‘She is a good friend. She got me a job with the people at Fleur-de-Lis and now they have asked me to be on their list of caterers for the weddings. I am doing their very first wedding there!’

‘Sounds like a fairy story to me,’ Lucille shrugged. ‘Good for PR.’

Jean-Christophe attacked his food, uncomfortable at Lucille’s obvious hostility.

They had just finished their steak and were relaxing over a glass of local red wine when she suddenly looked fixedly at her son. ‘How do you think your father would feel if I came back?’

‘To live with us?’ Jean-Christophe, who had so longed for this moment as a child, suddenly wasn’t sure. He also saw that, as his grandfather had hinted, it wasn’t him she was really interested in at all.

The remembered pain of her first leaving ran suddenly through him like molten lead until he wanted to scream.

‘I’m afraid you’d have to ask him that yourself.’

‘I will.’ She smiled her fallen-Madonna smile. ‘And Jean-Christophe . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘If you suddenly need any extra staff at this wedding you are catering, remember me. I would be happy to help.’

Twenty-Five

Meredith went out onto the terrace to find Steve the builder with Jo and Sophie, sharing a drink to mark the end of his work here. Steve, jovial, bear-like and slightly pink from the sun, turned and smiled as she approached.

‘Steve just came to get a ladder he’d left behind,’ Jo informed her, ‘so we thought we’d have a bit of a celebration.’

‘Aren’t we supposed to have all the workmen, and their wives, all dressed up to the nines like in A Year in Provence?’ Meredith enquired.

‘They were probably French,’ Steve replied deprecatingly. ‘My lads are from Bradford.’

‘Well, thank you, Steve,’ she said. ‘You’ve done a terrific job.’

‘Glad to be of help. Oh, and Jackie wanted me to tell you . . .’ He broke off suddenly, blushing like a teenager telling his girlfriend that he was very sorry but he had the clap. ‘Oops, I shouldn’t have mentioned that it was from her.’

‘We’ll be discreet,’ Jo giggled. ‘What did Jackie want you to tell us and pretend it wasn’t from her?’

‘Oh well –’ Steve downed his wine, hoping for Dutch courage – ‘here goes. It’s just that your friend Stephanie, the one who owns the B&B . . .’ He seemed to run out of nerve and petered out.

‘Yes,’ Meredith supplied reassuringly, ‘Stephanie Adams. It’s her niece, Nicky, who’s going to be our first bride here.’

‘OK. Well, you know her husband left, nice man, done a few jobs for him.’

‘David, yes. What about David?’