‘I suppose not,’ she conceded. ‘I just don’t want to disappoint Lester. The full moon’s only a week away.’

‘Sure, he’ll be made up. He wants you to ride it again, not set a record. Had anybody told you you’re a perfectionist?’

‘Many, many times,’ she laughed.

‘Nothing in life is perfect, Pax. It’s the imperfections that make things meaningful. Maybe I’ll ride it with you.’

Her heart was in her throat, bursting with happiness.

‘You,’ she kissed him, ‘are perfect.’

While Luca went to the bar for more drinks, she turned over her phone to check her messages in case Kes wasn’t settling. Her screen was striped with missed calls from the stud. Trying not to panic, she called back, but there was no answer. She hurriedly dialled voicemail.

Her mother had left a message from the stud’s crackly line sounding breathless and excited to say that a friend of Luca’s had just turned up and could they come back as soon as possible? It was rather urgent, she stressed.

It took so little to undermine her, for her imagination to run riot.

He’d kept his phone switched off all night, she’d noticed. She’d foolishly thought he’d done it so they could focus on their conversation, but now she thought back to all the unanswered calls the previous evening, to his jumpiness. He’d even told her that he hadn’t been entirely honest. She’d overlooked it because he’d kissed her and she’d run home to gallop around a field for real because galloping in her head no longer soothed her.

She watched him saunter back towards their sofa now, all smiles and blond curls. He was so close to perfect, so nearly utterly perfect. Trust him, Pax. Tiny steps.

‘A friend of yours has turned up at the stud. Someone called Michele?’

All the colour drained from his face.

*

‘Are you a racing man, Your Highness? Point-to-pointing’s my passion.’

‘My father has a few horses in training, yes.’

‘We’ve two out campaigning this season, how about you?’

‘In your country, about five hundred.’

‘Marvellous. More tea?’

Thank heaven for Bay, thought Ronnie. His natural loquacity had kept their unexpected guests going, and she was having a tough time with Kes.

‘Gronny!’ he called from the stairs turn again. ‘Gronneeeeeee!’

Making her apologies, she hurried out. She was rapidly going off being a hands-on-grandparent. ‘What is it, darling?’

‘I did a poo!’

‘Ha ha, yes very funny. Knock knock, I—’

‘No, I really did a poo, Gronny, and I can’t make it go down the loo. When I put the brush in, the handle came off.’

‘Excuse me, Mrs Ledwell?’

Ronnie jumped as she realised the prince’s wife had followed her out, a pretty western woman in an embroidered abaya that couldn’t disguise her pregnancy bump.

‘May I use your…?’

‘Of course.’ Oh, God, Kes had just incapacitated the one bathroom in service, and the only functioning downstairs lavatory was off the back lobby, a pink enamel antique with cobwebs festooned on its windowpanes and a novelty light pull. Her grandfather – who had once sold hunters to Arab playboys – was probably in there, haunting it in horror. ‘Let me show you.’