‘Demonising.’ He said the word thoughtfully, as if testing its fit in the conversation. ‘I’ll have to watch out for that. Not going to change …? It could, if we agreed to just leave Alice and Lee to get on with it. Refuse to let it affect whatever’s happening between us.’ His eyes were solemn and dark.

‘Easier said than done. Lee’s your brother and Alice is more than a cousin to me.’

His eyebrows rose. ‘I suppose I lose sight of that. I never thought you and Alice were remotely alike in personality. Even when Lee was happy with her I found her hard work. She always acted so entitled, expecting everyone to fall in with what she wanted yet constantly changing her mind as to what that was. Always wanting what she didn’t have.’

Clancy wrestled with this summary of Alice’s character and decided now was not the time to try and create positive spin. So she asked the question that was burning inside her, instead. ‘If I’m not like that, what am I like?’

A slow smile spread over his face. ‘You’re pragmatic and fair.’

‘Oh.’ That sounded a lot like ‘boring and unexciting’ Clancy thought.

He lifted a hand to stroke her hair, letting it drift down onto her neck. ‘You’re kind. You help other people. You don’t automatically put yourself and your feelings to the head of the queue all the time. You’re also fun, intelligent, sparky and sometimes do the unexpected.’ His hand slid down further, until it cupped her behind. ‘You’re hot. Just to see you walk across a room makes me want you. I keep drifting off from conversations because I’m thinking about you or watching the way you move.’

Disarmed, she moved in close as his words seemed to slide over her skin and leave goose bumps. ‘How lovely.’

But then he spoilt it. ‘I’m just worried that Alice will use you.’

Without running her words through her inner censor, she replied, ‘In the same way your family’s using you to open the conversation with her?’

He blinked in surprise. They moved apart and didn’t touch again as they prepared to leave then walked down Long Lane to the Roundhouse, every leaf of every tree and hedge silvered by the moonlight.

Aaron was ultra-aware of Clancy walking quietly by his side, conscious not just of her body, as he was pretty much every time they were together, but of her welter of feelings. They almost hung like captions above her head. Unhappy. Troubled. Conflicted. Uncomfortable.

But, also, protective. Clancy was protective of Alice. He should remember that. They’d lit a flame together but it had burned for only a night and a day and could easily flicker and die. Their exchange of views back at his cottage had made that obvious.

They turned in at the front gate of the Roundhouse and Clancy let them both inside what was usually a spacious and airy ground floor. She halted. Aaron did too. His eyes needed time to take in what looked like an explosion of possessions in the middle of the floor, from unfastened luggage to musty-smelling tarpaulin and, bizarrely, a saxophone. The TV blared from the lounge area.