Connie let out a breath she seemed to have been holding all her life and sagged into a chair, covering her face with her hands. A secret is not a secret if you tell someone … Her mother’s words rang in her ears. But she couldn’t lie to Lynne. Although they weren’t close, her sister had always been able to intuit when Connie wasn’t telling the truth – and always called her on it.

‘Someone on one of the tours. He kissed me. Then he turned up by accident in the next place, and we kissed again.’ She spoke as nonchalantly as she could. But Lynne wasn’t fooled.

‘Christ, Connie. That’s awful.’

Connie knew what she’d done was awful, but Jared didn’t seem to fit into real life. He was there, then he wasn’t. The badness was a step removed from tangible guilt. Part of her almost expected her sister to sympathize, after witnessing Devan’s drunken, aggressive behaviour. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It won’t happen again. I won’t see him again, ever.’ She wouldn’t, she was certain of that.

Lynne was still frowning. ‘What possessed you?’

Connie couldn’t answer. She didn’t know. But ‘possessed’ she had been. ‘Devan doesn’t know, obviously.’

‘Really? I’d never have guessed.’ Lynne grinned mischievously: the first proper smile Connie had seen from her sister all evening.

Connie smiled back. ‘Thanks for rescuing me,’ she said, and this time Lynne gave herself up to Connie’s grateful hug.

10

‘She’s so uptight, your sister.’

Lynne had left early, refusing breakfast, just filling her Thermos-mug with hot black coffee for the journey to Southampton. Connie was sad to see her go. There had been a bond between them this time that had not been apparent in a while. She’d sat with a cup of coffee in the morning sunshine after waving Lynne off, but found she was nagged by tormenting thoughts of Jared in the wake of her confession to her sister. She needed action and quickly drained her cup. Opening the creaking door of the potting shed, breathing in the warm, dusty, earth smell she loved, she’d pulled on her gardening gloves and grabbed her secateurs.

It was nearly eleven when Devan wandered out onto the terrace, clutching a mug of tea, hair dishevelled, still in his pyjama bottoms and a tatty grey T-shirt. He’d clearly just climbed out of bed.

‘Because she noticed you were legless?’ Connie didn’t turn, just kept snipping at the bamboo stalks that had made a run for it from the clump at the bottom of the garden, popping up in the back of the rose bed.

‘I wasn’t “legless”. If I had a bit too much it was because Lynne was there, disapproving of me every time I breathed.’