Unfortunately, there were two problems with this approach. Firstly, girlfriends were a bit thin on the ground for me. Of course, I had friends; some of them were even the kind that you can rely on to be there for you when the chips are down. So, if something like this had happened to me with a local lad, you can bet that I’d have been straight on the phone, reporting back the details like the best of them. That said, the last time I’d had anything to report in that department had been with Noah’s dad, and he’d been gone for three years. Since then it had been tumbleweed city on the romance front so I was a bit rusty on the protocol.

This led me to the second problem. If I told my friends about Marlon, I would need to explain how I’d met him and that would mean explaining about Clio. Being friends with someone who lived in a stately home and whose mum had a title would provoke far more interest than having a random snog with a stranger. My friends would be buzzing with questions but I didn’t feel ready to share Clio with them. Not yet.

And I knew what they’d say if I did tell them. They’d either question why Clio would want to be mates with the likes of me, which would tap into my own doubts in that area, or they’d advise me to get as much out of her as possible and that definitely wasn’t what this was all about. I needed Clio to know that I definitely wasn’t her friend just because she was rich. Although she’d not said it in as many words, I’d got the impression that she was sick of being used by people who were supposed to be her friends.

So instead of ringing anyone else, I calculated how long it would take Clio and Marlon to get back to Hartsford Hall, and consequently when I might be able to speak to Clio on her own. She was the obvious person to have the post-kiss post-mortem with. She knew both parties and she’d set the whole thing up in the first place.

Then I lost my nerve. Maybe I didn’t know her that well yet? Perhaps we hadn’t got to the dissecting ‘not-dates’ with each other stage? I didn’t want to come across as needy.

I was just contemplating this problem when my phone rang.

‘Well?’ asked a breathy Clio without bothering with any pleasantries. ‘How did it go? You like him, don’t you? I knew you did. I could tell when we went bowling, well before that even. Isn’t he lovely? Are you cross with me? You aren’t, are you?’