‘So who’s that?’ she whispered as Liam disappeared once more into the neat rows of the vineyard. ‘Quoting Midsummer Night’s Dream at you in that flirtatious manner? You’ve never mentioned him, you dark horse. I thought he seemed quite keen on you.’

‘I hardly know the man,’ insisted Jo firmly, not fooling her clever daughter for an instant.

‘Isn’t it amazing of Meredith to hire Jean-Christophe to come and cook for us!’ Steph enthused. ‘What do you want to do next Wednesday when he starts?’

It was one of Marcelline’s nights off, and she and David were laying the large table for dinner. ‘We could drive into the cinema in Sarlat if you want? That’s something we never get time to do.’

‘For God’s sake!’ snapped David irritably. ‘We can’t just disappear like teenagers climbing out a window and leave the guy to it!’

For the first time in years, Steph did feel like a teenager climbing out of a window. The idea of going out at all felt exciting and slightly illicit after so many years of being tied to the kitchen and their guests. She couldn’t understand why David didn’t feel the same.

David, preoccupied by guilt about their increasingly precarious financial position, just grunted and disappeared into the kitchen to get the glasses. He knew that Steph had delegated the money side of things to him because he’d worked in the City and was supposed to know about these things. But the truth was, selling shares to high net worth individuals had done very little to prepare him for the ups and downs of running a B&B in France.

Then there was Suzi, whose invitations to share afternoon delights were becoming more overt. He should have been clearly rebuffing them, he knew – and he really had meant to – but instead he found them increasingly tempting, which made him feel more guilty than ever and hence even more short-tempered with Steph. His libido, which had been sleeping in a prehistoric cave, had started to wake up and roar but not necessarily for the right person.

Oh Christ, he thought as he polished glasses mindlessly, I’ve got to do something. The trouble was, he couldn’t decide whether to face the pain of Steph’s anger when she discovered the truth, or hide away from reality in the overperfumed embrace of Bratenac’s resident femme fatale. Even he didn’t like himself for it, but he knew which tempted him most.

‘Mmmm, not bad,’ Philippe pronounced as he tasted Jean-Christophe’s newest veggie creation, a roasted vegetable lasagne. ‘Did you make the pasta yourself?’

‘Chef,’ Jean-Christophe teased his father with the formal title used in any Parisian restaurant. ‘Am I your son?’

‘As far as I know.’ Philippe ruffled his son’s hair. ‘We appear to have the same hair, anyway, though mine is sadly greyer.’