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diaries, but I want this to be my own voice. I want it to be the book that gets me back in government. Or at least back in the party fold.’
    ‘Blimey,’ Charles French spluttered. ‘That might be a tall order.’
    ‘It might be,’ Eddie agreed. ‘I made a lot of enemies in Westminster.’
    ‘And Fleet Street,’ Charles reminded him.
    ‘One enemy in particular, as we all know,’ Eddie said darkly. ‘But I’m also foolish enough to believe that I still have a number of friends, in both those worlds. Voters aren’t looking for perfection. They’re looking for someone who can learn from their mistakes. I’ve learned from mine.’
    Have you? thought Charles French. But he kept it to himself.
    ‘Besides, returning to politics is what I want,’ said Eddie. ‘And one should always go after what one wants in life.’
    ‘What about you, Lady Wellesley?’ Sarah turned to Annabel, infuriated by Eddie’s self-centredness. ‘Do you want to go back to Westminster life? After everything that’s happened?’
    To Annabel’s own surprise, her answer was unequivocal. ‘Yes. I do.’
    Sarah was amazed.
    ‘ Why? ’ she couldn’t help asking. ‘After people were so poisonous to you.’
    ‘I think it’s because people were so poisonous,’ Annabel said truthfully. ‘David Carlyle and his cronies destroyed our lives. Not just Eddie’s life, but mine too. He robbed us of something that was ours. I want it back. We both do.’

    Eddie saw the glint of fire in his wife’s eyes and felt a powerful rush of desire. All of a sudden he wished his guests would bugger off and leave them alone.
    ‘So why the move out here?’ Sarah asked.
    ‘We needed a change,’ said Annabel, her earlier coolness back. ‘If Eddie does go back into politics, we’ll need somewhere private to retreat to. Somewhere that’s just for us. Besides, I wouldn’t want to live in London full time. And in any case, it may not happen. It’s still early days.’
    ‘There you are, you see,’ Eddie smiled at Sarah French. ‘You heard it from the horse’s mouth. That little pleb Carlyle may have won the battle. But the war isn’t over yet. Not by a long chalk.’
    That night, in bed, Eddie pressed himself against his wife, slipping his hand up underneath her starched cotton nightdress.
    ‘Can’t you take this off?’ he whispered in her ear.
    Annabel didn’t quite know why, but suddenly she felt like crying.
    ‘No, Eddie. I can’t.’
    ‘Are you angry?’
    ‘No,’ she lied. ‘I’m tired.’
    ‘I’m sorry, Annabel.’
    The words hung in the air above the bed like a cloud of ash, the last, lingering remnant of the catastrophe that had befallen their marriage. A volcano had erupted two years ago, wiping out Eddie’s career and the life he and Annabel had built together. The cloud was all that was left of that life.

    We’ll build a new life , thought Eddie. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.
    ‘I love you.’ His hand caressed her breast through the fabric of her nightgown.
    Annabel closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip. Part of her wanted him, wanted to turn round and kiss him and make love and make everything all right. But that would require forgiveness and she hadn’t got there yet. Not completely anyway. Annabel had married Eddie when she was very young, barely out of her teens. She’d built her entire life around him. But in one, disastrous year she’d seen that whole life wiped out. It was like planting a forest, watching it grow, and then waking up one morning to find that the chainsaws had been in and it was all gone. People accused her of being a snob, and perhaps she was. It didn’t occur to anybody that she was defensive and standoffish for a reason. That she’d begun wearing armour because she needed it. Because Eddie had dragged her into a war zone and left her to fend for herself.
    ‘Things have to change, Eddie,’ she said, removing his hand from her breast and clasping it in hers.
    ‘I