Of all the ways of communicating with her the modern world offered, he decided email would be best. If he rang, it might be awkward, especially if she didn’t want to speak to him, or if he ended up speaking to Marcelline. So he opened his laptop and began to write.

‘Since Steve says the rooms are all ready, let’s pick some flowers and take a bottle of fizz and go and christen them!’ Jo suggested, thinking this might cheer Meredith up in her newly fragile state. ‘We could do a bit of a test run.’

So Jo spent a happy hour wandering round the garden picking roses of all colours, deep blue delphiniums, pale pink cosmos and, for contrast, some fizzy green euphorbia.

‘You want to watch yourself with that,’ said a voice behind her.

She turned to find a hardly recognizable Liam, masked, gloved and visored for spraying the vines. ‘The stuff in the stem can really irritate your eyes.’ He pointed out the white milky substance that leaked from the stem of the euphorbia plant. ‘Here, I’ll take it. But only handle it in gloves. I’ll put it in a sink somewhere.’

‘Thanks so much – put it over there, if you could? We’re probably going to use that outhouse for arranging the wedding flowers, if it isn’t too hot.’ Jo pointed to the last of a row of flat-roofed buildings at the rear of the courtyard.

Liam took all the flowers out of her arms.

Watching him go, Jo felt a small leap of happiness. She felt cared about, looked after. Modern women weren’t supposed to need looking after any longer. The Sleeping Beauty of today was supposed to rescue herself by her wit and savvy, not wait for some imaginary prince. Jo wouldn’t tell her daughter, who was firmly of the ‘save yourself’ school, but Jo still longed to be rescued. If any princes fancied sweeping by on their steeds and scooping her up, she realized rather shamefacedly, she was all for it.

Especially if they happened to be Kiwi.

‘It all looks fabulous, Sophie!’ Meredith said.

Sophie had arranged the rooms with her usual style, placing the right cushion there, a polished candlebra there, filling the vases with flowers Jo had picked, and even supplying music on her phone to add to the atmosphere.

‘You really do have a gift for interior design,’ her mother agreed. ‘You could take it up properly when you go home.’

‘Thank you,’ Sophie bowed. ‘It’s funny thinking of Basingtstoke as home. It’s really started to feel more like home here.’