Perhaps my shouts had alerted Merlin: I could hear frantic muffled barking.

‘I think the ice underneath me is breaking,’ I called, as calmly as I could. ‘But if it does, I have a plan to get Jess out and you can go for help.’

‘I have a better plan: can you keep hold of her if I pull you both out?’

‘Yes, of course, if you’re quick. My hands are starting to go numb.’

He was quick: my ankles were seized in a grip like iron and, with a mighty heave, I was sliding back across the ice like a walrus in reverse gear, bringing the sodden dead weight of Jess with me.

‘Oh God, Holly, I could have lost you both!’ he said, scooping me up into a suffocating bear hug as soon as he’d landed us safely, and then just as suddenly sitting me down in the snow while he did the same to Jess. Then he said grimly, ‘Jess, you know you shouldn’t mess about by the water on your own, let alone go on the ice!’

‘You w-were here, I w-wasn’t on my own,’ she said through chattering teeth.

‘But I didn’t know you were here — and Holly didn’t know how deep the water was when she came to your rescue,’ he said, pulling off her wellies and tipping out the water. ‘You would have frozen to death if you hadn’t got out. What if I hadn’t heard you, or Holly hadn’t come just when she did? How long do you think you would have lasted?’

‘You w-would have heard me shouting,’ Jess said. ‘Or maybe I c-could have climbed back onto the ice.’

‘No chance — and Holly would have been in there with you in another few minutes, freezing to death.’

‘Never mind all that now, she’s going to get pneumonia if she carries on sitting there, soaked to the skin,’ I told him.

‘You’re pretty wet and cold too,’ he said, frowning at me. ‘I’ll just switch off things in the studio and get Merlin, then we’ll have to run all the way up to the house, there’s nothing else for it.’

‘Run?’ I repeated incredulously, because I was starting to feel limp and shaky and as if I’d like a nice lie down in the soft snow.

‘It’ll warm you up,’ he said, then vanished into the studio and came back a minute later with Merlin, who washed our faces with a warm tongue in an excess of relief.

Jude rammed Jess’s wellies back on, hauled us both to our feet, and forcibly propelled us back towards the house at a shambling run, slipping and sliding through the snow, only his firm grip on our arms keeping us upright.

I expect it looked quite comic, even if it didn’t feel like it.

Luckily Becca saw us coming from the morning-room window and deduced that something was wrong. She capably took charge of Jess, whisking her off for a hot bath.

‘And you too,’ Jude said to me, divesting me of my boots and wet anorak in the warm kitchen as if I was a helpless toddler. . which was actually about what I felt like.

‘Oh, I’m all right,’ I protested, though I was shaking with cold and shock. ‘I’ll just go and change.’

‘No, you won’t — you’ll have a hot bath too, I’ll go and run it for you now,’ he insisted. ‘Come on, you can get the rest of your things off while I’m running it.’

My fingers were so frozen I had trouble getting out of my jeans, but I managed it and then when I got in the hot bath I got pins and needles as the circulation returned, which was agony.

Once that wore off my body felt heavy and limp, even though my mind was churning with painful thoughts: the whole experience had shocked me to the core in more ways than one. Not only might Jess and I have died (though I was still pretty sure I could have got Jess out, if I’d fallen in the water), but it had brought back all the trauma of Alan’s death, too.

But I couldn’t stay in there forever and Jude must have heard the water running out, because there was a cup of hot, sweet tea laced with whisky on my bedside table when I emerged. . right next to the photo of Ned I’d left propped up there, though since it seemed to have fallen on its face, I hoped he hadn’t noticed.

The tea was disgusting but I drank it anyway, in case he took it into his head to check, which would be just like him. I could feel the unaccustomed whisky thawing some of the internal chill.

When I finally went back down to the kitchen, in one of my warm, comfortable tunic jumpers and dry jeans, Jude was there waiting for me and made me more tea, insisting I sit down next to the Aga.

‘But not six spoons of sugar in it this time, or whisky!’ I protested weakly.

‘Sugar’s good for shock and I was worried it might have caused you some lasting harm. . but maybe I shouldn’t have put whisky in it?’ he added, sounding worried.

‘No, I–I think in a way it might have done me good.’

‘What is it?’ he asked, turning with the mug in his hand and getting a good look at my face. ‘You’re not feeling ill, are you?’

‘N-no, I’m fine. It’s not that — it’s just that my husband, Alan. . that’s how he was killed, running onto a frozen lake to save a dog that had fallen through the ice. . Only it was really deep and he wasn’t much of a swimmer, so he died and. . well, I’ve only just realised that he couldn’t help it!’

The words poured unstoppably out of me and a rush of tears filled my eyes, blinding me. ‘I’ve been so angry with him all these years for being such a fool — leaving me alone the way he did, just to rescue a d-dog — and I would have done exactly the same for Merlin, or any other living creature, let alone Jess!’

And then I was crying in earnest and Jude put down the mug and came and pulled me up into a warm, comforting, enveloping embrace against his broad chest, patting my back with a large and surprisingly gentle hand as I cried.

‘He couldn’t help it!’ I sobbed into his shoulder, in a wimpy way I would normally deplore. ‘He couldn’t help it!’

‘No, he’d have had an adrenaline rush and his impulses would have taken over on the spur of the moment, just as yours did — and thank goodness you were there, because I might not have heard Jess and I don’t think she could have got out alone — she’d have died. And you risked your own life to save her, so I could have lost you both.’

I could have pointed out that he’d never had me in the first place, but I was feeling too limply acquiescent and in need of comfort. I fished out my handkerchief, mopped my eyes and blew my nose.

‘Feeling better now?’ he asked, then as I looked up to reply, that wonderful fleeting smile of his suddenly appeared. .

And then, I’m not sure how, my arms were around him, too, and we were kissing as if we would never stop. . Until he suddenly wrenched his mouth from mine and held me at arm’s length.

‘I’m so sorry, Holly! I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you, when you were so shocked. . but that took me by surprise too — I really didn’t intend to kiss you.’

‘It’s all right, it doesn’t matter — forget it,’ I said shakily, recalling all the reasons why that very passionate kiss shouldn’t have happened between us. ‘I think it must have been the whisky — I’m not used to it.’

‘Was it just the whisky, though? I got the feeling you wanted to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss you,’ he said and our eyes, inches apart, met and held for a long moment.

I looked away first. ‘Perhaps. . but it was just a physical thing.’

‘Was it, Holly?’ he said quietly. ‘I think we need to talk when you’re feeling better. . but first, there’s something I really need to ask you right now—’ he began.

But whatever it was, it would have to wait, because just at that moment Becca popped her head through the door to tell us that Jess seemed to be no worse for her icy plunge and was tucked up under a blanket in front of the sitting-room fire with Tilda, reading a book.

‘Feeling okay now?’ Becca asked me kindly. ‘Jude looking after you?’

‘Yes, I’m fine, thank you,’ I said, though I knew my eyes must be red, a dead giveaway. ‘I’d better do something about lunch, because it’s practically dinner time and everyone must be starving.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Jude said.

‘No, I can manage.’

‘Then manage me: you sit next to the Aga and boss me about — you’re good at that.’

‘It takes one to know one,’ I snapped back and he grinned.

‘There you are, you’re feeling better already!’

I gave in and sat down — by now the whisky seemed to have gone to my legs anyway. ‘It was only going to be Gentleman’s Relish sandwiches and cups of soup, followed by mincemeat flapjacks or the last of the mince pies — I took those out of the freezer earlier.’

‘I think even I can manage that. And actually, I’m not a totally hopeless cook, whatever you might think.’

‘Don’t forget that I’ve seen the extent of your ready meal supplies in the freezer.’

We were surprisingly amicable in our bickering, now that the awkwardness of an embrace which had taken both of us by surprise had worn off. But though we might have acknowledged a mutual physical attraction, I expect he was now remembering all the reasons why taking it any further would be a really bad idea, just as I was.

I wondered what on earth he had been going to ask me when Becca came in: maybe if I was a secret pretender to the throne of Old Place?

I felt absolutely fine later and insisted on cooking dinner myself, though I ended up with Michael and Jude, in slightly wary alliance, as assistants. Tilda and Jess made another potato-hedgehog starter with cheese and small pickled onions on cocktail sticks.

But at least Jess and I were excused the final play rehearsal and could loll about watching the others, until ordered off early to bed with hot water bottles by Jude. When I protested that I had things to do in the kitchen first, he said there was nothing that couldn’t keep until the morning and also that he was perfectly capable of locking up and all the rest of it himself, pointing out that he had managed to survive perfectly well before my arrival, so I gave in.