Drew looked at Maddy. ‘Am I interrupting?’

‘No. It’s business.’

‘You’re forgetting I know Luke well. Luke and a gorgeous lady alone in any room at a party usually only means one thing.’

She glowed. He’d called her gorgeous … Still, he was probably as free with his compliments as he was with his kisses.

‘You’re not leaving yet?’ He couldn’t go. ‘Caroline isn’t bored?’

‘Caroline seems entranced by the whole thing. Your dad’s teaching her to play poker. No, I wanted to talk, and I thought we could do that less conspicuously if we danced.’

‘I’m not dancing to Motörhead or whatever Suzy’s found now.’

‘It sounds like Luther Vandross to me. Quite suitable for the more mature members of the party to stagger around to.’ He smiled at her and the world tumbled upside down.

They danced in the space in the middle of the room, surrounded by furniture and shrill laughter, but as far as Maddy was concerned they were alone in a sumptuous mirrored ballroom beneath a thousand chandeliers. No one else existed. She was only aware of his body brushing hers, of his hands branding her flesh through the velvet, of his breath warm on her cheek.

They talked about the proposed golf course; of the action committee; of the tussle for the Derby ride. They giggled about Mrs Pugh and Maddy’s mum who were both pie-eyed. They said nothing about Caroline.

‘I behaved badly,’ Drew murmured, ‘about Peter. Stupid of me, I had no right.’

‘No, you haven’t.’ Maddy smiled into his shoulder.

‘I was jealous.’ She could feel him smiling in return. ‘Jealous, for God’s sake. It annoyed me to think he could just waltz back into your life and disrupt it all over again.’

‘You and Suzy both,’ Maddy muttered, then said more loudly, ‘He’s not going to. And it shows that you don’t know me very well.’

‘No, I don’t.’ He moved his hands to the small of her back. ‘We know so little about each other. Do you think we’ll ever know enough?’

She stopped dancing and looked up at him. His tawny eyes were asking a million questions. Caroline’s warning screamed in her brain. She stood on tip-toe and kissed his cheek. ‘Yes, I think we will.’

She longed to kiss him. Properly. But the chandeliered ballroom dissolved and she moved away from him in the cluttered sitting-room.

The party was coming to an end.

‘We’ll be making an early start in the morning, Maddy.’ Mrs Beckett swayed unsteadily. ‘We’ve left Carl and Marcie in charge, but we must get back. We’ll just slip away without disturbing you.’ She hugged her daughter. ‘We have had a wonderful time. Wonderful. I’ll ring you when we get home.’

Maddy promised to visit them as soon as possible. She kissed them both goodnight, and smiled as they supported each other towards her bedroom.

Fran, tight lipped, had already left, practically carrying a green-faced Richard, and the Pughs, with much uncharacteristic hugging and kissing, stumbled out of the door.