Dulcie beamed at them both. Pru, sitting cross-legged on the grass, looked dazed. Liza, frowning, swirled the ice cubes around in her tall glass.

‘I don’t know,’ Liza said finally. ‘Is it terrific? How does Liam feel about it?’

Feeling quite pregnant already, and weirdly protective of her nonexistent child, Dulcie decided Liza was jealous.

‘I’m telling him tonight. I bet he’ll be chuffed.’

Pru was shielding her eyes from the sun, peering at Dulcie’s stomach.

‘How many weeks are you?’

‘Six.’ Dulcie was firm. She had consulted her diary and committed the necessary dates to memory. She had learned her lesson from the Bibi fiasco, the lesson being: If you’re going to lie, be thorough, be convincing and above all be consistent.

All the same, she was glad she had her RayBans on. It wasn’t so easy fibbing to your friends.

‘Morning sickness?’ said Liza, giving her a slightly odd look.

‘God, morning sickness!’ Dulcie groaned and clutched her stomach. You didn’t watch as many soaps as she had in her time without becoming something of an expert on the various signs and symptoms of pregnancy. ‘I’ve been throwing up like nobody’s business—’

‘Cravings?’

‘Cravings!’ Dulcie rolled her eyes. ‘Tell me about them! Custard creams, pickled beetroot dunked in chocolate spread, peanut butter and honey sandwiches—’

‘You’ve always eaten those.’

‘I know, but then I just fancied them,’ explained Dulcie. ‘Now I crave them, totally. Morning, noon and night. And cornflakes mashed up with double cream and marmalade.’

‘I read an article in the paper recently,’ Liza went on. ‘Some professor was saying women who crave green olives have boys, and if they go for lemons it’s a girl.’

Dulcie had already decided Liam would prefer a son. To start with, anyway. She patted her stomach and said happily, ‘I’m eating millions of olives. I know it’s going to be a boy.’

Then because Liza and Pru were both still exchanging furtive glances, she wailed, ‘Isn’t anyone going to congratulate me? Come on, I’m having a baby here! Is this exciting or what?’

Pru looked away, pretending to pick a bit of grass off her shirt. Finally Liza spoke.

‘It might be exciting,’ she said drily, ‘if it were true.’

‘But it is true!’

Liza reached across and whipped off Dulcie’s dark glasses. ‘You might be able to do it to everyone else, but you can’t lie to us.’

Oh bugger, so much for subterfuge.

‘Damn.’ Resignedly, Dulcie grabbed her glasses back. ‘How could you tell?’

‘You might be flippant,’ said Liza, smiling at the expression on Dulcie’s face, ‘but even you aren’t that flippant.’

‘Plus,’ Pru added, looking apologetic, ‘if you really were pregnant, you wouldn’t be able to keep it to yourself for an hour, let alone a week.’

‘I made up the bit about the olives, by the way,’ said Liza.

Feeling ganged-up on, Dulcie said nothing. She drank her glass of tonic and pulled a face. At least now the game was up, she could stick some gin in.

‘Sorry.’ Liza was trying not to laugh. ‘What were we, the practice run?’

Dulcie nodded.

‘Thought so. It’s a really sick thing to do, you know.’

Since Liza wasn’t Liam’s greatest fan, this came as something of a shock to Dulcie; it made her sit up a bit. Hang on, was she defending him here? Was she actually on Liam’s side?

‘I thought you’d approve,’ she protested. ‘I’m being responsible, aren’t I? If he’s thrilled, I’ll do it for real. If he isn’t .. . well, then I won’t.’

Pru looked at her.

‘Well, don’t you think it’s a good idea?’ said Dulcie defensively. ‘I’m testing the ground first.

You’d try on a dress, wouldn’t you, before you bought it?’

‘Except we aren’t talking about a dress here,’ said Liza, ‘we’re talking about a baby and that’s a pretty major deception.’ She shook her head. ‘I still think you’re mad.’

‘Some men just need a nudge in the right direction.’ Dulcie hugged her knees; she still thought it was a brilliant idea. ‘Look, how did you really know I was lying?’

‘We know you,’ said Liza with a shrug.

‘Okay, but Liam doesn’t. He’ll believe me, won’t he?’ Dulcie raised her eyebrows, pleading with them to be on her side. ‘So long as you two back me up.’

Pru looked flustered. Subterfuge didn’t come naturally to her.

‘Why don’t you just ask him if he’d like a baby?’ she said with an air of helplessness.

Sometimes Dulcie wondered about Pru. Was she from the real world or not?

‘Because,’ she explained patiently, ‘it just doesn’t work like that.’

* * *

Kit was taking Liza away to the Lake District for the weekend. He picked her up at four o’clock and chucked her case in the back of the Bentley.

‘We’re going to stay at this amazing hotel,’ he told her, ‘surrounded by woodland. The countryside’s fantastic. You’ll love it.’

Liza wondered jealously who he’d taken there before. She wondered how many times he’d been there and how many girls he’d been there with.

‘None,’ said Kit, glancing across at her as they headed for the motorway.

‘What?’

‘In case you were wondering.’

‘Wondering what?’ Liza unwrapped a packet of fruit pastilles.

He grinned. ‘The look on your face. Total giveaway.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she protested, but it was half-hearted.

‘Five years ago, the father of my best friend from school remarried,’ said Kit. ‘The reception was held at Egerton Hall and I was invited along. As soon as I saw the hotel I knew this was the place for me. When I met the right girl I’d bring her here.’ He paused, concentrating on the road ahead.

When they had navigated round a swaying horsebox, he added casually, ‘And now it’s happened.

You are that girl.’

‘I’m thirty-two. Hardly a girl.’

Kit shrugged.

‘Okay, you are that ancient old battleaxe.’

‘Oh God.’ Fearfully she pulled down the sun visor, studying her face in the mirror. ‘What if the chambermaids think I’m your mother?’

They were approaching a lay-by. Kit braked hard and pulled in. As the trundling horsebox overtook them, he took Liza in his arms.

‘Stop it,’ he said firmly. ‘I love you. I don’t care that you’re older than me. And if it bothers anyone else, then they’re theones with the problem. We’re talking nine years’ difference here, not ninety. I mean, so what? Big deal.’

He was still kissing her when the phone rang in the car. ‘Bugger,’ said Kit, then he grinned and flicked a switch. ‘Hooray for hands-free.’

But Leo Berenger’s autocratic voice, booming through the car, stopped them in their tracks.

‘Kit, you’ve gone off with the bloody keys to the safe.’

‘Shit.’ Kit’s hand went to his jacket pocket. He pulled out the keys and gazed at them in disgust.

‘You’ll have to bring them back,’ ordered Leo Berenger. ‘Lucky we stopped before the motorway.’ Kit winked at Liza. To his father he said, ‘Forty minutes, okay?’

‘We’re waiting for them now,’ roared Leo. ‘Make it twenty.’

‘Looks like it’s meet-the-folks time,’ Kit said cheerfully as he swung the Bentley into the gravelled drive. There, waiting for them on the front steps of Rowan House, was Leo Berenger.

Tall, burly and ominous-looking, even from this distance. Liza wondered about hiding herself under a blanket on the back seat – except there was no blanket to hide under. There was no anything. It was an incredibly clean car.

‘You should have dropped me off first.’ She shivered, unable to help herself.

Kit gave her thigh a reassuring squeeze.

‘Come on, he’s only my father. No need to be scared, just because he can’t stand the sight of you.’

‘Ha ha,’ said Liza, because Kit was grinning. She was glad someone found it funny.

Leo Berenger clearly didn’t, when they reached him at last. ‘Keys,’ Kit announced, sliding open the driver’s window and holding them out to his father. ‘Sorry about that.’

But although Leo Berenger took the keys, he appeared not to hear his son’s apology. He was too busy, instead, looking at Liza. Having rather hoped he would opt for ignoring her completely, Liza now found herself forced to return his gaze.

She tried to look friendly but not totally grovelly.

Leo Berenger’s expression, by way of contrast, was on a par with slicing open a peach and finding a nest of squirming maggots inside.

Rapidly, because he couldn’t very well not, Kit performed the introductions.

‘I already know who you are,’ Leo Berenger told Liza. ‘And I daresay my son’s told you how I feel about this ... relationship.’ His eyebrows were like caterpillars, his tone Yorkshire-blunt.

‘But I’ll say it again, just so you get the point. You all but wrecked my niece’s business, and you’re certainly the wrong sort for my son. I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, but the sooner he comes to his senses and finds himself a girl his own age—’

‘Thanks, Dad, that’s fine, we’ve got the message.’

‘Because believe me, the sight of you sitting there in that car where my late wife used to sit—’

‘Right,’ Kit said wearily, ‘I wondered when we’d get to that.’

He switched off the ignition, opened the driver’s door and climbed out. Within seconds, the boot was unloaded. Carrying four cases, Kit somehow managed to open the passenger door.

‘Come on,’ he told Liza without emotion, ‘we’ll go in mine.’

It made a change, anyway. Instead of feeling old, Liza now felt about fifteen. The last time she’d been told off by a boyfriend’s enraged father was when they’d been caught smoking in his garden shed.

‘She might not want to go in yours.’ Leo Berenger’s taunting voice followed them around the side of the vast Georgian house. ‘After all, it’s no Bentley.’