She flinched away, guilt spearing her.

'Look at your misplaced penitence, Heavenly Pony. I swear you're more a Catholic than any member of this household. My father will love you as a daughter. He'll buy you a new rosary for every birthday.'

She stayed very still.

'I am an old fashioned geek,' he pointed out. 'I will propose one day, be warned. Just not yet. You will have plenty of opportunity to run away beforehand. I have to get dressed and go out to buy a ring for a start. Although.' He picked up her hand and admired the P signet still firmly stuck on her fourth finger, 'you may have beaten me to that with that amazing foresight of yours, Psychic Purple.' He kissed her finger.

'I'm not great at engagements,' she pointed out in terror, not wanting to break the spell.

'I don't think it'll be a very long one. I love you, you love me. It's absolutely right.'

She chewed her lip, still not trusting herself to believe something so lovely could be happening to her. 'It wasn't so long ago you lectured me about the fact any fool can say "I love you".'

'I meant everything I said that night.'

She started back in horror, but he reached out to stop her retreating further across the mattress, dark eyes glowing with honesty. 'When I said I'd fallen in love with you at half past seven the previous evening, I was telling the truth, although I hated myself for it at the time.'

Legs gazed back at him in amazement, blown away by the intensity of his eyes. 'Seven thirty-six,' she corrected breathlessly. 'You said you fell in love with me at seven thirty-six.'

'And you?'

'I always forget to wear a watch.' She wriggled closer again, 'but I'd hazard a guess at seven thirty-sixish. I felt the same,' she laughed, snuggling up to him once more. 'I've never reacted so strongly to anyone in my life. I absolutely, totally loved you from that point.'

'As long as you keep saying that to me, I think I can finally start to believe it.' He reached out to touch his fingers lightly on the words at the top of her spine in wonder.

'I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you!' She repeated over and over again until he was forced to kiss her again to shut her up.

Making love amid the flickering computer screens in Byrne's writing room was one of the most thrilling sexual highs of Legs' life. She loved the imaginative potency of the space and its dark, gothic intimacy; it was part monastic medieval study, part sci-fi fantasy. The big leather chair was particularly stimulating as she climbed on board to straddle him and it whirled around giddily, the illuminated screens blurring in front of her eyes until she lost count of the minutes they span round, just as she'd already lost count of the number of times they'd had sex. Byrne's beautiful, athletic body was her Seventh Heaven and his clever mind her Cloud Nine, fuelling her sexual imagination as they found more and more delicious ways of slotting together, from Legs Eleven to Sixty-Nine.

Afterwards, exhausted, they took a long soak in the claw-footed bath and collapsed into bed to sleep. When Legs woke up it was the early hours and Byrne was missing beside her in the bed.

She could hear computer keys tapping in the room below and crept halfway down the stairs to watch him working in his big chair, no longer a plaything as he focused on one of the many screens, typing furiously. He was wearing just an old shirt and the inevitable Calvin Klein boxers, his hair on end, gorgeously dishevelled and much-shagged. So besotted that her libido was on permanent tick-over like a waiting getaway car to sexual oblivion, Legs felt the engine revving on her sex drive again. She tried to let out the choke, not wanting to disturb him.

Around the room, other screens were open on reference websites and emails. She could see one from Conrad written entirely in capital letters.

Legs had checked her own phone earlier that day while Byrne was asleep and had found tens of messages from her ex boss and ex-lover queued up on it demanding to know what was going on and whether she was really now Gordon's PA. Conrad was back in London now, as was Kizzy, desperately preparing for damage limitation in the event of Gordon's big reveal being cancelled. It seemed Brooke had finally sent Kizzy packing by telling her that his son had just flown to New Zealand, which was panicking Conrad totally. Peering at the screen now to look at his email to Byrne, she could make out at least ten capitalised obscenities.

Aware that he wasn't alone, Byrne stopped typing and looked up at her perched on the curving staircase.

'I wasn't snooping,' she promised, then blushed. 'Well maybe a bit. I like watching you work.'

'You'll have to get used to it.' He smiled apologetically. 'I'm something of a workaholic.'

'Oh I'm sure I can help you deal with that.' She started down the stairs. 'The secret of getting rid of a vice is to acquire another one.' She dropped the bed sheet she was wrapped in as she weaved her way towards him.

'And what did you have in mind?'

She climbed back on board the chair. 'I was thinking of sex addiction.'

'Too late.' He started kissing her as she eased the boxers off and herself on. 'I'm already totally hooked.'

Curled up on his lap later, she watched as he flipped through more emails while he printed out his night's work.

'What is it?' She watched the sheaves of A4 churning out of the laser.

'Something I was working on that day at the quarry. It's finished now. I'll show you soon. Shit!' He sat up, spilling her off his lap as he read a message, anger mounting in his face.

'What is it?' She turned to see, but he minimised the screen, making her suddenly jumpy, even though romantic fires were glowing and cracking all around them once more.

'Is it Conrad going on about the Reveal again?'

He shook his head.

'Have you decided what you're going to do?'

Still his head shook, those big intense eyes lifting to hers, rivalling the fires all around them. 'Can you live with Gordon Lapis as a public figure?'

'Of course I can. If you wrote bestselling sex confessionals as Tess Tosterone I'd be proud to be outed as your lover. I love you.'

He smiled distractedly, looking at the fires on screen, but his head shook on like a dancing bear kept chained up too long in a Russian city square.

'The message is from Poppy in total histrionics,' he admitted, although Legs sensed he was trying to change the subject away from Gordon's forthcoming public appearance rather than wanting to talk about his mother's overwrought state. 'I sent her a line saying that I now know about Kizzy being my half-sister.'

'She's angry that you know?'

'Upset,' still his head shook on. 'She thinks I'll never forgive her for keeping us apart. I suppose I was pretty cold. I thought she'd told me absolutely everything, after all, and now I find out she's still withholding secrets.'

'But you do forgive her, surely?' she asked, remembering that he'd said he adored her that very day.

'For that much, yes. I'm sure she had her reasons.'

Legs was about to point out that he similarly had reasons for keeping Gordon a secret, but something about his tension stopped her. 'So what is it you can't forgive her?'

'I told her that I'm in love with you.'

She went very still. 'What does she say?'

'That I'm a bloody fool. That you and Francis have a love that can never be extinguished. She's told Hector and he's raging to the rooftops.'

'They're wrong!' Legs took his face in her hands, forcing his head to stop shaking. 'They're wrong!'

'Poppy says that you two have always been the future of Farcombe and I've just brought that down.' His eyes were bright flares of anguish. 'It's true, you were going to go back to him and I stopped you.'

'That,' she started to kiss him with incredible tenderness 'was the bravest act of all your heroics.' Tears of gratitude stole onto her cheeks. 'It was the thing that really saved my life.'

Sliding to the floor, they made love again in front of eight roaring fires and one long-suffering basset hound.

By the third sunrise, they were both growing faint with hunger, the trendy Versace kitchen plundered of any edible contents. They'd lived off beans on toast and tom yum noodles for three days. Only Fink had eaten well, having discovered an unopened bag of dry dog food left unguarded in one corner, which he'd broken into and been gorging happily upon ever since in between voyeuristically observing all the sex taking place in his master's tower.

'We'll go to the main house,' Byrne told Legs. 'Zina is a fantastic cook.'

He went to fetch her bag from the abandoned car at long last, leaving her snoozing on the bed, unable to believe she had stumbled upon a haven of man and place that made her feel as though she was existing in a floating bubble that she never wanted to pop. With Francis it had been a prison; here she was in the clouds literally. She watched the highest, tuftiest streaks of cirrus float by, shaped like seahorses.

It vaguely occurred to her that she should call her parents and reply to the many messages on her phone. But Legs was floating in a guilt-free place for once, so the outside world felt unimportant.

Then Byrne came back, loaded with unfamiliar women's clothes.

'Whose are those?' Legs eyed them warily, noting a high percentage of coral.

'Zina's. Your car is no longer there.'

'My car's been stolen?'

'Impounded.'

'Since when did the Laois County Council put double yellows on a disused quarry?'

'That's pronounced "leesh" not "louse", and it's nothing to do with illegal parking, although they're very strict on car dumping round here. That's a popular beauty spot; I guess a local walker reported your car abandoned there, and when a check was run on the British numberplate, it came up red hot. You are wanted by the police.'

'For what?'

'Something to do with a stolen painting?'

'Shit!' She covered her mouth in anguished recognition. 'I drove off from Devon with the Protheroes' Lucian Freud in my car boot.'

'That'll explain it,' he said drily, 'not to mention the family's sapphire ring in the glove compartment. Dad knows the local Garda well, and managed to persuade them the car left all the way up there was nothing to do with the family here at Coolbaragh, but it won't take a lot for them to add you and me together. They'll be back first thing tomorrow at a guess.'

'Technically, it's Vin Keiller-Myles' Freud,' Legs breathed as she realised the full scale of the man hunt she was now unwittingly framed within, 'or rather his fake Freud, but he obviously doesn't know that yet. Hector smuggled it to Spywood to avoid the truth getting out; he gave it to my mother as a romantic gesture. He was probably too blootered to remember he did it in the first place. I meant to drop it back in the hall postbox the night I left, but I was so desperate to get away I didn't stop. I'm guilty as charged.'

'Then you have no choice.' His dark eyes glowed.

Legs nodded, terror gripping her. 'I know. I have to turn myself in and explain exactly what happened.'

'Are you crazy? Hector will frame you like that little painting if you do that. I always knew he was a crook. He didn't give it to your mother as a love token, Legs. This is an insurance fiddle.'

She gaped at him, 'He wouldn't do that to Mum.'

'He's a gambler who bets on loyalty. If he loses a wager, the innocent go down in flames.'

'But Francis sold that painting, not his father.'

'Your innocent old flame.' He wrapped his arms around her. 'Hector probably acted in a panic, I grant you, but then all the die turned up sixes for him.'

'I don't understand how you can still hate him so much.'

'Trust me, I'm through with hating him,' he sighed, resting his forehead against hers, lash-veiled eyes scanning between hers. 'There's a bigger gambler in play here, and he's raised the stakes sky high.'

'Who?'

He cupped her face in his hand, looking away. 'When you found that notebook proving that Hector couldn't have been a part of the ring that brought down my father, I knew there had to be something I'd overlooked. It just didn't add up. So many trails I followed in the past had led to Farcombe, apparently to Hector and his years as a heavy gambler. Then when I came back here, I looked again at everything I have on file and struck upon the truth. The trails didn't lead to Hector. They led past him, to Vin Keiller-Myles.'

'Vin?'

He nodded, eyes on her again. 'Vin was right at the centre of the most corrupt betting circle operating in the UK for almost a decade, but his businesses were so interwoven with Hector's money and investments at the time, their lives running so parallel, it's hard to pull the threads apart. He didn't care if the finger got pointed at Hector; that was partly the point. Vin's name was never brought into it. For all their old-poker-cronie camaraderie, they hate one another, as you know. Hector's never forgiven Vin for taking his club; likewise Vin loathes Hector for stealing the love of his life. They've always looked for ways to out-gamble one another. Vin's been badgering Hector to sell him the Freud for years, but knew Hector would never oblige because both men know it's fake. But Francis didn't know that, and he has the authority to sell estate assets. With Hector distracted, Vin finally succeeded in the hustle.'

'What's he planning to do? Have the painting authenticated and sue the Protheroes for misleading him?'

'Something to that end. He has them in a financial noose. His main goal has always been the hall.'

'Might he get it?' she gasped.

'Not if he's threatened with evidence that could reveal him as a key figure in horseracing's most corrupt years. The police would arrest him like a shot. If convicted, he'd miss at least twenty festivals.'

'What are we waiting for? We must do it!' She grabbed his arm delightedly.

He stayed put. 'You think I want to help Hector and Francis out of this tight spot?'

'No, obviously not them.' She tugged at his arm, desperate to launch into action like Julie Ocean and Jimmy, 'but what about Poppy?'

'She's better off without them.' He shook away her hand.

Legs stepped back in shock, gazing anxiously at his lowered brows, that dark expression he wore when thinking and brooding, a portcullis of concentration.

'But they want to arrest me!' she whimpered, feeling suddenly very vulnerable. 'What about me?'

The arms came out again, and this time he enfolded her so tightly she was in no doubt that she was the right side of the defending drawbridge. 'I'm going to look after you, never you fear.'

'So what do you suggest we do?'

'We're going on the run, Bonnie.'

'We can't!' she yelped. 'The festival is less than a week away.'

'The perfect excuse for a road trip.' He kissed her decisively.

Chapter 50.

'I used to drink to forget but I'm damned if I can remember why that was now!' Brooke cackled in an accent so creamily Irish that he made the old joke sound like a million hit YouTube clip. He was a head-on collision between cliche and joie de vivre that made him a delightful bon vivant. His politics, however, were not for the faint-hearted: 'I hate the British, I hate the Germans and I especially hate the fecking French, arrogant cowards. But I love their food that's why I sent Zina here on a cordon bleu cookery course last year.'

Before they left Coolbaragh, Byrne insisted he and Legs must share a meal with his father and Zina. He clearly didn't believe in quick getaways when it came to going on the run, and when Legs tasted Zina's food she hardly blamed him. The soft, sweet chicken bursting with tarragon was almost worth getting arrested for, and she would have willingly served time for a third helping of her chocolate and orange mousse.