‘Oh, goody.’ Clarissa actually clapped her hands and Edward sighed in mock despair.

‘See what I mean, Miss Morgan? She’s never grown up.’

‘I’m perfectly grown up but I refuse to be dull and boring like you.’ Clarissa softened the rebuke with a smile and then said, ‘I’ll ring for Gladys to tell Pearson you’re ready to leave, Ruby.’

‘Don’t bother Pearson,’ Edward said easily. ‘If I know you you’re going to take at least an hour or more to pretty yourself and I’ll just be kicking my heels waiting. Why don’t I pop Miss Morgan home?’

This was getting worse by the minute. Ruby’s eyelids blinked rapidly but for the life of her she could think of no firm reason why Clarissa’s brother shouldn’t take her home. Somehow she managed to say weakly, ‘Oh, I really couldn’t put you to that bother, Mr Forsythe.’

‘The name’s Edward, and it’s no bother at all. In fact, you would be doing me a favour. Shall we?’ He smiled at her and held out his arm for her to put her hand in the crook of his elbow. She could do nothing but comply, especially with Clarissa beaming at them as though she had engineered the whole thing.

Feeling as though she had forgotten how to put one foot in front of the other, she accompanied Edward out of the room and into the vast hall, and once outside, Clarissa hugged her before standing on the steps and watching them as they walked towards Edward’s car. It was another beauty but she had prepared herself for that, and it stood in gleaming midnight-blue splendour on the gravelled drive. As Edward helped her into the passenger seat, Ruby prayed for an aplomb she was far from feeling, and once he had slid in beside her and they had waved goodbye to Clarissa she searched for something to say. The best she could come up with being, ‘This is a lovely car.’

‘Thank you.’ As the car scrunched down the drive he smiled at her. ‘It is something of an indulgence, I’m afraid. I mostly live and work in the city. I only use the car when I visit my parents, and Clarissa of course, and the odd visit to other family and friends in the country. Driving oneself in town is no longer the pleasure it once was.’

‘You work in London?’ As a son of wealthy parents Ruby hadn’t expected Clarissa’s brother to earn his own living. It was clearly unfair of her, but she’d had him down as one of the Hooray Henrys the newspapers were always on about, rich and mostly ineffectual young upper-class men who were fashionable and wayward and intent on a good time.