‘Yes,’ I said, ‘yes I suppose it is now you’ve pointed it out. I better go,’ I added, feeling a little numb, ‘before he gets a parking ticket.’

‘All right,’ she said, happily waving me off. ‘I’ll see you Monday morning. Have a lovely time!’

I rushed back to the side road where Jonathan had parked feeling a little dazed and wondering if the next time I saw the market square I was going to be engaged.

‘You’re very quiet,’ Jonathan commented as we joined the steady flow of main road traffic heading towards Peterborough. ‘Did Dolly give you a hard time?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘of course she didn’t. She was sorry to have missed you though. You will pop in and say hello when you drop me off, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ he said, smoothly changing up a gear. ‘Besides, if you change your mind about coming back with me, I’ll have to come in to help you with your things, won’t I?’

‘I’m not going to change my mind,’ I snapped.

‘I’m only joking,’ he laughed, cutting me off before I launched. ‘It was a joke.’

I took a sideways look at him. The tense set of his jaw suggested that it wasn’t. I turned to look out of the window at the flat and far-reaching landscape. I really didn’t want to argue. If only he would just lay off the silly comments long enough for me to fall back into step with him then everything would be fine.

We’d got on like a house on fire all the time we were messaging and Skyping so I couldn’t understand why things between us felt so tense now we were face to face. Perhaps Dolly’s assumption was right, maybe he was gearing up to propose and his nerves were getting the better of him. Not that Jonathan was usually prone to nerves but a proposal of marriage was quite a big thing.

‘It’s a godforsaken place, isn’t it?’ he said, following my gaze.

‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen the sunsets.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘whatever. Look, we’ll be there in a bit. Do you want to fix your hair or something? While you were talking to Dolly, I managed to book us into somewhere really rather special and you might not want to turn up looking like that.’

I reached into the footwell for my bag and began going through the motions. It was hard work trying to keep my mouth shut but I knew it would be for the best in the long run. Apparently, my brief time under Dolly’s roof and my banter with Beamish had brought out a feisty spark in my personality but I was going to have to tone it down a little if I wanted my relationship with Jonathan to steer a steady course on settled seas again.