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grate, which she decided she’d have lit in the evening, and the bed was a gleaming imitation Jacobean four-poster, the wood warm and well polished. The one window in the room was set in a tiled alcove and through the tiny latticed panes she could see the courtyard where some of the horses were being returned to their stables.
    The carpet had once been rich-coloured and thick, but it was now thin and dull, as were the brocade chair and daybed. Although vast, her wardrobe looked to be on its last legs and she found she had trouble closing the doors.
    The ceiling was covered in a giant mural depicting a hunt in full cry. It was beautifully painted and at first she didn’t notice that several of the ladies on horseback were bare-chested and exceptionally well endowed. She looked more closely and made out figures apparently copulating in the bracken as the hunt went by. ‘Bizarre!’ she muttered to herself, wondering who’d chosen to ruin the decoration with such a tasteless touch.
    A small door at the far side of the room led down two steps into a bathroom that took her breath away. It was tiny, but the rich wood panels gleamed in the light of the candles that surrounded the old fashioned deep basin and mirrored shelf, while a three-sided copper bath fitted into the far corner. A crimson Persian rug covered the strip of floor between the bath and the basin, and ruby red towels hung over heated rails beneath the small rectangular window. Annabel hoped that Lady Corbett-Wynne didn’t intend to try to modernise this room. It was quite perfect.
    Returning to the bedroom she took her notebook out of her briefcase and started to jot down the main points of their conversation. She’d only just begun when there was a knock on the door.
    ‘Yes?’ called Annabel.
    ‘It’s me, Tania,’ came the reply. ‘May I come in?’
    Annabel opened the door. ‘Please do. I was just admiring the bathroom.’
    Tania smiled. ‘Great, isn’t it! Crispian and I have some fun in there with our visitors, I can tell you.’
    Annabel didn’t quite know how to reply. ‘Was there something you wanted?’ she asked after a pause.
    ‘Crispian wondered if you’d like to join us for afternoon tea. Dinner won’t be until nine tonight, it helps stave off the hunger pangs.’
    ‘Sounds lovely,’ agreed Annabel.
    ‘Wonderful! We’ll be in the music room, that’s on the first floor, second on the left when you reach the bottom of the stairs. Don’t bother to change, Crispian adores businesswomen in suits.’
    Annabel hadn’t thought of her long-line caramel jacket worn over a short skirt and beige blouse as a suit and immediately felt over-dressed, particularly in comparison with Tania, who had changed into a short, pale-blue A-line dress, was bare-legged and had a pair of scruffy trainers on her feet.
    ‘What about tonight?’ she asked. ‘Is dress formal then?’
    ‘Frightfully formal. We’ve got a new neighbour, Sir Matthew Stevens, a widower, coming over, and Step-papa’s bound to want to impress him. I can’t imagine why. He’s new money too.’
    ‘New money?’
    Tania smiled. ‘Sure, you know, he made a fortune exploiting the masses and got knighted for services to industry. Not much different to Crispian’s grandfather who was given Leyton Hall in return for donating enormous chunks of his ill-gotten wealth to charity. You didn’t think we’d lived here for generations, I hope? If so, you’ve been brought here under false pretences. My mother’s the genuine article. That’s why she’s so neurotic I expect, generations of inbreeding, but Step-papa’s a very different story.’
    ‘Oh!’ Annabel said feebly. She was fascinated, but didn’t think that Tania should really be telling her all this, especially as she’d only just arrived. ‘Your mother’s got exquisite taste,’ she said quickly. ‘Her ideas for the Hall are lovely.’
    ‘Sure, but her taste let her down when she chose her second husband, don’t you