‘OK, everyone, change of pace for today!’ announced Dermot when the students had stopped talking and were paying attention. ‘I’ve hired a small coach and we’re going off to a stately home for the day. This is to give us all a bit of a break – we’ve been working really hard since we’re been here.’ Laura’s sudden desire to yawn gave testament to this. ‘So we’re going to get right away. However, you’re not just going to skulk around, you’re going to work.’ He paused for breath. ‘In many ways writing is like painting. The artist looks at life and translates it into something else for the viewer. The writer does it with words, not paint. I want you to make written sketches of what you see. Some will be of physical things: a wood, a statue, a vista. Some will be of people and how they relate to their surroundings. And for the more imaginative among you’ – he glanced at the writers of commercial fiction – ‘I’d like you to write a scene set in the period of the house we’re going to see. It could even be about the real people who lived in the house. I want four pieces of the work by bar-time tonight! Oh, and the cafeteria has made up packed lunches for you all, if you’ll just go along and collect them.’

Laura was thrilled. She felt she needed a day off from festival work and surely, during a day spent in a stately home, she’d have a chance for some private – intimate – time with Dermot. She felt sure she’d seen the same anticipation in the look he’d given her when he’d told them all.

‘How did you get the cafeteria to make up packed lunches at such short notice?’ Laura asked Dermot as they filed on to the bus.

He smiled down at her from the top step. ‘It wasn’t short notice. I booked them on the first morning. I knew we’d need a day away, to freshen us all up. It gives us a bit of time off too.’

Laura gave a little sigh of happiness and didn’t mind at all that Helen had saved a place for her, and she couldn’t sit by Dermot. There was bound to be an opportunity to be alone later; he obviously wanted it too.

Laura longed to doze on the bus trip, which was a little longer than she’d anticipated, but Helen wanted to talk about her work. Still, Laura felt she wouldn’t need to stay up late in the bar, or try to, because she’d get Dermot on his own very soon. The thought made her very happy – and possibly more enthusiastic about Helen’s book than perhaps it warranted.

The garden was attached to a great house that was not to be visited. Dermot had insisted.