The only person she’d told this to was Carly, their fledgling friendship another secret she was keeping from the Bags.

Go for it! Carly had messaged first thing, adding, Unleash hell! She was a big Gladiator fan, her life a Roman battle in domestic miniature. Carly understood how Bridge was feeling, that fulfilment was measured out in smaller scoops when life had shrunk into isolation behind the front door of a testy marriage and tiny children. And Carly was a pro at brushing away her own disappointment, claiming to be unbothered that she’d heard nothing back from Ronnie Ledwell at the stud. ‘I don’t work for nothing. Strength and honour, Bridge. I love doing it, but I’m not doing it for love.’

Bridge felt the weight of their enchanted New Year pact all the heavier. If only she’d cast the right spell. They needed jobs, not new love and orgasmic rainbows.

Conscience at her heels, she kicked Craic on, overtaking a surprised-looking Petra. She just hoped Carly didn’t plan vengeance in this life and the next if she ever discovered her husband’s starring role in the purple patch that had pepped up the Mazurs’ sex life gloriously of late. Since Aleš’s return from Krakow, Fantasy Ash had never been far from the master bedroom in the little cottage on Back Lane.

They’d made love every night, and twice on Sunday, a lusty record not seen since becoming parents. Now putty in his wife’s hands, Aleš enthusiastically supported her quest to abandon her family for employment, loudly insisting that she need look no further than the village primary school and quoting one of his mother’s favourite sayings: ‘He who chases two rabbits catches none!’ Despite going at it like rabbits all week, Bridge feared another Babcia Mazur adage was more accurate: Jak sobie pościelesz, tak się wyśpisz – you made your bed, now lie in it.

Aleš’s customary post-Christmas homesickness for Krakow had been all too quickly joined by martyrdom now that he was back to working long hours on site, which meant more bear roars and backache snores. Last night’s lovemaking had been noticeably one-sided. Half-awake afterwards, twisting the bedclothes between hot, guilty dreams about the village’s war hero and nightmares about school headmistress Auriol ‘Battleaxe’ Bullock, Bridge had found herself making a pact with her inner devil – get this job and she would redraw the pentacle on the sitting room floor and kill Fantasy Ash.

*

Luca’s bathroom had no shower, just an ancient tap mixer over its peach-coloured bath with perished rubber grips that kept blowing off, the water pressure intense this high up in the house, its temperature never more than lukewarm. Having managed a perfunctory wash before it turned ice-cold, then dragged on his riding gear, he pounded back down the rear stairs, munching on a stale breakfast muffin and swigging cold instant coffee as he went. Ronnie never seemed to need to stop to eat, mealtimes something she waited out for other people’s sake, impatient to get on.