‘Now, Fran!’ Something in his voice made her put down the daffodil she was holding and, without answering, walk out of the room and go upstairs.

Moments later she returned, meeting him in the hall, carrying a wooden box. She thrust it at him and, apparently entirely unrepentant, said, ‘I’m going up to sit with Mama. I hope you won’t upset her with this nonsense.’

Rupert gave no answer; he simply took the box and, going into his study, closed the door behind him. Frances was left standing in the hall with her heart thumping, her colour high and the knowledge that she had damaged, irreparably, her relationship with her brother.

Seated at the desk in his study; Rupert opened the box and, lifted out the letters it contained. Fran had been telling the truth. They were all sealed and clearly had not been tampered with. One by one he opened them, laying them aside in date order to be read as they had been intended. His own letters were there too, those that had carried his love to Hélène, promising to come back for her as soon as he could. Those he left until last. First he had to read what Hélène had written to him, full of love and interest to start with and then gradually begging him to write. He pictured her face, so beautiful, the way she had looked at him with shining eyes on that last day, and recognised her distress at his imagined desertion.

There was also a letter from Pierre. If only he had received that one, he would have left Pilgrim’s Oak and returned to St Etienne immediately. He could have set everything right, but as it was he’d begun to accept that Hélène had had second thoughts, had changed her mind, and finally he had allowed himself to be persuaded into marriage with Kitty.

He stared at the letters laid out before him, and his anger at what Frances had done fuelled his determination. He would write to Pierre as suggested and go at once to Paris. He would stay as usual at the Hotel Montreux and beg Pierre and Annette to keep Hélène safely hidden away until he got there. He told Pierre to leave a message for him at the hotel and he would contact him immediately he arrived.

Having sealed his letter, he addressed it to Pierre, put on his coat and walked to the village to the post office.

*

Rupert arrived at the Hotel Montreux with his man, Parker, and a quantity of luggage on the same day that his letter reached Pierre at Belair. He was welcomed with even greater enthusiasm than usual by Jacques Rocher when Parker corrected him for addressing Rupert as Monsieur Chalfont and informed him that his master was now Sir Rupert Chalfont, baronet.

‘Will you be making a long stay with us, Sir Rupert?’

‘I am undecided at present,’ replied Rupert cheerfully. ‘I trust there will be no problem if I make an extended stay.’