She was regretting this even before Ralph withdrew from her with a sticky swoosh. He turned, yanked up his trousers and leaned over the sink, his shoulders heaving. For a moment she thought he was being sick. She felt the same, wondering how she would ever be able to face Paula again. But then she realised he was just getting his breath back. In the mirror his reflected face looked a dull purple, like liver.

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he panted as Meredith retrieved her knickers from the floor. ‘Spot of fresh air in order, I think.’

They slipped out of the side door of the house, and Meredith gulped down lungfuls of the summer-evening air. It always felt incredible after the musty scent of the house – furniture polish and decades of visitors’ discarded skin cells. Outside smelled of lilac and roses.

Ralph was giggling like a schoolboy, giddy with the thrill of their naughtiness, but Meredith already felt numb and horrified. She’d never even thought about kissing Ralph!

She liked him enormously, of course – it was impossible not to – but it had come as a complete surprise when he’d told her he’d always wanted her. That had probably been the whisky talking, though. He’d likely have said the same thing to Mumblin’ Mo or Ceri, if they’d been sitting in front of him half an hour ago.

Ralph was singing to himself as they strolled across the primrose-studded lawn. He tried to take Meredith’s hand, but she politely pulled away. ‘Someone might see,’ she said. ‘One of the gardeners, or someone.’

Ralph laughed drunkenly. ‘Little Miss Worried!’

She tried to turn in the direction of the rose gardens, so she could head back to her cottage and have a shower, but Ralph had other ideas. He suddenly took her hand again, and pulled her through a copse of lilac bushes. ‘Have you ever been in the ice house?’

‘No, I haven’t.’

He was already dragging her down the steps to the abandoned Victorian cellar standing alone and half buried in the grounds, which used to cater for the house’s refrigeration needs.

‘Why isn’t it locked?’ Meredith was sure it was usually padlocked; visitors weren’t allowed inside. But there was no padlock tonight; the wooden arch-shaped door cut into the small hillock was ajar. She was curious. She had always wondered what it was like in there. From the outside it resembled a hobbit house.

‘It ought to be. The surveyor was in earlier. We’re planning some renovations, making sure it’s sound, then perhaps we’ll open it up to the public – or at least reconstruct it with some plastic blocks of ice, and the punters can peer in. He’ll get the report back to me next week. Don’t want to do it if it costs a bomb, though.’