‘She warned me to keep away from you. It made me feel cheap and tawdry. And now I’m ashamed of myself for trusting you in the first place.’

‘Evie, I promise you. I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about. Is that why you’ve been avoiding us? Is that why you haven’t been near the pool or the beach? When did she say all this? What exactly did she say?’ He seemed to be avoiding using his wife’s name.

‘It was on Doug’s birthday. At the E&O. After you’d left. Douglas went off to speak to someone at another table and she pounced on me. Told me you’d told her about our swimming together at the beach and made it crystal clear that I was to keep away from you. I felt utterly ashamed. Mortified.’ She hesitated. ‘Is that what you two do? Come home and share your extra-marital shenanigans with each other? Is that what your marriage feeds off?’

Arthur went white. ‘How could you think that of me, Evie?’

‘What else am I supposed to think?’

Arthur shook his head quickly and repeatedly, then he touched her arm again. ‘I promise you, on my honour, Evie. I knew nothing of this. Someone else must have seen us together at the beach. She’s never breathed a word of this to me. And I feel sick that you could imagine I would have gone home and told her about you and me.’

‘There is no you and me.’ Evie brushed him aside and went out into the garden. She wasn’t going to offer Veronica Leighton any further reason to suspect her and try to humiliate her.

The Leightons didn’t linger long. Veronica was clearly annoyed at the way Douglas and Evie were getting along and frustrated at her failure to prise out any information about whether or not Evie was pregnant. Arthur was preoccupied, silent and as tense as a taut spring. Evie heaved a sigh of relief when they left, leaving only the scent of Veronica’s Shalimar in their wake.

Later that night, as Evie lay beside Douglas in bed, she was starting to drift off to sleep when she heard his voice, barely above a whisper.

‘Thank you, Evie. That was the best Christmas I’ve spent since I was a child before my mother died.’

Evie felt a rush of pleasure.

The dark, silent room and the fact that they couldn’t see each other appeared to have made Douglas uncharacteristically garrulous. ‘After my mother was gone, my father had no time for me. I was packed off to prep school then Eton.’

‘Was it awful? Being sent away from home so young?’

‘Not awful. It would have happened anyway. But I missed my mother dreadfully. She was ill for a long time and they wouldn’t let me see her.’

‘What was the matter with her?’

‘I’m not sure. No one told me what was wrong. I suspect it was a tumour of some kind. They tried to keep her illness from me and when I had to know, my father said she was too ill to be troubled and wouldn’t let me go near her room.’