‘Here.’

Her eyes followed one long, square-tipped finger. ‘But that’s miles!’ she exclaimed, horrified.

‘I don’t think it’ll be as bad as it looks, but we’d better get going.’ Ed looked dubiously down at her feet. ‘Are those the only boots you’ve got?’

‘I didn’t realise that the course involved trekking across the countryside in the pouring rain,’ she said, regarding her boots mournfully. They were the most comfortable pair that she owned, but they were designed for city pavements, not windswept hillsides. ‘They’re going to be ruined.’

‘They are,’ Ed agreed without any noticeable sympathy. ‘Didn’t you read the instructions about bringing outdoor gear?’

Of course, he was practically dressed in a waterproof jacket, boots and wet weather trousers. Perdita eyed him with dislike. ‘This is my outdoor gear,’ she said. ‘I don’t do the outdoors.’

‘You do now,’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

Perdita pulled up the hood of her jacket as she followed him out through the doors.

‘Ugh, it’s horrible out here!’ she said, reminding Ed forcibly of a cat, shaking its wet paws fastidiously. ‘I don’t know why I bothered to wash and dry my hair this morning,’ she grumbled on. ‘I’m going to get soaked!’

Pulling the zip of her jacket up as far as it would go, she screwed up her face against the rain. ‘I really don’t see why we can’t do all this inside, like we did yesterday,’ she went on. ‘You know, if I was as dominating as you all make out, I would make them let us do just that. It’s unfair of them to lull us into a false sense of security and then spring this on us today. They’re just making us suffer for the sake of it!’

‘Don’t you think it’s interesting to see how people react to different situations?’

‘No, I don’t think it’s interesting,’ she said, following him out of the hotel grounds and on to a tussocky hillside.