White light swelled behind my eyes, spilling inside my skull and half blinding me.We were reclining on a rug in the shade of a tree, and the high sun shining through the chinks in the leaves made them black as carved ebony. We had been watching a polo match. As well as Xan’s low voice I could hear shouting and ponies’ hooves drumming on the turf and then the sharp crack of a stick on the ball.I turned my dazzled face to his. His head was propped on one hand and he leaned over me, waiting.‘Yes,’ I managed to say. ‘Yes, yes, yes. I will. More than anything. For ever and ever.’So, incoherently, I promised to marry Xan Molyneux. The leaves and the chinks of light and all the rest of the world were blotted out as he lowered his head and kissed me.Jessie James was the first person we told. He came to meet us still in his white breeches and shirt soaked with sweat from the match, stalking over the grass with his face flushed with exertion and success.‘Did you see that?’ he called.‘No,’ Xan said bluntly.‘But it was the very best goal I’ve ever scored.
