‘My car’s here,’ began Francesca.
‘And mine’s at the White Hart,’ said Lucy. ‘As the crow flies it isn’t so very far, but it would well after one a.m. by the time I got there – always assuming one of you would drive me – and so I think it would be easier for me to go back to London, and get a train back tomorrow to collect it. If I did that, I could drive over here again and see Alice – would that be all right, d’you think?’
‘She’d love it,’ said Michael.
‘She’ll be all right, won’t she?’ said Lucy slightly anxiously. ‘I mean – all this won’t have been too much for her?’
Michael smiled. ‘Meat and drink,’ he said.
‘In that case,’ said Lucy, suddenly finding the prospect of driving home with Liam very attractive, ‘I’ll take up your offer if I can, Liam. It means driving into London, though. Would that be all right?’
‘Perfectly all right. I should tell you I have absolutely no sense of direction, though, and it’s God’s mercy I even got to this house. I’m quite likely to land you on the gypsy road to Romany, or the route to the Elysian Fields. Still, that might be rather fun, you know. How about you, Michael?’
‘I’d better stay put,’ said Michael. ‘My room’s always more or less ready.’ In a voice that was just slightly too casual, ‘Francesca? Had you better drive back as well, or can you take one of the spare rooms?’
‘Well, if you’re sure I won’t be in the way if I stay—’
‘You won’t be in the way,’ said Michael.
‘I think,’ said Lucy, peering through the rain-drenched darkness as they sped through the night, ‘that we should get off this stretch of motorway in about another mile.’
‘What an efficient lady you are. Will we look for the sign yet?’
‘It should be coming up any minute. It’ll siphon us off to the left,’ said Lucy.
‘Siphoning’s the right word in this weather, isn’t it? It’s taking all my concentration to keep—’
‘On the straight and narrow?’ demanded Lucy caustically.
‘Well, I always had trouble with the straight and narrow, and I’d certainly never find it in this downpour. Wait though, is that our turning up ahead?’
‘I think so.’ Lucy wiped some of the condensation from the windscreen. ‘Yes, it is. I thought we’d probably find our way in the end.’
‘O Faith that meets ten thousand cheats, yet drops no jot of faith—’
‘Do you really not know the way?’
‘I do not. Do you?’ He took his eyes from the road for a moment to direct a very straight look at her. ‘For all I know,’ said Liam, ‘this could be the road to Mandalay or the pathway to the stars, or even the Golden Road to Samarkand.’
‘If you keep straight on from here,’ said Lucy prosaically, ‘you’ll be bound to pick up the M25 eventually.’
‘Oh God, that we should end by living in a world where all roads lead to the M25.’
‘It’s probably better tarmacked than the Golden Road to Samarkand, though.’
‘Then we’ll make a start there,’ said Liam, and took his hand from the steering-wheel to briefly enclose hers. ‘You never know, Lucy, we might find the Golden Road just when we’d decided it didn’t exist.’
Michael had led the way to a large bedroom at the back of the house. There was a deep wide bed, and he fetched clean sheets from the airing cupboard.
‘And there’s a spare toothbrush and sponge in the bathroom,’ he said. ‘I expect Alice will probably lend you pyjamas or something if you want.’
The thought of sleeping in pyjamas belonging to the infamous Lucretia von Wolff was very nearly irresistible, but Fran said that actually she had brought toothbrush and night things with her, following Michael’s original suggestion that they might stay overnight at the White Hart.
‘Oh yes, I’d forgotten that. It feels like a hundred years ago now. Would you like a last drink? Or a cup of tea or anything?’