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Dominic said, ‘but it’s a fair bet my sister will be there at some point tonight, so I thought we’d go some place a bit quieter. Unless you’d rather –’
    ‘No.’ Behind the screen I dabbed powder onto my knees and pulled my coat on, keeping my eyes fixed on my hands as I fastened the two huge buttons. Moiré velvet, chocolate-brown, trimmed with fur, it was newly delivered from Paris, and had cost me a small fortune. I told myself it was cold outside, and my gorgeous new coat was warm. I shivered as the silk lining caressed my bare arms.
    In the mirror, as I applied a coat of lipstick, I could see him watching me. Such an intimate act, putting a face on, and not one I ever let anyone watch, but I enjoyed it. He didn’t pretend not to be watching. I didn’t pretend to be unaware of him. Our eyes met in the mirror. They held, just enough time for us both to remember what had happened on that dressing-table half an hour before. For us both to know that we’d do it again, right now. For that knowing to be there between us, almost tangible, when I turned, putting the gold cap on my lipstick, tucking it into my beaded evening bag. For it to feel as if he touched me as he ushered me out, even though he didn’t, not quite.
    We walked to Covent Garden, where he said there was a good restaurant in a basement there. A crowd of Bright Young Things appeared, en route to a party, or more likely coming from one to go to another.
    ‘No Grace,’ I said.
    ‘They’re so young,’ Dominic answered, frowning as we stood back against a railing to let them clatter past. ‘What the hell were you doing with them on Saturday night? Do you often—I mean, you don’t strike me as someone who cares much for parties.’
    ‘I don’t.’
    ‘Then why are you friends with my sister?’
    I hesitated. He spoke casually, but he wasn’t looking at me casually. ‘I’m not, not really,’ I said.
    He raised a sceptical brow. ‘You know her well enough for her to risk my wrath when she called me in the middle of the night.’
    ‘Were you angry? Were you sleeping? I didn’t know—was it very late?’
    ‘I wasn’t sleeping,’ he said. ‘You haven’t answered my question.’
    ‘Has she spoken to you?’ I asked, because I’d just realised what it was he’d asked. Not
how
we came to be friends, but why. ‘You have spoken to her,’ I said flatly. ‘It was Grace who told you about me.’ I was embarrassed. I was disappointed. Not so much with Grace, but with Dominic. ‘I don’t need anyone to feel sorry for me.’ I turned to go.
    He caught my arm. ‘I don’t feel sorry for you, Daisy. Grace didn’t betray any confidences, if that’s what you’re worried about. She told me that you’d lost your husband, that’s all. She told me that she liked you. That you were friends. That’s it, I promise. My sister—my sister doesn’t confide in me. Truthfully, I’m willing to bet you know a lot more about Grace than I do.’
    ‘If that’s true, I’m not about to spill the beans on her. Is that why you asked me to dinner?’
    ‘No! I asked you to dinner because I wanted—because I thought—oh, because it’s what people do, isn’t it? Ordinary people. They go out to dinner. They talk. They get to know one another before they go tearing each other’s clothes off and—and devouring each other as if they were—as if they were savages.’
    He had his hands on my arms, but I wasn’t making any attempt to escape. It was cold enough for his breath to make clouds in the night air. I could feel it, warm on my face. He was speaking low, soft enough so that only I could hear. I could feel the tension in him, and at some point along the way, my own anger had become tense, too. Was it that word,
devouring?
    ‘Maybe we’re not ordinary people,’ I said. ‘Maybe we are savages. Maybe that’s what the war made us.’ I forgot we were in Covent Garden. If I’d remembered it wouldn’t have made any difference. I lifted my face to