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‘Who helps you run it?’

‘Norma runs the household and we have Joyce, our cook. I did have my lady’s maid, who came with me from my parents’ house when I married, but her fiancé was demobbed last week and of course all she wants to do is marry him and have babies. She’s moved to Cleethorpes by the seaside, with hopes to run her own guesthouse one day. I think his folk are from Grimsby and he’s inherited a little bit of money. Holly will be great at it, but I suspect I shall never see her, or not easily, and she’ll miss her family in Burnley.’

Harry recalled that’s where Tom’s fiancée, Annie, hailed from. He was going to mention Kitty but the wistful way that Alex looked up from where she’d been staring into her glass stopped him. He realised he didn’t want to talk about anyone but her. He kept his silence.

‘Anyway, I have no desire to hire a new personal maid.’ She shrugged with embarrassment. ‘We were friends. I can’t replace her . . . so I won’t try. And frankly, I can dress myself.’ He smiled for her benefit even though he heard her melancholy. ‘Um, we have a scullery maid who does lots of odd jobs but she’s gone to Brighton as her brother was hospitalised there while he recuperates from his injuries. We have a gardener who visits once every fortnight and we hire in people for particular needs.’ Again she shrugged. ‘The house seems to run itself well enough. Most rooms are closed.’

He watched the light cast by the flames dance on her pale face, enjoying the mood of the room she’d achieved with lamps on various side tables. Her furnishings, he noted, were modern with a leaning towards simple, as opposed to the traditional fuss and clutter of his family home.

‘I admire your taste in decor, Alex.’

‘I grew up in a house dominated by my mother’s Arts and Crafts leanings, and while she thought she was getting away from the heaviness of her mother’s Victorian furnishings, I think I prefer Grandma’s velvet and brocade to her daughter’s overwrought use of decoration on everything from windows to walls. I used to have this notion that if I stood still long enough she’d have someone come in and decorate me!’

He chuckled. ‘They say each room should be considered a still-life painting,’ he remarked, watching her over the rim of his glass. Damn, but she looked alluring in her silk blouse of warm florals and pale olive skirt. Did she deliberately dress so simply to show off her beauty? Did she know how the single, floating frill of silk that traced the V-shape of her neckline seemed to accentuate the swell of her breasts? It was a modest blouse, showing no cleavage, and yet it was erotic to stare at the flawless, creamy complexion of the skin beneath her throat and the slight pull of the silk against her breasts when she reached for her glass. No, he didn’t think she was aware of any of this; he believed she chose a simple, elegant outfit that matched her personality and which might make him comfortable because he had not travelled with a formal dinner suit. More importantly, he sensed that Alex set little store in her attractiveness and would rather be noted for her mind, perhaps even her ambition.

‘Ah now, Harry, you have allowed me to glimpse your breeding.’

‘What do you mean?’ He had to remember his previous comment about still life.

‘I think you masquerade as a simple soldier, but that classic thinking comes from education and also breeding.’ She smiled, taking a small sip of sherry. ‘What line of work were you in before the war, may I ask?’

‘The same one I’m in now. I suppose you’d call it importing.’ He tried not to sound evasive.

‘Importing,’ she repeated, as though testing the word to understand it. ‘What sort of imports?’

‘All manner really.’ He could hear the evasion; could she?

‘A family firm?’

‘Yes, nothing I brag about.’

‘I can tell. Are you a secretive person, Harry?’

‘Not especially,’ he lied. ‘I just don’t consider my background particularly interesting to talk about. I find others far more intriguing.’

‘Are you married?’ she asked suddenly and looked surprised by her own question.

He covered his shock with a small cough as though he had swallowed his whisky the wrong way. ‘No. And before you ask, I have never been married.’

‘Odd for someone like you . . .’

‘“Odd”? Why? “Someone like me”? I’m not sure what that means.’

‘Oh, come on. There must be women panting and hammering at your door.’

He could see from her horrified, darting gaze that he embarrassed her with his explosion of laughter. ‘Forgive me. You painted quite a mental picture for me then.’

‘It was an ugly one that I’m ashamed of,’ she said, touching her cheek. ‘I really don’t know what came over me to be so blatant or intrusive. Forgive me, I’m clearly channelling my mother and it’s good practice for you later. Don’t claim I didn’t warn you,’ she jested. ‘Let’s change the subject, shall we?’

‘Let’s,’ he said, relieved to be off the hook. ‘So your husband is away, you said?’

‘Yes,’ she said, looking towards the fire. ‘He often is.’

And there it was. He felt sure he had found the source of Alex’s lack of balance and the reason she was at times prickly, other times needy. Her enquiry about his relationships was revealing; he wasn’t imagining that something was building between them. ‘You sound sad,’ he offered, hoping it was an opening for her to walk through, to tell him more.

‘Which wife wouldn’t be if her husband was so rarely at her side?’ She sighed. ‘And there I go again, letting my mouth spill whatever’s in my head. I have no idea what Norma has laced this sherry with, Harry, but you’re going to have to put it down to me feeling far too comfortable in your presence.’

‘I’m charmed you feel that way. I also admire your honesty,’ he said.