‘Indeed we must, m’sieur,’ agreed Annette. ‘I will keep careful watch.’

Simon Barnier nodded his approval and, slipping a coin into her hand, turned away, allowing her to catch up with Hélène and Rupert without them having noticed that she had been waylaid.

They took the path through the fields, and when they reached Belair they joined Rosalie, who, with a book in her hand, was reclining beneath the ancient apple tree that offered welcome shade. She looked up and smiled as they approached.

‘Hélène, my dear,’ she said. ‘Do come into the shade or you’ll burn and look like a peasant!’ She turned to Rupert. ‘Good afternoon, m’sieur. Pray do please take a seat and join me. Didier will be bringing some refreshment directly. Louise will be out in a moment, when Mademoiselle Corbine releases her. It really is too hot to remain indoors in the schoolroom, is it not?’

Rupert agreed that it was and sat down as requested, listening as Hélène told her mother about the lace she had bought. It was hot, even here in the shade, and for a moment Rupert’s thoughts drifted away from the Belair garden as he pictured the spreading oak tree in his family’s garden in England. How often had his mother sat as Rosalie St Clair was sitting now, about to dispense cool drinks and cakes on a summer afternoon, the gentle drone of bees busy among the flowers a soft accompaniment to the heavy stillness of the day?

Would Hélène be comfortable at Pilgrim’s Oak? he wondered. He was certain that she and Fran would get on well, that Fran would ensure her welcome whenever they visited, but it would not be their home. He had no idea where that might be, but he was quite happy to settle anywhere Hélène might choose – Paris, maybe, or London.

His thoughts of the future were interrupted and he was drawn back to his immediate surroundings when Louise appeared from the house, running out into the sunshine, having finished her lessons for the day. He was surprised to see that she was accompanied by her governess, and when Louise flopped down into a chair with a sigh, Angèle Corbine, uninvited, also joined the group.

Mademoiselle Corbine had been the girls’ governess ever since they had returned to Paris seven years earlier, and Rosalie was beginning to think that they had no further need of her services. Louise would be out of the schoolroom and launched into the world next summer, and there was little that Mademoiselle Corbine could teach her now that could not be learned from visiting tutors like the dancing master and the drawing master who already came to the house. In the last few months Rosalie had been aware of Mademoiselle Corbine in a way that she had not before, aware of her growing confidence of her place in the household. A governess was always in rather an equivocal position within an establishment – neither a servant nor one of the family – but recently Rosalie had realised that Angèle Corbine expected to be treated almost as an equal, and that Emile seemed quite comfortable with this state of affairs. It was, Rosalie decided as she listened to her speaking to Hélène, time for Mademoiselle Corbine to move on. She would speak to Emile about it when she could get him alone. He would understand, she thought now, and acquiesce. He had strayed before and she had always turned a blind eye, but his wandering had been discreet, not carried on under her own roof.