I started to protest, but he interrupted, his reddening cheeks the only indication that he was growing annoyed. ‘Bea, I’m not going to leave you in Scotland so I can go and spend Christmas with your family. Even if I was that selfish, I’m not that brave. Can you imagine what your mum would say if I arrived back without you?’

‘But—’

‘Would it be easier if I just lied and told you I’ll go home tomorrow?’

‘Okay, fine.’ It was more than fine; I was incredibly relieved. The thought of trying to fight my way home on public transport didn’t bear thinking about. ‘Make sure it’s a very fancy hotel, though. And I’m paying. In fact, I’m going to book it for you so you can’t argue.’

We sat eating and scrolling through our phones for a while, before reaching the same conclusion at about the same moment.

‘There’s nothing!’ I lowered my phone, seeing Henry about to do the same.

‘There’s a couple of places in Glasgow.’

‘That’s miles away, and a long stretch of the road will quickly become impassable if the snow’s bad. There’s no point you staying so far away that you can’t come and get me.’

‘What about an Airbnb?’

We had another search, but it was the week before Christmas and the select number of places near the Bigwood estate were all booked up.

‘There’s this cottage.’ Henry slid his phone across the table so I could see. ‘Cottage’ was pushing it. A more accurate description would have been ‘shack’.

‘It’s how much? Three hundred pounds a night?’ I peered closer. ‘I don’t know how they have the gall to charge more than three pounds.’

‘It’s better than nothing.’

‘You cannot stay there!’ I put my hand over the phone to prevent him from booking it anyway. ‘Besides, it’s too far south.’

He sat and watched me patiently, happy to finish his coffee in the knowledge that I couldn’t hold onto his phone forever.

‘You’ll have to stay with me at the mansion instead,’ I blurted, before my rational brain could stop me.

Henry frowned. ‘How would that work?’

I thought for a moment. ‘We could pretend you’re my agent.’

‘Do regional weather broadcasters have agents?’

‘Maybe ones who have grand ambitions about becoming TV celebrities do.’

‘And they’d bring them to a two-night job interview, without mentioning it in advance?’

‘Maybe, if they only found out about the interview an hour before they had to leave and they were all flustered.’

‘Or, how about we say that I gave you a lift, there are no rooms available anywhere nearby, and I want to stick around to ensure you can get home in time for Christmas?’

Given that my next suggestion had been to pass Henry off as my ‘emotional support person’, we decided to go with his idea.