It is evening, and we are sitting in the garden sipping on cool, pale yellow drinks that taste like sugar and sunlight and lemons. Someone has wheeled out a gramophone and a crackling jazz record plays softly in the background. It is still warm, but the air has cooled a little. The sky is streaked with dramatic swathes of gold and burnt orange as the sun gathers in its last rays for its final, spectacular display of the day – like a diva bowing offstage in a blaze of glory.

In the time since I emerged from the bushes and gave Hero’s tutor the shock of her life, I have washed and changed into a pale blue dress scattered with a pattern of white flowers and closed at the side with small, cloth-covered buttons. The dress is one of my newer ones (though it is still faded and worn, it is less faded and worn than most of the others) and it makes me feel more grown up.

I have worn it as armour because I have never been to dinner with a group of artists before, and I am not sure what to expect. My hair is still damp from the bath and screwed up in a knot on top of my head, and I noticed in the mirror that a little sunburn has given my cheeks and the bridge of my nose a slightly pink glow.

Ben and the other artists are yet to arrive, but Leo and Filomena are here. As Hero tells her story with relish, Leo fusses over his fiancée, wrapping a fringed and brightly patterned silk shawl around her shoulders and kissing the corner of her mouth – the kind of affectionate gestures that would never be seen in public at Langton Hall.

I watch Filomena now as she smiles and listens to Hero chatter on. The relationship between them is puzzling. They are friendly with each other, warm even, but on Filomena’s side I sense the same slight reserve that she has with my uncle – as though she’s holding Hero a little at a distance.

“It sounds completely thrilling,” Filomena says.

“You’d be less pleased if you were the one who had to calm Signora Giuliani down and convince her that she should stay in this – I believe she used the term den of vipers, but I could be mistranslating.”

Uncle Leo’s tone is light, teasing. At home, this sort of scrape would have been met with tears and recriminations; here everyone seems to have found the slightly abridged version of events quite funny.

“Bah!” Filomena exclaims. “That woman could use some more thrills in her life.”

Leo makes a funny, snorting sound at that.