‘I’m not booked in anywhere. I was heading for the motel on the ring road.’

‘We’d have to go all the way to the motorway roundabout to get there from here,’ Xandra said before he could say a word, no doubt guessing his intention of dropping the car off at Longbourne Motors. ‘Much easier to run the lady back to the motel through the village once we have a better idea of how long it will take to fix her car.’

She didn’t wait for an answer, instead turning to introduce herself to their passenger. ‘I’m sorry, I’m Xandra Saxon,’ she said, but she was safe enough. This wasn’t an argument he planned on having in front of a stranger.

Annie relaxed a little as George Saxon took his eyes off her and smiled at the girl beside him, who was turning into something of an ally.

‘Hello, Xandra. I’m R-Ro…’

The word began to roll off her tongue before she remembered that she wasn’t Rose Napier.

‘Ro-o-owland,’ she stuttered out, grabbing for the first name that came into her head. Nanny Rowland…‘Annie Rowland,’ she said, more confidently.

Lydia had suggested she borrow her name but she’d decided that it would be safer to stick with something familiar. Annie had been her mother’s pet name for her but, since her grandfather disapproved of it, no one other than members of the household staff who’d known her since her mother was alive had ever used it. In the stress of the moment, though, the practised response had gone clean out of her head and she’d slipped into her standard introduction.

‘Ro-o-owland?’ George Saxon, repeating the name with every nuance of hesitation, looked up at the rear-view mirror and held her gaze.

‘Annie will do just fine,’ she said, then, realising that man and girl had the same name, she turned to Xandra. ‘You’re related?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ she replied in that throwaway, couldn’t-care-less manner that the young used when something was truly, desperately important. ‘My mother has made a career of getting married. George was the first in line, with a shotgun to his back if the date on my birth certificate is anything-’