Jonathan laughed. “My dear girl, no one could ever miss you. You may be small but you’re completely unignorable. You always wear something distinctive. That tangerine shawl, for instance. I don’t know why it goes with that apple green but it does. And it draws the eye. People can’t help noticing you.”

“I think you will make some lucky woman a very satisfactory husband,” Petra declared with a chuckle. “You always know exactly what to say.”

Jonathan shook his head and refilled his whisky glass. “Talking of knowing what to say, what was going on between you and Granville this afternoon? I didn’t think you knew each other beyond a passing acquaintance but you both gave the impression that you had some history between you. I was hoping you’d be all sweetness and light but you were as scratchy as a cross cat.”

Petra hesitated. She’d never talked of that summer with anyone, but it was far enough in the past now, surely, for the memory to be no longer so painful.

“I’m sorry. I was taken by surprise,” she said. “It was one summer, ten years ago. I was fourteen and had just put up my hair and started to go out into county society. Ma thought it would be good practice for when I had my come-out.” She looked into her glass for a moment as if conjuring her past self in its pale gold depths. “You weren’t around . . . I think you’d gone to Italy with a school friend’s family. Anyway, Guy Granville was at Ashton Court with some of his London friends, having a summer house party, and we met.” She looked up with a half smile. “To cut a long story short, he decided to cultivate me, escorting me at parties, dancing, playing croquet, making me feel so grown-up with all the attention. I was so young, Joth. Utterly naïve. I couldn’t see then that he was just amusing himself.”

Jonathan looked outraged. “He didn’t try to seduce you, or anything like that, did he?”

Petra shook her head. “Not really . . . he kissed me once or twice.” She turned back to the window, remembering how those kisses had made her feel. The memory was still painful and she put it from her. “He left Somerset without a word. One evening he was dancing with me, walking in the moonlight around the lake . . . all very romantic, and the next morning he’d gone . . . to the Riviera apparently where the company would be more stimulating.” She turned back to him with a rueful smile.

“My pride was hurt, as you might imagine, so I really didn’t want to see him again.”

“But you said he could call upon you here.”

“Yes . . . I don’t know what I was thinking. I had some idea of . . . Oh, never mind. It was foolish.” She set down her empty glass. “We should go.”