Catching sight of her glowing screen as he changed gear, Luca could see the incoming message just read: Solicitor says school try out OK. Fuck you.

*

Ronnie let her dogs run in the highest field, her phone coming back into signal with a flurry of texts – no more from Blair, she noticed sadly – and a voice mail from Petra, her dog-walking friend. ‘Ronnie, I can’t apologise enough for what happened in the woods earlier. My mare was totally out of order. Can you possibly call me back? I need to pick your brain.’

Petra answered her phone in one ring. ‘Thank God! What could a horny seventeenth-century cavalier get up to with Lord Goring’s wife in a stable that doesn’t involve doggy or knee tremblers? I had too many of those in the last book.’

‘You’re back at work already?’

‘I have a new Girl Friday who refuses to go home until I’ve written my synopsis. She’s going to revolutionise my life.’ Her merry voice deepened to a growl as she teased, ‘The same Girl Friday who’s your new weekend groom, I hear.’

‘Carly?’ Lester was as sharp as a tack, she realised.

‘Right clever, aren’t we?’ Petra played up her Yorkshire accent. ‘Now you have to help. I’ve a new anti-hero with an insatiable sex drive.’

Ronnie – who had been rather indiscreet about her wicked past over some of their dog walks – was Petra’s unofficial sex-scene consultant. ‘What happened to Father Willy, the lusty priest?’

‘I killed him off. He was far too corrupt. Seán O’Shaughnessy is a brilliant horseman and mercenary, fresh from the Catholic revolt, who travels to England at the height of the civil war, tasked by the Royalists to assassinate Black Tom, our heroic head of the New Model Army.’

‘Right.’

‘He lives for his cause, his horse and the lonely wives of his roguish commanders. You’re just the person I need to talk to for details of windswept couplings and haystack coitus.’

‘It’s been far too long to remember any al fresco risky business,’ she said vaguely, far preferring a bed these days.

‘Still, I bet you had a bonk more recently than me. Charlie does dry January, which means absolutely no sex. Even Gill gets an annual roll on Burns Night because it’s Paul’s birthday.’

Ronnie didn’t want to think about recent bonks, the memory of Blair’s touch fading far too fast.

‘I’m furious with Gill,’ she raged instead. ‘It was downright irresponsible coming through those woods.’

‘Bridge’s pony had bolted again.’

‘Is Bridge the one with pink hair who can’t ride for toffee?’

‘In fairness, I fall off my evil mare more often.’

‘Because your mare is evil. Luca thinks she and Beck are star-crossed.’

‘Really?’ She sounded terribly pleased. ‘Maybe Beck’s the Petruchio to her Katherine Minola? Shall we marry them off? Being a mum should calm her down, Gill says. Oh, I don’t think I’ve told you she’s in foal yet, have I?’

‘Good grief!’ Ronnie was thrilled, not least to have such undisputable proof of her stallion’s fertility after so many years off stud duties. She guessed Luca would be all for reading the banns, but she was in a position to overrule that. Watching The Taming of the Shrew, she’d always thought the bully Petruchio should have stayed shacked up with his manservant. ‘My grey chap needs a Grumio, not a wife.’