Jess is tying her shoelace. She looks up and beams at me and I feel something in my stomach give a sort of flip. I can’t help it – I grin back. Realising James is standing just to one side of her, I reach out a hand and shake his hand in greeting.

‘Hi,’ I say.

‘This is gorgeous,’ says James. ‘I’ve never been here before.’

‘Pretty nice, isn’t it? There’s a gallery inside,’ I say, realising as I do that James is the sort of person who’ll probably want to go in. I’ve nothing against art per se, but the prospect of wandering around a stately home looking at paintings doesn’t exactly fill me with joy.

‘And a collection of shoe buckles,’ says Jess. ‘I’ve googled. Anyway, shall we walk?’

‘Let’s go,’ James says, heartily. I realise this is probably as awkward for him as it is for me.

We set off through the gardens of the house. Jess stops to take a photograph of the Henry Moore sculpture, (because in Jess’s world if you haven’t Instagrammed it, did it really happen?) and while she’s standing with her phone, trying to get the perfect angle, James and I are left standing side by side, making conversation.

‘So I gather you two have been walking miles all over London?’ James says, looking at me intently. He’s very . . . solid. Golden. Like – oh my God, he’s like a Golden Retriever. Sort of healthy and sturdy and reliable. I have no idea why that just popped into my head, and now it won’t go away. The irony is that Jess would normally find that kind of comment funny, but under the circumstances . . .

‘Well,’ I begin, sounding very serious because I’m trying not to think about James as a Golden Retriever in a suit and tie, ‘it started because Jess didn’t know her way around.’

‘And Alex knows it really well because he spent loads of time here when his dad used to come up here for work.’ Jess appears beside us and finishes my sentence, looking at me sideways and smiling. She hooks a strand of hair behind her ear. She’s wearing a jumper and a dress that is patterned all over with tiny little rosebuds, and the necklace she told me her Nanna Beth gave her as a good luck charm before she moved up here. I blink hard and look away, wondering if I’ve been staring.

‘And Alex just seems to know loads of history about the places we’ve been,’ she continues, as if I haven’t just been gazing at her for what felt like ages. Maybe it was only a couple of seconds. Maybe – no, definitely – I need to get a grip.

‘That’s only because I’m a complete geek, with a weird memory for random stuff,’ I add.