When Bianca came awake in the early hours of dawn, her bed was empty, cold; like a deserted island, she thought in dismay.

The Masters had not returned home the previous night. She sat up slowly, running a hand through her heavy curtain of hair. After returning from the hospital the evening before, Bianca had been preoccupied with Cian and had also begun to check the accounts for her Masters.

First, she had worked on the ones at St Just’s place. When she had stopped, it had been because Syl had been at her, twice, to check on her; first with a mug of steaming hot chocolate, the second to...