He was sitting on the stone coping of the fountain basin with the plume of frozen silver spray behind him. She took in the smoothness of his white tuxedo that set him apart at once, exotic in the black-suited crowds. There was a red rosebud in his buttonhole. As if he was meeting a stranger, she thought, and needing a signal that would draw her to him. Neither of us needs to do that ever again, she realised with sudden certainty. Tom was watching her, one eyebrow raised in a peak. The saturnine darkness of his face struck her afresh after Oliver’s high English colouring. She dropped her hands from Oliver’s arms. Love for Tom was overflowing inside her like a flood from a breached dam. Very slowly she was beginning to move to him.

‘There’s Tom.’

Oliver glanced briefly at her and then let her go.

‘Good luck,’ he said again, and then turned away. The dancers swallowed him up at once.

Helen crossed the few yards of polished floor that separated them and put out her hands. Tom lifted them briefly and looked down at her fingers. She saw the set of his skull on his shoulders, the dark hair falling across his forehead. He looked back at her face and the Viscountess’s ring caught a splash of light between them. They were both immediately aware that Darcy could be anywhere, watching, suddenly seeing them through painfully opened eyes.

‘I was on my way to find him,’ Helen said. Her voice caught in her throat. Tom smiled a little. He was as uncompromising and as certain as he always was. He was simply waiting for her, allowing her the freedom of her own choices.

‘You looked very pretty, dancing with Oliver.’ He stood up and drew her back on to the floor. ‘My turn now, I think.’

They moved together instinctively. Helen was vividly conscious of his white sleeve against her bare arm. Funny that they had never danced together before, she thought, and yet they were perfectly attuned. She looked up, through the lights, at the intense purple-blackness of the midsummer sky. Hanging over the pinnacles of Christ Church was the rising moon, almost full, pinky-gold and trailing fine wisps of cloud.

Tom followed her eyes.

‘Sad to be going?’ he asked gently.

‘Not exactly. I’m bewildered because I don’t know where I’m going to. I’m excited because of you, and because of you nothing else matters. Except Darcy. I’m sad for Darcy.’

Tom’s fingers tightened on her arms.

‘Do you want me to tell you where you are going? That you must come back to the States with me? Do you want me to decide for us?’

The rhythm between them was broken. They stopped and stood facing each other among the swirling dancers under the summer moon.

‘No,’ Helen said levelly. ‘That isn’t how it is between us, is it?’