Studying him surreptitiously, Perdita could see the way the others in his group were deferring to him, but it didn’t make sense. If he were really the panther he claimed to be, shouldn’t he be riding roughshod over them all? Instead he seemed to be dominating the group by not doing very much at all.

The more she watched him over the day, though, the more Perdita recognised a quiet but steely strength to him that translated as a natural gravitas, a quality as unmistakable as it was hard to define. Ed didn’t need to snarl to control a situation, it seemed, and, although he was hardly prowling, he held himself with an enviable assurance that put her in mind of a big cat’s leashed power.

Maybe there was something pantherish about him after all, Perdita decided. It was lucky that he had told her about his owlish streak, or she might have had to be impressed. As it was, whenever she remembered the glimmer of amusement in his expression as he had told her about his owl ascendant, part of her wanted to laugh, while another part would squirm uneasily at the memory of the humorous gleam in his eyes and that unexpected smile.

She couldn’t even accuse Ed of being standoffish. As soon as she could, she had warned her colleagues that their new boss was among them, which meant that they, at least, were able to make a good impression on him. Perdita saw him talking to them all at one time or another, but he never made any effort to talk to her again. Perhaps it wasn’t that surprising after she had accused him of being pretentious, but she couldn’t help feeling a little miffed that he appeared to have dismissed her already.

The hotel was out in the wilds of the Lake District and after dinner there was nothing to do but head for the bar. A natural extrovert, Perdita was on sparkling form, but Ed was clearly unimpressed by her social skills, treating her on the few occasions their paths crossed that evening with a kind of amused detachment that left Perdita’s peacock feathers distinctly ruffled.