‘Whole family’s gone batshit appaz,’ Mouse said, holding her hands up in the air and sloshing champagne onto the carpet.

‘I’m not surprised. Is Violet keeping the baby?’

‘Must be. Otherwise this could have all blown over quietly, couldn’t it? She could easily have got rid of it without anyone ever knowing and things could have carried on between them as they were.’

‘Unless she wanted more from him than a fling.’

Mouse wagged her finger. ‘Which would be typical of her – she always did want everything Jemima had.’

Charlotte inhaled deeply, feeling the tendrils from her old life reaching out to her and inching ever closer.

‘Honestly, what you ever saw in him,’ Mouse tutted.

‘Yes, well, I think we both know the answer to that one.’ She tried to draw a line under the conversation, to move on and away. She got up and slipped off the bathrobe, stepping into the dress. ‘Can you do me up?’

Mouse stood, looking six feet tall in her heels, and zipped the dress, stepping back to admire Charlotte’s reflection in the mirror. ‘Yeah. Nailed it,’ she nodded, congratulating herself. ‘Stephen Rathbone is going to be the most envied man in London tonight.’

‘Hardly.’

‘He will,’ Mouse said simply, reaching down to pick up her clutch. ‘Ready then?’

Charlotte slid her feet into the new strappy black heels left out for her too and straightened up, taking a deep breath as she caught her own gaze in the mirror. She looked transformed: revitalized; beautiful; free. With almost one and a half thousand miles between her and her past, she felt like she could breathe again, see clearly. Being with Nathan at La Ventilla had been like having her face pressed against a pane of glass – it had been hard to breathe, to focus. But in this beautiful hotel suite, with her sister beside her and the man she was going to marry patiently waiting for her downstairs, she could see the bigger picture again. This was how things were always supposed to have been.

She smiled back at her sister. ‘I’m ready.’

It was a fairytale princess moment – not the kind of thing she had ever dreamed about because she had never wanted to be a princess – but special nonetheless, heads turning, everyone smiling and an audible gasp of delight as she entered the room.

‘My God, you are worth waiting for,’ Stephen said proudly, catching sight of her and coming over. She smiled hard but felt a deep and sudden bolt of shame as he approached. It was the first time she had seen him since being with Nathan and the most striking thing, out there anyway, had been how very unguilty she had felt about her betrayal. But standing before him now – could he tell? Sense it?

He came over with his trademark deportment, looking dashing in a navy lounge suit, pale-blue shirt and primrose-yellow Windsor-knotted Hermes tie.

‘Traffic, I’m sorry,’ she said in a low voice, beneath her smile, as he kissed her on each cheek, as he always did when they were in public.