I let go of his hand and bent over, resting my hands on my thighs for a second to catch my breath. ‘Clearly you and I have very different ideas about what that phrase means.’

When I straightened up, he was staring out across the gunmetal-grey water, white horses charging across the surface.

‘You want to see the sights or do you have some more whingeing to do?’

I pulled a face at him and mumbled that I would tell his mum on him. He leant back, took my hand and tugged me up the last section.

To give Lorcan his due, it truly was worth the effort. The view was spectacular, even though the cloud had come in now, and was sitting low on some of the hills further round the coastline. The mist of the sea and lowering cloud dampened my face, chilling the skin, but the magical atmosphere of the ruined building and its surroundings was a stronger force. I pulled my scarf further up in an attempt to keep my nose warm – assuming it was still there: I’d lost all feeling in that some time ago – then lifted the hood on my coat, wedging it over my woolly hat, and began exploring.

‘Just be careful where you step.’ Lorcan’s voice drifted on the wind towards me and I turned.

‘I thought you said it was “grand”?’

‘It is. But we’re still on a cliff edge on a damp day with a rising wind and I cannot face telling Peyton that I lost her wedding planner in the sea. Not this late in the game.’

‘But earlier would have been fine?’ I asked, hands on hips.

He actually took a moment to pretend to think this over so I turned away and ignored the soft echo of deep, rumbling laughter that followed me.

‘Come here,’ he said, catching up with me in a few steady strides as I navigated some fallen masonry. I took his hand, one, because it was definitely easier to manage with someone else balancing me, and two, I figured if I did slip, having some ballast on one side gave me a better chance of not going too far. Obviously, if he slipped first I’d be letting go.

‘If I go, you’re coming too.’

I snapped my head around. ‘What?’

He cocked his head at the jagged edge of the cliff, about ten feet away from us now that we had moved inland a little.

‘Well, that’s not very gentlemanly.’

‘And not very ladylike to plan to let go if I went.’