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still to be done to get the house ready for her father and she had yet to discover whether there were any sheets and blankets.
    It turned out that there was plenty of everything. Her first urge was to put her father in the large circular room above the sitting room, but she knew that he would immediately resign it in her stepmother’s favour, although she was only to be there for one night in the week. The second bedroom had the better view, however, and she was glad of that. It looked over the Manor gardens, down to a small lake in the distance, and across a small walled orchard that she saw with delight was attached to the oast-house and was approached through their own tiny, but immaculate garden.
    She could hardly wait to go down to the orchard and see what it consisted of, but she restrained herself long enough to make up the beds and to arrange her own few possessions in the third bedroom, which also, to her delight, looked out across the orchard to the Manor. She could even imagine that one of the windows she could see might be Robert’s room, but then she caught herself up with a start, trying to be amused by her own foolishness. It was something that she couldn’t understand, for she had never been concerned, even in idle moments, with thoughts of any man before.
    She was glad to have the orchard to think about instead. It was every bit as lovely and romantic as she had thought it from the window upstairs. The trees were very old and probably didn’t fruit very well, but their gnarled, twisted shapes were perfect. Sarah decided in her own mind that there were at least four apple trees, two which she thought were pear trees, a fig beside the wall, and what she supposed was a cherry tree in one comer. They were enclosed by a high stone wall of golden stone that was warm from the sun. Sarah leaned against it, smiling a little, astonished by her mood of complete contentment. It would all be different when the inevitable rain came, she told herself, but even that prospect failed to disturb her pleasure in the trees and the curve of the Kentish ragstone wall.
    How long she stood there, she didn’t know, but it was only slowly that she became aware of voices talking. She recognised them immediately as belonging to the Chaddox brothers.
    “I hope none of your customers thought it was blood!” Neil was saying.
    “It does look a bit like it—”
    “A bit!” Neil’s laughter was raucous and infectious. “It wouldn’t be so funny on anyone else, but on the immaculate Robert Chaddox! I never thought to see the day when you’d drop your lunch all down your front!”
    “Devil a bit! It was that ham-fisted new tenant of ours!”
    “Miss Blaney? I didn’t know you’d met her!”
    “She came into the restaurant where I have my lunch and shoved her way into the only vacant seat, that unfortunately happened to be at my table. This was the result!”
    Neil laughed again. “Didn’t she apologise nicely enough?” he teased.
    “She said she was sorry,” Robert admitted grudgingly. “Went on to say she was an actress. More like a bull in a china shop! Her mother—or stepmother, apparently— is obviously glad to find her something to do and has sent her down here with her father for a bit. She tried to tell me she was giving up some West End part, but can you imagine her on the stage? She hasn’t much-to recommend her, has she?”
    “She’s all right,” Neil said without enthusiasm. “Not to be compared with the fantastic Samantha, of course!”
    “Everyone falls for her!” Robert agreed. Sarah could tell by his voice that he was smiling. She longed to creep away before she could overhear any more, but then Robert was speaking again and she found herself rooted to the spot. “Don’t have too much to do with the Blaneys, Neil. Their kind of life and ours doesn’t mix.”
    “Back to Mother?” the younger brother said sulkily.
    “She was a good example of how they carry on,” Robert stated. “Our little