Flora has become more and more afraid of Horace. As the years had rolled on his aggressive and coercive behaviour had intensified. After he retired as a local Judge he was around more and the pressure on her had increased. Flora decided she’d had enough, after the last interlude where he poured coffee and milk over kitchen table, talked to her as if she was a dog, and made her kneel on the floor to put his shoes on. She finds refuge in a country house hotel in Buckinghamshire. Now wearing her own clothes not the dowdy colourless ones Horace made her wear. She needs rest and peace, turning off her phone, she luxuriates in her suite with a four poster bed. If only her hands would stop shaking.
Fuming at Flora daring to stand up to him, Horace smashes up the house, destroying most of her art work. This time she takes refuge in France in a beach flat. Here she meets Henri who turns out to be a French Count, he is educated and well-mannered and shows her that not all men behave like Horace.