Back in the house – lifeless and oppressive – she thinks that maybe there is a connection: Julian wants to sell the house – she’s agreed that she can’t live here – but Simon possibly thinks he can have it. Something’s going on and Julian is the only one who knows what it is. It’s a fact that death in a family causes all sorts of tensions among the members, who inflate their entitlement and their closeness to the deceased in the mortal shuffle.

She heads for the gym. As she walks through the car park, a man steps forward from behind a parked car.

‘Lady Trevelyan-Tubal, is it true that you are seeing the Saracens rugby player, Morné Nagel?’

‘I’m seeing him only in the sense that he is my personal trainer and has been for some months. Are you suggesting something more? If you are I don’t think that would be very wise.’

She walks into the gym, feeling drained, her legs about to give way. But she thinks she’s done haughty contempt pretty well.

Morné is waiting.

‘Have you been blabbing?’ she says.

‘What? About us?’

‘Yes. There was a reporter outside.’

‘A reporter?’

‘Yes, he asked me if I had been having an affair with you.’

‘I never said a word. Honest to God.’

But she knows that he must have said something to somebody, perhaps at the rugby club bar.

‘OK, Morné, that’s it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You and I will never see each other again. And if you have been spreading rumours, God help you.’

‘It wasn’t me, I promise.’

‘Let’s hope not. Now I am going to exercise without your help. I suggest you leave in about an hour and don’t talk to anyone.’

He stands silently as she starts stretching. He wants to speak, but he’s having difficulty. The great tree of his body is heaving as he struggles to say something, but no words come out.

He’s guilty. He turns and leaves.

She goes through her routine doggedly, clinging to the hope that the reporter was just fishing, that somebody at the gym has told a journalist that she and Morné looked a little too cosy. Surely, surely no one knows anything for sure? Unless someone has been bugging the storeroom.

Harry warned her often enough about the press and their eagerness to connect the wealthy and the titled to scandal. He treated them with amused disdain and never answered their questions. Amanda was always ready with an injunction or a suit. She wonders if she can call Amanda or if she should just sit this out. She’s longing to see Morné but she has to be strong. She’s not a strong woman, but it is plain that her years of cosseting are over.

Chapter 21

Chapter 21