Pax looked at her tough, upbeat mother whose life had been so filled with regret and rejection, and felt a fierce pride at her endurance, and at her homecoming.

‘Does Lester talk about Daddy?’

‘God, no. Our elephant must stay in the room like a taxidermist’s chef d’oeuvre.’

They leaned closer for a moment, an embrace within reach that neither knew quite how to make.

‘I can’t face him, Mummy.’

‘You’ll have to some time.’

‘I need to ride the Wolf Moon Lap first.’

Ronnie looked astonished. ‘Why?’

‘I have to be able to look him the eye.’ It was hard to explain to a pragmatist like Ronnie why gut instinct told her Lester expected no less, that this would heal her as surely as hospital was healing him. Grapes and magazines were all very well, but family honour needed a greater power to restore it. He’d made it clear what he expected her to do.

Of all the people in Pax’s life, Lester had always seen deepest inside her and pushed her into making the right decisions, her mentalist. She’d craved his approval since early childhood, a surrogate father to her drunken one, a step-parent in heart and soul as it turned out. It was Lester who had travelled with her to competitions, coached her, bolstered her, torn strips off her for getting it wrong and praised her for getting it right; he’d comforted her when her father died even though his own hidden grief must have been soul-destroying. She’d broken his heart when she’d turned her back on it all, but he had never censured her, had remained a constant in her life to whom she’d returned whenever she needed grounding and no-nonsense sympathy. Throughout, he had waited for her to ride again, patient as can be, certain in his belief that she would.

Ronnie was right that self-denial was a powerful force. Pax had always known it wasn’t her marriage ending that would disappoint Lester if she visited – it was that she had come back to live at the stud and not got on a horse.

‘We’ll start now! Get you in training.’ So easy for Ronnie to say, the get-going toughie who picked herself up and dusted herself down after every big fall, getting straight back on again.

‘I can’t,’ she said stubbornly.

‘You’ve lost your nerve, haven’t you?’ Her mother’s blue eyes creased with sympathy.

Pax couldn’t look at her, the memory of last night’s ride still vivid in every muscle. My secret. My secret. Mine.

She must not let it out yet, however dishonourable it made her feel to keep it to herself. If she shared it, she’d never let herself go there again.

‘Oh poor Pax,’ Ronnie sighed.

She shook her head, her need to be truthful overwhelming. ‘It’s not that. After what happened with Bay, I suppose I denied myself the thing I loved most. I had to punish myself.’

‘But why? I was the one who deserved punishment.’

‘I wasn’t good enough. I was always in your shadow. The pictures all over the tack room: Badminton at eighteen, Olympic selection at nineteen.’