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‘Thank you, but I think I should dine with Mama and the Reverend as they’re so anxious about what will transpire when I meet the Earl with you tomorrow.’

‘Mr Lockwood is due to leave at noon, so come by and wish him farewell.’

Leonora was matter-of-fact but Charlotte’s voice was less certain. ‘Then we’ll have to go to Rokeby Abbey in the afternoon. But why am I full of foreboding?’

They were walking towards the front door, Charlotte’s pretty face tight with anxiety. Leonora gave her a quick hug. ‘Now remember how much you like the character of Belinda in your novel. How she rises above adversity and thinks the best of things. Borrow some of her cheerful spirit and let’s just wait and see what the Earl has to say.’

‘Belinda would tell us change brings opportunities undreamt of.’ Charlotte’s face had cleared, and she was smiling again.

Leonora looked surprised. ‘Would she, indeed?’

‘Well if she didn’t in the book, she would in real life!’ They both laughed as Leonora embraced her young friend at the door and waved her off to walk the few paces to the Vicarage porch.

The next morning, Leonora found Nanny P and a letter waiting for her amongst the toast, eggs and pastries on the breakfast table. She didn’t have the range of clothes or social occasions to support changing her costume three or four times a day, but was aware that she needed to look more sophisticated than usual when she accompanied Charlotte to Rokeby Abbey; so she dressed in her best gown of lilac twilled sarsenet embroidered with tiny sprigs of cream flowers. Leonora had added a close-fitting spencer in a soft purple with cream frogging and felt at her most attractive and confident.

‘Goodness, my dear! What a treat for my old eyes.’ Mrs Priddy got to her feet to kiss her cheek. ‘Look! A very distinguished letter has arrived for you.’

Leonora picked it up. The thick paper was folded and affixed with dark red wax impressed with a very important-looking seal with a coronet. The black writing was distinctive and Leonora recognised it immediately. ‘Oh! This is from Lord Dearlove.’ She felt a small skip in her heart as she opened it. ‘Look, Nanny P, he’s expecting his friend Captain Ormonde to spend Christmas with him at Monkton estate.’ She looked up, her face shining. ‘I can ask him and the Captain to attend my musical evening. It will be so good to see him again.’

‘Was the last time you saw Lord Dearlove when your young Mr Worth was killed? He was your beau’s best friend, was he not?’

As Leonora read the letter to the end, her expression grew less ecstatic. ‘Oh no! He’s with his sister, Lady Livia. She’s so haughty and grand she’ll freeze any party spirit we might manage at the Manor.’

‘Is she the lady your dear Captain Worth used to call the Honourable Livid Ne’er Loved?’

Leonora gulped with surprised laughter. ‘I had forgotten that!’ With a small shiver she turned her attention back to Mrs Priddy’s question. ‘Yes, she’s the Honourable Livia Dearlove, with an inheritance large enough to make prospective suitors overlook her disagreeable temper.’

Her old nanny enclosed her hand in her small plump ones and said, ‘I recall her visiting with her brother when Captain Worth was courting you, my love. She was a Mistress Princum-Prancum to be sure, so set on being treated with the deference her rank demanded.’

‘Well, if they all come, it will add a certain excitement to the evening.’ Leonora was suddenly fatigued by the emotion that had sprung up from the past and subsided onto a chair.

Mrs Priddy poured out a cup of coffee and handed it to her. ‘The fact tragedy denied you happiness once doesn’t mean you have to deny yourself happiness again.’

‘Oh, Nanny P, I’m not going to argue the case. But just look at you, we don’t all need to marry and have children to be happy and useful. In fact, you have been most precious to me in ways which would not have been possible if you were married with your own family.’ Leonora suddenly realised how selfish that sounded and grasped both the elderly woman’s hands and kissed them. ‘You have made all the difference to my happiness, even before Mama died.’

Mrs Priddy brushed a tear from her eye, then became once more her sensible self. ‘Enough of that, dear Nora. Eat your breakfast and then we have to bid farewell to Mr Lockwood.’

‘Has he already breakfasted?’

‘Yes, and he has taken his borrowed hunter back to Sir Roderick Fopling’s stable. He wanted to thank Sir Roderick himself for the loan of his horse.’

George Lockwood walked back along the lane from the Fopling mansion and caught up with Charlotte as she was leaving the Vicarage, tying her bonnet strings. ‘Miss Blythe, I’m so glad to see you before I leave.’

She blushed. It was only a short walk to the Manor but she was aware that she was unchaperoned. She glanced up at him, so tall in his driving coat, the capes ruffling from his shoulders making him seem even broader. ‘Oh Mr Lockwood. I’m on my way to see Miss Leonora and bid you farewell.’

‘It has been an unexpected pleasure to get to know the Hasterleigh estate and the neighbours. You have added to that pleasure immeasurably.’

Charlotte was glad to be walking beside George Lockwood as he spoke rather than being addressed face to face. In the time she had grown to know him better she recognised his frank nature and lack of artifice and how a compliment from him mattered more than from a practised charmer.

‘I have been pleased to make your acquaintance too. I no longer feel quite so sad that Miss Leonora will have to leave her home now I know you will care for the Manor as she does.’

Before he could answer, they had walked down the short drive to where the honey-coloured manor house seemed to rise like a dream in its well-established parkland. The herd of deer could just be seen in the distance cropping the grass in the protective shade of the mighty Hasterleigh oak, its ancient branches almost reaching to the ground.

Jack Clegg had opened the great front door and Charlotte walked into the cool stone-flagged hall. She undid her bonnet and, as she had for years, placed it on the carved Elizabethan coffer that had stood black and solid since time immemorial in the alcove where the oak stairs curved upwards. Everything for her was now filtered through an elegiac light. How much a part of her life this house had become; since very young she had loved coming here to see Leonora and play in the gardens, running back and forth through the lychgate between the Vicarage and Manor lands. A melancholy gripped her heart.

There was a clatter at the front door and a flash of blue as the Lockwood groom brought up the carriage and horses ready for the return journey to Oxfordshire. The handsome team of bays were fresh after being turned out into the fertile paddock and rested for a few days and were whinnying, ready to go.

Leonora with Mrs Priddy emerged from the back of the house. She came forward to greet Charlotte and take George Lockwood’s hand. He said in his unaffected way, ‘Thank you, Miss Appleby, for your hospitality. I have seldom been more content than these few days exploring the estate and meeting you and the charming neighbours.’ He glanced across at Charlotte with a smile.