‘You can’t do it to Veronica? What about what she’s done to you?’

Arthur stared at her, visibly shocked. ‘You know? About her affairs? How?’

‘I’ve become friends with Mary Helston.’

He squeezed his eyes shut and his lips formed a hard line. ‘Look, Evie, I know how it looks. You probably think like wife, like husband. But I promise you, until today, I’ve never laid a hand on another woman. I was out of bounds. It won’t happen again.’

A rush of bitterness hit her. She’d never had to grapple so closely with so many emotions and felt ill-equipped to do so.

‘I feel a fool. A stupid fool. You won’t tell Veronica, or Douglas?’

‘Why would I do that?’ He looked horrified.

‘I have no idea.’ She felt tears rising. ‘I have absolutely no idea about anything anymore.’

‘It’s all my fault. I should never have let it happen. I could tell you were unhappy. It made me want you all the more. To show you how I feel, but I’ve made everything worse for you.’ He took her hand in his. ‘Evie, I am in love with you, but I can’t ever leave Veronica. I had no right to behave in the caddish way I’ve done today. Please forgive me.’

‘I don’t understand. If you don’t love her why did you marry her in the first place? Why are you so bound to Veronica?’

‘Because she’s an extremely vulnerable woman. And because I owe her my career.’

Misery wrapped around Evie like a thick fog. Any capacity for joy had been sucked out of her. ‘What do you mean? I don’t understand.’

Arthur sighed, reaching behind him for his trousers. He pulled out a cigarette from a crumpled packet and lit it. ‘Veronica can’t help herself where men are concerned. Dr Freud would have a field day with her.’

Evie nodded, feeling hollowed out. How had this magical time turned so quickly into abject misery?

‘She’s more vulnerable than she appears. Dark moods descend on her without warning, like a blanket, blotting everything else out. She suffers from a kind of existential despair.’

Evie felt scornful. Surely, he didn’t expect her to believe that?

Arthur continued to avoid her gaze, his voice quiet. ‘When she gets one of these black spells, she shuts herself away and will see no one.’ He lifted his eyes to meet hers at last. ‘That’s what was wrong on the ship. She wasn’t seasick at all. I’m sorry.’ He gathered up a handful of sand and let it trickle through his fingers. ‘Veronica’s a complex woman. Far more than I realised when we first met. Yes, she’s shallow, rude, snobbish, all those things that I know you see in her. I cringe myself at her behaviour. But the Veronica I first knew was very different.’

‘How?’ Evie stared at him, feeling angry.

‘For a start, even though she acts as if she were to the manner born, she comes from a humble background.’