Page 2 of The Cottage at Brambleton Hall

She glanced down at her outfit: sensible shoes, a navy skirt clinging where it shouldn’t, a blouse ironed in Swansea and defeated somewhere past Bristol. Her hair – long overdue for a trim – no longer obeyed anything. Not after two hours with the front windows open.

She could still leave. But she scrunched her hair into a ponytail and opened the car door.

A male voice. ‘Ah . . . no . . . actually . . .’

He was tucked in near the yew hedge, half-hidden by shadow, as if sheltering from the sun. Tall, late thirties, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He lifted one arm in a small, apologetic gesture, then let it fall.

‘I mean . . . parking there’s fine,’ he said. ‘Sorry. I thought . . . never mind.’ The words were clipped, carefully shaped. Not the lilting, singsong Swansea warmth she was used to. She struggled to place it. This was flatter, educated, maybe. She darted her eyes back to him, not wanting to stare. Rolled sleeves revealed powerful forearms, and a bit of soil caught on one of his wrists as if he hadn’t bothered brushing it off properly. He looked like someone who worked manually for a living. Which didn’t quite line up with the way he spoke. Not in a bad way. But she wondered if something had gone slightly wrong. Sammy smiled out of reflex. ‘Are you in charge of parking?’

A corner of his mouth twitched. Not a smile . . . more like an acknowledgment that the question made sense. ‘I offered to help.’

‘I can help too, if you tell me what the system is.’

‘There isn’t one,’ he said, stepping back. ‘I’ll muddle through, I usually do.’

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Of course.’

For half a second, she thought she saw relief cross his face. Then it was gone, replaced by a stillness. ‘Mm,’ he said.

He ran a hand through dark blond hair, which was a bit too long, as if tidy didn’t suit him, before taking another step back.

It wasn’t a dismissal, more of a boundary. And that, to her irritation, made him compelling.

He gestured toward the gardens. ‘If you’re staff, Magnus will want you round the back.’

Her mouth opened to reply, but just then something white and solid shot past them at knee height, a blur of muscle and enthusiasm.

‘Oh,’ the man said quietly, already turning. Then, with a touch more drama, ‘Oh no.’

‘What was that?’ she asked.

He was already moving, long strides eating up the grass. ‘Gate crasher,’ he called back over his shoulder, not breaking pace. Then louder, in the sort of tone people use when they panic. ‘Bull terrier.’

Sammy took off in pursuit.

The dog hit the lawn like a small meteor, compact and unstoppable, paws skidding as it ploughed straight through a line of chairs, scattering napkins and handbags. His whole body whooped with delight as he barked an apology for his tardiness, trusting everyone would understand the party would get going now he was here.

Sammy caught sight of a little girl shrinking behind her mother’s legs. ‘You’re all right,’ the man said as he hurried past, ‘the dog’s just showing off.’

The dog leaped onto a chair, then scrambled onto a table. A tray of champagne flutes tipped over. Then shattered.

Someone gasped. A few people laughed. ‘Stop it!’ yelled a female voice.

The dog yapped, thrilled to be acknowledged.

At the top of the steps, a tall man in a striped butler’s uniform went utterly still. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. The stillness itself was a rebuke. One eyebrow climbed – slowly, deliberately – until it hovered alarmingly close to his hairline.

The bull terrier jumped off the table, landed and immediately bounced sideways.

The guests reacted as one: a ripple of polite alarm running through the crowd. Bodies tilted back, then away, skirts and jackets swaying in sequence, an elegant, instinctive wave of self-preservation, opening a brief, perfect corridor around the intruder. The dog galloped through it, delighted by the new configuration, convinced this had been organised especially for him.

Sammy stifled a laugh.

‘Right,’ her fellow would-be capturer said from the hedge. ‘Okay. No. That’s . . . don’t . . .’

The dog shot between them, a compact white missile, barking with joy.

Sammy laughed, a short, breathless sound, and pivoted to her left. ‘He thinks this is a good game,’ she said.