Charlotte looked across at him, wondering if there was more, but he was staring straight ahead, his jaw set; he certainly didn’t look to be offering anything further. She pulled her gaze off him again, looking out of the window as they sped along, seeing how the grass was beginning to lose its manicured edges as they pulled to the further reaches of the estate, the green becoming less vibrant as grass was replaced with hay.

Just a few more minutes and they’d be back at the plane; she’d be heading back to London, away from here and him . . .

She tried to ignore the wafts of his aftershave – Aramis, still – that kept drifting over in the wind; she determined not to notice how he still drove with his hands splayed against the wheel, the upper tips of his fingers free to tap along to the music—

He turned back to her, the excitement clear and bright on his face. Paul McCartney was singing within touching distance of their table and she knew it was taking all his self-control not to reach out and check he was real, that this was actually happening. He hadn’t believed her at first when she’d said he’d be performing at her mother’s birthday celebrations.

‘Are you a fan?’ Cecilia Fairfax asked him, sitting on his right.

‘Ever since I first heard “Strawberry Fields”,’ he replied. ‘My mother saw the Beatles at the Cavern in ’61.’

‘Oh? Are your people from Liverpool?’

He frowned. ‘No. Sheffield.’

‘Ah, I’ve never been. Always meant to get up there but you know how it is.’

‘Any objection if I smoke?’ he asked rhetorically, pulling a packet from his shirt pocket anyway.

The question brought her back from the reverie with a start. ‘Since when do you smoke?’

‘Since forever.’

Define ‘forever’, she wanted to say. The moment after she’d broken them?

She leaned against the cubicle, light-headed. She had drunk too much again.

Heels clipped in on the Portland stone floor, sequinned evening bags splaying on the marble counter. The sound of rushing water.

‘. . . He’s an interesting fellow, though. There’s something about him, even if he does have that accent.’

‘Oh, don’t buy into it.’ Her mother’s voice: bored, manicured. ‘This is just her latest rebellion. She’s trying to get a reaction from me, falling in love with a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. It’ll never last.’ Her heart began to race.

‘I don’t know, Petra, they certainly seem smitten.’

‘Precisely. They’ll burn brightly and then the novelty will wear off and she’ll see what’s blindingly obvious to the rest of us – that he doesn’t fit. I mean, he’s sweet enough, but he’s clearly out of his depth. Did you see him at dinner? He had no idea about the fish knife; he was using it upside down, poor chap.’

Cecilia Fairfax tittered. ‘Oh, put him out of his misery now.’

They were quiet for a few moments, no doubt rearranging their hair, refreshing their make-up.