'Good afternoon Allegra.' His deep bass voice let out a bark of surprise. 'We weren't expecting you, were we?'

Legs hid behind the door.

'What are you doing here?' she gasped.

She heard a creaking of floorboards as he stood up. 'Waiting for Lucy. She popped to Bude for champagne.'

Legs was dumbfounded, trying to make sense of her mother playing hostess to a naked Hector Protheroe in the cottage. Was he a closet naturist, too?

'Are you celebrating something?'

'Every day is a celebration at the moment.' Now wrapped in a jaunty, orchid-strewn silk kimono that was far too short, Hector and his bassoon joined her in the landing room, ducking beneath the low beams, his voice hushed with concern. 'My dear, you do know, don't you?'

'Know what?'

His faded blue eyes softened amid their tanned creases, and he studied her shocked face thoughtfully before steering her downstairs where it was less cramped and he could straighten up to his full six foot four and make an announcement that left Legs' jaw hanging yet lower.

'I've left Poppy.'

Legs reeled back. So that was it. Her mother was providing sanctuary for Hector, who had finally left his troubled marriage of twenty years. There had been many occasions in the past when he'd threatened to do so, and his flirtations and affairs had been legend, but he'd never actually done the deed.

Her first thought was for Francis. As a young boy with a stepmother he loathed, this was news he could only have dreamed of. Now, in adulthood, he might feel differently. How was he taking it?

Only after she'd pondered this for a moment did a second thought strike her. Why was Hector naked, and why had he written I LOVE YOU on the door? He must have a mistress and be using Spywood to conduct his trysts. He was an incorrigible flirt, well known as a roue and a terror to barmaids at the Book Inn in Farcombe.

'Lucy has been amazing,' Hector was saying.

Legs gasped in ever-dawning shock. With typical naivety and kindness, her mother was obviously providing a refuge for the lovers, and even catering for them. No wonder Lucy had been away so long watercolouring. She'd always had a soft spot for Hector and run errands for him, forever at his beck and call, the swine.

'That's such an abuse of friendship!' Legs squeaked.

Hector shook his head. 'Au contraire, my dear Allegra, recevoir sans donner fait tourner l'amitie.' He smiled benignly at her baffled face. 'Receiving without giving turns the friendship.'

'That's as might be, but there was still no need to bring my mother into all this!'

'She rather came of her own free will.'

They were standing in the kitchen now, Hector's bassoon still aloft, like a fertility symbol. Legs felt she should cast around for a phallic symbol of her own to even things up the ornamental bedpan that hung from the wall, maybe, or one of the sausage-dog draft excluders? She could use a weapon if things got heated; Hector was hardly a threat in his flowery kimono, but his acid charm was such high grade uranium that he could flatten an ego with one barbed comment.

She'd never enjoyed an easy relationship with the man who lived up to his name by being something of a hectoring bully and vociferous critic. A controversial, anti-establishment figure and notorious gambler with a knack for making money, friends and headlines easily, Hector Protheroe had famously launched the Commentator magazine in the seventies when he was fresh out of Cambridge, later selling it for a fat profit which enabled him to open the Fitzroy Club in the eighties, one of the first of the swathe of private members' clubs that cashed in on London's glitterati clique. But the main source of Hector's considerable income came from Smile Media, a company at the cutting edge of mobile telecommunications, of cable and satellite and later digital broadcasting and publishing. 'Spread the Smile' had been one of the biggest advertising campaigns of the nineties, a catchphrase familiar to every Brit. Smile phones were, for a time, the ultimate in cool, along with Smile palmtops, laptops and Smile internet.

The man behind renegade publishing, trendy nightclubs and multimedia communications might maintain that he was an 'inspirer', and he certainly had plenty of hippy attributes that made him appear laidback and easy-going, but Legs knew enough to appreciate that the retired entrepreneur, reformed gambler and passionate music lover could be a tyrant, albeit one with a positive spin. He'd certainly pushed his only son incredibly hard over the years, expecting nothing less than perfection. At times, the pressure on Francis had been almost unbearable, and Legs had often stood up to his father on her lover's behalf, but that was where the famous Protheroe charm came in. Hector's seductive charisma made him a difficult man to challenge. He could turn any conversation in his favour, twisting the argument to serve his purpose so that ultimately one was left not only feeling rather silly, but also hopelessly in his awe and debt. It was why he was so lethal in business, inspired such loyalty amongst friends, and was so totally irresistible to all who met him.

Yet he was supremely selfish in his personal relationships, particularly with women. His third wife Poppy could be awkward and eccentric, but for two decades she had coped admirably with his rages, infidelity and self-absorption, and was his match intellectually. Hector self-confessedly relied upon his wife's steely stoicism to keep him in check, crediting her with bringing his long-term gambling addiction under control, stemming his drinking and redirecting his energies into supporting the many altruistic causes that had earned him such an exemplary public reputation today. She'd also turned a blind eye to his many flirtations, which some in their inner circle put down to her incredibly short sight. Cast adrift from the marriage, he could cause havoc, and sideswipe poor, kind-hearted Lucy in his slipstream. Legs felt highly protective.

'So where are you living?'

'Here.'

'You have plenty of houses. Isn't it a bit selfish to squeeze in here?'

He barked with laughter.

Legs wanted to snap at him that he'd have to move out now that she was here (as she rather hoped her mother would, too, to clear the way for long chats with Francis), but her bladder was fit to burst now and so she was forced to retreat to the bathroom and regroup.

There were definite signs of male occupation here an extra toothbrush, aftershave, a beard trimmer and some enormous slippers which appeared to have been stepped out of as a bath was stepped into and then abandoned beneath the antique towel rail.

For the first time, Legs began to wonder what her father made of all this.

Just then she heard a car engine coming along on the wood track. With relief, she washed her hands, splashing cool water on her face and then unbolting the door, determined to sort out this nonsense.

The bassoon was back in its stand by the chaise longue, and the front door was wide open, meaning Hector was braving the elements in his kimono in welcome. Legs dashed in his wake.

Hector had made it almost as far as the car, from which Lucy was only just emerging. His frantic hand gestures and facial expressions were not enough to alert her to danger.

'Hector, my lionheart!' She threw out her arms in embrace, imagining that he was rushing to greet her with amorous impatience. 'I have bought oysters for passion, and ice cream that we can eat from one another's most intimate love cups.'

At that moment, Lucy North caught sight of her younger daughter gaping at her over the swinging gate.

'Ah.' Lucy's smile turned from joyous to mortified, but all teeth remained on show in a brave attempt at a bluff.

Legs barely recognised her own mother. That wild peppery hair had been bobbed and bleached a flattering ash blonde, the jolly, freckled face disguised with lots of smoky eyeliner and red lipstick, and she was wearing a wraparound dress that revealed her waist for the first time in over a decade and showed a lot of leg. She looked sensational, but to Legs it was like staring at a stranger.

Her phone started to ring. She wanted to ignore it, but it was playing 'Teenage Kicks', the song she'd assigned to Francis, added to which Hector was suddenly all over her like a rash.

'What network are you on?' he demanded as she delved into her pocket to retrieve it. 'There's never a signal here.'

'Virgin,' she admitted, making him reel back in shock as she mentioned Smile Media's business arch-nemesis.

She answered the call, stepping behind a tree in a hopeless quest for privacy.

The signal was in fact so poor that the line was barely holding together. Francis sounded like he was speaking from a tin on a three-mile string.

'How much do you know about this?' she demanded furiously.

'I knew ... should ha ... warned you.' Despite the interference, hearing his voice was like a warm breath in her ear, his bass tone was softer and lighter than his father's, still tinged with American top notes, but the timbre strikingly similar. 'You've just caught ... together?'

'Not exactly in flagrante, but flagrant enough.'

'We must talk. I'll meet you ... the Lookout ... ten min ...' The line went dead.

Face flaming, she swept past her still-smiling mother and headed for her car. 'I'll book into the pub.'

'Aren't you coming back?' Lucy called, voice shaking.

'I'll come and see you tomorrow when we've all calmed down enough to talk. Enjoy your oysters.' I hope they choke Hector, she added with unspoken venom.

It was only once she was behind the wheel and emerging from woods to sunlight that she started to sob, overwhelmed by what she'd just witnessed. She drove back to the Gull Cross fork and swerved blindly down the lane towards the bay. At the point where the track started to snake down through the coastal heath, she braked hard and then cut the engine. The Honda was left parked at a jaunty angle with the bonnet crammed in a gorse bush.

The sea wind whipped away her tears as soon as she got out, and the panic subsided. Francis would make sense of it all. He always did.

Chapter 6.

The path up to the Lookout was massively overgrown these days, sometimes barely passable. Legs kept losing it completely and having to retrace her steps. Mostly she navigated from instinct. Beyond the trees, almost cut into the cliff side, was a narrow stone ledge that ran deep within the gorse and heather, virtually a gully at times, uneven and precarious.

At its end, the Lookout perched on the narrowest of platforms, resembling little more than a neglected birdwatchers' hide dressed with wooden shipboard. It concealed a large cave, complete with table and chairs, a bunk and even a constant supply of freshwater that trickled along a trough of stone on one corner. Legend had it that a hermit had once lived there, before moving to the relative comfort of Spycove.

As teenagers, the Norths and Foulkes and Francis had double-dared one another to go there, convinced that it was haunted, or worse still occupied by a runaway mass murder from HMP Dartmoor. Eventually, overcoming their nerves, they'd claimed it as their own and styled it in different guises over the years from fluffy pink to gothic black, bookish retreat to party pad. Now what minimalist signs of habitation remained were neglected, the cave showing evidence of a recent invasion of birds, bats and other visiting creatures.

Legs didn't suit high drama, and suited heights even less. She had no idea why Francis had suggested meeting here, and had been far too overwrought to think about it until now. She supposed it fitted the moment. He had always been the ultimate stage manager.

After ten minutes, just as she was starting to wonder whether the stage manager had missed his cue, a wiry little terrier wearing a checked neckerchief shot into the Lookout and barked in surprise, clearly as shocked to find her waiting there as she was to encounter a dog.

Francis followed in his wake, his high cheeks pink from running and his mop of blond hair windswept into great peaks.

Legs' heart crashed against her ribs in sympathy with the waves on the rocks below.

Of course she hadn't forgotten how good-looking he was nobody could but to see it afresh after a year's total separation was a shock. In the past, she'd grown so accustomed to the perfection of his profile that she'd taken his beauty for granted, along with the length and breadth of his athletic six foot two frame. She'd always jealously noted the way that new acquaintances, especially women, stole glances at him over and over again to check that he really was as gorgeous as he'd first appeared. And he was, just as he was gentlemanly and erudite and kind and almost childlike in his wonder and enthusiasm for life.

In their last few weeks as a couple, perhaps to justify her growing attraction to Conrad, she'd decided Francis's looks were far too Fauntleroy, reflecting the fact she found him so maddeningly childlike, spoilt and petulant by then. His stubbornness had always frustrated her, along with his intellectual snobbery. And he was secretly very vain.

But now that the fallen angel had flown into the Lookout every bit as handsome as she could ever remember him, she was too breathless with the impact of seeing him again to think straight.

'I can't stay long,' he apologised. 'Kizzy has no idea I'm here, but she already suspects something because I offered to walk Byron.'

Legs tried not to feel scalded by the immediate mention of Kizzy, nor succumb to the temptation to volley Conrad's name straight back. Instead she regarded the diminutive terrier with a nervous laugh. 'That's Byron?'

'He has a limp,' he muttered by way of explanation, rushing on. 'Poppy knows I'm here so she'll cover for me. Kizzy has no idea this place exists.'

Legs said nothing, although her mind was reeling. Since when had Poppy and Francis been collaborators? And why keep secrets from Kizzy with whom he was 'practically engaged'.

He sat on one of the rusting metal chairs and pulled another alongside it for her.

Being together for the first time since the split made them both so jumpy with nerves they couldn't look one another in the eye.

She perched awkwardly beside him, 'Do you know how long this love affair between your father and my mother has been going on?' she checked, her voice unnaturally high.

'Over a decade, on and off.'

She gasped. 'That means they were at it almost the whole time we were together!'

Colour rose in his cheeks: 'Dad insists it wasn't a physical relationship until this summer, apart from the odd kiss that is.'

The image of Hector kissing her mother over the years, oddly or not, wasn't one on which Legs wished to dwell.

'So they've always fancied one another?' She winced at the term, which sounded so wrong when applied to her mother and Hector.

He winced too before nodding. 'They both recognised a growing attraction, but they resisted acting upon it because you and I were so deeply in love, it would cause such damage. From what I can gather, the affair largely amounted to secret lunches, phone calls and letters before ...' he paused '... we called off our engagement.'

Legs stared at her hands. It was a typically reserved Francis-way of phrasing it. He meant 'since you ran off with your boss and broke my heart', but he would never say that.

'My father says they agreed long ago that nothing more could ever come of what they felt about one another while we were together,' he went on.

'And now that we're not they can do whatever they like,' she groaned as reality dawned with eye-watering clarity. 'Mum hasn't said a thing. No one has a clue, not even Dad as far as I'm aware. He thinks she's still painting watercolours here.'

His voice was soft with empathy: 'I'm not sure any of us believe it's real yet, not even them. They're like a pair of naughty teenagers having a holiday romance, locked away in that cottage together.'

'Do you think it might just be a summer romance then?' she asked hopefully.

'Dad claims otherwise, but he's been building up to something like this ever since his name was left off the Birthday Honours list. He was convinced he was getting his gong this year, and now he's behaving as badly as possible.'

'Are you telling me he's only wrecking his own and my parents' marriage because he's peeved about not getting a knighthood?'

'Well there's a bit more to it than that obviously.' He looked shifty. 'I'm just suggesting it might blow over, even if they say otherwise.'

'I wish you'd told me about it sooner.'

'I though you knew; I thought that's why you came.'

'What? Oh no, that was about the festival. It's not important.' She gazed out across the sea ahead of them, watching waves break in the distance into frothing grey ruffs of surf.

'You want this nonsense between them to stop, don't you Legs?' Francis's voice was low and reassuring, reminding her of the first love she'd adored so resolutely, the boy-turned-man who was her bedrock, who made her feel safe and cared for. He'd long since lost the preppy American accent that he'd possessed when his father first brought him to Farcombe, but Legs still always heard it in his voice, remembering their giggling delight as they had compared vowel sounds that first summer.

She continued staring out to sea, uncertain what to say. Of course she wanted the affair between Lucy and Hector to stop. It was all wrong. The thought of her mother betraying her father hurt beyond measure. The lies that must have been told over the years, the pretence at happy families when a secret desire was burning it was almost unthinkable, undermining everything she held dear. But she also knew that it was largely beyond her control. Nothing could take back what had already happened. Hector and her mother had free will; some would say they were more wilful than most. It would be pointless trying to fight that.

Now Francis turned in his chair and fixed her with a gaze that made her skin prickle, even though her eyes still couldn't quite meet his.

'There's only one thing for it. We have to get back together, Legs.'

She snorted with laughter, a nervous reflex. He made it sound so simple and logical, like changing a flat tyre together.

There was a long pause.

'Why is that so funny?' he asked stiffly.

'It's not.' She swallowed, raising her eyes to his at last and almost rocking straight back over in her chair as a result. His eyes were as vividly blue and calm as the sea ahead was grey and stormy. She longed to dive in.

'I thought you just said their affair might burn itself out?'

'All the more reason to fight fire with fire.' He was looking so deeply into her eyes now, and she felt completely overwhelmed by emotion, so choked that she was winded by it, tears mounting in the back of her throat.