‘There you go.’

‘Right.’ She waved him out.

In Lester’s walled cottage garden, Luca stopped to admire the view across to the stallion paddock. ‘Your mother wants your happiness more than anything, you know that.’

Pax sucked her teeth. ‘She’ll leave again. It’s what she does. Runs away into the sunset.’

‘Not from this place; she’s always wanted to come back here.’

‘C’mon, Luca, she’s been eyeing the door since the day she arrived. As soon as the stud is heading in the right direction, she’ll leave. That’s why she likes me being here.’

‘You don’t want to take it on?’

‘I can barely see past my nose right now.’

‘It’s a beautiful nose.’

‘You’re being creepy again.’ Realising how close he was standing, her pulses bolted. Her nose suddenly felt Pinocchio enormous, her lies laid bare.

‘I’m being honest.’ He sighed, stepping back, hands held up.

‘Did Mummy put you up to this?’

‘Will you quit being so paranoid?’

‘If you quit flirting.’

‘I’m so not flirting! You’re right, you were seriously cossetted if you think this is flirting. I can flirt. This is not it.’

‘But you do know my mother is trying to make us do just that?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘I wish she’d lay off. It’s just not fair on Kes.’ Pax looked across at the little figure by the gate, her heart thumping like a marching army. ‘Mummy doesn’t understand how much he needs balance and consistency, a sense of normality, not ponies and hero figures. He thinks you’re his new best friend.’

‘I think he’s mine. He reminds me of my nephews.’

Pax rolled her eyes. Yet it occurred to her that Kes hadn’t mentioned Oliver in days.

‘Let him make believe he’s a cowboy with that hoofed furball as his sidekick for a little bit, hey?’ Luca said kindly. ‘He’s five; he’s a boy; it’s normal. This place is a very big part of his world.’

‘My father used to call it a walled fortress of horse and hound.’ Pax let her gaze trail up along the yard’s golden stone sides again. She never failed to be thrown by its scale, by its emptiness without its familiar cornerstones: her grandparents gone, Lester sidelined. Her father’s tenure might have been the briefest, but his shadow fell longest of them all.

Luca was still looking across the fields from which they could hear much chatter, giggling and bossy pony squeals. ‘We need to separate those two before they grow so attached they make trouble.’

‘It’s far too late for that,’ she sighed. ‘Mummy’s convinced Kes that he’ll be the first rider to compete in all three equestrian disciplines at the Olympics with wife and teammate Princess Charlotte at his side.’ She unlatched the door through the wall to the yard and held it open for him.

‘I was talking about Beck and the pony.’ He ducked through it, adding, ‘I love it that you’re funny. It’s sexy.’

Flustered, Pax found herself noticing his backside for the first time. It was a seriously well-made backside. She looked determinedly away and marched through after him. Forgetting to duck for the stone lintel, she clouted herself hard on the forehead, reeling sideways and tripping over a boot scraper before falling against Laurence the fox’s cage. ‘Ooofuck!’