If she was trying to distract me, it worked; my heart was pierced with a tiny dart of joy at the mention of his name. Only two weeks until I was due in London for the radio interview and, more importantly, a lunch date with Jensen.

I nodded. ‘He Skyped me last night; he’s there for another three days and loving every minute. Apparently Cape Town is amazing and the project is going well.’

‘Drat,’ said Marjorie, furrowing her brow like a cartoon baddie. ‘Looks like your dastardly plan might fail, Betsy.’

Betsy sighed. ‘Yes, how tedious. We really need him to hate it there.’

I smiled at their comical plotting. ‘Why?’

‘His boss has hinted that if he does well with this project it could lead to a promotion to head up the Cape Town office.’ Betsy folded her arms crossly. ‘And that would mean a permanent move to South Africa.’

‘A permanent move!’ I gasped, completely unable to mask my dismay.

This must have been what he’d been referring to when he’d said he might be away more in the future. I hadn’t realized that he’d be away all the time. No wonder he hadn’t repeated his offer to take me to dinner. He’d probably only invited me to lunch because I’d forced him into a corner. How embarrassing. Was it really bad of me to hope that he didn’t do well with the project …?

‘And of course he’ll do brilliantly,’ said Marjorie, regarding my expression shrewdly. ‘So our only hope is that he’ll decide he doesn’t want the job even if he’s offered it.’

‘Indeed,’ said Betsy. ‘Ted had so wanted Butterworth Wines to stay in the family but we’re running out of time. If we can’t persuade Jensen to come back to manage it, then …’ Her voice petered out and her shoulders sagged.

Marjorie reached across and patted her arm. ‘Chin up, old thing, it ain’t over until the fat lady sings.’

‘Less of the old,’ grumbled Betsy.

‘What about your daughter?’ I said. ‘Couldn’t you speak to her?’

Betsy’s cup rattled in the saucer as she set it down on the coffee table.

‘I have spoken to Samantha about it, but she and Victor are living a life of luxury in Shanghai. She doesn’t see them returning to the UK for the foreseeable future, if at all. She did, however, order six cases of Classic Cuvée to be shipped over for a golf club gala dinner Victor is hosting, so it wasn’t all bad news.’ She managed a wan smile. ‘Apparently the Chinese love English sparkling wine.’

‘Do they?’ I made a mental note to include that in my ‘interesting facts about English wine’ section of the presentation Godfrey and I were doing at Pippa’s library next week.