She thought of her longing for the senior vice presidency and a raise to two hundred, maybe two fifty. . . .

How Gregoire Lazard must have laughed. Chump change, for a chump. And then he hadn’t even authorized it. Couldn’t be bothered to put down one stroke of the pen she had offered him.

“Don’t worry, Judy,” Sophie said earnestly to her. “We are going to start afresh—change things round here. I know you—I trust you. I already reviewed your personnel records.”

Judy experienced a fresh thrill of dislike. The thought of Sophie Massot combing through her files, checking up to see if she’d been a good girl. It was insupportable. She consoled herself with the fact that personnel would never have dared to include the most important detail: the love of Pierre Massot.

And it had been love, she told herself defiantly; even if she had shared him, shared the sex of him, it had been love, a certain species of love. Passion. Something Mme Massot, she could instantly tell, knew nothing at all about.

Gregoire, the directors, Sophie—Judy hated them all. She had been grubbing away for so many years, for nothing, while they lazed around with everything. It was indeed time for a change. It was time for Judy Dean to get something for herself, for once, a real slice of the action. She wasn’t in this for Sophie, or Gregoire, or any of them, not now. Judy was in it for herself.

She smiled brightly. “I’m glad,” she said. “I think there are ways I can help.”

“Two pound fifty,” the cabbie said.

“Thank you.” Sophie felt guilty that it had been such a short trip. “Keep the change,” she said, handing him a five pound note.

The man smiled at her as he drove off; she smiled after him. It was a gloriously sunny day in Oxford, and Sophie’s heart was soaring.Tom’s mobile was permanently set to his mailbox; her letters had received no reply. Well, she was not about to accept that as an answer. Now that she had ditched Gregoire, now that she was determined to rescue House Massot, things would be much better; all that remained was to be reconciled with Tom.

Sophie could not wait for him to make contact. Action, once you took it, was infectious, she decided; the morning after the confrontation with Gregoire, she had risen, totally determined, and booked herself a first-class return on the Eurostar. And a mere five-odd hours later, here she was, early afternoon in St. Aldate’s Street, outside the soaring beauty of Tom Tower, the gateway to Christ Church. Her only child’s present home.