‘Good luck,’ he murmured. Oliver nodded absently and went on listening to the opening lines which pounded in his head. He would have admitted it to no-one, but he felt stifled with nerves. The noise of the audience, beyond the curtain, sounded a threatening muffled roar.

When he was assured that everything was in its place on stage under the expert eyes of the stage manager and Chloe, Tom went up to the dressing rooms. Pansy was unconcernedly playing Scrabble with Anne, the actress taking the part of Celia. Pansy looked exquisite in her tight-waisted Elizabethan dress with its billowing skirts. The stiff little white half-ruff behind her head framed her lovely face. The heavy stage make-up only accentuated the perfection of her features and made the myriad blues in her eyes shine even brighter.

‘Good luck,’ Tom said to both of the girls.

When he dropped a kiss on Pansy’s forehead, he thought for the hundredth time how sweet she smelt and tasted.

‘Thanks, darling,’ Pansy said. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Yes.’ Tom stood in the doorway. ‘Pansy? Thanks for … holding off.’

‘Not at all.’

A bell was ringing. One of the stagehands appeared.

‘One minute to curtain up.’

Tom made his way back down to the wings. In an unoccupied corner he sat down on a bench and waited.

Helen and Darcy arrived at the theatre just as the one-minute bell was ringing. Darcy had held back for so long that Helen was convinced they would be late. But in his loyalty to his brother he was determined not to miss a second, and he timed it perfectly. The house lights were dimming as they slipped into their seats and no-one even glanced at them.

The curtain went up and with it the lights on Oliver. Helen heard the tiny gasp around her as he turned his head. He was beautiful. Even to Helen, who knew his face as well as her own, startlingly beautiful.

His voice was perfectly measured as he spoke the opening lines.

‘As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion …’

Slowly, very slowly, Helen breathed out. Darcy’s fingers, tangled so tightly in hers that it hurt, relaxed a little.

They sank back into their seats, and let the magic of the play break over them.

From her vantage point in the wings, Chloe knew that it was good. She had watched the production through so many times, but still tonight its streamlined fluency startled her. Not one movement or inflection was superfluous or wasted. Clever, clever Tom Hart, she thought.

At the opposite side of the golden-lit arch of stage, Tom sat with his chin cupped in his hands. Around him the technicians worked and the actors waited for their entrances.

The play was out of his hands now.