Everyone back home had thought they were mad. But to them it had been like a magic trick. Take your safe suburban semi and – ta-da! – by some amazing economic sleight of hand, you suddenly owned a large house in a French village. OK, it had a septic tank that was forever overflowing, twelve crumbling bedrooms to do up, twelve baths to install, a boiler that had been there since Napoleon. And then, when it was all done, you couldn’t live like the lord of the manoir; instead you led the life of a skivvy, exhausted and permanently on call.

So why the hell did he miss it?

‘Hot chocolate’s ready,’ chirped the permanently cheerful Suzi, ‘plus golden syrup and cream for the pancakes. Yum!’

David smiled tentatively, trying to prevent his stomach from heaving out the contents of last night’s steak and chips plus this morning’s croissants with Nutella all over the snowy white tablecloth. ‘Suzi,’ he finally psyched himself up to begin, ‘I told you my stay was temporary because the hotel was full—’

‘Oh, pooh,’ she cut in. ‘Why would you move to a hotel when you’ve got me to look after you?’

‘So can I go ahead and sign Jean-Christophe up as the fourth caterer?’ Sophie enquired. Meredith was sitting at her desk with such a look of concentration that Sophie had hesitated to interrupt her.

‘Yes, go ahead, certainly,’ Meredith replied. Sophie was more in touch with the tastes of young brides than she was, and if she felt queuing up and being served from a trendy van as if you were at a music festival was what young women wanted at their weddings, then Meredith was willing to trust her instincts. ‘But remember, Steph may be leaning on him more than usual at the moment.’

‘He only has to come up with sample menus at this stage, so it shouldn’t take him that long,’ Sophie replied.

Jo had been listening in, sitting at the delicate seventeenth-century escritoire she had adopted as her own. ‘Oh God, Merry –’ in her concern for their friend, she reverted to the schoolgirl nickname – ‘what’s going to happen to Fleur-de-Lis without David?’

‘I really don’t know,’ shrugged Meredith. ‘I’m not at all sure Steph has the heart to go it alone. But, for starters, she needs a good lawyer. Who would know of one, do you think?’

Jo thought. ‘You know, funnily enough, I think Margot might. She’s quite a tough cookie. Otherwise maybe your bête noir, Jackie.’

Meredith looked horrified. ‘Are you crazy? We can’t ask her, because Steph and David owe her husband quite a lot of money. They might get scared and decide to pull the rug out.’

Jo thought about it. ‘Actually, I think if you appealed to her better nature, she might be quite helpful.’

‘If she had a better nature,’ Meredith replied scathingly.