Geraldine had at least given Naomi twenty-four hours’ notice this time before arriving. She hadn’t sounded her customary forthright self on the telephone, and afterwards Naomi had pondered the reason for her friend’s visit. Not that there had to be a reason, other than two old friends spending time together, but the last time Geraldine had pitched up, she had most certainly had a reason.

‘I expect she’s coming for a progress report,’ Ellis had said. ‘Would you like me to make myself scarce so she can be thoroughly indiscreet with you?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Naomi told him. ‘With Geraldine there’ll be a total absence of discretion whether you’re here or not. Having missed her chance last time she was here, she’ll want to check you out for herself this time.’

‘Will she prod and poke me like a show dog being judged at Crufts?’

‘I wouldn’t put it past her.’

‘I can’t wait,’ he’d said with a grin. ‘But I’ll warn you now, if she makes any attempt to lift up my tail to inspect my nether regions I shall growl and bite her very hard.’

Naomi smiled now at the thought of Ellis biting Geraldine and struck a match before putting it to the kindling and screwed up balls of newspaper in the grate. She watched the flames take hold, thinking that as much as they’d joked about Geraldine’s visit, they would both initially be slightly on edge.

Two people falling in love and wanting to be together should be the easiest thing in the world, but it wasn’t. There was, it seemed, an endless obstacle course for them to negotiate, of having to prove themselves to friends and family. There had been one or two old friends of Ellis’s at the funeral for his mother who Naomi had felt had been sizing her up, perhaps comparing her to Diana, and last week she and Ellis had gone to London to have lunch with some more of his friends. Bit by bit, they were chipping away at the building blocks of their old lives in order to create a new life together. Naomi just hoped that Geraldine wasn’t on her way here to demolish what they had so far built.

One person with whom they hadn’t experienced any difficulties with their relationship was Lucas. Ellis had frequently described him as having an easy-going nature and it was true, he did. In that respect he was very like Ellis. And Willow.

It had been obvious to Naomi and Ellis that there was an undeniable connection between Willow and Lucas. Undoubtedly Rick had noticed it too. At breakfast that morning, the day after Rose’s funeral, Naomi had watched him closely. While the conversation had gone on around the table, there had been something of the coiled spring about him, as though he were trying very hard to contain his emotions. He hadn’t joined in with the conversation in the way he normally did, but instead, when he’d finished eating, he’d put a hand to Willow’s hair and played with a lock of it between his fingers. What had previously come across as a charming display of affection, if a little too overt for Naomi’s taste, had felt at that moment a very different gesture, as if Rick was telling Lucas to back off, that Willow was his.