He could have saved himself the trouble. She doubted if she could have felt more hurt and rejected if he’d just said ‘thanks but no thanks’ and left it at that. She lay still, her eyes tight shut, hoping she wouldn’t cry.

‘I think we should get up. There’s paint all over the floor. It’s in your hair and everything.’

Just for that moment she didn’t care about the paint, the floor or even the gallery. Because she’d realised that she’d fallen in love with Ben – at pretty much the same time that she discovered he didn’t want her and had made it abundantly clear. She had him actually in her arms and she couldn’t get him to do more than kiss her out of kindness. It was humiliating and heartbreaking. How could she bring herself to look at him again? She bet Petal never had this trouble – in fact, Petal’s troubles were probably all the other way.

She allowed him to help her up, not looking at him, with her eyes closed, but as she stood upright she was aware that her ankle really did hurt. She squeezed her eyes tighter shut. Pain was a perfect excuse for a few tears, but she couldn’t let herself shed them. Gingerly she put her foot to the floor, still clinging on to Ben. She bit her lip and inhaled sharply. ‘Ow.’ She wanted to say a lot more a lot stronger.

‘Can you stand on it?’

‘Probably.’ She tried a little tentative weight-bearing. It was agony. ‘Ow’ no longer covered it. After a lot of inward breaths she said, ‘Hurts like hell.’

‘Do you think we should get you to casualty?’

‘No!’ Horror made it easy for her to look at him. ‘I’ve got a floor to varnish, not to mention get the paint off from. I can’t spend hours and hours in A & E reading old copies of the Radio Times. It’s nothing to make a fuss about. It’ll be right as rain in the morning. All it needs is a cold compress and a bit of a bandage.’

‘Which you have in your first aid kit?’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic. We can make a bandage out of some rags or something. Haven’t you got any initiative?’ He accepted her anger with irritating calm as if he knew the real reason for it. ‘There’s a dust sheet next door.’

Ben nodded. Then he bent and picked her up.

She was reluctantly impressed. She was a healthy woman and was probably heavy to lift, but he not only got her up into his arms, but carried her through to the next room. There, where there was a chair, he sat her gently down. Then he tore off the end of an old sheet Thea had been using to protect the floor and went to wet it.