Although Dermot was always in the background of her thoughts, leaping to the front whenever there was a nano-second of space between one useful thought and the next, Laura was gradually coming to terms with what had gone on between them.

She realised it had been quite unreasonable of her to expect – even to hope – that Dermot was unattached. Her head had filled in the blanks, even if her heart didn’t want to accept it. He was highly sexed and had the free attitude to love and life that great artists often did. If his girlfriend was away there would be a vacuum and he would fill it. Bridget (in spite of her hard-won rationality she could hardly even think her name) would have known this when she went away, pragmatically accepting that being with Dermot meant putting up with his occasional infidelity. Well, good for her, thought Laura, doubting she would have been able to be so adult about it.

Having attempted to sort it all out in her mind she felt marginally better. She just had to accept Dermot as he was. He’d been a lovely dream. Some irritation remained: even if he didn’t want to contact her, he could at least reply to Fenella’s emails and say whether or not he was coming. But if he didn’t she’d cope. She’d have to.

Laura presented herself to Fenella as soon as she was dressed. It was another glorious day with the promise of more of the same over the weekend. At least the weather was being kind to them.

‘So what do you want me to do for tonight?’

Fenella kissed her cheek, partly in greeting and partly in thanks for her prompt appearance to report for duty.

‘A seating plan. Sarah’s upstairs and she’ll do it, but she needs you to tell her who is who. You’ll know if people are deadly rivals, at daggers drawn. Damien Stubbs has confirmed. And Kathryn Elisabeth can’t come to the dinner but she’s fine for her event and for the panel.’

‘Oh, that’s OK then. But I don’t know any of the authors personally, you know.’ Laura felt obliged to make this clear, although this wasn’t absolutely true.

‘Which is how it should be,’ said Fenella firmly. ‘Any problems, you can ask Eleanora. She’ll know exactly who doesn’t speak to who.’

‘I think maybe that should be “whom”,’ suggested Laura softly.

‘Oh shut up,’ said Fenella good-naturedly. ‘Sarah’s in the dining room. I’ll bring some coffee up.’

Sarah had all the names of the guests on place cards and was putting them down and then picking them up again.

‘Hi, Laura, how are you? Come and tell me if I’ve made any ghastly mistakes.’

‘That’s a lot of people,’ said Laura. ‘But in spite of what Fenella might have said, I don’t really know who’s who.’