‘I don’t know!’ Rosalind protested. ‘Um, there was the phantom pregnancy, but that was almost forty years ago. Nobody would care about that, now.’

‘We care,’ Posy said, shortly. ‘Tell us.’

Rubbing a hand over her heart, Rosalind stared past them both, before she started talking. ‘Like I said, this was forty years ago. Hugh and I were engaged to be married. I was filming the second Lady Detective film. He … we were both young. I know his family thought he was too young to marry, even though he was a good five years older than me. Perhaps age was an excuse. The only one at Aldermere who liked me was Letty, and that might just have been because she enjoyed being contrary. Anyway, it didn’t much matter in the end.’

‘Because he married Isobel,’ Posy prodded, after a long moment of silence. Caro got the impression this wasn’t a memory Rosalind wanted to relive, even for them.

‘Because he got Isobel pregnant, while he was engaged to me. At least, he thought he did.’ Caro had never seen Rosalind with anything but perfect posture. Now, it looked as if she were collapsing into the bench. ‘Turned out he’d been cheating on me for months. Isobel was my co-star in the movies – she played Bess, Dahlia’s maid, or assistant really. She was two years younger than me, but she already had Serena by then, and a single mother actress was probably even less palatable to the Davenports than I’d been. But she told Hugh she was pregnant, and that was that.’

‘She lied?’ Posy asked.

‘I never knew for sure.’ Rosalind glanced up, her hands clasped in her lap, her smile weak. ‘On my more charitable days I think she was genuinely mistaken. Some days I think she must have lost the baby, and try to find sympathy for her. Others … well. Hugh would never have married her instead of me if she hadn’t been pregnant. Everyone knew that.’

Caro dropped to the bench beside her, her jaw tight as she processed the story. ‘How can you still be friends with her? And how can you still love him? When my husband left me—’

‘You set fire to his tie,’ Rosalind said with a watery chuckle. ‘God, I remember reading that and wishing I’d had your guts.’

‘Or my lack of control over my temper.’

‘Did you regret it afterwards?’ Rosalind asked.

Caro considered. ‘Not really.’

Rosalind laughed, properly that time. ‘Well then.’

Posy crouched in front of the bench. ‘Caro’s right. How could you stay friends with them? After what they’d done?’

The laugh fell away from Rosalind’s lips. ‘Hugh came to me, on set, and I could tell that something terrible had happened. He wasn’t white, he was almost grey, but he was sweating, and his jacket was wrinkled, like he’d been scrunching it up in his hands.’