He obligingly looks around, but his gaze comes back to mine. “What of it?”

He doesn’t sound as if he’s taking the piss, so I elaborate.

“It filters through those high windows and makes the old gilt on the woodwork gleam like treasure. Look at the way it’s decorated. Bright pink and that wonderful sherbet-lemon yellow. It’s like being inside one of those bags of rhubarb and custard sweets.”

“It’s very gaudy.”

I smile. “Exactly. I love that. It’s vibrant and brash. The way the music halls were in their heyday. Like they’re allowing the old lady to be herself.” I wriggle my fingers. “I’m dying to get those colours down,” I say almost to myself.

I watch his face as he considers the décor. Mags, too, is vibrant. The liveliness of his mind is reflected in the quicksilver expressions of his bright eyes and curling mouth.

I shake my thoughts away and grab his arm. “Come on. They serve excellent beer here apparently and a smashing curry.”

“Curry? Here?”

I roll my eyes. “Yes, I know it’s not in some twenty-seven-star restaurant where they starch your napkins, but there is life outside Knightsbridge.”

He chuckles, and the sound hits me deep in my belly. We gaze at each other, and the moment seems to stretch. Unbidden, I remember the shower and him staring into my eyes as he came. His breath catches, and I know he’s thinking the same thing. His eyes are intent and dark, and I inhale a shaky breath.

The mood is broken when my sister approaches, brandishing a fistful of bingo cards. “Come on,” she says excitedly. “Hurry up.”

Mags stares at her. “I don’t think you were this excited when Chris proposed to you.”

“I wasn’t,” she calls over her shoulder as she marches through the enormous double doors leading to the bingo hall. “He didn’t come with the chance of winning a vase.”

“I’d have bought you one of those,” Mags calls after her. “You had only to ask.”

I laugh and pull him into the hall. “It’s not the same as winning them, Mags,” I say in a sing-song voice, and he groans.

We make our way across the long room to where my sister has secured our seats. She’s gesturing at us to hurry.

Mags shakes his head. “It’s like she’s another person.”

I laugh. “An intensely competitive one at that, and bingo really rings her bell. We used to get dragged along to all the bingo places when we went to the seaside as kids. My mother seemed to view the bingo hall as a de facto babysitter.”

He hums thoughtfully. “I’m imagining your stepfather in one. His… What did she call it? His dobber in one hand.”

“That sounds ridiculously filthy,” I observe.