The house was very quiet. She went along the hall and into the neat, white, rented kitchen.

‘Tom?’ she called. French windows stood open on a little square of brick-paved garden. It was shaded with trailing green leaves, and there were tall terracotta pots bright with splashes of scarlet and pink. Tom was sitting in a white-painted wicker chair, his hands dangling loosely.

‘Tom.’

He jerked around, and then leapt to his feet. The wicker chair scraped backwards. Before she ran to him, Helen glimpsed that he had taken off his dark clothes. He was in jeans, and a torn sweatshirt that showed his lean chest. His face was tense. He was still waiting for something.

‘It’s all right.’ She put her arms out, and at once he pulled her to him with a force that frightened her. Her face was crushed against his shoulder and she still pressed herself closer, submerging herself in him.

‘What?’ he said roughly.

‘It’s all right,’ she repeated, and she was smiling ecstatically into the grey stuff of his sleeve. She opened her eyes and saw a scatter of red petals on the bricks, and the moving patterns of shade under the leaves. She felt that the little corner of view was clearer, sweeter and more significant than anything she had ever set eyes on before.

Without looking, Tom’s left hand found hers. He felt the nakedness of it and then clenched her fingers in his. With their clasped hands pulled between them, he kissed her and she closed her eyes on the leaves and the patterns of light. There was nothing now but Tom, and the avenues of freedom that opened out in front of them. Yet he lifted his head an inch from hers, and when she tried to draw him back she felt that his muscles were like iron. She opened her eyes to look into his and saw the fierceness. Her smile faded into anxiety. Was there still, still something wrong?

‘Have you told Darcy?’ There was the old insistent, uncompromising Tom. Nothing less than the full truth would satisfy him. Helen shook her head and saw the instant flash of anger before she answered.

‘I didn’t have the courage. Tom, it was Darcy who told me. He knew. He … he told me that you were a good man.’

She felt the taut muscles flutter and relax under her hands. Tom’s mouth was close to hers again.

‘I think we will be good for one another,’ he said, and she felt the beguiling warmth of his tongue as it traced her mouth.

‘And are you all mine now?’

She nodded mutely.

‘All mine?’

‘Yes.’

Insistently Tom drew her away from the dappled shade of the garden. They walked through the house together hand in hand, not letting go, as if they were afraid that the other could still disappear.