***
I arrived at the house in mid-afternoon on the last full day before Caroline, Peter and Marie began their return. They were already preparing to leave. Their welcome was less than enthusiastic, and when they decided to have cold drinks on the patio they seemed to have forgotten about me until, almost as an afterthought, as Caroline was about to sit down she offhandedly told me to fetch myself a glass of whatever I wanted from the kitchen.
Later Peter asked me to help hack back some brambles in the garden, and while we were chopping and thwacking he said, 'Lucky your stomach bug cleared up in time for the drive home. I'd begun to think you might be stranded for weeks in that grubby little hotel.'
The Hotel des Amis had not been at all grubby, but the true target of the jibe was not Madame or Georges but me. Except for that one remark of his, my feigned illness was not mentioned again. Caroline and Peter adopted a policy of speaking to me only when necessary. Marie confided that they had been hoping my fluent French would help them settle a dispute with the farmer who had sold them the house about vehicle access to the rear.
The next day she and I followed the Porsche on the unexceptional journey back to England. The nearer we came to home the more I worried about the damage that my holiday escapade with Georges might have done to my career, and the more dubious my own motives and behaviour in ingratiating myself with Peter seemed.