Keep thinking about something else.

‘You dropped something.’ Carly had turned back again and was watching her.

‘It’s nothing,’ she dismissed.

Carly put on the buggy brake and hurried to look, pulling off her mittens and dropping to her haunches to feel through the wet leaves. ‘Here!’ She unearthed the wedding band. A moment later she was holding up the engagement ring.

Pax felt ridiculous for wanting to leave them there, her cheeks flaming, quickly checking the other two hadn’t noticed. ‘Thanks.’

‘You should be wearing gloves in this cold.’ Carly straightened up, reaching out for her hand to put them in it.

They both gasped. The rings were almost too hot to touch.

‘It’s you!’ Carly sounded incredulous, glancing up at her in shock, still holding on.

‘What’s me?’ Pax was baffled.

Carly was looking down at their hands again, muttering, ‘They would tell me, he said. I might have bloody guessed. Of all people.’ She let out an irritated little sigh.

‘What?’ Pax persisted. Luca was looking back.

‘What we do in life echoes in eternity.’

‘Is that Shakespeare?’ Pax humoured her, wondering if she was entirely sane.

‘Maximus Decimus Meridius. Listen, Pax,’ Carly rubbed Pax’s hands as she would one of the children, ‘I’m sorry about the letters, really I am.’

‘It’s fine, really. Not your fault. They were just there.’

Keep thinking about something else.

Trying to take her hands back, she found she couldn’t. It felt discourteous, like breaking a spell. Warmth was steeling up her arms.

‘I know I’m just staff and all that,’ Carly was talking again, her voice hushed and fast, ‘but I hope we can get on. Bridge reckons you’re not as stuck-up as all that and you’re going through a tough time, and I want you to know,’ she grimaced, plucked brows furled as she looked up into Pax’s eyes, ‘that I’ve got your back.’

‘My back?’

‘Yeah. In your corner, watching out for you. Strength and honour. You understand what I’m saying?’

Pax looked at her pretty, earnest face, not really understanding at all. Warmth was flooding through her now. It was oddly comforting, like drinking brandy. Having always sensed hostility fizzling off Carly, it was also a revelation.

‘I hope we can be friends too,’ she said with feeling.

‘Really?’ Carly looked surprised.

‘Yes. I admire you. You’re kind and fierce.’ As she said it, repeating the words her father had used to describe her as a child, she realised they weren’t so very different at all. ‘And you love horses. Dream combination.’

Carly seemed to grow taller, shaking her hair back. ‘Yeah, and our boys get on.’

‘There’s that too.’

‘Strength and honour.’ One warm little hand fist-bumped against hers.

‘Strength and honour.’

‘Now don’t lose these again, you hear? Flog them instead.’ With a knowing grin, Carly took the rings from Pax’s hand and put them back on her finger, the strangest of driveway weddings to seal an unexpected friendship.

‘Thank you. I will.’ She reached in her pockets and pulled out her gloves with an apologetic shrug. She hardly needed them any more. She was glowing.