‘Sorry – I thought that was because you were sharing it with Molly and Petal, but I apologise for my assumption.’ He glanced at her. ‘Two hours or ten minutes, the effect is … charming.’

Well, it was a compliment of sorts, but ‘charming’! Couldn’t he have said ‘ravishing’ or ‘gorgeous’ – or something sexier? Later she decided he’d only said it out of politeness and that actually, even ‘charming’ was beyond her.

It was a shame that although Ben kept himself so aloof and dignified, which maddened and frustrated her, he didn’t get one jot less attractive. In fact, he got better looking every time she let herself peep.

By the end of Thea’s three forays into the world of art she had a huge folder full of contacts, names and addresses, their slides, her own slides, catalogues and postcards. The minute she had Rory’s show up and running she would select them, or possibly even before. Then she’d get Molly to tell them that while they would be exhibiting in a really lovely space, they would have to pay a small fee for the privilege.

She was very grateful to Ben for taking her round the country. ‘It would have been really difficult for me to get to all those places on my own, when I’m so short of time, so please accept this bottle of wine as a small thank you.’ Aware that she sounded as if she were addressing a public meeting, she added, ‘Derek chose it. So it should be OK.’

Ben took hold of the bottle as if it might explode. He looked at it without seeing it. He didn’t speak for such a long time that Thea wondered if she should just get out of the car and go in. Eventually he said ‘thank you’, but the words seemed weighted with a whole lot of other things he wanted to say but couldn’t.

A couple of days after their last trip together, Thea was determined to have an early night. Her house was now a student-free zone, until one of them decided he missed his girlfriend too much, or that home life was too confining, and needed to come back for a bit.