Jake laughed shortly. ‘No, I bet he wouldn’t!’

‘Was it…was it because of what happened at the Allantide Ball?’

‘When you offered yourself to me on a plate?’ he said, and her face flamed.

‘I was just talking,’ she protested, although she knew she had been doing more than that.

‘You don’t wear a dress like that just to talk,’ said Jake.

Cassie’s cheeks were as scarlet as the dress she had bought as part of a desperate strategy to convince Rupert that she had grown up.

Her parents had been aghast when they had seen it, and Cassie herself had been half-horrified, half-thrilled by how it had made her look. The colour was lovely-a deep, rich red-but it was made of cheap Lycra that had clung embarrassingly to every curve. Cut daringly short, it had such a low neckline that Cassie had had to keep tugging at it to stop herself spilling out. She cringed to think how fat and tarty she must have looked next to all those cool, skinny blondes dressed in black.

On the other hand, it had worked.

Rupert had definitely noticed her when she’d arrived, and that had given her the confidence to put Plan B into action. ‘You need to make him jealous,’ her best friend Tina had said. ‘Make him realise that you’re not just his for the taking-even if you are.’

Emboldened by Rupert’s reaction, Cassie had smiled coolly and sashayed up to Jake instead. To this day, she didn’t know where she had found the nerve to do it; he had been on his own for once, and watching the proceedings with a cynical air.

The Allantide Ball was a local tradition revived by Sir Ian, who had been obsessed by Cornish folklore. Less a formal ball than a big party, it was held in the Hall every year on 31st October, when the rest of the country was celebrating Hallowe’en, and everyone in Portrevick went, the one occasion when social divisions were put aside.