‘Very well. You are happy in your work and your business will prosper. You will go on to greater things.’

‘Oh good.’ Maddy was pleased. At least Shadows seemed to have a rosy future, even if she didn’t. ‘Is that the end of the romantic bit?’

Madame Maria looked at Maddy kindly. ‘Your palm does indicate a very happy marriage in the middle distance and three children. And before you ask, no, I can’t say who with or when. Look, duck, I can’t advise you, but it’s all there in your hand. Just let it run its course. The funny thing is …’

‘What?’ Maddy began to panic.

‘Well.’ Madame Maria heaved a brocaded sigh. ‘I can see the marriage and the children very clearly, but I can’t see a third relationship. I reckons you’ll be wedding one of the two already there. And as this current one is already married, it looks as if you might have a reconciliation with your former beau.’

‘Oh, whoopee,’ Maddy groaned. ‘Thanks for nothing.’

Madame Maria shook her head as Maddy scrabbled in her handbag for her fee. ‘I could make a fortune if I told people what they wanted to hear, duck, but me ethics are all against it. Have a lucky day.’

‘You too,’ Maddy muttered, as she forced her way out of the hot gloom and blinked in the brilliant sunshine.

‘So?’ Fran was hopping from foot to foot. ‘What did she say?’

‘That I’m going to marry Peter bloody Knightley.’

‘Serves you right. You shouldn’t dabble in witchcraft. Can I be the one who tells Stacey?’

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-one

‘Make way for the rich and famous,’ Fran muttered, elbowing past beautiful girls in frou-frou dresses and mile-wide hats in the Queen’s Stand. ‘Jesus, I’m nervous now we’re in here.’

‘You’ve been here before, done all this before.’ Maddy said, looking around her, for once feeling as glamorous as every other woman stalking the gently sloping mossy lawns. ‘It should all be pretty passé to you by now.’

‘Richard has never been riding the Derby favourite before.’ Fran’s teeth were chattering. ‘I daren’t even think about him losing. Especially not to Luke. Let’s not talk about it. Let’s get our first glass of Pimm’s and survey the opposition.’

Some of the men, elegant in morning dress, and their partners in jewel-bright frocks, were strangers; most were at least vaguely familiar. The racing community was very insular. The lawns looked like Pygmalion come to life. Maddy realised she was holding her breath each time a lean, broad-shouldered, dark-haired man turned around.

‘Over there!’ Fran waved her glass of fruit and mint wildly. ‘Look! Kimberley and Barty. Oh, doesn’t he look sweet in his topper? Oh, and Diana and Gareth!’