I dramatically slump back in the seat. “Phew, I don’t need to tuck and roll out of a moving vehicle. All will be well. We can settle down and have ten children now without me worrying.”

“That’s your yardstick for worrying? Hmm.”

I laugh and he looks at me for a second before returning his serious gaze back to the road. It’s empty but he still drives as if expecting a major disaster to happen any second. It’s oddly endearing.

“We haven’t spoken about family,” he says. “That’s the number one question amongst the set of people we’re about to be sharing a hotel with. Would they know your family?”

“Unlikely,” I say lightly. “Well, not unless they’ve attended Evensong at St Mary’s Church in Dunsford.”

He jerks. “Your father’s in the church?”

“That makes him sound like a squatter. He is a vicar, but nice sexism,” I say sternly. “It might have been my mum.”

“I’m so sorry,” he says earnestly. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

I laugh. “If you knew my family, you’d be spot on. There is no way my mum could have been a vicar. She’s far too impatient.”

“So, your father is a vicar?” He seems oddly enthralled by this piece of information.

“Yes, you seem slightly disbelieving,” I say, nudging him gently.

He scratches his chin, the intimate sound of the scrape of his stubble seeming to hit me in the back of my teeth and making my mouth water.

“Well, that’s because I am,” he says baldly, startling a laugh out of me. “You don’t seem like a vicar’s son.”

“And what does a vicar’s son seem like?”

“Well …” He searches for words. “Pious,” he finally says. “Quiet and studious and humble.”

I start to laugh. “Well, my dad must have lucked out, then, because none of us conform to that.”

“None of you? How many are there?”

“I’m the youngest of eight children.”

“Eight?” His voice goes slightly high. He coughs and clears his throat. “Eight children,” he says in a marvelling voice. Silence falls for a second until he nods. “No wonder you’re so loud.”

I laugh. “That’s true. I had to be loud or I’d have been forgotten and left at a service station somewhere.”

“Was that a thing?” he asks cautiously. “Did that happen?”

“Oh yes,” I say cheerfully. “It was like Home Alone but with handy slot machines and a WH Smiths.”

“Oh my God. How long before they realised?”