‘Excuse me?’

‘You’re wet through,’ he said. ‘You’ve been shivering since we met you, and it’s not just shock. You’ve been ill. You shouldn’t stay wet. Matty and I aren’t going anywhere. We’ll stay here and eat your chocolate cake and wait for you.’

‘But…where are you staying?’

‘We have a place booked in town,’ he said. ‘But there are things we need to discuss before we leave. Go take your bath and we’ll talk afterwards.’

She had no choice but to agree. Her head wasn’t working for her. If he’d told her to walk the plank she might calmly have done it right now.

And she couldn’t stop shivering.

So she left them and ran a bath, thinking she’d dip in and out and return to them fast. But when she sank into the hot water her body reacted with a weird lethargy that kept her right where she was.

She had no shower-just this lovely deep bath tub. The water pressure was great, which meant that by the time she’d fumbled through getting her clothes off the bath was filled. The water enveloped her, cocooned her, deepening the trancelike state she’d felt ever since she’d seen Matty.

She could hear them talking through the door.

‘She makes very good cake.’ That was Matty. As a compliment it was just about the loveliest thing she could imagine. Her grandmother had given her the chocolate cake recipe. Her son was eating her grandma’s chocolate cake.

‘I think your mama is a very clever lady.’ That was Rafael. His compliment didn’t give her the same kind of tingle. She thought of the lovely things Kass had said to her when he’d wanted to marry her, and she still cringed that she’d believed him. This man was a de Boutaine. Every sense in her body was screaming beware.

‘Why is she clever?’ Matty asked.

‘She’s an archaeologist and a historian. Archaeologists need to be clever.’