‘We don’t giggle any more, Mum! At least, not all that often. And besides, I don’t mean Amy. I mean a man.’ Jago would do well out of the invite. Her mother’s Sunday lunches were famous locally.

‘A man? You? Good Lord!’

‘Just a friend, Mum, just like your friend!’ Helena was sowing the seeds carefully, not letting it look as if she and Jago were anything more than friends just yet.

‘OK,’ said Gilly. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Gilly continued to sit at her desk, playing Spider, when an email appeared at the top right-hand corner of her computer and drifted into her in-box. Maybe inviting Leo to Sunday lunch would be easier than she’d thought.

She clicked on his email, unable to stop smiling with delight.

Chapter Nine

‘It’s kind of you to come with me,’ said Helena to Jago as she drove them to Fairacres the following Sunday. ‘It’ll stop my mum thinking I’m checking out her boyfriend, which I totally am.’

‘We all need to take time off to have lunch,’ said Jago easily. ‘Although neither of us are very good at that.’

‘We have deadlines,’ said Helena. ‘And I promise the food will be good. If you can put up with a certain amount of probing and we stick to our “just good friends, trying it out”, things like that, it should be fine.’

Jago shrugged. ‘Some people would think I was mad not to claim you as my girlfriend properly.’

‘Sweet of you to say so,’ said Helena, convinced he was just being gallant. ‘But those who know me would think it was crazy if I was treating us seriously as a couple so soon.’ She paused. ‘It’s a slight shame that my brother and his wife are going to be there. Although my niece is good fun, in a strange way. We had lunch with them only last week and, frankly, I prefer the gaps between family meals with them to be bigger.’

‘What’s wrong with your brother and his wife, then?’

‘My sister-in-law, Cressida, doesn’t really approve of food. She’d rather have a smoothie full of supplements than a proper meal. She disapproves of my mother’s old-fashioned methods that mean her roast potatoes are the best.’

‘What about your mum’s Yorkshire puddings?’

Helena took a breath. ‘I feel so disloyal saying this but, just sometimes, they aren’t so good. Everything else will be stunning. Two puddings afterwards at least. And lots of fabulous gravy. Sometimes I make the Yorkies for her.’

Jago didn’t speak for a few moments. ‘OK, I’m still on board for this. I can cope with a little bun instead of a Yorkshire pudding.’

Helena laughed. ‘It sounds as if you’ve experienced those.’

‘Many times.’