The little picture was perfectly at home on the bare wall. It seemed to brighten the room, and to bring with it a breath of flowers and the salt sea air.

‘Thank you,’ she said, almost inaudibly. Afraid that he hadn’t heard her, Helen put out her hand and met the supple leather of his bright blue jacket, then stretched to kiss his cheek. As she moved he turned his face and her lips were faintly grazed by the prickle of beard on his jaw. Her mouth met the corner of his and she started back, shocked by the electricity that seemed to crackle through them.

Tom’s faint smile might have been an acknowledgement of her thanks, or of something else altogether. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘I think we should celebrate by going out to dinner.’

‘I can’t …’

‘You’ve taken my picture,’ he reminded her coolly. ‘The least you can do is let me buy you dinner as a way of saying goodbye to it.’

Helen knew that she didn’t want to say no.

Tom drove her out to Woodstock, and they sat over drinks in a garden heavy with the scent of lilacs and wet grass. Helen was uncomfortable, but she was also vividly aware that her depression had lifted. The evening scents, and the texture of grass or paving beneath her feet, seemed sharp and precious. Ordinary things seemed significant, whether it was the low murmur of voices from an open window or the arc of a car’s lights in the lane beyond.

‘Are you warm enough out here?’ His voice, too, seemed to have a different timbre.

‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘It’s beautiful.’

Tom leaned across and lifted her hand from her lap. He turned it to and fro in his and then looked at her, quizzical.

Helen resisted her first impulse to snatch her hand away, and let it lie. ‘There is a ring,’ she heard herself saying. ‘The Viscountess’s ring. Darcy took it away to be remade because it’s too big. It’s a ruby, about the size of golfball, and about ten diamonds besides. I don’t think it’s me, really.’ Her voice trailed away into silence. Tom still held her hand in his, but he was looking away across the restaurant garden as if his mind was somewhere else.

‘Remember New Year’s Eve?’ he asked.

Helen snatched her hand away now as if it had been burned. ‘Vividly. Rather a lot of things happened.’

‘I haven’t been slapped for kissing someone since I was about twelve and tried to grab Ellen Lou Parker at a Saturday morning movie show. It was rather exciting, once I’d got over the shock.’

‘I was upset,’ she defended herself. ‘After we’d just seen Oliver …’

‘I don’t want to talk about Oliver right now.’