When Lorna’s marriage to John Cartwright, the successful South African eye surgeon whom she’d married on the rebound, finally failed, she had returned to Scotland intent on reclaiming Giles Grant for herself, but her carefully planned campaign had backfired miserably. Six years later, released from restraint by the death of her father, she decided to settle an old score. She did not intend, this time, to make an attempt to win Giles back, but thought that by inserting Rory – so ridiculously like Giles – into the Grants’ life for a short time she could cause an interesting upheaval in the marriage she still resented so much, without having to be present herself. She had not, however, bargained for the effect her son’s return might have on her own marriage. In her mind’s eye she had envisaged a reunion with Rory that would charm her husband, but this touching tableau had not turned out as planned and her always precarious relationship with her son had rapidly gone from bad to worse. Brooke Congleton had made it abundantly plain that he did not at all care to see his elegant ice-goddess turn into a rumpled harridan unable to cope with the passions of one small boy. It had not taken Rory long to discover that throwing a tantrum was the only sure way to get his alarming parent’s full attention and at the same time, once he’d got carried away in a really good scream, temporarily override his own long-standing fear of her. There had been a highly embarrassing scene in the reception area of the Ritz, in view of several fellow Americans and a good many other shocked onlookers, when Lorna had completely lost her temper with Rory. It was as though the Mona Lisa had suddenly jumped out of her frame and thrown a very public wobbly in the hushed atmosphere of the Louvre. Brooke had been extremely angry afterwards in a cold way that Lorna found deeply menacing and, as the third wife of a rich and ambitious man who provided her with the sort of lifestyle she had always coveted, she was suddenly very afraid. She remembered with horror her similar loss of control with Edward at Glendrochatt five years before – and its near disastrous consequences.

Isobel got to her feet when Lorna came in but for a moment neither sister knew how to greet the other. Then Lorna swooped towards Isobel and presented her, at a safe distance of several inches, with an immaculately made-up cheek.

‘Iz! What an age it’s been! How are you?’

‘I’m fine,’ said Isobel. ‘You look quite dazzling, Lorna. I don’t know how you do it.’

‘Thank you . . . with a lot of hard work and self-discipline, I’m afraid,’ said Lorna, taking in the untrimmed hair and the grey strands at Isobel’s temples.