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Sylvia watched Hugo place a hand on the small of Claire’s back and guide her friend out to the floor to join the throng. Perhaps she could defuse whatever was going on between the Monroes that evening.

“What do you say, Sylvia?” asked Rupert. “Do you fancy a dance yourself?”

It couldn’t be worse than sitting at the table with a fog of discontent hanging over it, so she nodded and rose.

Rupert was a better dancer than most of Hugo’s friends, and he led her confidently into a fox-trot, holding her at a respectable distance. They’d never been close the way she was with Claire, but he listened when she spoke, never made any inappropriate suggestion while drunk that he later tried to laugh off, and generally seemed like a good egg.

She was about to ask him about his time in Scotland, but he asked, “Have you seen much of Claire recently?”

“Well,” she said carefully, “we sit on the committee together and—”

“Do you see her socially?”

“I haven’t felt much like doing this sort of thing in the past few months,” she said with a tight smile.

“Yes, I imagine the war does rather put a damper on things,” he said.

They continued to quick-quick-slow step for a few bars, and then he said, “It’s funny being married.”

“Is it?” she asked with surprise.

“Do you think people believe half of the things that the priest asks them to repeat back?”

“Well, yes.” She certainly had.

He pursed his lips. “I suppose you would.”

She jerked back a little, stung.

“I just mean that you obviously were crazy about Hugo,” he said quickly. “As he was about you.”

“Thank you.”

“How long have you two been married now?” he asked.

“Fourteen years,” she said.

“It will be twenty for Claire and me next year. Two decades is a lot of time with the same woman,” he mused. “I haven’t always been the best husband to Claire, I’ll admit that. I don’t know if it’s in a man’s nature to be faithful.”

Good lord, was he going to confess to an affair?

“I’ve never thought it very fair that a man should be held to one standard of behavior and a woman to another,” she said rather curtly.

His gaze flashed to hers in surprise, as though just realizing he was saying all of this out loud.

“The band is very good, aren’t they?” he asked, pulling the conversation into a sharp left turn and saving them both the embarrassment of whatever was really on Rupert’s mind.

Thank goodness, she thought for what felt like the tenth time that day, and let the music take her.

Hugo was remarkably quiet as they took a rare cab home, but Sylvia didn’t mind. Her feet were aching from her now-unfamiliar dancing shoes, and she enjoyed the luxury of being ferried to her front door in a way she would have taken for granted before the war.

They rode the lift up to their floor, and Hugo unlocked the door.

“Would you like another drink?” she asked, the way she always had when they were first married. They would stay up with a nightcap and laugh about whatever had happened over the course of the evening, Hugo rubbing the ache out of her feet.

“If it’s all the same, I’d rather go to bed,” said Hugo.

“Of course,” she said. “It’s late.”