She couldn’t see the speakers because they were through in another section, where the gallery obviously extended into the building next door. At first, she ignored them and just gazed at a very complicated textile hanging piece, but then she heard a familiar laugh and knew she’d found her quarry. All day, she and Magenta had hunted him, asking questions, picking up snippets and bits of information accidentally let fall; now here he was, in person.

If this was the gallery Rory had found there was some sort of comfort in the fact that he had chosen such a wonderful one to abandon hers for. If he’d just gone for a good address, with no substance behind it, she’d have been incredibly hurt. While she was still hurt, not to mention bloody furious, at least she’d been left for a class act.

She had to think carefully how to approach him. After all, what could she say? Stamping her foot and telling the gallery owner that it wasn’t fair, Rory had promised to show in her space first, wouldn’t cut any ice. Especially when he asked what or where her gallery was. He was probably like Magenta and despised ‘the provinces’.

It was her passion for Rory’s work and the memory of her first sight of it that gave her the courage to pursue the matter. That and the fact that she’d committed herself so far, and potentially made such a fool of herself anyway, a little embarrassment in a gallery she would never visit again was neither here nor there. But what argument could she possibly offer Rory to make him change his mind?

She was about to go and confront him, hoping something halfway sensible would come to her, when another woman came in. She walked straight past Thea to where Rory and the owner were talking. Damn! Pratfalls were all very well, but Thea would have preferred to take hers without extra spectators.

The woman obviously knew Rory. Thea could hear the air kisses from where she was. Rory laughed again. It was, she had to acknowledge, a very sexy laugh and, judging by the laugh the woman gave in return, she thought so too.

Thea moved closer. She was well within sight, so it wasn’t really eavesdropping. She was invisible in any case, because she wasn’t anything except a slightly dishevelled woman in her thirties, looking at works of art she obviously couldn’t afford.

‘So, Rory, when are you going to let Edward have the paintings? He can’t plan a show properly without them. Can you?’ the woman said.

The man murmured something and everyone laughed again.