She giggled, pinched her nose and looked out of the window. They were turning down what looked like a mud track, under trees that interlaced bare branches above their heads. The tyres bumped through rain-filled potholes. A gap in the rhododendron hedge to her left revealed a flash of a fairytale castle, all grey stone and pointy turrets, blind broken windows looking down on an unkempt garden – and then it disappeared, and they bumped on towards the glare of the white sky and the sea.

A square box of a house, in the same grey stone as the castle, but smart and spruce where the castle was decaying, all the slates in place, the window frames freshly painted against the corrosive salty blasts of the Atlantic west wind.

Rivelli stood at the door, holding a steaming mug in his hands. In a thick navy blue fisherman’s sweater, and a pair of comfortable old jeans, his feet bare, he looked very different from the Massimo Rivelli of London, Paris, New York and Milan. She ran a hand up inside his sweater, feeling the fur on his flat, hard stomach and chest.

‘You’re a very bad man,’ she said, then kissed him.

‘Would you like to see the private beach?’

‘In a minute,’ she said, and pushed the door shut behind her. They heard the car crunching and bumping back along the muddy lane.

This was exile, of that Victoria was now sure. How long, or how permanent, she could not tell – and, like Napoleon on Elba, she was determined to use her exile wisely. She would go out. She would keep herself connected, her ear to the ground. She might learn something to her, or Rivelli’s, advantage – something that would persuade him to take her back. Or, if that was not to happen, some means of revenge.

She wasn’t getting the A-list invitations any more. Tonight, for instance, while the rest of the world was going to the Breakthrough Breast Cancer party, Victoria had to settle for the launch of a new range of sportswear by a high street store that had long outlived its fifteen minutes of fashionability. Well, there would be drink and photographers, and that was enough to get the pushy socialites and former soap stars along.

Victoria wore Cissé. She had two pieces, besides the ill-fated dragon dress, which was consigned to mothballs. One was yellow, the other blue, both from the first collection. She wore them whenever she could, and talked up the brand to anyone who would listen. It was good karma. Tonight was a blue night. She saved the yellow for events when she thought she had a good chance of pulling.