The Long Road Home

by Connie Monk

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

Sophie and Lydia Westlake have always been close, and think of each other as sisters, despite the fact that they are really cousins. Sophie has always been the prettier, more light-hearted younger sister, whilst Lydia has grown up in her shadow, and is more serious and reserved. But until dashing young architect Christian Mellor arrives in town on the day of the annual summer fete, their differences had never mattered. Both girls immediately fall for Christian's charms as he becomes a regular visitor to the family home, having been commissioned to do some building work for their father. Sophie marries Christian, blissfully unaware of her sister's secret passion for her husband. Lydia is devastated and tells no-one how she really feels. But cannot let go of her feelings for Christian, especially when Sophie confides that she is unhappy in the marriage.

Release date: January 14, 2016

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 400

Sample

1923

For the villagers of Kingshampton, the third Saturday afternoon in July was like no other in the year. Come rain or shine, everyone was intent on wringing every ounce of pleasure out of the few hours of the fête. Early in the week, two housewives waiting to be served in the butcher’s shop had needed no interpreter to make sense of their brief exchange. ‘Let’s hope this sunshine lasts for us,’ from one, and from the other: ‘We’ll be lucky this year. My bit of seaweed outside the back door is dry as a bone.’

And she was proved right. Under a clear sky, by three o’clock on the Saturday afternoon the large lawn of Shelton Manor was thronged with people. Sir Herbert Dinsdale, who annually allowed his garden to be used, had formally declared the fund-raising event open and was already setting a good example by spending at each stall.

On the stone-flagged terrace in front of the house, tables and chairs were set out in readiness for the strawberry tea and it was here that already Archibald and Adelaide Westlake were sitting, enjoying their vantage point. Not that they’d be afraid to spend; when they’d had their tea they would dig as deep into their pockets as anyone.

‘Ask me what’s best about this village, Addy, and I reckon I’d say it was out fête day.’ Archibald viewed the scene, his expression spelling contentment in all he saw. Not that there was anything unusual in that, for Archibald was seldom less than content.

His wife looked at him with tolerant affection. ‘None of it happens all by itself,’ she reminded him. ‘Think of the hours those roped in to help spend, begging around for prizes for the hoop-la and for that thing they call a tombola; persuading Ernie Waldeck to let them take the strawberries from his fields without paying – how they do it I can’t think, so tight he squeaks, is Ernie; George Bryant from the farm, now he’s a different matter, he gives the cream willingly and glad to do it; then between them they make all the scones and little fancies. Easy for us, all we have to do is come along and enjoy it all. Plenty of work for the lady helpers.’ She said it with pride, for one of those ladies was their own daughter Lydia.

‘Ah, she’s a good lass, our Lyddy.’ He followed her meaning.

Despite the mass of people milling around on the large lawn, stopping to view or to purchase at the fancywork stall, queuing to buy their children the ice-cream cones being served in the shade of the tall elm, or spending their pence trying their luck on the various games, there was an atmosphere of peace about the afternoon. Perhaps it had to do with the smell of the newly mown grass, the tinkle of crockery as the cups were set out on the trestle table for teas or with the fact that on the afternoon of the annual fête, superficially at any rate, the village knew no social barriers; from the squire to the most humble villager everyone joined in the fun as they raised money to pay for a day out for the children from Oaklands, the gaunt-looking home for orphaned girls situated in Brackleford some five miles away.

‘Year on year, nothing changes here, even during the war no one thought of letting this slip. Well, I should think not! Some of those poor little ’uns wouldn’t have been put in the home but for that dreadful carnage. How long is it we’ve been coming? Long before Sir Herbert inherited the place.’ Archibald doffed his Panama to the local schoolmarm as he spoke. ‘No, looking around us we might be back twenty years and more except that our gals ain’t children any longer. But for that, we’d not be able to put a date to it.’

That he bracketed the two girls together in the description ‘our gals’ hardly registered with Adelaide. The fact that Lydia was their own daughter and Sophie his orphaned niece had made no difference; they’d been brought up as sisters, the daughters of the house. In fact, sometimes – although Adelaide was loath to admit it, even to herself – she believed he made more fuss of Sophie. She had understood it in the early days, for he had adored his young brother Vincent and it had been as if all that love had been given to the toddler he’d left behind to be cared for. And no one could have helped loving her, she’d been such a jolly, happy, affectionate, pretty child. Even so, Adelaide thought now as she mulled over what he’d just said, it was more than time the girl grew up and learned to take responsibility for something apart from enjoying herself.

‘That’s just it, Arch, they’re neither of them children. It really is time Sophie realised it and tried to follow Lyddy’s example.’

‘No harm in the gal, Addy my love. Just look at her, eh? Like bees round the honey pot, the young fellas are.’ There was no doubting his pride in the lovely girl. What harm was she doing anyone if she egged the lads on a bit? Life was just a game to her. Time enough to shoulder responsibilities when she had to, but for the present it was more than enough to see her enjoying herself. ‘Can’t begrudge any of them their ha’porth of fun.’

‘She’s twenty-one years old; I was expecting Lyddy when I was her age.’ She wished she hadn’t said it, it was a reminder that of the two girls Lyddy was seven years the elder, a reminder that she’d reached twenty-eight with no sign of a suitor.

Archie was sensitive to the way his wife’s mind was turning, and quick to restore the delight in the afternoon that might easily have been lost.

‘That you were, Addy m’dear. But then, look who it was who’d bowled you over,’ he chuckled, reaching for her hand across the table. ‘Let time take its course, my dear. The lasses are as they are, and when the good Lord sees fit he’ll point the way to their futures.’ By no means a religious man in the accepted sense, Archie saw no point in worrying about things that couldn’t be altered. ‘Just let’s be grateful that we’re all of us here together, the sun’s shining and – ah yes, here comes our Lyddy with that great teapot. Same old pot, year on year. Look at her, Addy, pleased as Punch she is, to be doing her bit.’ This time his pride was for Lydia. Adelaide’s misgivings melted.

Affection and admiration mingled in her expression as her gaze rested on her daughter. How many young women of her age would concern themselves with anything more than making sure they enjoyed the event? Lydia was a truly good girl, she always had been. Never a moment’s trouble. Now that other flighty one … But the fête day was no time to waste on comparisons and even the word ‘flighty’ wasn’t without the accompaniment of an indulgent smile.

‘Like I say, Addy, it’d take more than time to change any of this. I wouldn’t mind holding the hands of the clock still for all that, just keep things as they are.’ Not a romantically inclined man, it was seldom he put his innermost feelings into words. ‘What would you say to that, eh?’ Then, without waiting for his wife’s answer, ‘But doesn’t it do your eyes good just to watch them? See, young Sophie,’ he chuckled indulgently, ‘fancy a slip of a girl like that thinking she’ll get a better score on the dart board than those fellows who spend their evenings swilling ale at the Dew Drop Inn.’ He watched proudly as his young niece hurled a dart in the direction of the board.

Adelaide wished he hadn’t said it, somehow it cast a shadow on what had gone before about holding time still.

‘The trouble is, Archie, you’ve always spoiled that girl.’ She heard the sharp note in her voice but she couldn’t help herself. ‘Of course you tried to make up to her for what she lost, of course we all tried, even though we knew she was too young to remember. Think how Lydia accepted her as a little sister, never a scrap of jealousy. She has you eating out of her hand, she’s always known she could twist you around her little finger. It’s not good for her.’

‘What nonsense the woman talks,’ Archibald laughed at his wife’s words and her carping tone alike. ‘Spoiled her, you say. If a thing is spoiled, then it’s marred. But not Sophie. Nothing wrong with the lassie.’

‘I didn’t say there was. You know that’s not what I meant. But the truth is that even if there were, you’d not see it. Pretty as a picture, it’s no wonder every young swain in the county has an eye to her. She’s a dear girl and I’m not saying it’s she who makes the running, but you can’t tell me she doesn’t like being the centre of attention. Plays up to their every move. I’ve tried to bring her up just the same as I did Lyddy, but would you ever see Lyddy behaving the way she does? Look at them jostling round her, one, two, three, and now the rector’s son joining them, all cheering her on.’

‘And why not, my dear? Where’s the harm? They’re just lads, of course they have an eye for a pretty piece like she is. All right, our young Sophie is a show-off, that I’ll admit. But it’s the sort of showing-off of a child, not a scheming thought in her pretty head.’

Adelaide turned her gaze from the excitement in front of the dart board to the trestle table where tea would be served. The difference in the two young women couldn’t have been greater: the one exposing altogether too much leg for decorum, set on following this silly new mode as if she were one of those flapper girls as they were called in fashionable high society; high society indeed, this was Kingshampton, a Berkshire backwater. Then there was Lyddy, dear Lyddy. Such good upright deportment, Adelaide’s maternal pride boasted silently. In her heart she probably knew that Lydia’s straight bearing was emphasised by her figure, tall, as flat as the newly purchased ironing board Ethel Mullens, their living-in helper, was so proud of. No one looking at Lyddy would suspect the other thing Adelaide tried not to see: the shyness and lack of confidence hidden beneath the efficient front.

‘Just because Lydia knows the meaning of service and likes to help, just because she acts with proper decorum, none of those young men will give her a second glance. No, not even Reverend Hatcher’s son – and wouldn’t you expect him to have been brought up to know gold from dross?’

Archibald let the insinuation pass. He was more sensitive than she gave him credit. Reaching across the bamboo table, he took her long capable hand into his own. My word, the thought sprang into his mind, you can feel the strength in her just by the touch. Now me … time was when these soft, flabby hands of mine had the strength of an ox, but look what idleness has done to me. Not good for a fit man to sit on his backside behind a desk; muscle turns to fat. The only exercise I get these days is going around picking up my rents, and more often than not even that’s something Lyddy does for me. Even my waistcoat is bursting at the seams, damned if it isn’t. But Adelaide, she goes from strength to strength. It’s because of Lyddy, that’s what makes her sound so edgy. Why, the lassie’s knocking twenty-nine and never a sign of a suitor to reach her down from the shelf. Pity, for, like Addie says, she’s a good girl, she’d make a splendid partner for a chap. Ah, but little Sophie, she could have any she wanted at the snap of her fingers; and the little monkey knows it, bless her. Time will bring the right one to partner our Lyddy, best we can do is not look for worries. The danger with being content, content like me and Addy, is it’s too easy to take our blessings for granted and forget to be grateful. It’s when you take your eyes off being grateful, just relax a mite and start to get used to things, then your happiness gets snatched. Me and Addy, we’ve had more than thirty good years – and plenty more to come if Him upstairs lets us. Archibald’s mind jumped back twenty-one years, as clearly as if it had been yesterday in his mind’s eye – or was it his mind’s ear – he could hear Vincent’s sobs, the news he’d brought almost impossible to understand. His beloved Trudie had died giving birth to a baby girl. Who would have thought then that in less than two years he would have followed her, killed in a rock-climbing accident?

‘I don’t believe you heard a word I said,’ Adelaide’s voice cut through his reverie.

‘I’m sorry, my love.’ He turned his good-humoured face to her with a smile, taking off his Panama hat and using it as a fan. ‘What a scorcher, eh? No, the truth is I was back down the years. Silly thing to do on a day like this. But Addy, we ain’t done so bad, what do you say?’

‘I say you’ve worked hard and got your just desserts, Arch. Plenty of folk would like to be as content as us. Let’s go and collect our tray of tea before the crush, let Lyddy pour it for us while it’s nice and fresh.’

‘I’ll go, my dear, you stay here in the shade. My, but it’s a scorcher,’ he said again, blowing out his cheeks as if to emphasise the words. ‘Wouldn’t mind being a kid again with a cornet to lick.’

‘A cup of tea will cool you down.’

Adelaide watched him make his way to the refreshment stall. A fine-built man, she thought with satisfaction. Even if his hair was getting a bit thin and his waistline not what it was, he was still a stalwart figure. She noticed he took out his wallet. Tea and two plates of strawberries with thick cream wouldn’t come to more than a shilling and tuppence even taking into account that things were overpriced in the need to boost the fund, but she knew he wouldn’t take any change from the ten-shilling note he passed to Lyddy. His words echoed in her mind, ‘We ain’t done so bad, eh?’ This afternoon she tried not to let his grammatical lapse irritate her. Archie was the same dear man who had first learned to lay his bricks, unchanged by ambition and the rewards of hard work; his nature had a core of gold which hadn’t altered as his bank balance had grown and they’d moved into a larger house and engaged Ethel, a living-in maid. No, she thought, you’re right, Arch, indeed ‘we ain’t done so bad’. Then she turned her gaze back to Lydia, watching with maternal affection as her daughter wielded the heavy teapot, greeting each customer with a polite – but, it must be said, a reserved – smile. It just wasn’t fair the way no young man ever gave her a second glance. She was always well turned out; just look at her this afternoon with her new straw toque bedecked with silk roses. She never slouched, stood straight as a ramrod, excellent deportment. She was tall – on the thin side, that had to be said, but wasn’t that better at her age than being too well-rounded? Anyone meeting her might be forgiven for seeing her as efficient and confident. Efficient, yes. But confident? Adelaide wouldn’t let herself admit to seeing behind the façade.

Excitement round the dart board took her attention back to Sophie who, more from luck than skill, must have acquitted herself well. Now, who was that she was talking to as she turned away from her retinue of admirers? A well set-up young man wearing a navy blue, green and white striped blazer, his fashionable boater hat set at a rakish angle. Very up to the minute, Adelaide decided, and unless she was much mistaken not someone from around these parts. Now just look at young Sophie, there she was chattering to him as though she’d known him for years, or at least as though she had had a formal introduction, which seemed most unlikely. Not such a boy as the rest of the circle of local admirers: there was something in his bearing the others still lacked.

‘Here we are, m’dear. Lyddy found me a nice big tray. Strawberries smell a treat, you get the waft of them right across the grass. Now, while I think of it, let me tell you: she said not to expect her home for supper this evening.’ His words were met with a look of immediate interest. ‘She wants to stay and help with the clearing-up after they’ve got rid of all us riff-raff, pick up the bits and get the garden back to rights. Then she’s been asked to join those going into the manor. It seems the organising committee always get the use of the breakfast room so that they can get their money counted and bagged – that and hold a post-mortem on the afternoon, I dare say. She whispered that she’d been told to expect a bite of food would be sent through to them from the house. Pleased as Punch, she is.’

‘All the work she does for the cause, it’s quite time they showed their appreciation,’ came the tart reply, followed almost in the same breath with, ‘But Arch, this might be the start of her getting dragged out of her shell.’

‘There you go again,’ he chuckled. ‘There’s plenty a girl like our Lyddy can do with her life apart from waiting on some man hand, foot and finger.’

‘Of course there is. Hand, foot and finger, indeed – is that what you expect of me?’ There was even something bordering on the flirtatious in her glance and he didn’t let her down.

‘You and me, ah, we get along fine. Plenty we share and enjoy, daytime, ah that and night-time too—’

‘Hush, Archie, not here with all these people about.’ She looked at the empty tables as if they had ears.

‘Be a rum thing if we didn’t share the pleasure we find in each other. Bet those girls of ours would expect all that sort of thing to be over for us, eh? Kids … they don’t know the half of it.’

‘Drink your tea, Arch, here comes the man who does the milk round for Farmer Bryant, whatever would he think if he could hear you?’

Archibald’s round face beamed with merriment. ‘Lucky old bugger, that’s what he’d think,’ and he gave her a broad wink that added to her confusion.

‘Ssshhh, watch your language.’ Then, turning to Eddie Thorne, who only at the fête had she ever seen in anything but his old work suit and tweed cap and with a yoke across his shoulders bearing two pails of milk, ‘Good afternoon, how lucky we are to have such a glorious day,’ she said with a cordial smile supposed to emphasise that on this special day social barriers were discounted.

Archibald doffed his Panama to Mrs Thorne, lapping up the atmosphere of fraternity.

As if to prove Adelaide’s view that Sophie was a hoodlum – a dear hoodlum – the girl had left her retinue of admirers and was approaching them at a speed quite inappropriate for a young lady.

‘Mums, I’ve invited someone to eat with us this evening. That is all right, isn’t it? I knew you wouldn’t mind. And I couldn’t say to him, “Wait there, I’ll have to go and see,” before I asked him, could I?’

Archibald chuckled.

‘Which one is it to be, then? Bertie Howarth? I see he’s hanging around again.’

‘Bertie Howarth nothing! It’s really so that he can meet you that I want him to come, Pops. His name is Christian Mellor, he’s an architect. He has some plans he wants to show you.’

Archibald frowned.

‘I’ll look at his work, be glad to look at it,’ Archibald told her. ‘This evening I’ll make an appointment so that we can meet in the office.’

‘Home is home, and work is work.’ Adelaide nodded her approval.

‘He’s awfully keen, Pops, I said you’d give him some time this evening. You could shut yourselves away in your study.’ Then, sensing rather than seeing his weakening of resolve and Adelaide’s strengthening of irritation, ‘Please, Pops. I shall look so stupid if I have to go back to him and say that he mustn’t bring his work. Anyway,’ she pulled what she considered the ace from the pack, ‘don’t you see, if you won’t talk work at home he’ll get the idea I’m setting my cap at him and that’s why I’ve asked him for the meal.’

‘The gal’s right,’ Archibald chuckled, addressing himself to his less than certain wife. ‘Don’t want the young hopeful running away with any ideas, do we, m’dear. Work and pleasure don’t mix, that’s always been my rule. But just this once. What do you say, Addy?’

‘Better than giving him the impression you are throwing yourself at him, I suppose. How did you meet him? Who introduced you?’ As if she didn’t know the answer!

‘Oh, we didn’t need an introduction. He’s very friendly, you’ll like him.’

Adelaide shook her head helplessly. What was the use of arguing? Try as she might she seemed to have instilled no sense of refined behaviour in the girl. Just imagine Lyddy asking a complete stranger to the house!

‘Personally,’ she answered Sophie, meaning to ‘take her down a peg’, ‘I shouldn’t for a moment think he would harbour the idea that you had an ulterior motive. If he’s the one I saw you walk away from the others with, then I’d say he’s too old to see you in that light, dear. Yes, of course ask him to share the meal, but remember it can’t be at our usual hour – six o’clock is so much better for the digestion – but today has to be different. Ethel is here enjoying the afternoon like the rest of us, she can’t have a meal ready for us before eight at the earliest. Tell him about a quarter to. That’ll give you a chance to size him up, Arch.’

‘It’s his drawings I have to size up, my dear. But you’re right, if I consider a man a bounder, I don’t want to do business with him.’

‘He’s no bounder, Pops. You’ll like him, both of you will. Older than me, you say? Yes, I suppose he must be or he couldn’t be an architect. He’s over there with Lyddy getting my strawberries, we’re going to eat our tea on the grass under the trees. Are you having fun, Mums? There are lots of things to try your luck on.’

Despite all her misgivings, Addy looked on her with affection. Twenty-one she may be, but she neither looked nor acted like it.

Archibald dug in his pocket and pulled out some coins.

‘Here, open up your purse,’ he told her, to be rewarded by a kiss planted on his sunburnt forehead.

Standing behind the long trestle table, Lyddy poured tea for the handsome stranger, wanting to feast her eyes on him but determined to keep her gaze firmly on what she was doing. Who was he? She’d noticed him with Sophie, but he’d appeared not to be the guest of any of the familiar locals.

‘Would you like scones? Or strawberries and cream?’ Her voice was calm and grave.

‘I’d like both,’ he answered, smiling. What a prim young woman! ‘Is that permitted?’

‘But of course,’ came the unruffled reply. ‘I’ll find you a larger tray. Is that two of everything? For Sophie too?’ More than anything Lydia wanted to recall the words that betrayed that she’d been watching them together.

‘You know her?’

‘She’s my sister.’ Just that, as if being sisters explained her curiosity.

‘Really? Yes, for us both.’

That ‘Really?’, as if he couldn’t believe two people so unalike could be connected, only added to Lydia’s discomfort. She piled the plates on to her tray and held out her hand for the money, dropping it into a china ‘money’ bowl and turning to the next customer, his sign of dismissal.

‘Times are changing too fast,’ Adelaide said critically as she watched Sophie and Christian Mellor settle themselves on the grass in the shade. ‘Girls are losing their femininity.’

‘Times have always been changing too fast for the previous generation, m’dear. And you’ll never push the gals back into the place their mothers occupied. The war put paid to all that.’

‘But look at her, Arch! Why can’t she sit properly at the table the same as everyone else?’ He looked and saw nothing to complain about in the childlike position, ankles crossed, knees wide apart, back straight, as supple as though she were made of India rubber.

‘Sniff hard,’ Sophie said to her companion, her chin raised as if that way she could inhale more of that special summer fête day aroma. ‘It’s a mix of so many things that you can’t be sure just what it is. Warm earth, newly cut grass, fir cones, flowers.’ She took a great gulp of the pungent air. ‘You know what, Christian?’ Not answering, he watched her. There was no shyness in her, he had known that from the first moment he’d set eyes on her as she’d lapped up the admiration of the local hopefuls. ‘You know what?’ she repeated.

‘If I don’t, I soon shall,’ he laughed.

‘All this, shut your eyes and listen, a hum of voices, somewhere there’s a bee too, the tinkling sound of crockery, strawberries and cream, and the smell, doesn’t it make you understand why it is that an alcoholic can’t stop drinking?’

‘I can’t say it does. Tell me.’ There was a teasing note in his voice, but she didn’t notice.

‘If one could get drunk on all this, then I’d have no control, I’d just go on soaking it all up until I was – what is it they say? – legless.’

And that, he thought, would be a pity! While most of the young women at the fête wore skirts no more than six inches above their ankles, he recognised that Sophie was a girl of her time – in a country district like this, even forging ahead of her time. The hem of the pleated skirt of her yellow silk dress was scarcely below her knees, the waisline was low. Any suggestion of immodesty was dispelled by the effect of the puratanical large white Peter Pan collar. The outfit was delightful, bright and uncluttered, so different from most of the village girls, who, in Christian’s opinion, were either dressed in their Sunday church clothes or bedecked with every bauble in sight. No wonder he looked at Sophie with such open admiration, even though all he could see protruding from the skirt she’d pulled over her knees was her ankles, slim, enticing. Legless, did she say? Yes, that would be a pity.

‘It’s good of Mr Westlake to agree to see my drawings this evening. The best I’d hoped for was an appointment for some later time.’

‘After the excitement of the fête it will be nice to have some company.’

‘The young lady serving tea tells me you and she are sisters.’

‘That’s Lyddy. You’ll like her, she’s,’ she looked at him solemnly as she groped for the right words, ‘she’s – real gold. Does that sound affected? I don’t mean it to, it’s just the best I could think of. She’s older than me, more like your age, I expect.’

Christian leaned back against the trunk of the elm and watched her. Never had he seen a more expressive face. Was she beautiful? Feature by feature, perhaps not: her eyebrows and lashes were darker than her golden brown hair, a purist would have considered her retroussé nose barred a claim to beauty, her mouth so ready to smile yet in repose the full bottom lip might even be seen as a pout. Did she know it was crying out to be kissed? Somehow he thought she probably did, despite her innocent chatter. She interested him, she would have interested him even if he hadn’t heard of her as the gateway to Archibald Westlake and the rumoured development on the lower field of Highland Farm.

That evening he arrived promptly at a quarter to eight, his blazer and flannels replaced by a sober dark suit and striped silk tie, earning him a favourable point from Adelaide.

‘I must be honest, sir,’ he told Archibald. ‘I’m not from around here, but I’ve been visiting friends in Brackleford. You may know the family, my friend’s father is a councillor by the name of Enfield.’

‘Housing committee man. Aye, lad, our paths have crossed. Fair-minded enough, but it irks me how some of these fellows who earn their livings in quite different fields can give the yea or nay to our work. So what did Councillor Enfield have to say about Westlakes?’

‘Perhaps I shouldn’t repeat it, after all he spoke to me as a friend. Is council business confidential?’

‘I dare say it is until it’s made public. He told you that I have had plans approved to build thirty houses on the lower field at Highland Farm. Is that it? Well, nothing confidential about that, it’s all been published in the Brackleford News.’

‘Yes, he told me you’d had outline approval. So you’ve not yet submitted detailed plans of what you intend to put up?’

‘Ah,’ Archibald nodded, openly sizing up the young man. ‘That’s not saying I haven’t been talking to local architects, not saying I haven’t and not saying I have either. So he told you how to corner me, is that it?’

‘No, sir, talking to him just gave me the idea. I went to have a look at the field, then I called at the Dew Drop Inn.’ Christian held Archibald’s gaze. Adelaide thought his smile quite beguiling; what a personable young man he was. If only Lyddy hadn’t been out to supper! Archibald was not a man to be easily swayed by charm, but he liked this young fellow’s direct approach. ‘If you want to learn local gossip the pub is the place for it. All the talk was about the summer fête, clearly an annual event not to be missed. I put out my feelers and I was rewarded.’ Exactly what feelers he’d used he didn’t elaborate as he turned to Sophie with a broad smile. ‘I was led to believe that the prettiest girl there would be Sophie Westlake.’

Sophie laughed, enjoying the compliment despite the inference that Christian had attached himself to her for the furtherance of his own ends. Still, she preferred not to dwell on that. Pops wasn’t stupid: if the drawings weren’t suitable that would be the end of it, and if they were she was proud of her part in getting Christian the commission. In her usual fashion, she was prepared to find all the pleasure she could from the situation.

‘Knock back that sherry, lad, and we’ll clutter off to the study and have a look at what you’ve brought to show me. Now w