‘You, and she, are absolutely right. But the thing you said about getting a professional onto it?’

‘Yes. Oh, wait. Don’t tell me. You’re a professional.’ I gave him a look that I hoped conveyed the right amount of disbelief combined with haughtiness.

‘Nope. But my sister is.’

‘She is?’

‘She is. It’s what she does for a living. There’s so much interest in genealogy these days. She set up her own business several years ago.’

‘And?’

‘And I asked her if she could trace Peyton’s family.’

‘Because you wanted to prove you were right?’

‘No, because I thought getting my best friend’s fiancée a family tree, which traced her roots back to Ireland, would be a nice thing to do.’

It really was and, for a moment, I was taken aback.

‘It seems that I’ve given you the impression that I’m not the kind of person who does nice things.’

I opened my mouth to try and find a tactful way of saying, ‘Well, I’ve had my doubts,’ and closed it again when I couldn’t. In the outer reaches of the puddle of light cast by a streetlamp, I saw the corners of Lorcan’s mouth tilt upwards.

‘I thought so.’

‘I never said that.’

‘No,’ he said, still smiling. ‘But your silence said so much more.’

I began to try and wriggle out of it, but he waved a large hand. ‘Seriously, don’t bother. I really don’t give two figs about what most people think about me. If I don’t know them, or I don’t care about them, their opinion of me isn’t generally something I worry about.’

That told me, then.

‘So what happened?’

‘My sister spent plenty of her own time putting together a tree for Peyton, and traced her ancestors back pretty far, but there’s no link at all to Ireland. I mean, apart from the indigenous peoples, everyone in America is an immigrant if you go back far enough, so her family tree does go back to Europe, but no one in her lineage sailed from what they like to call The Old Country.’

‘Does Peyton know this? That your sister did all this work?’

‘No.’

I took a step back. ‘What?’

‘I didn’t tell her.’

‘So you have her whole ancestral history there and you haven’t given it to her?’

‘Nope.’

‘May I ask why?’

‘You may.’

I let out a sigh. ‘Lorcan, why haven’t you given the information to Peyton?’

‘Because it’s not what she wants to hear.’

‘I don’t understand. She wants to trace her lineage – which is something you’ve kindly had done for her. Why would you not give that to her?’