Page 29 of Moonlight Kisses at Willow Tree Hall

Lily allowed herself a small smile of pride at her mum’s words. Her parents had been so thrilled when she had moved from the small printing office where she had worked as a receptionist after college to a new semi-managerial job at the events management company. The truth was that she had never felt entirely comfortable with the responsibility of the new role and had worked excessively long hours in order to compensate for her own perceived inadequacies.

It didn’t matter that she was always late home. She rented a room in a large house and nobody cared whether she missed dinner or not. After all, it wasn’t as if she had a pair of warm, loving arms to wrap herself in at the end of each day. Until Mark came along.

She thought briefly of Mark, her only serious boyfriend over the years. The word ‘robot’ materialised in her head, but she quickly dismissed it from her thoughts.

What was wrong with having a life plan, anyway? Being organised? Mark knew why she had been like that, but even so he had thrown the whole lot into her face.

She stuffed a piece of toast into her mouth, suddenly angry with herself for even thinking about him.

‘By the way,’ said Lily, glancing over at her dad, who was at the table, ‘When I saw Arthur he mentioned that he’s going to pop in and say hi at some point.’

Her dad nodded. ‘That’s very kind of him. I’m sure he’s still got a lot on his plate, trying to get the place up to scratch.’

‘How was the big house looking?’ asked her mum.

‘Lovely,’ said Lily. ‘I know we only really saw the entrance hall and the ballroom at the wedding, but you should see the drawing room, Mum. It’s all so elegant.’

‘It cost enough money to do up,’ said her grandad, with a grunt.

‘They’re still struggling from what I hear,’ said her mum, in a pointed tone.

Lily knew that, thanks to Sam and Annie’s efforts, it was now structurally safe and redecorated in most of the rooms, but the whole estate was still running as a loss-making business.

‘I understand that, despite the farmers’ markets at the stable block, the recording studio and Will trying to do up the barn to hire out for weddings, things are still pretty tight,’ said her mum.

‘Recording studio,’ said her grandad, with another grunt. ‘Rock stars and singers all over the place.’

Lily and her mum grinned at each other. They had seen Sam’s biggest band, Hazy Memory, who were a bunch of leather-clad old rockers, from afar at the wedding. But at least she had now met Tommy King.

‘I did bump into another old friend up at the hall, though,’ said Lily, clearing her throat. ‘It was Jack Carter.’

Her mum’s eyebrows went up. ‘Really? Well, I’m sure Joan and Peter will be very pleased to have him passing through. They hardly see him these days, Joan told me last time I bumped into them at the supermarket.’

Lily concentrated on buttering another piece of toast until she couldn’t bear the X-ray vision of her mum staring at the top of her head any longer. She looked up at her mum.

‘How is he?’ asked her mum, in an extra-polite tone of voice.

‘Fine. He looked fine.’ Better than fine, she thought, with a shiver. ‘He asked after you all.’

She wouldn’t tell them that he hadn’t any idea about how long her dad had now been out of work. It was just too awful to bring up. As usual, she needed to be the strong one.

She thought of Jack once more. He had let her down so badly. After all, he had run away just when she had needed him the most. Worst of all, he hadn’t taken her with him.

Despite the lingering pain of her past, she felt excited at the thought of working at Willow Tree Hall.

*

‘Slow down, girl,’ muttered her grandad, hanging on to the passenger seat as she sped the Mini around the corner. ‘The Hall isn’t going anywhere.’

Lily eased off the accelerator as they turned into the long driveway. Once she had parked the car, she wondered whether she should go straight to the back door.

She was still debating when, thankfully, Arthur came around the corner. She noticed that he still had a slight limp after his accident a few years previously, and that he used a walking stick these days.

‘Good morning,’ he called out, with a warm smile. ‘Isn’t it a beautiful day?’

‘Good morning. Yes, it is.’

The truth was that she had barely registered the sunshine, such had been her haste to get on with her first proper day of work.