‘How are you doing?’ she asked, as Marina emerged from the spa.

Marina smiled at her languidly, leaning against the door frame for a moment. ‘I just had a three-hour massage,’ she stage-whispered, as though it was a dirty secret.

‘Good for you.’

‘It was amazing. I don’t think . . . I don’t think I’ve ever felt this limp.’ She seemed almost drunk on the relaxation. ‘The girl told me I had the hardest muscles she’s ever worked on.’ Marina lengthened like a cat proudly.

‘Well I’m not surprised. You work so hard.’

‘How the other half live, eh?’ Marina winked as they began slowly walking together. She glanced at Charlotte, noticing that she was in exercise kit. ‘Did you do a workout?’

‘Yoga. Just a bit of mat work.’ That wasn’t entirely true. After seeing Señora Quincy’s strange behaviour, she had given up on the yoga and a futile quest for zen, and instead exhausted herself with an aggressive kettlebell workout that would punish her more tomorrow than it had even today.

‘I’ll go in the gym next,’ Marina said, nodding as though she was working through a list. ‘Do you know I’ve never actually been in a proper gym before? I could never afford the fees.’

‘Well get someone to show you how to use the machines first then. You don’t want to end up with an injury.’

‘Perhaps I’ll ask Professor Marling. He looks like he works out.’ Marina was looking across at her slyly, her tongue poked teasingly between her smiling lips. ‘He is pretty sexy, no?’

‘Well, I’m afraid he’s also married,’ Charlotte said, giving as natural a smile as she could muster. She had noticed that Marina’s attitude towards her had changed since she had revealed her grandmother’s existence, becoming more confiding and intimate – as though Charlotte could be trusted now that she wasn’t directly ‘after’ her. They appeared to be on the same side.

Marina tutted. ‘Typical. All the best ones are.’

‘Yes,’ Charlotte murmured, not liking to point out that he was fifteen years her junior. ‘He’s got a baby too,’ she added for good measure, wondering if the words would be as diabolical, as painful, said out loud as they were swimming in her head. In fact, they were worse.

They had walked out of the beautiful gallery and leisure wing, back into the rear hall of the main house. They passed the stairs that led to Charlotte and Nathan’s rooms, and then over to the other wing on the opposite side. It was identically laid out – jaw-dropping curved spaces, rustic textures – but here were the guest suites.

‘Check out my room,’ Marina said excitedly, leading her into a space which felt almost holy in its virtues: an emperor-sized bed draped with dove-grey linen faced onto the same smoke-tinted crittall windows of the other wing and Charlotte realized that what added to the coolness there, delivered privacy here. Two crushed-linen curved sofas dominated the expanse of space between all four walls, the worn-smooth floor texturized with an antique Talsint rug. ‘Isn’t it incredible?’ Marina sighed, tipping her head back and spinning girlishly, before collapsing onto the bed.