’d be tossed into, and if I squinted, the part of Chelsea where my flat had been. But instead I let Nick steer me toward our friends, the touch of his hand on my back pointedly visible, and telegraphing, All is well, nothing to see here. But please, do see the nothing that there is to see.
“Happy birthday, mate,” Gaz said, clapping Nick on the back. “Please thank old Dick for the invitation. It was kind of him.”
“Kind would’ve been scheduling this for tomorrow,” I muttered.
“But at least we get to raise a glass together,” Cilla soothed me. “And please tell Gaz we don’t need to bid four hundred pounds for an artist’s rendering of a dirt road.”
Nick laughed. “Gaz, in fine form as usual,” he said. Then he lowered his voice. “This evening was meant to suck dry the hopelessly rich viscounts of such and such, not people we actually like.”
“It’s not just any dirt road. It’s Knightsbridge, right by our flat!” Gaz said. “Happy memories, my love.”
“It says they think it’s Knightsbridge. It could be any old grubby strip,” said Freddie, appearing between them and wrapping an arm around each shoulder. “All ancient dirt roads look a bit the same, don’t they?”
Gaz sucked in some air. “Hopefully someone will outbid me, then,” he said.
Cilla smacked him in the chest. “You didn’t tell me you’d already bid,” she exclaimed. “You know, my great-grandfather’s cousin was a cartographer. They say he was fired from every job he had because he’d draw all the maps wrong if he had a vendetta against anyone in the area.” She grinned. “As you might imagine, that was rather a lot.”
The five of us bantered so comfortably even Eleanor would have been fooled into thinking there was no fire where there had once been smoke. But then Cilla got too deep in her cups and developed a competitive urge for Gaz to lock down the Knightsbridge etching, and an old Naval admiral pulled Nick away into a conversation about submarines that I was more than happy to miss. Suddenly, it was just me and Freddie.
“My, won’t people talk?” he quipped.
“I think that’s the idea,” I said. “Try to look like I’m not interesting. Shouldn’t be