Duke doesn’t care about her at all – her brain or thoughts or even her books. He’s got a crib sheet on her, exactly as she suspected when she met him. And she nearly fell for it! All that talk about what her work means to him, and she’d started to believe it. He must think she’s so stupid, just another groupie desperate to be wanted by him. Urgh.

When he comes back into the room, she silently takes the book from him and leaves.

‘See you later?’ he asks to her back.

Suddenly, she hopes not.

19

Evie

They’re in the Schaezlerpalais later that afternoon, filming a dramatic and beautiful ballroom scene that serves as a climax for Hermione and George, who’ve attended after meeting a countess by accident, when they saved her and her dog from a wayward bicycle that had gotten out of control. It’s deceptive outside – Evie counted seven windows across, and three floors up, but that was only the front façade. The Baroque palace extends far back from the street, with dozens of rooms, courtyards, and gardens. She takes a leaflet about the place and reads that the gilded mirror ballroom was built in the late 1700s and survives mostly intact. When she was researching the book, that was the thing that struck her imagination the most: that it could still exist. What dances must have been held there over the years, what secrets exchanged. It’s like a set from Bridgerton. She spots Duke, in costume as George. He’s in a tailored navy suit with a pressed white shirt, and it all looks like it’s made to measure, which, thinking about it, it probably is. Daphne is in a long teal-coloured tulle gown, her feet in Uggs to keep warm. Her hair is piled in dramatic curls on the top of her head, her neck bare and perfect.

‘My money is on them getting back together,’ Katerina says, appearing out of nowhere. ‘Look how they gaze at one another like that. There’s a lot of love there if you ask me.’

‘Oh … Katerina, hey,’ Evie says, doing her best to look absolutely not bothered at all by the suggestion. ‘Everything going okay today? I can’t wait to see the ballroom.’

‘It’s … going,’ sighs Katerina. ‘Brad is in the worst mood. It’s affecting the whole set. Well, almost the whole set. The lovebirds don’t seem to be minding.’

Evie follows Katerina’s gaze again. The pair do look cosy. They’re just chatting, but there’s an obvious familiarity between them, with the way Duke laughs and Daphne reaches out to hold his wrist as he does so.