Jess’s eyes fell to stare blindly at her hands. D’Arcy had the overwhelming sense that Jess was ashamed—but of what? And why, if Jess had loved Dan so much, would she have been in a situation where she’d become pregnant by another man? It would be heartless to ask such a question, so D’Arcy did not.

“I suppose I chose heartbreak in an attempt not to hurt anybody else. Which seems to be a common thread in this narrative.” Jess finally looked at D’Arcy, quite pointedly.

“But the child might have been Dan’s,” D’Arcy protested, as if she could undo the heartbreak, take everyone back in time, forge another path, one that wouldn’t result in her sitting here, heart so heavy in her chest she wondered why her ribs weren’t breaking.

“Might,” Jess repeated, her mouth quirking up ruefully. “Such a simple but dangerous word. Like hope. The things we do for might and for hope.”

“Where is your son or daughter now?” Josh asked quietly, stealing the words from D’Arcy’s mouth.

“She died in childbirth. Almost thirty years ago.”

“Oh no.” D’Arcy’s words were stricken and the look on Josh’s face expressed everything that she felt. “The baby…?” she whispered.

“Survived. The rest is for your mother to tell you,” Jess said, standing up. “She’ll be waiting for you when you return to Australia. Forgiving someone is the bravest thing you can ever do.” And then she made her way slowly back to the house before D’Arcy could ask the last question, the question Jess must want her to ask of Victorine: But what has this to do with me?

The moment Jess had gone, Josh stood too, as if eager to get away.

“You don’t need to leave. I promise you’re safe from me,” D’Arcy said, defaulting to a wisecrack to stop herself saying the thing she most wanted to: Please stay. Help me work out what all of this means.

The effect of her words on Josh was instantaneous. “Am I?” Anger flashed in the blue-black of his eyes. “That night on the sofa you would have had sex with me as a distraction. A short time off from thinking about whatever the hell is going on. I don’t want to be somebody’s distraction.”

What could she say to that? He was as stubborn as she was, and he was also right to hold fast to what he wanted, to not lose his scruples over a girl on a sofa who wanted something from him that he wasn’t prepared to give in exchange for nothing. It was almost the inverse of how she’d seen the situation the night he’d massaged her shoulders on the sofa. While she thought about this, misinterpreting her silence, he walked away.

D’Arcy sat in the folly for a long time, the thick, pink scent of the Judas trees muddling her mind so she couldn’t think at all. Eventually, she got up and returned to the chateau, almost jumping out of her dress when a shadow moved on the terrace.