‘And that business with my Chanel bag…’ She held up her hands and smiled. ‘What can I say? It started out as a bit of mischief, to make me look like a genuine kook, but as things do, it got out of hand. Once the rumour spread that I kept a doll in there I believed was my dead child…’ She tossed him a wry look. ‘Yes, I’ve heard the story. It became so entrenched that I couldn’t stop carrying the damn thing around. I’d dug my own grave, so to speak.’

He stood on wobbly legs and made an awkward circuit of the room, briefly touching a brass bowl, a glass vase full of lilies, and fingering the curtain fabric, before collapsing back on the sofa. He stared at her helplessly. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Would you like to hear my story?’ She leaned back into the sofa cushions. ‘It’s a familiar tale, the world over. When it comes to love, we’re all fools. None more foolish than a sheltered young woman eager to cast off the bonds of family, and hopelessly naïve about the ways of the world.’

He pressed his hands to his eyes. What was she going on about? Some fairy story she wished to tell him? He was in no mood to hear about a princess who lived happily ever after.

‘I’m not sure whether anyone uses the word “heiress” anymore,’ she said, fiddling with the gold locket around her neck. ‘But that’s what I was. You won’t have heard of it, I don’t imagine, but in the early years of the twentieth century, my grandfather founded a department store in the American Midwest. At the time, nobody thought much would come of it, but he was clever at business and within a few short years his store became hugely successful.

‘My father later took it over, but when he died, rather prematurely at the age of fifty-two, the business was sold and the money left to me. A shrewd man, he included in his will a sternly worded letter encouraging me to use the money for the public good, and a warning to steer clear of fortune hunters. But I was a stupid girl of nineteen, cooling my heels at a finishing school in Switzerland, and desperate to break free from parental bonds.’

Vidor opened his eyes and squinted at Hélène. An American girl. An heiress. Such were her acting skills, he would never have guessed. She poured out more of the sweetly aromatic tea that brought back memories of a walking holiday in France. The bright lemon scent created a funnel in time he could pass through, and for a moment he was confused. Not sure anymore where – or who – he was.