When the front door closed behind him she went to the window and watched as he got into his car and pulled away into the rain. She was puzzled by the odd turn of events, and surprised that he had kissed her. She was his patient and the daughter of old friends. And, as he himself had pointed out, she was half his age. It all seemed rather cheap. She thought of what Tom Bartlett had said and it occurred to her that she might have misjudged Edward as she had misjudged so many others, that her growing confidence in him had been misplaced. It was a depressing thought and she tried to banish it, but the idea persisted, making her feel flustered and unsure. For the first time she wondered what had happened to his wife. He had only mentioned her once, on the first evening when he had taken her to the cinema and dinner, and she had never enquired about his marriage or his past. Perhaps Marina knew. Camilla shrugged mentally and looked at her watch. It was very late and she was tired. Her father was coming back tomorrow but he wouldn’t be here before early evening. At least she would not need to be up at the crack of dawn.

She cleaned her face, brushed her teeth and fell into bed. The novel she had brought with her felt impossibly heavy in her hands and she put it down and turned out the light, hoping for oblivion. But she could not put Giles Hannington out of her mind. His desperation struck at her heart repeatedly. Could he genuinely love her father, as he had claimed? She wondered how many other men made up George’s emotional life, and whether he was given to affairs that were simply physical encounters. Homosexual men seemed to be endlessly on the prowl, and the few couples that she knew well had not been together for very long. In the main, Camilla considered them wildly promiscuous. It was difficult to imagine George Broughton-Smith, well bred and urbane, dignified and charming and respected, in the midst of the flagrant queens and preening young men she had come across. When sleep finally overtook her she dreamed that Edward and her mother had eloped on a train, leaving her to explain their disappearance to her father as he stood sobbing on the station platform.

In the morning she felt tired and out of sorts. Marina was still sleeping and Mrs Maskell was fussing in the kitchen when she came looking for some breakfast. Camilla glanced without interest at the newspaper headlines as she drank her coffee, lingering at the table and reluctant to face the day.