She thought back to the impish, flirtatious young man in Germany. That Luca never stressed or needed sleep, riding like Bellerophon into battle. He’d followed her round like a puppy, fiddling late into the night while they all drank and made merry. Now he bore the scarred signs of a romantic fugitive: over-working all day, holed up silently in the attic flat like a legionnaire setting up camp by night. So like Pax, who went to bed at toddler time if the dark windows of the stables cottage were anything to go by.

At least the stud’s unofficial curfew was saving electricity, she reflected bleakly. They were all tucked up with lights off by nine.

Her own solitary bedtime ritual, a prolonged indulgence of bathing and reading, music and radio, sprang from many long years as a mistress. Family, guests and men got terribly in the way of it, although she missed them like mad when they weren’t around, a contradiction she’d never matched up.

Blair remained incommunicado in Wiltshire, still in possession of her horsebox. Somewhat against her better judgement, she’d succumbed to impulse with several bright and breezy texts, the most recent of which said, Bring my box back! with five smiley faces. The returning silence spoke volumes. Blair had admittedly never been a big texter, but still…

Ronnie got more chat from Lester than any of them right now. Bored in hospital and obsessed with the minutiae of institutionalised care and his recovery, he was as talkative as she’d ever known him. He’d also discovered the Internet thanks to a neighbouring patient with an iPad. The old stallion man’s enthusiastic online research into sports horse bloodlines had thrown up all sorts of information he was eager to share with her.

‘Lester googled Beck’s breeding,’ she told Luca, noting the way his eyes sharpened. ‘He’s new to search engines, so he read an awful lot about German pianos before he found anything interesting. He did show me a piece about him being sold before the London Olympics.’ She and Lester had almost fainted when he’d read out the price rumoured to have been paid for the horse. ‘Did you ever meet him, this crown prince who bought him?’

‘He’s just an ordinary prince, I think. There are seven thousand of them out there.’

‘Cuts down on kissing frogs, I guess.’

‘Especially with polygamy.’ The smile flashed over his zip tag.

Ronnie caught it like a yawn. Oh, that smile! So full of after-hours promise. He might be getting early nights, but she had a shrewd suspicion he wasn’t sleeping much. After her own nightly analgesia of bath, Bowie and reading, she’d sent up more than one prayer that he’d smile at someone his own age. Flirting with him was far too easy.

‘I do think wives should be taken one at a time, don’t you?’ she joked now. ‘Even if they’re not one’s own.’

He didn’t answer, eyes still sharp.

Was she married, Ronnie wondered, this woman who had left a crack in the playboy’s heart? She let it go for now. Experience had taught her that it served little purpose to dredge up a bad past with men or horses. Better to motivate them to succeed, these creatures of need and greed. With confidence, they focussed unswervingly forwards.