There’s a fine line between matchmaking and meddling…

Stuck in a boring job, living at home with her parents and without even a glimmer of romance on the horizon, Emma Bennet’s life isn’t turning out how she planned. And since hit reality show Mind Your Manors started being filmed at the Bennet household, she’s felt more like a spare part than ever.

Matchmaking her assistant, Martine, is just the distraction Emma needs – and, whether Martine likes it or not, Emma is determined to see her coupled up before long! But when she meets Mark Knightley, the genius behind Mind Your Manors, Emma finds her own heart on the line...

Mark is everything Emma isn’t: quiet, reserved…and forever minding his own business! And suddenly, Emma is determined to prove to Mark that she’s ready to stop thinking about other people’s love lives – and focus on her own.

Also by Katie Oliver:

The ‘Dating Mr Darcy’ trilogy:

Prada and Prejudice

Love and Liability

Mansfield Lark

The ‘Marrying Mr Darcy’ series:

And the Bride Wore Prada

Love, Lies and Louboutins

Manolos in Manhattan

The ‘Jane Austen Factor’ series:

What Would Lizzy Bennet Do?

The Trouble with Emma

The Jane Austen Factor

Katie Oliver

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2016

Copyright © Katie Oliver 2016

Katie Oliver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9781474049443

Version date: 2018-07-23

KATIE OLIVER

loves romantic comedies, characters who ‘meet cute’, Richard Curtis films, and Prosecco (not necessarily in that order). She currently resides in South Florida with her husband, two parakeets, and a dog.

Katie has been writing since she was eight, and has a box crammed with (mostly unfinished) novels to prove it. With her sons grown and gone, she decided to get serious and write more (and hopefully better) stories. She even finishes most of them.

So if you like a bit of comedy with your romance, please visit Katie’s website, www.katieoliver.com, and have a look.

Here’s to love and all its complications…

To the fabulous bloggers who’ve read, reviewed, and generously supported my efforts – a heartfelt thank you. Gratitude also to Claire Ellis, Ashleigh Zara, Maria Nestorides, Nadia, Gem, and CJ Matthews; and last (but not least!), thanks to Karen Almeida, Margaret Sheldon Chase, and Jane and Michael Sotelo, my first beta readers.

Thank you, all.

Thank you to the usual suspects – my agent, my editor, and HQ Digital UK – for your unstinting help, support, and belief in me. And most especially, thanks to all of you who’ve read and enjoyed my Jane Austen flights of fancy. I hope I’ve kept you suitably entertained.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Endpages

About the Publisher

“I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.”

—Jane Austen, Emma

Chapter 1

“Miss Bennet! Miss Bennet! You’ll never guess what I’ve just heard!”

Emma Bennet glanced up from her crossword puzzle. Martine Davies, the local girl whose Monday, Wednesday, and Friday visits kept the interior of Litchfield Manor more or less tidy, burst into the kitchen hugging two grocery sacks to her chest and slid them down her hips to the table. Her cheeks were pink with excitement and her dark eyes sparkled.

“Don’t tell me,” Emma said. “You’ve just won the EuroMillions and you’re turning in your notice.”

“I wish. Not that I mind tidying up and doing the weekly shop for you and your dad,” she added hastily. “But if I won a million pounds –?” She grinned. “I’d be gone like a shot.”

“Well, at least you’re honest.” Emma gave her a brief smile and returned to her puzzle.

Martine began pulling groceries out of the sacks – tinned tomatoes, a carton of ice cream, a punnet of raspberries, boxes of Weetabix and Coco Shreddies – and set them on the table. “Wouldn’t it be something, though,” she mused, “to win pots and pots of money, and never have to work again?” She sighed at the pleasure such a prospect brought.

“With money comes responsibility. You need to manage it properly and make it work for you.”

“I wouldn’t know how,” Martine said, and gave a shrug. “I’ve never had two pennies to rub together, myself.” She opened the refrigerator and put the raspberries and ice cream away. “And I reckon I never will…unless I find a rich bloke and convince him to marry me.” She laughed at the absurdity of that particular notion.

“It could happen. Anything’s possible.”

Martine shook her head firmly. “Where would I meet someone like that – in the grocer’s? Havin’ my hair done at Miss Bates’s Beauty Salon?” She snorted. “Not likely.”

Emma studied the girl’s face. With her high, round cheeks, perpetual smile, and glossy dark hair – scraped back now into a ponytail – Martine was pretty in an open, uncomplicated way.

With a few elocution lessons and a bit of guidance on how to dress – she eyed Martine’s tight T-shirt and jeans with barely concealed disapproval – she had the potential to be stunning.

“You meet the right man by going to the right places,” Emma informed her. Not to mention knowing how to dress and speak properly once you’re there, she nearly added, but didn’t. “Garden parties and dances and suchlike.”

“I s’pose.” Martine’s words were doubtful. She grabbed the tinned tomatoes and turned to put them away in the cupboard. “I don’t get invited to places like that, anyway. And even if I did I wouldn’t know what to do. Right now,” she added, “I’d be happy just to meet a nice bloke with a steady job.”

Frowning, Emma tapped her pencil against her lips. What was a six-letter word for ‘behave in a certain manner’? “Perhaps you should raise your expectations a bit higher.”

“Why? I’d only get slapped down if I did.” Martine was nothing if not a realist.

“Well, if you haven’t won a million pounds,” Emma said as she wrote ‘a-c-q-u-i-t’ neatly into the puzzle’s squares, “or received a marriage proposal from a wealthy aristocrat, what’s your news, then?”

“Right, I nearly forgot!” She turned back to face Emma as she rested her generous derrière against the counter. “Someone’s bought the manor house up on the hill.”

“Crossley Hall?” Emma’s eyes widened. “But that old place has been empty for years. Are you quite sure?”

“Positive. There’s an estate agent’s sign stuck out front an’ everything, says ‘sold’ plain as day.” She leaned forward. “But that’s not the best bit.”

“No? All right, then, tell me – what is?”

“The Hall’s been bought…by a man.” She crossed her arms against her chest and eyed Emma smugly. “A bachelor, from London.”

Hearing the news, Emma dropped her pencil, the crossword puzzle forgotten. “Indeed? And who is this mysterious bachelor who’s chosen to move house to our little village?”

“That’s the thing, miss.” Martine’s face clouded. “I asked around, but no one knows who he is. Not the grocer, not the postmistress – not even the stylists over at Miss Bates’s beauty salon. And they know everything that goes on in Litchfield.”

“Well, we’ll find out soon enough when our new neighbour moves in. Although it might be some time before he does,” she added, “as I’m sure the Hall isn’t fit for habitation. It’ll require a lot of work, inside and out. It’s stood empty for a good many years.”

“It’s probably full of mice and spiders and furry creatures,” Martine agreed, and shuddered. “I wouldn’t want the job of cleanin’ that place up.”

“Ah, Martine,” Mr Bennet called out as he came in the front door and made his way into the kitchen. “There you are. You’re just the person I wanted to see.”

“Me, sir?” She saw the sacks in his arms and hurried to take one from him. “What’ve you got in here?” she asked, and peered inside. “Apples!”

He nodded and set the other sack down on the counter. “Two bags full of Pippins, just picked and waiting to be peeled and made into lovely apple pies.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “I’m counting on you to help me make it happen.” He turned his attention to his eldest daughter. “Emma, grab a paring knife. You can turn the radio on and help us peel.”

“Such a shame,” Emma said with mock regret, “but I’m on my way to the village.” She stood and kissed her father’s cheek and added, “I’ll see you both later. Have fun peeling.”

“If you don’t help with the work, don’t expect to share the fruits of our labour,” he called out after her. “More pie for you and me, eh, Martine?”

More pie is the last thing either of you needs, Emma thought uncharitably as she went upstairs to get ready. Mr Bennet was already plump as a partridge, and Martine’s jeans strained to cover her bum. If she lost a stone the girl had the potential to be a knockout.

Oh, well. Rome wasn’t built in a day, she reminded herself, and giving a makeover to a girl like Martine – who, despite her pretty face and sweet nature, had neither money nor education to recommend her – would require more than twenty-four hours.

But the idea of taking Martine under her wing, turning her from a rough-edged country girl and polishing her, like one of daddy’s Pippins, into someone more refined – more worthy – took hold in Emma’s thoughts and wouldn’t let go.

She went into her bedroom and picked up her handbag. In truth, she had no real reason to go to Litchfield; the pantry was stocked, thanks to Martine, and there was nothing she needed from the shops, no mail to take to the post office. But the girl’s words had piqued her curiosity.

Someone’s bought the manor house up on the hill. A bachelor. From London.

The news, Emma decided as she went downstairs and let herself out, was most intriguing…

…and worthy of immediate investigation.

Chapter 2

Late summer in Litchfield meant tourists overran the normally quiet village – children with sand pails, teenagers, families stopping in the shops for a book or a pair of flip flops or a cup of morning coffee, couples having lunch in the corner chip shop.

Emma nodded to several acquaintances as she made her way down Mulberry Street. She paused for a glance into the Box Hill Bookstore’s window, tempted to slip in and browse the shelves. But, she reminded herself with regret, she’d other priorities at the moment.

Litchfield Manor was entirely too quiet with her sister Lizzy gone. Elizabeth was married now, and on her honeymoon with Hugh Darcy. They’d borrowed the Rosings, his godmother’s yacht, and were currently anchored somewhere off the Cornish coast.

Their wedding had been small and simple, but deeply moving. Emma was not one to cry at weddings, but her sister’s ceremony with Hugh, so beautiful and heartfelt, left her weeping quietly into her father’s handkerchief.

Perhaps she’d wept because Lizzy had loved Darcy since she was sixteen; or because he’d very nearly married someone else.

Or perhaps, Emma admitted as she stared, unseeing, at the books arranged in the window, perhaps she’d wept because she despaired of ever having a wedding day – or a happy ending – of her own.

But that was maudlin nonsense. After all, she’d nearly married Jeremy North last summer in a wedding ceremony of her own, a ceremony she’d planned with meticulous precision. It was no one’s fault that it hadn’t happened. It simply wasn’t meant to be.

She thrust such thoughts aside. With Lizzy gone, and Charlotte soon to be away at school during the week, time stretched out in a depressing void before her. To fill the empty hours she’d considered getting herself a job. But who’d look after her father if she did? Who’d make his tea and ensure he took his medications?

Emma turned away from the bookseller’s window with a sigh and made her way to the shop next door – Weston’s Bakery.

PART-TIME HELP WANTED, the sign hanging crookedly in the window declared. ENQUIRE WITHIN.

She pushed the door open and went inside. She loved the yeasty, sugary-sweet scent that always greeted her as she walked through the door; she loved the cheery tinkle of the bell overhead, loved seeing the glass display cases filled with an assortment of cookies, tarts, cupcakes, cream horns, doughnuts, sticky buns, and pies.

Not to mention, she thought dryly, the bakery was the best source for village gossip and speculation.

“Hello, Miss Bennet.”

Boz Weston, the owner and a recent arrival to Litchfield via London, gave her a broad smile as he looked up from behind the counter with a traybake in his hands.

Emma smiled. “Hello, Boz. Is that carrot cake?” she asked as she eyed the tray, fragrant with cinnamon and nutmeg and thickly swirled with frosting.

“With sultanas and nuts, just a hint of orange zest, and cream cheese frosting,” he confirmed. “Your favourite.”

If the people of Litchfield were surprised to find a black man with a purple Mohawk, multiple piercings, and a steady boyfriend running Weston’s Bakery, they got over it the minute they tasted one of his airy coconut cakes or meltingly-delicious profiteroles stuffed with vanilla crème.

Boz could bake like a dream.

Always ready with a smile or a cheeky comment, he loved a good gossip and never minded lending an ear to listen to his customers’ troubles.

“How are you, then?” he asked Emma now, pausing to flick her a glance as he arranged the squares of cake onto a doily-lined platter. “We’ve not seen you in here since before Miss Elizabeth’s wedding.”

“Oh, I’ve been busy. Lots to do. You know how it is.” She looked down and studied the tempting arrangement of baked goods, wondering how she’d ever be able to choose one or two items from among so many artfully decorated treasures.

“Bored already, are you?” He eyed her knowingly and turned away to ring up a purchase, returning a few minutes later. “I’m sure you miss your sister now that she’s gone. How’s she doing, by the way? All loved up in Cornwall?”

Emma blushed. “I’ve no doubt she and Mr Darcy are oblivious to anything – or anyone – but each other at the moment.”

“Well, that’s as it should be.”

“Yes, it is. Of course it is. I’m very happy for Lizzy. Boz,” she said, wishing to change the subject to one that made her feel a little less out of her depth, “I saw your sign in the window. You’re hiring?”

He rested his arms atop the counter. “That I am. You interested, Miss Em?”

“Who? Me?” She let out a small laugh. “No! Heavens, what do I know about baking? Absolutely nothing.”

He shrugged. “Don’t need to. I only want someone to wait on customers and man the till on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The pay isn’t much, but you’d get a discount…and you can help yourself to a fairy cake or a Chelsea bun whenever you take a fancy.”

“How could anyone resist an offer like that? The problem is, I’d gain a stone in two weeks.” Emma pointed to the cream horns. “Four of those, please.”

He took up one of the white bakery boxes and reached for a square of tissue, expertly arranging six of the requested pastries in the box and tying it up in string with a flourish.

“There you are. An even half-dozen, as I know Mr Bennet loves his cream horns.” He placed the box on the countertop between them and added, “On the house.”

“Oh, no,” Emma protested, already reaching for her handbag and withdrawing her wallet. She pulled out several pounds and held them out. “I can’t let you do that.”

But he refused to take them. “Your money’s no good here, Miss Emma. Leastways, not today.” He lifted his brow. “Tomorrow’s another matter.”

“Thank you.” She smiled at him with equal parts gratitude and embarrassment. While it was true that money at Litchfield Manor was a bit tight at the moment, she hoped it wasn’t common knowledge, or so obvious that Boz had guessed at their straitened circumstances. “I’ll let you know what I decide about the job.”

“Just don’t take too long to make up your mind,” he warned as she took the box and walked to the door. “An offer like mine, workin’ here alongside the incomparably sexy, bake-tastic Boz Weston? It won’t last long.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She opened the door and, with a smile on her lips and the bakery box dangling from her free hand, left the shop.

Chapter 3

Crossley Hall sat atop a hill overlooking the village of Litchfield. A drive wound up to the house, closed to visitors by a pair of iron, padlocked gates, bounded on either side by high grass and thickly overgrown hedgerows. A ‘sold’ sign was thrust into the narrow strip of grass edging the pavement.

Emma peered through the iron palings of the gate with curiosity. The house was Neoclassical, its three storeys fashioned of stone and all but consumed by ivy. A parapet and multiple chimneys were visible against the late afternoon sky.

While she imagined it had once been very grand, now the Hall was but a ghost of its former self. Neglect hung over it like a shadow. Greengage trees, their limbs heavy and in desperate need of pruning, all but obscured the south wall. Whoever the new owner was, he faced a serious challenge just to get the grounds restored to rights.

“Emma Bennet! I thought that was you.”

She turned sharply around. Mrs Cusack, St Mark’s church secretary and an inveterate gossip, stood on the pavement behind her with her purse clutched to her ample stomach and a quizzical expression on her face.

“Hello, Mrs Cusack.” Emma gave the older woman a polite nod. “I was just thinking what a shame it is that Crossley Hall’s fallen into such disrepair.” She turned back to peer through the padlocked gate. “When I was a girl it used to be quite something.”

“Indeed it was,” she agreed. “And will be again soon, if the rumours I’ve been hearing are true.” She eyed Emma. “You no doubt know that the Hall’s been sold to a gentleman from London.”

“Yes, I heard. Do you know who he is?”

“I’m sorry to say I don’t. I know only that he must be possessed of a good deal of money – because how else could he afford to buy this old place and fix it up?” She looked in disapproval on the ivy-choked walls and gardens running rampant with weeds. “I did hear that he’s unmarried, though. Not,” she added firmly, “that I’m one to gossip.”

Although Emma half expected a lightning strike to smite Mrs Cusack for this particular lie, when everyone knew that gossip was the one thing the woman did best, nothing happened.

“What he ought to do – the new owner, that is,” Mrs Cusack went on as she joined Emma at the gate, “is to try and get on that telly programme, Mind Your Manors.”

“I’m not familiar with it. I seldom watch television.”

“Oh, it’s marvelous. The presenters – Simon Fox and Jacquetta Winspear – go to a country manor house in need of help and suggest ways to spruce it up and make it viable.”

“Viable?” Emma frowned. “In what way?”

“Self-sustaining, I suppose you’d say. They take an old country house and turn it from a money pit into a bed-and-breakfast, or a posh day spa, or they convince the owners to host festivals on the grounds to draw in the crowds. It costs a lot of money, you know,” she added self-importantly, as if speaking from experience, “to pay for all of those leaking roofs and rotting floorboards and clapped-out boilers.”

“I’m sure. And who pays for the renovations?” Emma, always practical, asked her. “Aren’t they very costly?”

“Oh, that’s the best part! If your house is chosen, you get an allotment of £10,000 pounds, a discount on all associated restoration costs, and free labour.”

Ten thousand pounds, Emma thought, dazzled, and free labour. She allowed herself, just for a moment, to imagine what she could accomplish with that much money at Litchfield Manor. True, it wasn’t a huge sum; but with it, they could repair the leaking roof and fix the squeaky treads in the stairway; they could strip the wallpaper and paint the house, inside and out, and perhaps spruce up the lawn and garden…

“I see you’ve been to the bakery,” Mrs Cusack observed as she eyed the white box dangling from Emma’s hand. “Quite a…colourful character that Mr Boz is.”

“He is indeed.” Emma, knowing the woman wanted to gossip about the flamboyant baker but not wishing to accommodate her, switched the box to her other hand. “What was the name of that television programme you just mentioned, Mrs Cusack? What did you call it?”

“Mind Your Manors. Why?” the woman asked with a quickening of interest. “Were you thinking of putting Litchfield Manor up for consideration?”

As tempting as the idea was, and as badly as Emma longed to do just that, she knew her father would never allow it. He’d hate the idea of a television crew – not to mention painters and repairmen and roofers – traipsing through the house and disturbing the solitude of his study and garden.

“Oh, no, certainly not.” Emma shook her head firmly. “Daddy would abhor the very idea of us being on television. And the house isn’t in such bad shape that we need to consider such drastic measures. At least…not yet.”

But her thoughts whirled. What a lot they could do with ten thousand pounds!

The former vicarage was in desperate need of a fix-up. Every time it rained, Emma retrieved the enamel bowls and battered pots from beneath the sink and placed them under the leaks. Rings of brown rainwater discoloured the ceilings, and water within the dining room wall had buckled the wallpaper. The faint smell of mildew lingered no matter how much she scrubbed.

And the boiler had recently begun making an odd clanking sound.

“You should give the matter serious thought,” Mrs Cusack advised. She glanced up at Crossley Hall and back to Emma. “Litchfield Manor may not be as grand as the Hall, mind, and it may not be grade-I or -II listed; but in my opinion, it’s every bit as worthy as any stately home. It has a history, after all.” She raised a brow. “Just imagine the stories these old places could tell.”

“Indeed,” Emma agreed. She knew exactly the kind of stories Mrs Cusack had in mind – clandestine love affairs, marriages of convenience, illegitimate children, poisonings, and skeletons – literal and figurative – hidden away in the closets.

“The only thing of interest that ever happened at Litchfield Manor,” she went on, “was a duel in 1816 between a certain Lord Branford and his lover’s husband.”

“Is that so?” Mrs Cusack slid her handbag into the crook of her arm. “Why on earth did they choose to have a duel at the vicarage? It seems an unlikely place to settle their differences.”

“Because,” Emma replied, “Lord Branford’s lover was the vicar’s wife.”

“Well, I never heard the like!” Mrs Cusack exclaimed, and shook her head, her lips pursed in disapproval. “Such goings-on were no more unusual then than now, I suppose.”

“Unfortunately, no matter how much we might wish it, human nature doesn’t change, Mrs Cusack. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to return home and get a start on my father’s dinner. It was lovely talking to you.”

“And you, dearie, and you. Give my best to Mr Bennet.”

With a promise that she would indeed do just that, Emma bestowed another polite smile on the woman and turned back down the hill, and made her way home.

Chapter 4

The scent of apple pie – fragrant with cinnamon and nutmeg and a hint of lemon zest – filled the kitchen when Emma arrived home late that afternoon. Pies sat cooling on every available surface.

The crusts were latticed and beautifully browned, and although Emma loved apple pie as much as anyone, the sight of so many pies filled her with dismay.

Martine, her hands encased in oven mitts and holding another pie she’d just removed from the oven, looked up at her in surprise. “There you are, Miss Em! We’ve been baking all afternoon, your father ’n me.”

“I can see that.” Emma set the bakery box and her handbag aside and turned to survey the pies – all six of them – with disapproval. The small kitchen was hot as blazes. She went to the window and flung it open. “The question is…why on earth have you made so many?”

“I can answer that,” Mr Bennet said as he returned to the kitchen, his cheeks flushed from the heat and a butcher’s apron tied around his expansive waist. “The church bake sale is tomorrow, or had you forgotten? These lovely pies are my – our – contributions to the fundraiser for a new roof for St Mark’s.” He smiled over at Martine. “And we’re not done yet, are we?”

“Six more yet to go,” Martine agreed, and nodded at the unbaked pie shells, apple slices fanned out and nestled inside the crusts, blanketed with cinnamon sugar and bits of butter as they awaited the latticed strips of dough to top them off.

Emma’s heart sank. The bake sale! How could she have forgotten? It was all daddy talked of lately. She’d promised two weeks ago to station herself at a table and sell her father’s pies and scones to the parishioners.

“We need a new roof at Litchfield Manor just as badly.” The words came out more sharply than she’d intended. “Or perhaps you’d rather we built an ark in the back garden to save the cost of a roof?”

“Not a bad idea.” Although he chuckled, the glance he cast his eldest daughter was wary. “We’ve only a few leaks here and there, Emma. That hardly constitutes a need for a new roof…or even an ark, just yet.”

“No. But eventually we will need to replace it. And the boiler’s started to make odd noises. And the wallpaper in the dining room is buckling so badly I’m embarrassed for anyone to see it.” A flush, not from heat but of anger, rose on her cheeks.

Emma sank down into a seat at the kitchen table. She felt, suddenly, like crying. Like laying her head down on the table – if the surface wasn’t covered with pies – and sobbing uncontrollably.

What on earth was wrong with her?

“Martine,” Mr Bennet said, and gave the girl a quick, apologetic smile, “would you do me the very great favour of running into town to fetch more butter? I do believe we’re in danger of running out. If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” she murmured, and untied her apron. She took down the jar containing the household petty cash and withdrew several pounds. “I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time.” His words were measured. “No hurry.”

As she left, Emma watched her go and reflected that, for all her lack of a proper education, Martine was quick to pick up on unspoken things…a quiet glance, a frown, a raised eyebrow. She knew when to stay and when to leave, when to speak and when to remain silent.

“What is it, Emma?” her father asked, and pulled up the chair next to hers. “What’s bothering you?”

“Money. We haven’t enough.” She met his eyes. “With Charlotte’s tuition, and now the expenses required for Lizzy’s welcome home party, not to mention the cost of groceries, and utilities, and the constant repairs to this – this rackety old house…”

He waved her concerns aside. “We’ll manage. We always do. Charli finishes sixth form this year, and then our expenses will go down considerably. And we’ll make an effort to keep Lizzy’s homecoming party small and simple. Martine and I can do most of the baking ourselves.”

“We can’t afford Martine.” Emma’s words were decided. “You know we can’t. And nor do we need her here. I can manage the grocery shop and the cooking and cleaning on my own.”

“I know you can. You have done, and very well.” His hand came to rest over hers. “But surely you have better things to do with your time. And Martine needs this job, Emma. Her mother can’t work full-time any longer, and with her father’s death, Martine’s pay packet is desperately needed.”

“I know all that, daddy,” she said, a touch of impatience in her voice. “But working for us three days a week? It can’t go very far in the way of providing income. Martine can find a job somewhere else easily enough – at the bakery, for instance. Boz is hiring.”

“Yes, he is, but the sign says the position’s part-time. A well-paying, full-time job with benefits is hard to come by in Litchfield just now, and even more so in Longbourne. All of the summer positions are filled. And I know of no jobs that provide their employees with gently used clothing and shoes, or–” He glanced at the tabletop with a slight smile. “Or an apple pie to take home to share with their mother.”

“I understand that.” Emma pressed her lips into a thin, stubborn line. “I do. But we barely have enough money ourselves to make ends meet! We’re hardly in a position to help someone else.”

“What would the world be like if everyone took your view?” he chided, and withdrew his hand. “We draw our belts a bit tighter, Emma. We have roast beef once a month instead of once a week. We economise.”

“I’m sick to death of economising! I’m tired of doing without, making do, scrimping and saving, when Lizzy–” She stopped.

He regarded her in surprise. “When Lizzy what?”

How to explain? How to tell him, how to admit, that she had begun to resent her sister’s good fortune in marrying Mr Darcy? While she and her father and sister lived in a house that leaked and ate roast beef infrequently and veg from dented tins, Elizabeth would one day reside in Cleremont, the Darcys’ imposing, 150-room stately home, and live in a style that Emma could only imagine.

Lizzy need no longer concern herself with buying her clothing from the sale racks, or chucking banged-up tins of green beans and tomatoes into the trolley to save a few pennies.

For that matter, Lizzy need never go grocery shopping again.

“I’m happy for my sister,” Emma said, carefully. “Of course I am. But I’m weary of pinching pennies and struggling to make one end meet the other. I’m sick to death of minced beef and mash, and day-old bread. I feel as if I’ll die here, sitting at this table with a crossword puzzle in front of me, planning out the week’s menus with the bits and bobs left over from the week before. I’ll never see the world beyond Litchfield.” Tears threatened, stung momentarily, receded. “I’ll never find happiness the way Lizzy has.”

“No, you won’t find happiness,” her father agreed, his words gentle but firm, “unless you go out and look for it. You’ll not find a job or meet an eligible suitor or swim the English Channel sitting here in this house with me day after day.”

“Then what am I to do?”

“You need to find something worthwhile to occupy your time, Emma. A job, volunteer work, signing up for the church flower rota –”

“No, thank you.” She shuddered. “Mrs Cusack would drive me mad inside of five minutes with her gossip and innuendo. And I’d make a poor volunteer, as I can’t do much of anything useful.”

“Then what you need is a job.” Mr Bennet regarded her with a thoughtful expression. “You mentioned that Mr Weston is hiring at the bakery. What about that?”

“Me?” Emma raised her brows. “To start with, I know nothing about baking. Nor do I share your fondness for it. Although,” she admitted, “Boz needs someone to mind the till, and parcel up the doughnuts and cakes and cookies for customers, nothing more. And it’s only on the Tuesday and Thursday.”

“It sounds perfect. Why don’t you try it, and see how it goes?”

She hesitated. “I’d get a discount.” Her glance went to the white box she’d left on the counter. “And free cookies or cake whenever I take a fancy.”

Mr Bennet rubbed his hands together. “Then you certainly must take the job. You know how much I love Boz’s cream horns.”

Emma smiled. “I do, and so does Boz. He sent you half a dozen with his regards.” She indicated the box neatly tied with string, and stood. “I’ll go and talk to him first thing tomorrow and tell him I’ll take the job.”

“Excellent! I think that’s a very wise move on your part. I want you to be happy, and I think perhaps a job will go a long way towards making you feel useful again.”

“Thank you, daddy.” She bent down and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, breathing in the floury, sugary scent of his skin with affection. “I love you.”

“And I love you, my dearest Emma.” He reached up to squeeze her hand. “Always.”

“Just remember,” she added, “that charity begins at home.” She went to fetch the bakery box and set it on the table. “Have one or two, but give the rest to Martine. You’ll do a good turn for her…and for your waistline. Otherwise, you’ll be loosening your belt instead of tightening it.”

“Cheeky girl.” He tugged at the string without success. “And your comments are duly noted. Now, be an angel, won’t you, and hand me the scissors before you go?”

Chapter 5

“Isn’t he just the cutest thing?”

Emma, who’d been startled awake from her Saturday morning lie-in when a cold nose nudged her hand, regarded her sister Charlotte and the Chinese pug nestled now against her chest with a noted lack of enthusiasm.

“You’ll pardon me if I reserve judgment,” she retorted, and went to fetch the kitchen roll to clean up the tiny puddle of dog wee on the floor.

“He’s house-trained,” Charli assured her. “He’s just over-excited, aren’t you, Mr Elton?”

Emma paused, clutching a wodge of dripping paper towels in hand, and stared at her. “Mr Elton? You can’t be serious. That’s the most ridiculous name for a dog I’ve ever heard.”

“No, it isn’t. He looks like a vicar, doesn’t he, with his turned-up nose and that adorable, scowl-y little face? He just needs a Mrs Elton, isn’t that right, Mr E?” she crooned.

“Please don’t inflict baby talk on a dog. It’s nauseating. And don’t even think about bringing another dog into this house. I won’t be cleaning up after one, much less two, canines.”

Mr Bennet’s face, as he regarded the pug, looked like a late summer’s day – thunderous, and inclined to storm at any moment. “Where did you get that dog?” he asked his youngest daughter. “Are you taking care of him for the weekend? Please tell me that’s the case.”

Charli, perfectly aware of her father’s disapproval, spoke in a rush. “Daphne – you know, Daff – can’t keep him, after she begged her mum to get a puppy for absolutely ages, she finally bought him, and at great expense, too. He has his papers and everything. Then, can you imagine – after all that, she found out she’s allergic!”

“Who’s allergic?” Emma asked, having lost the thread somewhere along the way.

“Daphne, of course.” Charlotte set the pug down on the floor, where he sniffed at her shoes, then investigated Emma’s and Mr Bennet’s in turn, his tiny rear end waggling back and forth all the while. “So she can’t possibly keep him.”

“Nor can you.” Their father spoke with the conviction of an unchangeable mind.

“But daddy, why not?” Charli cried.

“Where to begin? Let’s start with the fact that you’re away at school during the week, Charlotte. Neither Emma nor I have time to take care of a blasted puppy.”

“What about Martine? She loves dogs. She’ll be happy to take care of Eltie when she’s here,” Charli assured him. “I know she will. I’ll speak to her about it –”

“And secondly,” Mr Bennet continued, as if he hadn’t heard her, “there are costs associated with a dog. He’ll require food, a dog dish. He’ll need a lead, and shots, and –”

“He’s had his shots,” Charlotte interrupted, “and he’s got a lead and dishes and toys, and even a supply of kibble that Daff’s mum bought. The lead’s a little wonky, though. Sometimes the clip comes loose.” She chewed her lower lip. “Everything’s in a box on the front doorstep.”

Elton, perhaps realising the precariousness of his situation, chose that moment to jump up on Mr Bennet’s trouser leg, pawing and whimpering to be picked up.

“Oh, blast,” he muttered, and bent down to pick up the puppy to cradle him awkwardly in his arms. “We can’t very well have you crying, little fellow, can we?” he asked, and sighed. In answer, Elton licked him joyously on his nose and face until, despite himself, Mr Bennet erupted in a laugh.

“Can we keep him, daddy?” Charlotte asked. “Please? I’ll take care of him on the weekends, I promise. And I’ll get a job to pay for his food and treats.”

Emma lifted her brow. “How will you manage that and keep up with your schoolwork? And how long before you lose interest? A week? Two? Remember the box turtle, and the hamster, and don’t even get me started on the goat –”

“I’m not six any more, Emma,” Charli retorted. “I won’t lose interest.”

“Well.” Their father indulged the pug for a moment longer, chuckling as he held the squirming, licking little ball of fur aloft, then set him gently back down on the floor. “I suppose we can try it out for a bit and see how we get on.”

“Oh, daddy, thank you so much!” Charli flung her arms around him. “You’re the best. I promise – you won’t be sorry. I swear you won’t.”

And although Mr Bennet was quite sure that he would be sorry – in fact, he knew with great certainty that he’d regret his decision sooner rather than later – he smiled, and the sun returned to his face.

“Oh, what a cute little doggie!” Martine crowed as she arrived a few minutes later, a sack of groceries on her hip. “Whose is ’e?”

“Ours, now, it seems.” Emma turned away to get herself a much-needed cup of coffee.

Having already abandoned the groceries on the counter, Martine knelt on the floor and took the puppy into her arms. “Who’s the pretty boy, eh?” she crooned. “What’s your name?”

“He’s called Elton,” Charli told her, and beamed. “Isn’t he sweet?”

“’E’s a love, he is.” She giggled as the pug’s sandpaper-rough little tongue licked her face. “Elton? Like Elton John, the singer?”

“No.” Charli ruffled the fur between his ears. “Like Mr Elton, the vicar in Emma.” At Martine’s blank look, she added, “Never mind…it’s a book by Jane Austen, I had to read it last year for a school assignment. I call him Mr E for short.”

“I’m sure he’ll answer to anything,” Emma observed as she began to unload the grocery sack. “I don’t think he’s bothered either way.” She frowned as she unearthed a box of cake flour, cartons of eggs, and bags of demerara and icing sugar. “What’s all this, Martine? I thought you and daddy were done baking for today’s fundraiser. God knows we have enough pies to supply an army.”

Two boxes of apple pies, six pies to a box, waited on the dining room table, ready to be hauled to the bake sale at St Mark’s church that afternoon.

“That’s for Lizzy’s party next Sunday, Miss Em.” Reluctantly, Martine handed the pug back to Charlotte and finished emptying out the sack. “We’re makin’ the desserts, me and your dad – lemon drizzle, and raspberry trifle, and maybe a few apple pies to welcome your sister and her new ’usband home next weekend.”

“Goodness! That’s rather a lot,” Emma said. “Is there anything else we need for the party? I’m going into Litchfield this morning. I can easily pick up a few things and bring them back before I go to the bake sale.” She turned to pick up the car keys.

“No, we’re good. Mum’s coming round to help with the extra cleaning next week, and she’s stitchin’ up a new pair of curtains for the kitchen.”

Emma eyed her in surprise. “Oh? But surely your mother doesn’t have time to help with the cleaning chores here at Litchfield. And I do hope she didn’t spend an inordinate amount of money on curtain fabric.”

Heaven knew what kind of godawful kitchen creation Mrs Davies would come up with – garish colours and a surplus of ruffles came to mind – but regardless of how dreadful it looked, Emma would be obliged to ooh and ah and, worse still, hang them at the window over the sink.

“She got the fabric at the end-of-season clearance sale last summer,” Martine said. Her hands paused on the box of cake flour. “She wanted to do somethin’ nice for you and your dad, Miss Em,” she added shyly, “seeing as you’ve both been so good to us, always givin’ me clothes and pies and whatnot to take home.”

“That’s very kind of her, I’m sure.” Emma managed a stiff smile. “Please thank her for me.” She picked up her purse and turned to go.

And although her expression was unremarkable as she opened the kitchen door and left, inwardly she seethed with a mixture of affront and mortification.

Things have surely reached the lowest of points, Emma thought with dismay as she slid behind the wheel of Mr Bennet’s Mini, when one is obliged to accept charity from one’s very own housemaid.

She pressed her lips together and started the engine, and with a sharp turn of the wheel, headed to Litchfield.

Chapter 6

Weston’s Bakery was busy when Emma arrived. There was a queue of customers at the till and another waiting to be served. Boz and his Saturday assistant, Viv, were run off their feet just to keep up.

Nonetheless, “Good mornin’, Emma!” Boz called out as she came inside the shop. “Just can’t stay away, can you?”

“It seems I cannot.” She answered his grin with a smile and felt her earlier irritation smooth itself out and recede, like a tide. How could anyone remain grumpy in the face of such unrelenting good will?

He handed over two boxes of doughnuts to his customer. “There you are, Mrs Winkleman. I hope you and Mr W enjoy every delicious morsel. Now, if you’ll step over to the till, Viv’ll ring you up.” Boz turned back to Emma. “Changed your mind about the job, then?”

With a murmured apology to the nearest customer in the queue, Emma made her way to the glass display case in front of Boz and leaned forward. “Yes, I have.” She kept her voice low. “I’d like the job. But I prefer to keep it between the two of us for the moment, if you don’t mind.”

He took his tongs and lifted out two sticky buns for the next customer. “Whatever you want, Miss Emma.” He winked. “Our little secret. Although it won’t be a secret come Tuesday, when you turn up at seven to start your first day.”

Her eyes widened. “Seven o’clock?” she murmured, dismayed. “But…that’s awfully early, isn’t it?”

“Need to train you, don’t I?” He placed the sticky buns in a box, scrawled ‘SB-2’ in black marker on the lid, and handed it over to his customer. “We open at nine, so that’ll give us plenty of time to go over everything. I’ll show you how to work the till and give you a little tour.”

“All right.” She turned to go. “Oh…and before I forget, daddy asked me to thank you for the cream horns. He all but fell on the box when I brought them home.”

“Glad he liked ’em. They sell out fast; I don’t usually have any on hand very long. So – I’ll see you at seven on Tuesday morning, then?”

Emma nodded. “I’ll be here.” She hesitated. “Thank you, Boz.”

“Oh, bosh.” He waved her off. “It’s you who’s doing me the favour. But I warn you – you’ll be busy. Behind this handsome exterior lurks a dedicated man of business. A titan of tarts, a prince of patisserie –”

“And the chief of chinwags,” Viv cut in. “Kindly stop flappin’ your gob and fetch us more fairy cakes, Boz,” Viv said. “We’re nearly out. And don’t listen to a word he says, love,” she added as she glanced over at Emma. “It’s ninety percent bollocks.”

As Emma made her way to the door, it flew open with a jangle of the bell, and she found herself face to face with Mrs Cusack.

“Good morning, Miss Bennet,” the woman said, startled. She eyed the girl’s empty hands. “What brings you here?”

Emma thought quickly. “I came to thank Boz for the cream horns he sent my father.”

Mrs Cusack nodded. “They do go down a treat, don’t they?” She turned to a slender young woman standing behind her. “Miss Bennet, I’d like to introduce my niece, Miss Isabella Fairfax. She’s visiting for the summer.” She beamed. “Isabella, this is Emma Bennet, our former vicar’s eldest daughter. He has three,” she added. “Elizabeth just got married and Emma and Charlotte are…still at home.”

Isabella extended a hand. “How nice to meet you, Miss Bennet.”

“Emma, please. It’s a pleasure to meet you as well. I hope you enjoy your stay at Litchfield.”

Curious, Emma studied Miss Fairfax. She was of average height and quite attractive, with clear grey eyes and a trim figure; but her smile was warm and pleasant.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” Isabella said. “I look forward to getting to know you and your sisters.”

“Well, Lizzy’s on her honeymoon at present,” Emma explained, “and Charlotte’s away at school during the week. But I’m here, and as your aunt so rightfully observed,” she added, with a telling glance at Mrs Cusack, “still at home and on the shelf.”

“Oh, not for long, I’m sure!” the older woman exclaimed, flustered. “You’re a lovely girl, Emma, indeed you are, and too clever by half for most of the men hereabouts.” She paused and eyed her niece with obvious pride. “Isabella is a hat designer, you know, and quite talented. She’s attending Central Saint Martin’s and doing very well there.”

“How very impressive of you!” Emma eyed the girl with renewed interest…and just a smidgen of jealousy. “You must tell me more about it.”

“Of course. Although there’s nothing much to tell just yet.”

“I’m sure there will be, given time. Do you know anyone else here in Litchfield, Miss Fairfax?”

A guarded expression flickered – very briefly – across the girl’s face. “Me? No, not a soul. And please, call me Isabella.”

Emma turned back to Mrs Cusack. “Why don’t you both come to Lizzy’s welcome home party next Sunday? We’re having it at Litchfield Manor from twelve until two. I can introduce Isabella to all of our neighbours. I know my sister and Mr Darcy would love to see you, Mrs Cusack, and I’m sure they’ll be as anxious to welcome your niece to Litchfield as I am.”

Which wasn’t entirely true on either count, Emma knew. She doubted if Elizabeth or Hugh would much care who showed up at their party on Sunday.

Because, having just finished a romantic honeymoon on a yacht off the coast of Cornwall, she was quite sure they’d have eyes only for each other.

“We’d be delighted to come,” Mrs Cusack said, and turned, beaming, to her niece. “Wouldn’t we, dear?”

Isabella nodded. “Indeed we would. Thank you, Miss Bennet.”

“Emma, please,” she insisted, and smiled. “We’ve no need of formalities here.”

“Very well – Emma.” Miss Fairfax smiled. “I look forward to meeting your family.”

After saying her goodbyes, Emma turned back to the door as Mrs Cusack led Miss Fairfax inside the bakery to begin the serious business of choosing a pastry for herself and her niece.

***

Once back out on the pavement, Emma was as relieved to escape Mrs Cusack’s nosiness as she was to quit the steamy interior of the bakery. Although, she noted as she made her way down Mulberry Street, it wasn’t much cooler outdoors than in. She felt a trickle of perspiration slide down the back of her neck.

She hoped the bake sale today took place inside the church, and not in the shade of the oak trees as it had last year. If there was one thing Emma couldn’t abide, it was sitting out of doors, fending off midges –

“Miss Bennet!”

Hearing the imperious tones of Lady Georgina de Byrne behind her, Emma turned around. Hugh Darcy’s godmother moved purposefully towards her, her iron-grey head held erect. She wore a dress of rose-printed silk and had a wide-brimmed straw hat arranged on her head.

“Hello, Lady de Byrne.” Emma extended her hand. “How are you? I haven’t seen you since Lizzy’s wedding.”

“I’m well, and I trust you and your father and sister are, also.” She didn’t wait for a reply, but continued, “I’ve just had word from Hugh. He and Elizabeth are returning from Cornwall on Thursday.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful! I can’t wait to see them, and hear all about their trip. We miss Lizzy terribly.”

“Hugh says they’re having a lovely time. They even managed to tear themselves away from the Rosings once or twice to do a bit of sightseeing.”

“I envy them.” It slipped out before Emma could stop herself. “They’ve managed to find what so few people ever do – real, lasting love.”

“Well, one hope it lasts, at any event,” Lady Georgina observed. She cast Emma a quizzical glance. “Do you and your father require any help preparing for the party on Sunday? You’re welcome to hold it at Rosings, you know.”

The unspoken understanding being, of course, that Lady de Byrne would also shoulder the associated costs.

“That’s very kind,” Emma said, her words firm, “but you’ve done more than enough already, hosting the wedding reception, and loaning out your husband’s yacht for the honeymoon. That meant so much to Lizzy.”

“We spent our honeymoon on the Rosings, Alfie and I. It was perfect. Idyllic. I only hope that Elizabeth and Hugh are one tenth as happy as we were.” She reached out to pat Emma’s hand. “And I have a very great certainty that they will be.”

Their walking had brought them to the end of March Street, thronged now with Saturday shoppers and tourists seeking a late breakfast or an early lunch. Emma glanced up to see Crossley Hall looming on the hill above them.

“I understand the Hall has been sold,” Lady de Byrne observed as she followed Emma’s gaze. “I’m curious to learn who the new owners are.”

“Owner,” Emma corrected her. “I know only that he’s male, and unmarried.”

The woman’s eyebrow rose. “Indeed! Male, unmarried, and obviously quite wealthy, to afford to buy that old pile and fix it up… Perhaps,” she added thoughtfully, “I should host a party to welcome him to Litchfield. It’s always good to know one’s neighbours, do you not agree?”

Emma did not reply. She watched as a workman in coveralls appeared at the end of the drive leading up to the Hall and unlocked the gates, pushing them wide. A white work van idling on the street pulled forward and drove through the gates, lost to view in the thicket of trees and hedges. The faint sounds of hammering and the whine of electric saws drifted down to her ears.

“I do believe they’ve started work already,” she told Hugh’s godmother. “What a job that’ll be! I should think it will take months before anyone can move in.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Lady Georgina sniffed. “Money can expedite a great many things. Mark my words – our new neighbour on the hill, whoever he may be, will move in to Crossley Hall before you know it.”

Chapter 7

“We sold every pie, cake, and cookie on offer,” Mr Bennet said with satisfaction the next morning. “The bake sale was a great success.”

“That’s wonderful.” Emma reached for the pitcher of maple syrup and tipped a tiny bit on her pancakes. “Did you raise enough money to replace the roof?”

“Not quite. But we’re much closer to the mark than we were. Father Crowley will be very pleased.”

Elton, his little paws clicking on the kitchen lino, trotted in and began whining, his ugly-cute face lifted hopefully up to Mr Bennet.

“Well, good morning, boy.” He reached down to ruffle the dog’s fur. “And what is it you want, eh? Food? Water? Attention?”

Emma pushed back her chair with a trace of irritation. “He wants a wee, and he needs to be fed.” She went to the door and opened it, waiting as Elton, after a moment’s hesitation, made his way outside and began to investigate his new surroundings. Glancing up at the gathering clouds, she saw that rain was imminent.

She marched to the bottom of the stairs and called up, “Charlotte! Come and mind your dog!”

“I’m coming,” her sister retorted as she appeared at the top of the stairs in shorts and a T-shirt. “No need to shout, I only just got up.”

“You wanted a dog,” Emma said grimly. “Take care of him, as you promised, because I promise you, I will not.” She turned on her heel and returned to her plate of rapidly cooling pancakes.

“God, you’re such a cow.”

As Charli followed her into the kitchen, glaring at her as she got herself a cup of coffee, Emma returned her attention to Mr Bennet. “I was thinking. Why don’t we have a bake sale here at Litchfield Manor, and raise money towards repairing the roof? You could make scones, and Martine could help with the pies and fairy cakes. I can bake cookies.” She warmed to the idea. “And perhaps I can persuade Boz to contribute a few dozen doughnuts or cream horns. We could have an auction –”

“No.”

She looked at him in surprise. “No? But…why not? Even a hundred pounds would go some way towards fixing the roof.”

He sipped his coffee and set the cup back down. “Raising money for the church is one thing, Emma. But doing so for personal gain, to make improvements to my own home? It’s not appropriate.”

“But this is the former vicarage,” she pointed out, refusing to yield. “And it has historical value.”

“Yes, perhaps. But it’s our home now. And I will not –” he paused to fix a reproving gaze on her. “I will not solicit our neighbours for money to pay for repairs to my own house. And there’s an end to it.”

Charlotte, who’d just let Elton back inside, smirked at her sister. “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”

“What’s that?” Emma retorted.

“You didn’t get your way, for once.” She scooped kibble into the pug’s dish.

“The leaking roof affects you as well as me,” Emma pointed out. “You might think about that the next time it rains and drips water on your dressing table, or ruins the clothes in your closet.”

“Hasn’t happened yet.”

“Doesn’t mean it won’t,” Emma snapped.

“Girls, please,” Mr Bennet sighed. “Might we have one – just one – peaceful Sunday breakfast?”

“More coffee, daddy?” Charlotte asked, and brought the pot to the table.

“Yes, I will, thank you.”

“I might have another way to raise money to pay for a new roof for Litchfield Manor.” Emma toyed with her spoon as she glanced at her father. “A way that doesn’t involve seeking money from our neighbours.”

“Oh?” He spooned sugar into his cup. “What’s that?”

“Mind Your Manors.”

He paused, cup halfway to his lips. “I thought I was.”

“It’s a TV programme, daddy,” Charlotte cut in as she refilled her sister’s cup, “where they go to old manor houses and help do them up into spas or hotels or something.”|

“Really? I can’t see anyone willing to pay to stay here at Litchfield Manor.” He chuckled. “Can you imagine? Instead of chocolates on the pillows, our guests would find damp spots from the leaking roof. Dog wee on the floor. Things that go bump in the night – our old boiler, for instance.”

“I’m glad you find it so amusing.” Emma set her cup down with a crack. “But we need to do something, daddy, before this entire place collapses on our heads.”

“I doubt those telly people would consider coming here,” Charli scoffed. “Litchfield Manor isn’t a ginormous, multi-chimneyed house like the ones on the programme, and it isn’t even grade-I or II listed. It isn’t even all that old.”

“I don’t agree. I think they would consider coming here. I think we stand as much chance to be chosen as anyone else.” Emma spoke with a conviction she didn’t, truthfully, feel. She knew her sister and father were both probably right but she refused to admit it.

“Well,” Mr Bennet allowed as rain began to fall outside, “I suppose there’s no harm in it. Go ahead and apply, or petition, or whatever it is one must do to be considered for the programme. Because the likelihood of Litchfield Manor actually being chosen is laughably small.”

He’d barely finished speaking when the rain began pelting down, rushing down the gutters and drumming on the roof.

“Good thing Elton’s already been let out,” Emma said, and gave Charli a pointed look as she carried her dishes to the sink. She gazed out the window at the already-sodden ground. “Otherwise he’d be soaked and we’d have muddy paw prints everywhere.”

“Honestly, Emma,” Charlotte snapped, “can’t you do anything but criticise and find fault –?”

“Blast!” Mr Bennet grimaced and pushed himself to his feet. He rubbed his neck and stared as his hand came away wet.

Rain, in steady drips, leaked from the ceiling onto the seat he’d just abandoned. “Well! It seems we’ve sprung a new leak,” he muttered, and took the pot Emma handed him and placed it on his chair. “Perhaps you’re right, Em. I think we really do need to do something about this roof.”

Chapter 8

On Monday, Martine appeared at Litchfield Manor with her mother, Mrs Davies. Together they set about scrubbing, polishing, Hoovering and dusting until, despite the rain that continued to fall and the leaks that dripped noisily into the various pots and bowls set out, the house began to sparkle.

“I can’t thank you enough, Mrs Davies.” Emma carried in the tea tray and set it down in the sitting room. “The house is transformed. Please, help yourselves to tea and biscuits.”

“Many thanks, miss. Don’t mind if I do.” Martine’s mother laid her dust cloth aside and came over to inspect the tray. “Ooh, Bourbon biscuits! Them’s my favourite.” She reached out for a napkin and placed two inside and thrust it in her pocket. “I’ll save ’em for later, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” Emma smiled politely and retreated to the kitchen.

Like her daughter, Mrs Davies was cheery and possessed of unflagging energy, cleaning and clearing and tidying like a dervish. She accomplished more in three hours than Emma could’ve managed in three days.

She stood now before the curtains Mrs Davies had stitched up for the kitchen window. They were lovely – blue gingham café curtains with coordinating blue and white triangles draped in a pennant across the top.

“Let me pay you, please,” Emma told her as she’d admired the woman’s efforts. “These curtains are as pretty – prettier! – than anything I’ve seen in the shops.”

But Mrs Davies wouldn’t hear of it. “I got the fabric on the cheap – practically free. I stitched it up in a day and a ’alf.” She shrugged. “I can make them curtains in my sleep. Besides,” she added, “you and Mr Bennet done so much for us, givin’ Martine clothes and shoes and sending ’er home with those wonderful pies, it’s the least I can do. I don’t know what we would’ve done without your help after Mr Davies died. At the very least, we’d of lost our house, and no mistake.”

Emma bit her lip. She felt a pinprick of shame for her uncharitable thought of the week before: Things have surely reached the lowest of points when one is obliged to accept charity from one’s very own housemaid.

She remembered well how Mr Bennet – Father Bennet, because he was Litchfield’s vicar at the time – raised a church collection for Martine and her mother after Mr Davies’s untimely death, and added a sum of his own…enough to enable them to keep their terraced house.

“Do you really like them?” Martine asked now, keeping her voice low as she joined Emma in front of the window. “The curtains, I mean? I told mum you might want somethin’ a bit plainer.”

“I love them,” Emma said firmly. “Your mother has a real flair. I wonder…”

“What, miss?”

“Do you think she’d be interested in making more, for the bedrooms upstairs? I’d pay her, of course,” she hastened to add. “And I’ll buy all of the materials.”

“I’m sure she would,” Martine said. “I’ll ask ’er, and let you know.”

“Thanks. I’ll let you both get on with it, then.” Emma smiled and carried her cup of tea upstairs to her room.

With the house sorted, and Charlotte back to school, and Mr Bennet closed away in his study, she could finally turn her mind to other things – specifically, Mind Your Manors.

She went to her desk and sat down. Opening her laptop, she found the website and clicked on the “Appear on Our Programme” tab.

Would you like your country house to feature in Mind Your Manors? We would love to hear from you!

To apply, email details of your location along with photos and your plans, to: MindYourManors@Lucy.co.uk. Should your house be chosen, you will be contacted by a member of our production company.

Thank you, and good luck!

Impulsively, Emma clicked on the email link and began to type.

Dear Lucy,

My name is Emma Bennet, and I respectfully request that our home in South Devon, Litchfield Manor, be considered to appear on your programme…

***

It was still raining on Tuesday morning when Emma got dressed for her first day of work at Weston’s Bakery.

She glanced out the window in dismay. It was dark, and soggy, and the last thing she wanted to do was go outside in such sodden weather. But she’d promised Boz, and she wouldn’t let him down.

With Elton at her heels, she went downstairs, surprised to find that her father wasn’t in the kitchen or sat in the library with a book, as was his custom.

“Out you go,” she told the pug firmly, nudging him outdoors into the rain with the tip of her booted foot. “Hurry and do your business, I’ll wait.”

She left the door ajar and put the kettle on. She just about had time for tea and toast before she left.

In a few minutes Elton whined to come back inside, and after dumping kibble in his dish and fresh water in his bowl, she wrote a note and left it on the table to remind her father to let the dog out while she was gone.

The toast popped up.

A quick slather of butter and a few bites later, it was time to go.

“All right, Elton,” Emma announced as she bent down to hand him a treat, “it’s time I left. Be a good boy for my father, won’t you?”

“We’ll be fine.” Mr Bennet stood in the kitchen doorway. “We’ll rub along very well, won’t we, boy?” He glanced at her hair, twisted into a neat bun at the nape of her neck, and nodded in approval. “You look very nice. All ready for your first day at the bakery?”

“I think so.” She smoothed the front of her trousers and touched a hand to the collar of her blouse. “Bit nervous, but that’s to be expected, isn’t it?”

“Perfectly normal. Don’t worry.” He bent forward to kiss her cheek. “I’m sure you’ll do a splendid job, Emma. Boz is lucky to have you.”

“Thanks.” She gave him a grateful smile and reached for her purse. “It’s time I went. I’ll see you later.”

“Don’t forget this,” he called out as she opened the back door. He handed her an umbrella. “I’ve a feeling you might need it.”

Chapter 9

Emma knocked on the bakery’s front door promptly at seven, but no one answered. She frowned and peered through the window.

The lights were on; she was certain Boz had told her to be at the bakery at seven a.m. Where was everyone?

She knocked again, more loudly this time. A moment later Viv appeared, clogs squeaking, and let her inside.

“Sorry, love, I didn’t ’ear you. We’re in the back, gettin’ the buns and muffins and doughnuts ready for the oven. We open at nine.” She closed and latched the door. “You can put your brolly over there.” She indicated an umbrella stand in the corner.

“Thanks.” Emma did as she was told. “Horrible weather out there today, isn’t it?” she remarked as she turned back.

But Vivian was gone.

“Emma,” Boz called out as he came around the corner to greet her. “Good morning. Ready to start?”

She nodded. “I think so, yes.”

“Good! Viv’s taken over the baking for a bit so I can show you round. We’ll start behind the counter.”

“What time did you get here?” she asked, curious.

“Four a.m.,” he said cheerily. “I’ve been at it for three hours. But the good news is,” he added at her shocked expression, “you don’t need to show up until eight; and we close at half past two.”

After showing her how to work the till and explaining his pricing system – “‘SB’ on top of the box means sticky buns, ‘FC’ are fairy cakes, and so on, and the number is how many” – Boz led Emma into the back. It was surprisingly small.

“This is where we bake everything that goes in the cases,” he explained. “We start at four and begin baking at seven, so it’s all ready when we open the door at nine.”

She glimpsed a few shelved baking trays, although most were in the ovens, and a central worktable dusted with flour and sugar. Two large commercial mixers stood at one end of a countertop to one side.

“So it’s just the two of you?” Emma asked, surprised.

“That’s it. At eleven, Viv bakes the breads and savoury tarts for the afternoon customers. Then, we wash up and sanitise the work area before lunch rush begins, and start prepping the ingredients for the next day’s baking.” He grinned. “Oh – and then we clean everything up…again.”

“My goodness,” Emma said faintly. “What a lot you do.”

“Viv and I make a good team.” He glanced over at the woman, who was just dropping a tray of doughnuts into a bin of hot oil, and gave her a thumbs-up. “Couldn’t do it without her. But all you need do,” he said as he handed her a blue striped apron and led her back out, “is manage the front. Ring the customers up, box up their purchases, and if we run low on anything, you let us know. Got it?”

Emma nodded and tied her apron on. “I think so, yes.”

“Good. Let’s get this party started.” And with a wink and a clap of her shoulder, Boz returned to the work area and left her alone in the front of the shop.

***

Just before eleven, the bell over the door jangled.

Emma, whose feet already ached from going back and forth from the display case to the till, barely looked up; she was busy counting out change into her customer’s outstretched hand.

“I’ll be right with you,” she called out. “There you are, Mr Greene. Enjoy your buns.”

“Oh, I will. They’re my little treat,” he confided as he took the box. “I eat ’em on the park bench, very slowly, so I don’t have to share them with my wife.”

She laughed. “I promise I won’t tell her.”

“Thank you. And not a word to my doctor, either.”

Emma turned her attention to her new customer as Mr Greene went out the door. “Good morning. Can I help you?”

“I certainly hope so. A dozen doughnuts, please.”

She looked up to see a tall man with dark auburn hair standing before the counter. He wore a suit – she was certain it was bespoke – of dark blue with a tie of scarlet silk, and his arms were crossed loosely against his chest as he surveyed the display case.

“We have blueberry, chocolate glazed, vanilla old-fashioned and lemon custard,” Emma told him. “Would you like an assortment?”

His lips curved into a most engaging smile, full of cheek and abounding in good humour. “I’d like the whole bloody lot,” he replied, and his eyes crinkled. “But I’ll settle for six each of the chocolate glazed and six of the vanilla old-fashioned. It’s a very serious matter, you know,” he added. “Choosing a doughnut requires great thought and consideration.”

“Indeed it does.” Emma folded one of the flats into a box, slotting the tabs in with fingers gone suddenly clumsy, and reached for a square of tissue paper. As she turned away to place the requested doughnuts into the box, she could feel his eyes on her.

“We haven’t many left this late in the morning,” she said over her shoulder. “They go quickly.”

“I’m sure they do. They’ll go even quicker once I get my hands on them, I assure you.”

She smiled and turned to face him. “I’m sorry – we’ve toasted coconut today, too, if you’d like any of those –?”

“Could I have one for extra?” He eyed her hopefully. “I do get an extra, don’t I?”

“You do.” She smiled. Somehow it was impossible not to smile in his presence. He was like a little boy in a sweet shop…or a toy store. “One toasted coconut it is.”

A moment later she handed over the box and a bag with the toasted coconut and rang him up. He handed her a hundred-pound note.

“Oh!” Emma said, and stared at the crisp note, nonplussed. “I don’t think I can make change for this.”

“Sorry. It’s all I’ve got on me at the moment.”

“Excuse me, please...I’ll be right back.”

He nodded and reached in his pocket to answer his mobile phone.

“Boz,” Emma breathed as she hurried into the work room, “a customer’s just given me a hundred pounds and I haven’t enough change in the drawer.”

He put his tray of olive savoury tarts aside and wiped his hands on a cloth. “No problem.” He went to a safe in the corner and withdrew a zippered bank bag. He counted out five, ten, and twenty pound notes into her hand. “There you are. Put the note under the till drawer, I’ll settle it up later when we cash out.”

“Thanks.”

When she returned, her customer was just sliding his phone back into his pocket. “Here we are,” she announced, and handed him his change. “Can I get you anything else?”

“Not a thing.” He thrust the wad of notes in his wallet and returned it to his back pocket. “Thank you. You’ve been most helpful.”

With a gallant bow and another smile, he picked up his box, made his way to the door, and clanged out of the shop.

Chapter 10

When it was time to cash the till out at two-thirty, Emma came up twenty pounds short.

“Oh, no,” she exclaimed, and looked at Boz in dismay. “Perhaps I made a mistake.”

But after he counted out the cash against the day’s receipts a second time, the result was the same – they were exactly twenty pounds short.

“You either gave someone too much change,” Boz said, and shrugged, “or two bills stuck together. No matter – it happens sometimes.”

“Of course you’ll take it out of my pay,” Emma told him firmly. “It’s my fault, after all.”

“No. It’s an honest mistake, Em, and one we’ve all made at one time or another.” Boz shut the cash drawer. “Just be careful in the future when you make change, and make sure the new notes don’t stick together.”

“I will do, I promise.” Guiltily, Emma remembered her distraction while waiting on the man in the bespoke suit. She’d forgotten to mention the coconut-toasted doughnuts, had barely been able to string a sentence together, and in the face of his engaging personality had quite lost the thread of what she was doing. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, love.” He smiled. “Help me and Viv clean up the kitchen, and then you’re free to go. And grab a couple of cream horns for your dad on the way out.”

***

“So, tell me – how was your first day at the bakery?” Mr Bennet asked an hour later as he and Emma shared a cup of tea and cream horns at the kitchen table.

“Fine, until it was time to cash out.”

She told him about coming up twenty pounds short. “The notes Boz gave me were new,” she finished morosely, “and two of the twenties must’ve stuck together when I gave my customer his change.”

Mr Bennet nodded. “Perhaps he’ll notice, and come back?”

“I doubt it. Not that I think he’d deliberately keep the money – he certainly didn’t seem to need it,” Emma added. “But he didn’t even glance at the notes before he put them away in his wallet.”

“File it away under ‘lessons learned’, and be more careful in future,” her father advised. “Perhaps,” he added thoughtfully as he picked up his pastry, “I’ll bake Boz some scones to show my appreciation.”

“Daddy, he bakes dozens of scones every day.”

“Oh. Yes.” He looked deflated. “No use carrying coals to Newcastle, I suppose.”

She leaned forward and laid her hand on his. “Why don’t you make some for us? And we’ll need a couple of dozen more for Lizzy’s party, too.”

“Right you are.” He set his cup down with a purposeful click. “Of course everyone will want scones.” He reached out for the pad of paper and pencil by the sugar bowl and drew it forward. “Hmmm…what do you think, Emma? A dozen savoury, and a dozen sweet?”

***

Martine arrived at Litchfield Manor at eight o’clock the following morning, just as Emma attached the lead to Elton’s collar to take him for a walk.

“Off for a stroll outside with Miss Em, are you, Mr E?” the girl asked, and set her purse aside to kneel down to pet and coo over the dog.

“It’s stopped raining and the sun’s out,” Emma said. “We’re taking advantage of it while it lasts.”

She eyed Martine’s leggings and faded Rolling Stones T-shirt with a barely concealed shudder and reminded herself to start on her makeover, and soon. The girl was in desperate need of an intervention.

“Mum says she’ll make the curtains for you,” Martine said as she straightened and turned to Emma. “But she won’t hear of you payin’ her for it.”

“I won’t hear of not paying her,” Emma said firmly. “We’ll talk about it when I get back. Oh,” she added as she opened the back door, “I have a few things for you to try on before you go.”

“For me?” Martine looked doubtful. “I don’t know –”

“It shouldn’t take long.” Emma’s words were brisk. “I have the most adorable trackies – bright pink, if you can imagine!” She grimaced. “They don’t suit me in the least, but I think they’ll look very well on you.” She eyed the girl’s leggings, faded from black to grey after numerous washings. “A proper tracksuit is always a good thing to have.”

“If you say so,” Martine sighed. “I’ll be here.”

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic,” Emma observed with a frown. “If you don’t really want them…”

“Of course I do!” the girl assured her. “Don’t be silly.” She managed a convincing smile. “After all, I owe you, Miss Em, more than I could ever repay,” she added earnestly. “You saved my life after dad died. I’ll never forget it. I don’t know what I’d of done without you.”

Emma returned her smile. “I only did what anyone would’ve.” Her smile faded. “Losing a parent is hard, the hardest thing in the world. I know that only too well.”

Martine nodded and swallowed back the lump that rose in her throat. “I know you do. We all miss your mum.”

“Thanks. And we all miss Mr Davies. Right,” Emma said briskly, “I’d best get a move on. I’ll see you back here in –” she consulted her wristwatch. “An hour.”

Emma and Elton set out on their walk and headed down the road to Litchfield. Hedgerows crowded in on either side of them, leaves still glistening with water, and the ground was soggy beneath their feet. But the sun was shining and the rain had stopped, and that was enough.

Litchfield teemed with the usual mix of tourists and locals as she and Elton made their way down the high street. She paused to let the dog take a wee. Although Emma saw a couple of neighbours and lifted her hand to wave, there was thankfully no sign of Mrs Cusack or her clever, hat-designing niece.

You’re not being fair, she scolded herself. You don’t even know Isabella. You’re just – admit it! – a tiny bit jealous. Still – there was something about the girl, a vague air of secretiveness that struck her straight away.

Isabella Fairfax was keeping something back, she was sure of it.

Elton finished his wee, and they resumed their walk. The shop windows boasted ‘end-of-season SALE’ and ‘half off!’ signs as the swimsuits and beach totes, the cheap plastic sunglasses and flip-flops were cleared out to make way for the autumn inventory. It wouldn’t be long before the first chill invaded the air and leaves rimed with frost crunched beneath their feet.

But for now, the sun was warm and the sky was blue and cloudless – it was a perfect late-summer day by the sea.

Almost as if she were drawn to it, Emma found herself once again standing at the far end of Mulberry Street, gazing up at Crossley Hall. The workmen were already up there; she could hear the sound of band saws and nail guns, hammering, and the faint strains of Radio 1 coming from someone’s portable Roberts.

“What do you say we go up and have a closer look, Mr E?” Emma asked, and glanced down at the pug. He wagged his curly tail enthusiastically in answer.

She set off with the dog up the hill, until, a short time later, they arrived in front of the Hall. The gates were firmly shut. Emma peered through and gazed up at the house, curious to see more; but the tall windows looked down on her, revealing nothing of their secrets, and the shrubbery and hedges prevented her seeing anything of interest.

Her hand closed over one of the palings as she – gingerly – tried to push the gate open. But it didn’t budge.

“Oh, well, Elton,” she said, and turned away, “our curiosity will have to wait. It’s time we headed back home.”

But the dog planted his paws firmly on the pavement and refused to move. A low, menacing growl emanated from his throat and his eyes were fixed on something he saw on the other side of the gate. Every hair bristled.

Emma followed his gaze. “It’s only a squirrel, you silly boy. Come on.”

She tugged gently at the lead, but Elton didn’t budge. He wanted that squirrel.

“Come on, Mr E,” she said again, and tugged at his lead a bit more firmly. “You can’t go in there. Let’s go home.”

But he strained and barked as the squirrel darted across the drive and away through the grass, nearly yanking Emma’s arm from its socket as he lunged forward at the gate.

Suddenly, to Emma’s horror, the lead went slack. The dog got loose and, before she could stop him, wriggled his way through the gate and up the drive. In a flash he was gone.

“Elton!” she cried.

The lead’s a little wonky. Sometimes the clip comes loose.

That’s what Charli had said, Emma remembered, the day she’d brought the dog home to Litchfield Manor.

She gripped the iron palings of the gate now and shouted, “Hello? Is anyone there? My dog’s got through the gate! Can someone help me, please? Hello!”

But there was no answer. Of course there wouldn’t be, she realised with a sinking heart; the whine of saws and banging of hammers, and the drone of a tractor somewhere behind the house all served to drown her voice out.

Emma stepped back and eyed the hedgerows and ivy-choked stone wall that surrounded the property with misgivings. There was only one thing to do.

She walked along the length of the wall until she found a likely spot, ignoring the ‘NO TRESPASSING’ signs posted at regular intervals, and reached out to brush the ivy aside and gripped the rough stones for a foothold.

With a deep breath and a silent prayer that a pack of vicious guard dogs didn’t wait on the other side of the wall to tear her apart, Emma climbed up, balanced precariously on the top for a moment, then dropped down over the other side, and onto the grounds of Crossley Hall.

Chapter 11

The minute her feet hit the ground, Emma lost her balance and fell backwards, arms cartwheeling as she landed in a patch of mud and brambles. She got to her feet and looked at her scratched, mud-smeared legs and clothing in disgust.

“Bloody dog,” she muttered. “Bloody Charli!”

Although she longed to wipe the mud away, doing so would only make matters worse, so she gritted her teeth and turned round to survey the tangle of grass and shrubbery stretching away before her.

“Elton!” she shouted. “Elton, where are you?”

There was no sign of the pug. Not a rustle, not a crackling twig, nothing gave his location away. How, she thought darkly, could such a tiny dog be such a colossal pain in the arse?

Emma blundered forward for some minutes, muttering and cursing and calling out the dog’s name, until she paused for breath. Where in God’s name was he? He couldn’t have gone far. She must be in the garden, she realised, as the house was nowhere to be seen in this thicket of greenery.

“Mr Elton!” she snapped. “You little beast! Where are you?”

She forged ahead, and found herself on a path. Gravel crunched under her feet. The shrubbery had thinned somewhat, and she could make out flowerbeds on either side of the path. Bags of mulch were stacked under a greengage tree.

With a grunt, Emma ran straight into a wall. But as the wall reached out and gripped her by the shoulders, she realised she’d run smack into a person, not a wall. She blinked.

It was a man. The man from the bakery shop…

“You!” she said, her tone vaguely accusatory.

“Yes, me.” He regarded her in bemusement. “I’m not Mr Elton, obviously. Suppose I’m rather glad; it’s less than flattering, answering to ‘little beast’, isn’t it?”

Today he wore jeans, and a white knit polo shirt that did nothing to hide his nicely defined chest.

She looked down at her own muddy, scratched legs and back up at him. Embarrassment warmed her cheeks. “Elton is my dog,” she said. “My sister’s dog, that is. He got loose from his lead and squeezed in through the front gates, and I can’t seem to find him.”

“He’s probably with one of the workmen,” he remarked, “being fed quantities of Wotsits and beef jerky even as we speak.” He thrust out his hand. “James Churchill.”

“Emma Bennet.” She placed her hand in his and it was immediately swallowed up in his brief but firm grip.

“I remember you,” he added. “You sold me a dozen doughnuts yesterday,” he told her. “I understand they were quite good.”

She was surprised he remembered. “You understand –? Didn’t you try one for yourself?”

“No, I bought them for the crew.” He indicated several work vans, parked nearby and just visible through the foliage. “I should’ve got two dozen, though. Bloody hell but those men can eat.”

Emma managed a smile despite her discomfiture. “I won’t keep you, then. I need to find Elton before he wees on a priceless statue or something.”

He laughed. “Sorry, but I have no statues, priceless or otherwise, to be weed on.” He glanced at the tangle of tree limbs and hedges and sighed. “Just a lot of rubbish to be cleared off, inside and out.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it and be on my way, Mr Churchill, just as soon as I find my dog.”

“James, please, and I’ll go with you,” he said, and motioned her to follow him. “I think I know just where he might be.”

Curious, Emma followed him down the path until the trees and brush thinned out around them and they arrived at a clearing. A lawn, green and recently mowed, stretched away behind the house. From their vantage point atop the hill, Longbourne Bay was visible.

“Oh, how lovely!” she exclaimed, and stepped forward to admire the view. “I’ve never been up here before. I’d no idea you could see the bay from this point.” She watched as a sailboat, white against blue, skimmed through the waves.

“From the top floor you can see Torquay as well. Come along inside,” he offered, “and I’ll give you a quick tour. Although I’ll warn you now, there’s not much to see at present but dust and drop cloths.”

“Thank you. I’d love a tour.”

She followed him across the lawn and up the terrace, and into the house itself. French doors opened into a large reception room, once beautiful with its carved plasterwork and coffered ceiling, thick now with sawdust and dirt and its floors covered with tarpaulin and buckets of paint.

“Excuse the mess,” he apologised as he led her through to the kitchen. “As you can see, we’re in the process of renovation. Ah.” He came to a stop, and Emma nearly ran into him. “Just as I thought – here’s your culprit, being lavishly spoilt by my housekeeper, Mrs Fenning.”

She peered around his shoulder. Elton had his head in a plastic bowl, crunching on dog kibble.

“With some leftover beef gravy ladled on top for good measure,” the housekeeper said, and smiled fondly down at the dog. “He yours, miss?”

Emma nodded. “He got loose from the lead and squirmed his way in through the gate. He’s led me on a merry chase.”

“He’s a cute little thing.”

“Do you mind terribly, Mrs Fenning,” Emma asked as she snapped the lead back on his collar, “if I leave him here for a few minutes longer? Mr Churchill –”

“James,” he insisted with a smile.

She blushed. “James,” she amended, “has offered to take me on a tour of the house.”

“Go right ahead, miss. I’ll just find another dish and get this little fellow some water,” she added, and turned away to begin searching the cupboards.

“I’m so sorry.” Emma trailed behind Mr Churchill as he took her through the library, drawing room, and study. “I’m sure you have other things to do.”

“Not really.” He paused at the bottom of the steps. “It’s no problem at all,” he assured her. “It’s nice to talk to someone besides a sweaty bloke with a clipboard in hand and his bum crack showing.”

She laughed and followed him upstairs.

Twenty minutes later, the tour was complete and they returned to the kitchen. Elton, his thirst and hunger sated, was ready to go as Emma led him back outside.

“Thank you so much, Mr – I mean, James,” she corrected herself, and smiled self-consciously. “You’ve been very patient and more than kind. The next dozen doughnuts are my treat.”

“Which reminds me.” He frowned and reached back to pull out his wallet. “This is yours, I believe.” He withdrew a crisp twenty-pound note and held it out between two fingers. “You overpaid me yesterday. I didn’t notice until last night. I intended to stop by the bakery today and return it, but now you’ve saved me the trouble.”

“Oh! Thank you, so much,” she said, and eyed him gratefully as she took the money. He was not only devastatingly handsome, but honest, as well. “Boz’ll be so pleased. I came up twenty pounds short when I cashed out yesterday.”

“Boz?”

“My boss,” she explained. “He owns Weston’s Bakery.”

“I hope he didn’t dock your pay.”

“No,” Emma agreed. “He was very understanding. It was my first day of work, so…” She shrugged sheepishly. “He was prepared to overlook it, just the once.”

“I’m very glad that he did.”

His eyes, she noted as she looked at him, were a lovely brown and crinkled attractively when he smiled.

“And I appreciate your honesty in returning the money. Thank you.” She paused. “I wonder…are you free on Sunday? We’re having a welcome home party for my sister Elizabeth. She’s just got married, to Hugh Darcy. I know it’s a bit last minute, so if you’re busy I completely understand –”

“Darcy?” He looked surprised. “I don’t know him personally, but I certainly know of him. Rich as Croesus, isn’t he?”

“Richer.” She laughed. “We’d love you to join us. I can introduce you to some of your new neighbours.”

He bowed. “It would be my very great pleasure to come. Any excuse to see you again is welcome. What time shall I be there? And…where shall I be, exactly?”

“Sorry. Litchfield Manor, at noon. We’re just outside the village, next door to Cleremont.”

“Ah, yes, the former vicarage. I know just where it is. Charming old place.”

“Thank you. Well – it’s time I left,” Emma said. “It’s been lovely. I look forward to seeing you on Sunday.”

“I can’t wait. Oh – and by the way, no one has ever worn mud with quite so much élan as you, Miss Bennet,” he called after her.

“Thank you,” she said, and bestowed a dazzling smile on him before she turned to go. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Mr Churchill.”

Chapter 12

Clothing – dresses, scarves, trousers and shirts – covered Emma’s bed the next morning as she rooted through her closet. Martine sat perched on the bench in front of the dressing table with an anxious expression.

“You don’t ’ave to do this, Miss Em,” she said. “I’ve already got plenty of clothes thanks to you and your sisters.”

“But you don’t ever wear them.” Emma thrust her head out of the closet and regarded her quizzically. “Why is that?”

Martine picked up a tube of face cream and fiddled with it. “Because I wear regular clothes to work in, not dresses and twinsets, to be honest. And because most of the things you give me don’t fit properly,” she admitted. “I don’t mean to complain, truly; but you and Lizzy and Charli are skinny, tiny little things. I’m…fat.”

Emma regarded her in dismay. She hadn’t really thought about sizing; but Martine was at least a half a stone heavier than herself. Nevertheless, “You’re not fat,” she said firmly.

“I’m not skinny, neither.”

“You only need a bit of exercise…and so do I, come to that. I’ve an idea. Why don’t we start going for a run on the days you’re here?” she suggested.

“A run, miss?” Her expression was wary.

“Yes – a brisk twenty-minute jog down to the village and back. I’ll find you a pair of tracksuit bottoms to wear. You have trainers, don’t you?”

She nodded. “They’re a bit beat up, but they’ll do, I reckon.”

“Perfect.” Emma unearthed a pair of trackies with an elasticised waistband and handed them over. “We’ll start on Friday.”

“But…Lizzy’s party’s on Sunday,” Martine pointed out. “And there’s all them cakes and tarts and trifles to be made, and the house to be cleaned.”

Emma was forced to concede that the girl was right. “Well, then – we’ll start next week. And since my clothes won’t fit you, I’ll find some hats and scarves and show you how to accessorise your look.” She closed the closet doors and studied Martine with a thoughtful expression. “Right, let’s focus on your makeup in the meantime, shall we?”

“My makeup?” the girl echoed. She stared at her reflection, at her glossy lips and lashings of blusher, and admired the cat’s-eye flick she’d painstakingly copied from a recent issue of Bliss. “What’s wrong with my makeup?”

“Where to begin?” Emma murmured, and took a deep breath. “Let’s start,” she said as she came to stand behind Martine on the dressing table bench, “with your eye makeup. It’s fine for a party, but during the day you want to look more natural. As if you’re not wearing any makeup at all…”

With a sigh – and despite her misgivings – Martine leaned back and let Emma get on with it.

“Blimey, I wouldn’t let anyone else but you mess with my slap,” she grumbled, and closed her eyes as Emma began to wipe away all traces of her carefully applied cat’s-eye flick.

“You’ll love the results, I promise,” Emma assured her. “Just trust me.”

With another sigh, Martine muttered, “Right, I’ll try.”

“And please don’t frown,” Emma scolded. “I need to groom your brows a bit.”

“But I like my brows,” Martine protested, and her eyes flew open in alarm. “What’s wrong with ’em?”

“They look like caterpillars.” Emma reached for a pair of tweezers. “Now,” she ordered firmly, “I want you to sit back, relax, and close your eyes. This won’t hurt a bit.”

***

Twenty minutes later, Emma led Martine downstairs in search of Mr Bennet. They found him in the kitchen, a newspaper open on the table before him and a cup of tea at his elbow.

“Good morning, daddy,” Emma said.

“Good morning! Hello, Martine.” He glanced up at them with the briefest of smiles. “I didn’t realise you were here already.”

“Hello, Mr Bennet.”

“Distressing news in the paper this morning,” he said, and frowned down at the newspaper. “Our neighbour is selling his property to an investment group from London.”

Emma’s eyes widened. “Not Lord Darcy, surely –?”

“Oh, no. Sorry, I meant Sir Cavaliere. With no heir to be found and his health deteriorating, the old boy can’t keep the place up any longer and finds himself forced to sell and move into a care home.”

“What a shame! What will the investment group do with the property?”

“I don’t know. The article doesn’t say, as the transaction isn’t official yet.” His frown deepened. “I do hope they don’t pave it over and turn it into a water park. Or a shopping centre. To have something like that next to Litchfield Manor…” He shuddered.

“Well, there’s no use worrying about it if it hasn’t happened yet,” Emma reassured him. She drew Martine forward and eyed her father expectantly. “Do you notice anything different?”

“Different?” He set his cup down. “Erm…well,” he said after a moment, “I have to say, I don’t. Martine looks as…” he cleared his throat. “As lovely as ever.” With the smile of a man who’s just dodged a rather large bullet, he returned his attention to the paper.

“She’s had a makeover, daddy. Look at her face… Don’t you see a difference?”

“Oh. Oh – yes! Now you mention it, she does look, erm…fresh-scrubbed. Like a – a dairy maid from one of those eighteenth century pastoral paintings.”

Martine’s face fell. “Thank you, Mr Bennet,” she said. “Now, if you’ll both excuse me, it’s time I got on with it. This dairy maid has lots of work to do.”

She turned away to grab the vacuum cleaner from the hall closet, and began to attack the Hoovering.

“Well done, daddy,” Emma scolded. “Here I am trying to build up Martine’s shaky self-confidence, and you refer to her as a ‘dairy maid’. You might as well have called her fat.” She let out an exasperated breath and turned away.

“I meant it as a compliment,” Mr Bennet called out after her in consternation. “Truly!”

He looked down at the pug as Emma stalked off. “There’s no pleasing women sometimes, is there, Elton?”

***

On Thursday morning Emma arrived at the bakery bright and early. She shook out her umbrella and put it aside – thankfully, the forecast said the rain would end later today – and wrinkled her nose as she stared down at her wellies.

She’d stepped in a pile of Elton’s poo on her way out the door.

With no time to change, she’d grabbed a pair of espadrilles from inside the front door, thrown them in her handbag, and left. She took the boots off now and replaced them with the rope-soled shoes and left them in the corner.

She’d rinse them off around the back before the shop opened.

Right now she had more pressing matters to deal with. “Boz, look what I’ve got,” she announced as she strode into the kitchen and brandished the twenty-pound note from Mr Churchill triumphantly over her head. “The missing money from Tuesday’s till.”

“I told you, Emma – there’s no need to pay it back,” Boz reminded her as he lifted out a batch of crullers from the frying oil.

“I know you did. But it isn’t my money, Boz; it’s my customer’s. He gave me a hundred-pound note, remember? I overpaid him when I made change and two of the notes stuck together. He realised my mistake later and he’s returned the money.”

“Oh! Well.” He eyed her in surprise. “Good job. How’d that come about? You didn’t work yesterday. You were off.”

“I ran into him yesterday morning. Literally,” she added, and smiled. She told him and Viv how Elton had escaped his lead and wriggled through the gates of Crossley Hall. “Mr Churchill introduced himself – he’s the new owner – and said he remembered me from the shop, and –” she beamed. “And he gave me back the twenty pounds. Wasn’t that incredibly decent of him?”

“Decent?” Viv sniffed. “It was only because you ran into him again and ’e had no choice, more like. Bet you’d never of seen that money otherwise.”

Emma bristled. “You’re wrong. Mr Churchill – James – is a lovely man,” she said in his defence.

Boz lifted his brow as he dipped a cooled doughnut into the vanilla glaze. “‘James’, is it?” he said thoughtfully. “‘Lovely’, is he?”

A flush warmed her cheeks. “He is lovely! He’s also wealthy. Why would he keep that extra twenty-pound note? He has no need of it.”

“Why?” Viv asked. “Because rich blokes are the worst. Tight with a penny, they are, and never leave a tip. Act like they’re skint all the time when they’re up to their arses in it. How else do you suppose they got all that dosh in the first place?”

“I’ll put the money away in the till,” Emma said, and turned away. “But you’re wrong, both of you. Mr Churchill is a good and honest man.”

As she returned to the front of the shop, Viv let out a snort. “That’s what they said about my cheating louse of an ex-husband. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, duck.”

Chapter 13

Just after nine, the bell jingled over the door.

Emma looked up from her perusal of a bakery supply catalogue with an expectant smile, hoping her first customer of the day would be Mr Churchill.

But the man who stood before the display case was tall, with dark hair. He wore the casually expensive clothes – cashmere sweater pushed up at the elbows, dark-washed jeans, a diver’s watch on his wrist – and the harried expression of a Londoner.

“May I help you?” she asked as she put the catalogue aside.

“I hope so. I’m looking for Litchfield Manor.” He reached for his wallet. “And a coffee. Black, no sugar.”

Her heart quickening, Emma nodded and went to pour coffee from the carafe into a takeaway cup. Why was he looking for the Manor? She snapped a lid on and returned to the counter and set the coffee down. “One pound fifty, please.”

He handed her two pounds and took the cup. “Keep the change.”

“Thanks.” Condescending arse. She dropped the coins in the tip jar.

“Tell me,” he said as he took a sip, “do you know the place? Can you tell me where I might find it? It used to be on the old Litchfield Road, if I remember correctly.”

She nodded. “It still is. Have you been there before?”

“Once. Many years ago.”

“Are you looking for someone in particular? Perhaps I can be of help.”

But he wasn’t so easily persuaded to give over any information. “Just directions will do.”

“You’re from London, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” He lifted his brow. “Is it so obvious?”

She shrugged. “Aside from your suspicious nature, it’s your clothes.” She glanced at his watch. “And nobody round here wears a diver’s watch, except perhaps one of the yachtsmen from over Longbourne way.”

“I see. And if you were to come to London,” he observed, his eyes raking over her with detached but disconcerting thoroughness, “I’d know you were country born and bred straight away. Muddy shoes, clothes serviceable but lacking any discernible style, the faintest whiff of the barnyard…”

My wellies, she remembered suddenly. She’d meant to take them into the back and clean them, but had left them in the front corner of the shop instead.

“Excuse me,” she muttered, and turned away to fetch the boots, her face hot with embarrassment.

He raised his cup for another sip of coffee. “Better a diver’s watch to mark one out than an unpleasant smell, I think. Don’t you agree?”

Emma glared but didn’t spare him a reply as she snatched up the offending boots and carried them into the back. By the time she’d washed and dried them and returned to the front, he was gone.

***

At half three that afternoon, Emma returned home and set her umbrella in the stand and threw her boots in the corner. The rain had finally stopped after nearly four days and the sun was out.

She only hoped daddy had remembered to let Elton outside…

As she set her handbag down on the hall table and made her way towards the kitchen, she heard the rise and fall of voices. Martine and her father must be discussing the menu for Lizzy’s welcome home party on Sunday.

But the sight that greeted her when she came to a stop in the kitchen doorway left her speechless.

“Lizzy! You’re back!” she exclaimed, and catapulted herself into her sister’s arms. “I didn’t see your car.”

“Hugh parked around back. It’s good to be home again.” Laughing, Elizabeth drew back to study her. “Em? You’re not crying, are you?” She reached in her pocket for a tissue. “I’ve barely been gone for a fortnight.”

“I missed you,” she retorted. “We all did.” She dabbed at her watery eyes. “I won’t apologise for that. Hello, Hugh.”

He gave her a self-conscious smile. “Hello, Emma. It’s good to see you again.”

“Are you staying at Cleremont?” Emma asked her sister. “How long will you be here? You’re not going back to London straight away, I hope?”

“Yes, we’re here until Monday, and no, not straight away,” Lizzy answered, and hugged Emma once again. “Lord, I missed you!”

Emma was about to join her father and Lizzy at the table to demand all the details of their honeymoon trip to Cornwall when she suddenly became aware of someone, arms folded against his chest, standing silently by the kitchen counter…

…someone in a cashmere sweater and dark-washed jeans, with a diver’s watch strapped around his wrist.

“What are you doing here?” Emma asked.

He met her eyes. If he was bothered by her abrupt manner, he gave no sign. “I might ask you the same thing.”

“Emma, this is Mark Knightley,” Lizzy said into the sudden, awkward silence, and glanced between the newcomer and her sister with a questioning expression. “He and I worked together in London. Mark, this is my sister, Emma.”

He nodded. “Miss Bennet.” He glanced down at her espadrilles. “I see you dispensed with the wellies. Good move on your part. But I’m afraid you still wouldn’t pass as a Londoner.”

“Good,” she retorted. “I wouldn’t want to, if Londoners are all as ill-mannered as you.”

Lizzy glanced between them, her brow crinkled in confusion. “I’m sorry – do you two know each other?”

“We met,” he answered her, his eyes still on Emma’s, “in the bakery, in Litchfield.”

Although his expression gave nothing away, Emma was certain she saw a trace of amusement lurking in his dark blue eyes.

“So you found us,” she said. Her words were cool. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew my sister when you came into the shop this morning? I might’ve been more forthcoming.”

“How could I possibly have known Elizabeth was your sister, when you wouldn’t volunteer your name, much less give me directions to your house?”

Emma scowled. Score, and point to Mr Knightley. “Why are you here?” she demanded.

“Oh, Emma, you’ll never believe it,” Lizzy cut in, her eyes bright with excitement. “It’s the most amazing thing!”

“What is?”

“Mark is here,” she told her sister impatiently, “because he works with that television programme, Mind Your Manors. And –” she leaned forward to clasp Emma’s hands in hers. “He came to tell us that Litchfield Manor’s been chosen to appear on the programme!”

Chapter 14

For perhaps the first time in her life, Emma Bennet found herself at a loss for words.

“Oh,” was all she could manage.

“Production won’t start for a few more weeks,” Mr Knightley told her. “I overheard Lucy discussing it with the production team and I thought –” he glanced at Lizzy. “I thought you’d want to know right away.”

“That’s wonderful,” she said, and turned to Emma. “But I didn’t know anything about it. Did you, Em? You don’t seem very surprised.”

“Oh, I am. I’m…stunned,” Emma confessed. “I sent an email and asked to have Litchfield Manor put on the telly, but I never dreamt it would actually happen.” She looked at Mark Knightley with wary curiosity. “How are you connected to the programme?”

“Writer,” he replied, “associate producer, and general dogsbody as the occasion warrants.” His smile was brief. “We’ve a very small budget, so we all wear more than one hat.”

“I can scarcely believe it.” Emma sank down into a chair next to her father and shook her head in disbelief. Her eyes widened. “Ten thousand pounds! We can fix the roof, and repair the stair treads, and replace the dining room wallpaper –”

“Simon and Jacquetta will take a look round first and provide their recommendations,” Knightley said. “You should hear something official from Lucy in the next day or two.”

“I know you told me you planned to contact the programme,” Mr Bennet said to Emma in wonderment. “But I didn’t suppose we’d actually be chosen!” He turned to Mark. “Doesn’t Mind Your Manors normally feature more impressive family piles? Places with – oh, I don’t know…Elizabethan knot gardens, and dozens and dozens of chimneys?”

“Usually. But not always. The problem with those grade-I and II listed properties is the English Heritage regulations. It makes doing anything subject to permissions and delays and reams of paperwork. Litchfield Manor may be modest in size, and it may not be listed, but it has historical appeal, as well as a charming country setting.” His glance came to rest on Emma. “It’s bucolic, if a bit of an anachronism.”

Before she could lob back a suitable retort, Lizzy turned to him.

“My sister and father are having a party to welcome us home on Sunday.” She met her new husband’s eyes and blushed. “Hugh and I just got back from our honeymoon.”

“Congratulations.” He came forward to shake Hugh and Lizzy’s hands in turn. “My best wishes to you both.”

“Why don’t you join us?” Lizzy ventured. “I’d love to see you. Give us a chance to catch up.”

He hesitated. “That’s very kind. But I’m afraid I’m returning to London this afternoon.”

“What a pity,” Emma said, and smiled sweetly. “I’m sure the demands of being a writer, associate producer, and general dogsbody keep you terribly busy.”

“On the other hand,” Knightley said, pausing as his eyes met Emma’s with a mixture of amusement and challenge, “I suppose I could stay over for a couple of days and get the lay of the land before the production company arrives. It might prove useful.”

“Wonderful,” Lizzy exclaimed. “We’ll see you here at noon, then?”

He pushed himself away from the kitchen counter. “I look forward to it.” After exchanging polite pleasantries with Hugh Darcy and Mr Bennet for a few moments longer, he made to leave. “It’s time I said goodbye. It was a pleasure to meet you Hugh, Mr Bennet.” His gaze flicked to Emma. “Miss Bennet.”

She pressed her lips together and managed a curt nod.

“You’ll find the Litchfield Inn provides excellent accommodation,” Hugh told him. “And the Regency in Longbourne is very good as well.”

“Thank you, and thank you all for your hospitality. I’d best be going.”

“Emma,” her father suggested, “why don’t you see Mr Knightley out?”

“Of course.” She followed Mark Knightley down the hall to the front door. For such a tall man, he moved with surprising grace.

If one cared to notice such things, she told herself. And she most certainly did not.

“Goodbye, Miss Bennet,” he said as she opened the door. “I’ll see you on Sunday, I expect.”

“I’ll be here,” she assured him. “Dressed in serviceable but unstylish clothes and reeking faintly of the barnyard, no doubt. Goodbye, Mr Knightley.”

He nodded and sketched a bow, his eyes dancing with amusement. “Goodbye.”

As she shut the door after him, Emma found his conceit – no matter how he might try to couch it in charm – beyond irritating.

She returned to the kitchen, to a lively conversation about the relative merits of Cornish pasties and saffron buns, and told herself she was glad that Mr Knightley was gone.

What a pity she’d have to see him again on Sunday. She was not looking forward to it in the least.

***

“Why did you invite him to the party?” Emma asked her sister later, where they remained behind at the kitchen table after Hugh and Mr Bennet went outside to sit on the terrace.

“Who?” Lizzy asked, feigning innocence. “Mr Knightley, do you mean?”

“Yes, of course, Mr Knightley!”

“Because he’s a friend, Emma, that’s why. We worked together in London. I told you that.”

She studied her sister. “A friend? Or was he something more?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.” Emma lowered her voice and leaned forward. “Were you and Mark Knightley involved?”

Lizzy blushed. “No…yes. Not really,” she said, flustered, and went to the window to make sure her husband and father were still outside on the terrace. “We had a bit too much to drink at lunch one day, and there was a sort-of attraction between us, and –” she broke off and returned to her seat at the table. “We slept together. Just the once,” she added defensively, “and long before Hugh came back into my life.”

“Oh.” For the second time that day, Emma was at a loss for words.

“It shouldn’t have happened, and it didn’t, after that one time. Mark’s a lovely man, clever and talented, but we weren’t really suited. We were both at a loose end at the time, and bored, and it just…happened.”

“So it didn’t mean anything.”

“No. It was very –” Lizzy reddened. “Pleasant, and perhaps if I hadn’t lost my job, and we’d continued to work together…” She paused. “But it didn’t work out, Emma. There was never really anything between us.”

“He seems too arrogant by half.”

“Yes.” She smiled slightly. “He does come across that way, at first.”

“But –?” Emma prodded.

“But what? He’s a perfectly nice man, Em,” Lizzy said in exasperation. “He’s not all that different from you, now I think on it. Intelligent, well spoken, opinionated…” She cast a quick, considering glance at her sister. “And quite fanciable, too, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Emma pushed her chair back and took several lemons out of the refrigerator bin. “I’ll make a pitcher of lemonade and we can take it outside. But first,” she added as she turned around to face her sister, “I want to hear all about your honeymoon. Every romantic, jealousy-inducing detail.”

“All right,” Lizzy agreed. “Hand me some of those lemons and come and sit down.”

Emma set a bowl of lemons on the table and joined her sister. They talked of the honeymoon in Cornwall and the pleasures of sailing on the Rosings, as well as Lizzy’s complete and utter adoration for Hugh, and Mark Knightley was not mentioned again.

Chapter 15

Saturday morning found Emma in the kitchen, in desperate need of a cup of coffee.

Such a flurry of pie baking, scone making, and flour flinging went on as her father and Martine – who’d come in to help on her day off – prepared for tomorrow’s party, that Emma felt guilty as she reached for the coffee pot.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked Mr Bennet.

“Nothing,” he replied, cutting butter into his flour mixture with a grim expression, “unless you can bake a cake or make fondant.”

“You know very well I can’t do either.”

“Then you have your answer.” He glanced down at Elton, who would keep getting underfoot. “Charlotte’s not up yet; why don’t you take Elton for a walk? I’m sure he’d like that.”

At the word ‘walk’, the pug began to yap and chase himself in excitement.

“All right,” Emma agreed, and sighed. “Lord knows when Charli will decide to get up…just let me finish my coffee.”

Twenty minutes later she and Elton made their way across the field to Cleremont – slowly, because the dog stopped to investigate and sniff every rock, tree, and pile of horse manure along the way. But Emma didn’t mind. It was a lovely sunny day, and she was anxious to see Lizzy again.

Her thoughts wandered, as they sometimes did, to Jeremy North. She wondered what he was doing now. How strange it was, knowing they’d be married now if things had turned out differently. She’d be Mrs Emma North and they’d live in London.

Would they have been happy? Was remaining single a mistake?

No, she decided, and tugged on the lead to pull Elton away from the brambles. She was perfectly happy. It was true she missed her sisters…even Charli. The house was too quiet by half with only her and daddy remaining at home.

But who’d look after him if she left?

The thought troubled her. While Mr Bennet was in the pink of health in most regards, he was no longer a young man. His knees troubled him and he tired more easily; she often found him sleeping in his study, slumped back against the chair and snoring softly.

Perhaps instead of fixing Litchfield Manor up, she should persuade him to sell it, and move into something smaller and easier to manage – a flat, for instance.

Even as the thought occurred she dismissed it. He’d never give up his home, and he wouldn’t leave until, as he often declared, ‘I go out in a box.’

Besides, it was too late to change her mind now – Simon Fox and Jacquetta Winspear of Mind Your Manors would arrive on Tuesday to have their first look round the house and property. The television wheels were in motion.

Which meant, Emma realised with sudden dismay, that as a writer and associate producer, Mark Knightley would surely be spending time at Litchfield Manor as well.

“Come along, Elton,” she said now, sharply. “We’ve a ways to go to reach Cleremont. Chop chop!”

He trotted obediently alongside her as she strode towards the Darcys’ stately home, its chimneys rising against the distant sky like sentinels.

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