“How interesting,” Kitty finally said in a frighteningly neutral tone.

“Colette looks awful, doesn’t she? Without her usual makeup and jewelry, she’s such a plain Jane—her common features really come out.” Wandi sniggered.

“She looks like she’s fallen on hard times,” Tatiana remarked.

Kitty let out a little laugh. “I can assure you Colette hasn’t fallen on hard times. She’s just trying to appear modest to impress her new relatives. They look like the sort of people Corinna Ko-Tung is always trying to introduce me to. Well, good luck to her and her new English life.”

Georgina was relieved that Kitty was taking it all so well. She was crossing her fingers, hoping to God that Kitty had completely missed the articles about the bridegroom when Kitty suddenly asked, “So do we know anything about the Rochambords?”

Damn, she’s read everything, Wandi said to herself.

“I’ve never heard of them.” Georgina sniffed.

“Hey, I’m at this house party on Mustique right now, and there’s a girl here who might know,” Tatiana offered, adding rather unnecessarily, “She comes from a high-society family in France, from what I’m told.”

Tatiana padded out onto the terrace of the Balinese-style villa, where the girlfriend of her husband’s business partner sat sipping black coffee out of a bowl. “Lucie, I’m on the phone with some friends. Have you ever heard of a family in France called the Rochambords?”

“Which branch?” Lucie asked.

“Um…I don’t know. We know someone who married a guy whose mother is a Rochambord. Here, let me put you on speakerphone…”

“The mother’s name is Liliane Rochambord,” Georgina offered.

Lucie’s eyes widened. “Liliane de Rochambord? Are you talking about the mother of Lucien Montagu-Scott?”

“Yes! Do you know him?” Tatiana asked excitedly.

Lucie shook her head with a sigh. “I don’t know him personally, but my God, every girl in France was madly in love with him. I mean, he’s a future duc, and his mother is one of the Bretagne Rochambords, not the Paris branch that are the poorer cousins.”

“But who are the Rochambords?” Georgina pressed on.

“Oh, they are an ancienne famille de la noblesse…how do you say…an ancient noble family that intermarried with the Bourbons, and their line goes back to Louis XIII. The Paris branch has all the vineyards—you know, Château de Rochambord—but the Bretagne Rochambords own one of the biggest military defense companies in France. They make all the submarines and ships for the French navy. So who’s your friend that married Lucien?”

“Colette Bing. But she’s not our friend exactly,” Tatiana said awkwardly.

“She’s a socialite and fashion blogger from Shanghai that—” Wandi began.

“She’s a spoiled little cunt!” Kitty suddenly blurted out.

Everyone was too shocked to speak at first, but Georgina tried to turn it into a joke. “Haha, yes, she’s famous for that spoiled rant that went viral, isn’t she, Kitty?”

The line went silent for a few moments.

“Uh…I think Kitty hung up,” Tatiana said.

* * *

*1 Smiling, laughing, frowning, or arching of eyebrows is highly discouraged, though.

*2 What Wandi doesn’t know is that the only people who can be married in Westminster Abbey are members of the British royal family, Order of the Bath members and their children, or anyone living in the Abbey’s precincts. St. Paul’s only allows weddings for members of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, the Order of the British Empire, holders of the British Empire Medal, and members of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor and their children (but not their grandchildren).

*3 Chinese + Indonesian × Aristocrat = Chindocrat

*4 She knew by age three that Hugo was too dumb to get in to Raffles.

*5 If they happened to be Japanese, Vietnamese, or any other type of Asian not mentioned on this list, abort scanner function. Totally inconsequential.

CHAPTER TWO

RANAKPUR, INDIA

Su Yi placed her hand on the white marble pillar and with her fingers traced the intricate carving of a goddess, feeling every undulating curve of the figure, so cool to the touch. The entire pillar was carved with figures of dancing damsels from the ground all the way up to the soaring dome. Su Yi looked around the space and saw that she was surrounded in every direction by thousands of white pillars, so many of them that it was impossible to count.*1 And every one of them had been sculpted with deities, animals, love scenes, war scenes—each one so painstakingly carved it looked more like lacework than stone. She could hardly believe how exquisite it was.

Su Yi felt so grateful that the maharani had arranged this trip for her to the Adinatha Temple, hidden in the remote Aravalli Range between Jodhpur and Udaipur. As she followed the marble passageway, she felt as though she were walking into a dream, and around another corner of the temple she came upon a beautiful tree growing in the middle of a serene stone courtyard. Underneath the tree was a young man in a simple saffron-colored robe, picking up stray leaves. He glanced up for a moment and smiled at her. Su Yi smiled shyly back at him before walking into yet another breathtakingly carved vestibule, this one depicting a deity entwined with hundreds of snakes.

“Excuse me, do you speak English?” a voice behind her suddenly asked. Su Yi turned around and saw that it was the young man. This time, she could see a faint gold dot painted in the middle of his forehead.

“I do,” she replied.

“Are you from China?”

“No, I am from the island of Singapore. It is in the Straits Settlements—”

“Ah, yes, on the tip of Malaya. There are a few Jains in Singapore. Please allow me to introduce myself: My name is Jai, and I am a priest here. My grandfather is the high priest of this temple, and one day my father shall be high priest, and then it will pass on to me. But not for a long time.”

“You are very fortunate. This is the most beautiful temple I have ever been to,” Su Yi said.

“May I offer you a blessing?”

“I would be honored.”

The priest guided her along to a quiet corner of the temple that was open to the view. They sat on the steps of a marble altar and looked out at the undulating hills as a cool breeze blew into the chamber. The monk smiled at her again. “We do not often get visitors from Singapore at the temple. I noticed you when you first entered the temple with your chaperone, because you were so beautifully dressed, but when you smiled at me, I sensed a great sadness in you.”

Su Yi nodded, lowering her eyes. “I am away from my family, and my island is at war.”

“Yes, I have heard about the war spreading through southern Asia. I do not understand this war. But I sense that your sadness comes from a deeper place…” He gazed intently at her, and Su Yi noticed for the first time that his irises had an almost bluish gray tint to them. Suddenly she found her eyes welling uncontrollably with tears.

“My brother,” Su Yi said almost inaudibly, her throat choking up. “My elder brother has been missing for some time.” She had told no one about this, and she wasn’t sure why she was telling him now. She was about to reach into her purse for her handkerchief when the monk produced one, seemingly out of nowhere. It was a silk scarf with a deep-blue-and-purple paisley pattern, and it seemed incongruous with the rest of his austere appearance. Su Yi wiped away her tears and looked up at the priest, who suddenly appeared to be wearing wire-frame glasses just like the ones her brother wore.