Rosie's Dilemma

by Jennie Felton

Genres: General Fiction; Sagas; Historical Romance

Synopsis

Discover the emotional and unforgettable brand-new novel from Jennie Felton.

When war is declared in September 1939, Rosie Mitchell reluctantly returns from London to the Somerset mining town of Hillsbridge to be with her widowed mother. She had fled to the city some years earlier to escape the heartache and shame of a disastrous end to her relationship with the man she has always loved, and still does. Now she will once more be brought face to face with him, and with her rival and childhood friend, Anne Hastings.

Back in her hometown, there is no avoiding the attentions of Julian Edgell, the charming doctor who had broken her heart. But another man too comes into her life. A man she finds very attractive, but who will disclose nothing about himself. Can she trust either of them? Or will her heart be broken all over again?

Rosie's dilemma unfolds against the backdrop of war with all its hardship, danger, heroism and sacrifice. as well as the anxiety for loved ones which no-one, be they ordinary working folk or local aristocracy, can escape.

Don't miss this heartrending page-turner from the author of The Coal Miner's Wife and The Families of Fairley Terrace Series.

Release date: September 26, 2024

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 512

Sample

That morning, the despair that had kept Winnie Mitchell awake most of the night still hung over her so heavily that she felt it would suffocate her.

It was beginning to look as if another war was inevitable. Her memories of the last one were still fresh in her mind. The terrible death toll – boys who’d marched off singing and believing they could defeat the enemy by Christmas but had never come home. The tales of those who did make it back – shivering with fear in the muddy trenches, the constant bombardment, the advances across open ground and the forays into no-man’s-land to bring wounded survivors back behind British lines. The grief of families who had lost loved ones. The girls who lost sweethearts and never married. ‘The war to end all wars’, they’d called it. But they’d been wrong.

Winnie had known many of those who had given their lives or come back forever scarred by their experience, but fortunately had not lost anyone close to her. This time it could be very different. Her son, Don, had joined the army as a regular as soon as he was old enough. Who knew where he’d be sent? What he’d have to endure? Who knew if he’d survive, or die a horrible death? And her daughter, Rosie, was living in London, which would almost certainly be a target for the enemy . . .

Winnie sighed and gave herself a shake. The war hadn’t even begun yet, and if she went on like this she’d be a nervous wreck long before it was over. She’d try to forget about it for the moment and think of happier times. Times when they’d all been together – Ern, her husband, lost to a heart attack three years ago, Don and Rosie. Today was a Sunday, and in the past she’d loved Sundays. Lazy days when she didn’t have to go to work at Bramley Court, where she cleaned, did the washing and ironing and helped out in the kitchen if help were needed. No shops open. No distractions – even a game of cards was frowned upon. A whole day when she could do whatever she liked in the little cottage in the grounds of Bramley Court where Ern had been the gardener.

She’d enjoyed spending the morning preparing a roast dinner – a shoulder of lamb, perhaps, with vegetables from their own vegetable patch, fresh mint sauce in summer and onions in white sauce in winter, and a fruit pie and thick sweet custard to follow. They’d eat it, the four of them, sitting around the kitchen table and listening to the wireless. Afterwards, when it had been cleared away, the children might go out to meet their friends, and she and Ern would sit down with the papers – the Sunday Pictorial for her, the News of the World for him, though he often fell asleep over it.

She didn’t cook roasts any more. It didn’t seem worth it just for herself. But she shouldn’t complain, Winnie knew. It was only right that children should be free to live their lives. She’d said as much to Rosie when she’d realised the girl was hesitating about going to London because she was reluctant to leave her mother alone.

‘Don’t you worry about me,’ she’d said. ‘I’ll be all right. You’ll love being with Freda – after all, you’ve been friends all your lives. As long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters to me.’

She’d been putting a brave face on it, of course. She really didn’t want Rosie to go. But she’d known how important it was to the girl to get away. Her heart had been broken by Julian Edgell, son of the well-to-do family of brewers at Pridcombe House, whose grounds adjoined those of Bramley Court, home of Sir James Hastings. She’d been obsessed by Julian ever since she was a little girl, when she used to play with Anne Hastings, daughter of Sir James. Anne’s brother Philip had been great friends with Julian, and while Philip hated the girls following them around, Julian had encouraged them, earning Rosie’s seemingly undying devotion.

Winnie hadn’t been happy when, in her mid teens, Rosie had begun meeting Julian secretly. She’d known it wouldn’t end well. Someone like him would never settle for a gardener’s daughter. He’d want someone of his own class, like Anne Hastings, and Rosie would end up with a broken heart. Julian was at medical school, for goodness’ sake, going to be a doctor, while Rosie worked at Dick Bendle’s garage in town. Winnie had tried to reason with her daughter, but she couldn’t make her see sense. As far as Rosie was concerned, the sun rose and set with Julian Edgell and that was that.

Inevitably something had gone wrong, just as Winnie had always known it would, but she suspected there was more to it than just a broken heart. The way Rosie clammed up when Winnie asked her what had happened, it was almost as if she was ashamed of something. Winnie had sincerely hoped she hadn’t done something she’d regret that could have . . . consequences. Surely Rosie would have more sense than that! But where Julian Edgell was concerned, Winnie couldn’t be sure. Oh well, she wouldn’t be the first and she wouldn’t be the last, Winnie had told herself philosophically. But to her knowledge at least, that hadn’t happened.

Since Rosie had gone to London just over two years ago Winnie had missed her badly, but she’d never regretted encouraging her to go. From her letters and visits home, it seemed she was enjoying herself there. Dances, the pictures, even the theatre sometimes; her life seemed to be a whirl of social distractions. She’d even mentioned a few boys she’d met, and Winnie hoped she was beginning to forget all about Julian Edgell.

Winnie’s thoughts returned to the threat of the impending war. It had been brewing for a long time, of course, but she hadn’t really understood what was going on. Austria, Czechoslovakia – they might have been on the moon for all she knew. And when she’d heard the prime minister, Mr Chamberlain, on the wireless, saying he believed it was ‘peace in our time’, she’d thought all the trouble was over.

Then that spring it had all started up again, and it seemed that a war with Germany was coming down the line like the Pines Express. The air force had taken delivery of 400 new planes and were calling for nearly 6,000 extra pilots. The strength of the Territorial Army was to be doubled and drill halls built. Deep air raid shelters were to be sunk. Plans for the evacuation of children from vulnerable cities were drawn up. And conscription was being introduced.

But it was when Germany invaded Poland just two days ago that the dark shadow truly fell over the whole of Europe, and it was that which had kept her awake half the night. Dread of what was to come, and most of all fear for her children.

With an effort she tried to pull herself together. ‘What will be will be. You can’t do nothing about it.’ That was what Ern would have said if he was here. But he wasn’t.

Winnie had a sudden thought. She’d go to chapel.

She wasn’t a regular. She’d been a few times after Ern died, thinking it might help her come to terms with her grief – they’d been married for close on forty years, after all, with rarely a cross word. Ern had been a peacemaker who liked a quiet life; it had been almost impossible to get into an argument with him, let alone a full-blown fight. And he’d been her rock in good times and in bad. But she’d found no real solace in prayer, and had come to expect none. She’d just got on with her life, telling herself she was lucky Sir James had let her stay on in the gardener’s cottage as long as she continued with her domestic duties.

Today, however, she thought it couldn’t hurt to go to chapel and say a prayer for Don and Rosie. And if there was a God, perhaps he’d hear her.

She washed her face, pulled a comb through her curly hair, which seemed to have more grey in it every day, and had some breakfast, still in her dressing gown. Just a pot of tea and a bowl of Kellogg’s All Bran – she swore by Kellogg’s to keep her regular. Much healthier than the fried bread, bacon and eggs they used to have. She washed up her bowl and cup and saucer, tidied them away, and got dressed in her best frock – home-made on her Singer sewing machine. Some of the women in the congregation would be wearing hats, she knew, but she didn’t like wearing one. They never sat right on her curly mop, and usually gave her a headache. To cover her arms, she put on the jacket of the costume she’d worn for Ern’s funeral. She might be too hot in it – it was only the beginning of September, after all – but it would do the job. Then she slipped into her best shoes, fetched her handbag and made sure she had some change for the collection, and set out on the long walk into town.

As she reached the spot where the lane met the main road, a motor car engine shattered the quiet that had only been broken by the church bells ringing in the valley. It came closer, and to her surprise pulled up alongside her. A big grey Humber she recognised at once. The window rolled down and Sir James himself leaned across his wife, who was in the passenger seat, and called to her.

‘Going into town, Mrs Mitchell?’ Flustered, she nodded. ‘Hop in then. We’ll give you a lift. We’re on our way to church.’

Winnie knew that the couple often went to church, but she was surprised Lady Frances could spare the time today. When the Women’s Voluntary Service had been launched last year, she’d been put in charge of the district, and on Friday when Winnie had been working at Bramley Court, her ladyship had been busy making arrangements for the evacuee children she was expecting to arrive in the not-too-distant future. Winnie had heard on the wireless that the first wave had already been sent away from London and the northern cities to the countryside.

Lady Hastings was wearing her WVS uniform now, a tweed jacket and skirt and a smart felt hat, and Winnie thought it suited her. With her vitality, endless enthusiasm and commanding presence, she was cut out to be an officer of one sort or another.

‘How nice to see you out and about, Mrs Mitchell,’ she said, swivelling in her seat and smiling at Winnie. ‘We work you far too hard, I’m sure.’

‘Not at all, milady,’ Winnie said dutifully.

‘Nevertheless, there is a great deal to be done at the moment, given the situation we face,’ Lady Hastings went on, ‘and I’m wondering if I might be able to persuade you to join our band of volunteers. The WVS is going to need all the help it can get, and your contribution would be invaluable.’

‘Oh my goodness!’ Winnie was horrified at the suggestion. Working for the gentry was one thing; having to mingle with a lot of local toffs was quite another. ‘I don’t know that I’d be any use. Housework is all I know about.’

‘There would be plenty of things you could do!’ Lady Hastings enthused. ‘Practical things. We need volunteers from all walks of life. And you’ve not to worry about buying a uniform just yet. As long as you wear an armband to identify you as one of us, you can wear your own clothes.’

‘Don’t let her bully you, Mrs Mitchell,’ Sir James said over his shoulder.

He was such a nice man, Winnie thought. A real gentleman, and kind with it, letting her stay in the cottage. Plenty of lords of the manor would have turned her out. He’d always been good to Rosie, too, when she was a little girl and went to play with Anne.

‘When have I ever bullied anyone, pray?’ Lady Hastings demanded, but there was a playful undertone in her voice, and the glance she gave her husband was almost flirtatious.

‘When you want something, my dear, woe betide anyone who crosses you,’ Sir James teased her in return.

When they reached town, he negotiated the two sets of level crossings that bisected the main road, then took a left turn and came to a halt outside the lias-stone building that was the Methodist chapel.

‘Thank you so much, sir.’ Winnie fumbled with the door handle.

‘My pleasure. It’s a long walk. If we see you on the way home, we’ll stop and pick you up,’ he replied.

‘And please, Mrs Mitchell, do think about what I’ve said,’ her ladyship added as Winnie climbed out onto the pavement. ‘It would be good for you, I’m sure.’

Oh my word! thought Winnie as she started up the path to the chapel door. Joining the WVS was not something she wanted to do at all, but she didn’t want to upset her ladyship either.

Not having had to walk, she was early now for the service. Only a few people had arrived so far. A little clique Winnie knew by sight were setting out teacups at the hatch that led to the kitchen of the adjoining meeting room; Mr Watts, the blind pianist who played for the hymns, was tinkling a few notes; and a man she didn’t recognise was arranging a thick sheaf of papers on the lectern – a visiting preacher, she assumed.

The minister, Reverend Colville, appeared, his eyes lighting on Winnie, who had slipped rather self-consciously into one of the back pews. He stopped to speak to Mr Watts, then made his way down the aisle.

‘Mrs Mitchell! It’s not often we see you here.’

Winnie managed an apologetic smile. ‘No, I’m sorry. I should come more often, I know. But . . .’ She tailed off, no good excuse presenting itself.

‘But you’re here now.’ The minister patted her arm. ‘We all need to come together at a time like this.’

Winnie could only nod, and when the minister had returned to his preparations for the service, she clasped her hands and began to pray.

The chapel filled, slowly at first, then all of a rush, and just as the service began, a few stragglers crept in, doing their best to be unobtrusive. Winnie joined in with the Lord’s Prayer and the responses and sang along with the hymns, smiling to herself as Mrs Dury, the dentist’s wife, held the last note of each verse longer than anyone else – very loudly – just as she always did. As Winnie had feared, the visiting preacher droned on at some length, and she thought she was going to miss the chance of a lift home with Sir James.

The final hymn – a rousing ‘I Vow to Thee, My Country’ – was under way when Edgar Collier, the newsagent whose shop was almost next door to the chapel, entered through the main door and went straight up the aisle to the minister. He seemed agitated, Winnie thought. Perhaps there’d been an accident in the street outside the chapel.

But as the last note died away, the minister raised a hand for silence, his expression grave.

‘I am afraid Mr Collier has just given me some news which, though not totally unexpected, is the last thing any of us would want to hear, and something that will impact on every one of us. At eleven fifteen this morning, our prime minister, Mr Chamberlain, broadcast to the nation. I regret to say we have declared war on Germany.’

Winnie’s stomach clenched. Her worst fears had been realised, her prayers gone unanswered.

The minister, however, was not about to give up so easily.

‘Before we leave, will you all join me in prayer?’

The shocked congregation fell to their knees, and Winnie knelt too. But the words rang hollow in her ears. Much good will it do you, she thought bitterly. And wondered what would become of all of them before this was over.

‘I shall have to go home.’

Rosie Mitchell and Freda Dobbs, who had been friends through school and beyond, were sitting in stripy canvas deckchairs on the tiny patch of lawn behind Freda’s Bermondsey house. Freda had moved in to care for her grandmother when she had become too infirm to look after herself, and Granny Dobbs had left the house to her in her will. Since Rosie had come to London to join her, it was what they liked to do on sunny summer Sundays when Rosie wasn’t on a shift at the Lyons teashop where she worked as a waitress.

Today, however, the conversation was quite different from their usual topics: the latest film, the latest fashions, and young men.

War had been declared on Germany.

They’d heard it on the news. Rosie had been in the little kitchen making the pastry for a treacle tart when Freda had called to her from the living room.

‘Rosie! Come here – quick!’

The urgency in her voice and a man’s solemn tones that she could just hear coming from the wireless was enough to make Rosie leave the mixture of flour and butter she was rubbing in in the earthenware pastry bowl. She’d hurried through, wiping her hands on her apron as she went and scattering some of the little globules onto the floor, just in time to recognise the voice of Mr Chamberlain himself.

‘I am speaking to you from the cabinet room at 10 Downing Street. This morning the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and consequently this country is at war with Germany.’

Rosie froze, more floury blobs falling onto the worn carpet as her hands tightened to fists in the folds of her apron, while Freda sat forward in her chair, one hand pressed to her mouth, listening intently. But to Rosie, much of Mr Chamberlain’s speech was a blur, though certain phrases penetrated the thick fog that came from realising her worst fears had become reality.

‘. . . no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force . . . now that we have resolved to finish it, I know that you will all play your part with calmness and courage.’

For a long moment after the prime minister had ended his address, neither girl moved or spoke as they took in the enormity of what they had just heard. Then Freda looked up.

‘That’s it, then. The balloon’s gone up.’ Still Rosie was silent, and she went on, ‘Well, we knew it was serious really, didn’t we, when those air raid shelters turned up on the doorstep back in the spring. They were getting ready even then.’

‘Yes,’ Rosie said in a whisper. ‘I suppose we did. But . . .’

They’d tried to laugh it off when sections of tunnel-shaped shelters made of steel had been delivered to every house in the road, blocking the pavement in both directions. With them had come instructions for erecting the shelters in case of emergency and advising that they should be partly sunk in the ground. It should be a simple job for two people, according to the leaflet.

‘They haven’t seen our back garden,’ Freda had said, pulling a rueful face. ‘We’d be lucky to get a spade into it even if we had one.’

Granny Dobbs had been paying a neighbour a few shillings every month or so to keep the garden tidy, but when she died, he’d stopped coming. He must have been using his own tools, because there were no spades or forks in the shed, just a trowel, a pair of rusty secateurs and a reel of green twine. There was also a small lawnmower, which Freda hauled out and ran across the grass when it got long. She’d intended to get some other tools so as to clear and plant up the little square vegetable patch, but somehow it had never happened. Although Rosie paid her way, by the time Freda had bought the essentials, there was never much money left over from her wage as a shorthand typist in the office of the nearby brewery, nor hours in the day by the time she’d cooked, washed, and kept the house clean and tidy. Now the ground – stony at the best of times – was baked hard from the summer sun. The very idea that they could dig a hole big enough to accommodate the shelter was laughable.

‘Putting it up would be way beyond me in any case,’ Freda had said. ‘I haven’t even got the patience to do a jigsaw.’

‘I expect I could work out how to do it,’ Rosie had offered. But in the end they’d simply carried the steel sheets through the house and stacked them against the fence at the end of the garden, where they had remained.

Now, however, nothing about this was a laughing matter.

‘Perhaps we ought to try to put that thing up,’ Freda said.

Rosie didn’t reply, her mind clearly elsewhere, and Freda went on, ‘On second thoughts, let’s not bother. Under the stairs is good enough for me. Agreed?’

‘Whatever,’ Rosie said off-handedly. ‘I’ve got pastry to make.’

She returned to the kitchen, thrust her hands into the bowl of flour and butter and rubbed it between her fingers and thumbs, still thinking about the decision she’d made as the situation had worsened. She didn’t think Freda would be very happy about it, and she was putting off the moment when she’d have to tell her.

Neither of the girls had much appetite for their dinner of pork chops cooked under the grill followed by Rosie’s treacle tart, which she had managed to burn around the rim. They pushed their food around their plates in gloomy silence. A few times Freda attempted to start a conversation, but Rosie was uncharacteristically uncommunicative.

It was only when they’d cleared away, washed up, and settled into the deckchairs on the patch of lawn that Rosie broached the subject that had been on her mind ever since Mr Chamberlain’s broadcast.

‘I shall have to go home.’

‘Are you sure?’ Freda, who was well aware of the reason Rosie had come to London to join her, swivelled her deckchair so that she was directly facing her friend.

Rosie nodded. ‘I don’t think I have any choice. If there’s going to be a war, I don’t want Mum to be on her own.’

‘She’s not entirely on her own,’ Freda pointed out; she really didn’t want Rosie to go. ‘She’s got the Hastings family nearby, and she’s up at the house most days.’

‘But what about at night? That’s when the planes are most likely to come. She’d be frightened to death.’

‘Sir James has got an Anderson shelter, hasn’t he?’ Freda argued. ‘Your mum wrote to you about it – a great green hump in the middle of the garden, she said. They’d let her go in with them if there was an air raid, surely?’

A great green hump. They’d laughed, imagining it when Rosie had read the letter out to Freda. All very well for the Hastings family. They had plenty of money and men they could call on to dig it in and even cover it with earth and turf so that it was less of an eyesore.

‘I’m sure they would, but it’s not the same as having me there,’ said Rosie, miserable yet stubborn. ‘You know how guilty I felt leaving her in the first place. She’s not a young woman, Freda. She was in her forties when she had me. And she’ll be worried about our Don too. You know the army’s been put on standby, and goodness knows where they’ll send him. No, I’m sorry, but my mind’s made up.’

‘What about your job?’ Freda asked, clutching at straws. ‘You can’t just walk out without giving notice.’

‘Why not? It’s different for you. You’re a valued member of staff. I’m just a glorified skivvy.’

‘What will you do for money?’

‘With any luck Mr Bendle will take me on at the garage again. If not, I’ll find something else.’ Rosie chewed on a fingernail, feeling guilty at abandoning Freda. ‘Why don’t you come with me?’ she asked after a moment. ‘I’m sure your mum and dad would be glad to have you home. And London’s bound to be bad. If they bomb anywhere, it will be here. That’s why they’ve started sending the children away to safety.’

Yesterday they’d seen the youngsters leaving their homes with their little suitcases, frightened and clutching their mothers’ hands. Some were in tears, and it looked as if the mothers were a bit tearful too. But they were also resigned. The children’s safety was the most important thing.

But Freda shook her head. ‘I don’t want to leave Granny’s house. There’ll be all sorts of scoundrels breaking in if they know there’s no one here. Her stuff means a lot to me. The pottery honey pot in the shape of a country cottage, for a start. It was always on the table at teatime when I was little. I loved it. And what about her wedding and engagement rings? And the clock they gave Grampy when he retired . . .’

‘I shouldn’t think burglars would want a cottage-shaped honey pot,’ Rosie said. ‘And if a bomb dropped on the house it would all be gone anyway – and you with it.’

‘Well, I’m not leaving,’ Freda insisted. ‘I don’t want you to go, and I don’t think you want to either. But if you must, you must, I suppose.’

She reached for her glass of ginger beer. ‘Do you want to take a couple of bottles with you?’

Freda laughed. ‘I don’t think so. I wouldn’t have room, and if it got shaken up . . . well, you know what the result might be. Panic! Everyone on the train would think a bomb had gone off.’

Freda laughed too at the memory.

Making the ginger beer had been a project they’d enjoyed. They’d saved their empty lemonade bottles instead of returning them to the shop as they usually did to get some money back, bought the ingredients they needed and followed the recipe to the letter. What they’d forgotten was that the baker who’d sold them the yeast had warned them to loosen the bottle tops every day or so to let out the gas that would accumulate during fermentation. One of the bottles had exploded, spewing the contents all over the ceiling and walls of the cupboard where they’d stored it, and covering the floor with shards of broken glass.

Rosie became serious again. ‘I think I’ll go tomorrow, so I really should make a start on my packing,’ she said.

She got up from the deckchair, and Freda’s eyes followed her all the way to the back door.

In a hotel room in central London, a tall, muscular man was also packing his clothes and belongings into a large suitcase and a rucksack. Most of his worldly goods, and for the job he had to do and with a war looming, he probably wouldn’t need half of them.

As Clarke Sutherland fetched his toiletries from the bathroom, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror over the sink. Dark hair, cropped close to his head. Startlingly blue eyes. A nose that had been broken more than once, a scar that had faded with time but which he could still see clearly, and a rugged but slightly crooked jaw. It just about told the story of his life, he thought. And wondered what the future would hold.

Too late to worry about that now, though. A whole new chapter was beginning, and he was ready for it.

When Rosie had finished her packing, she went back downstairs to find Freda in the kitchen making a pot of tea.

‘Have you got any change for the telephone? I don’t think I’ve got enough, and I ought to ring Bramley Court and ask if someone could let Mum know I’ll be home tomorrow.’

‘Why not ask the operator to reverse the charges?’ Freda sounded uncharacteristically impatient. ‘The Hastings family can afford it.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t do that!’ Rosie protested.

‘Trunk calls cost an arm and a leg,’ Freda warned her. ‘You shouldn’t be wasting money like that. And in any case, I still think you’re making a big mistake. You’re dreading seeing Julian Edgell after what happened, you know you are. And after London you’ll be bored stiff in Hillsbridge. Two pubs, a working men’s club, a few things going on at the town hall – though there probably won’t be now the war’s started – and the market. Oh, and the coal mines. Let’s not forget the coal mines.’

Rosie was a little shocked to hear Freda refer so sarcastically to the mines that peppered the district. A stranger might think them a blot on the landscape – the clusters of dust-blackened buildings in the pit yard, the head gear and pit wheel rising behind them, not to mention the mountains of spoil that were known locally as ‘batches’. But to both girls they had been part of the landscape of growing up, and should evoke happy memories of home. Some of the older ones now sprouted trees and undergrowth on their upper reaches. But lower down, the steep bare slopes made wonderful sled runs for local children, Rosie and Freda included, who slid down them on tin trays and dustbin lids, whooping as they gathered speed and not caring they would be ‘for it’ when they returned as black with coal dust as any miner.

‘There aren’t that many decent jobs, either,’ Freda went on. ‘Well, you should know that.’

Rosie flinched. Freda, who had gone from school to the technical college to learn shorthand and typing, had always been a bit sniffy about Rosie working in the local garage. But Rosie had loved it. She didn’t mind wearing shapeless overalls, or the grease she could never quite get out from under her nails. She enjoyed being around motor cars too much. Manning the petrol pump, checking oil and water pressure, even learning how to change a battery or spark plugs, and later progressing to helping with engine repairs. Motors fascinated her, always had, ever since Julian had let her have a go at driving the car his father had bought him when he was due to start medical school. Just around the grounds of Bramley Court, of course, but she smiled wistfully at the memory.

Philip Hastings had been outraged – after all, Julian was his friend, not hers.

‘You haven’t even let me have a go yet,’ he’d said, peeved. ‘She’s not old enough, anyway. She’s only thirteen.’

‘Fourteen!’ Rosie had corrected him indignantly.

‘Well, that’s still not old enough.’

‘This is private property, isn’t it?’ Julian pointed out mildly enough, though Rosie thought there was an underlying edge to his tone, and opened the driver’s door for her to get in.

And how magical