Page 55 of Moonlight Kisses at Willow Tree Hall

The summer fete almost completely passed Lily by, such was the sheer amount of work that she had to do inside the house.

Arthur had passed her in the entrance hall earlier, asking about his Panama hat.

‘I appear to have a small headache that I can’t shift today,’ he told her. ‘I must have overdone the sun yesterday.’

Lily thought back to Arthur falling asleep in his chair at dinner the previous evening.

‘At least the weather held fine,’ he said, as she handed over the hat that she had found in the drawing room. ‘Thank you, my dear. Are you going to join us soon?’

‘I’d love to, but there’s still so much work to do here,’ she told him. ‘Hopefully I’ll be able to grab a slice of cake later.’

Arthur frowned. ‘I’d hate for you to miss the fete. Surely there’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow? Or even the next day?’

‘It’s fine,’ said Lily, but even she found herself staring out of the kitchen window later in the afternoon and admiring all the people wandering around in the summer sunshine.

She thought about finishing early, but then Annie caught her just as she was about to sneak out of the kitchen.

‘Phew! It’s so warm out there!’ said Annie, fanning herself with the fridge door. ‘Did you see the dog show earlier? Arthur can’t keep giving Dylan a prize every year. It shows favouritism. Eleanor’s stall has almost sold out again and she made double the number of products that she did for last year. It’s all going so well.’

Lily nodded. ‘That’s great. Did you manage to talk to the WI about next week’s meeting? We were going to move it to Wednesday in future so it doesn’t clash with your other duties.’

Annie gave a start. ‘Er, well, no, I haven’t really had time today.’

‘Of course,’ Lily told her. ‘Not to worry. If I see the chairwoman, I can have a word.’

‘Oh! Well, maybe that should be me,’ said Annie. ‘After all, I’m the future Countess of Cranley.’

‘Exactly,’ said Lily. ‘You’ve got far too much on your plate to be worrying about that. Right, I’ll bring out those prizes, if you like.’

‘OK.’ Annie’s voice was small. ‘Thanks. I’ll head upstairs first and check the yellow room. We’ve got an extra guest staying over.’

‘I can do that,’ said Lily quickly.

‘I really don’t mind,’ Annie told her.

‘But it’s my job, remember?’ said Lily, smiling. ‘Who’s the extra overnight guest?’

‘Jack,’ said Annie.

Lily took in a swift breath, but managed to mask it from Annie. ‘I see.’

‘That won’t be a problem, will it?’ said Annie, looking concerned. ‘Sam was keen that he should stay over and enjoy the music tonight.’

‘It’s absolutely fine,’ Lily told her. ‘After all, it’s your home, not mine. Of course you can invite anyone you like. Not that Jack is a problem for me. That’s all in the past.’

But, as she walked up the stairs, Lily found her stomach clenching. What was Jack doing, agreeing to stay over? What was he playing at, dropping the bomb of the future plans and now being a welcome house guest?

The irritation was mixed in with the confused feelings that seeing him again had whipped up inside her. She didn’t want to think about Jack. The past was long buried, but having him around just reminded her of the pain that they had both caused back then.

At least the bedroom was made up already, although she swiftly ran a duster over the furniture as it appeared that Lauren had forgotten to do so – there was a line of dust when she ran a finger along the top.

Afterwards, she headed back downstairs to collect the prizes from the drawing room and finally went outside to join the festivities.

As Lily stepped into the late afternoon sunshine, she realised that it wasn’t quite as warm now that the sun had begun to sink lower in the sky. Everything was bathed in the golden light of sunset, the air filled with birdsong and the hum of insects.

She went past the many tables and spotted Lauren manning the cake stall.

‘So that’s why you couldn’t work on Friday,’ she said, looking at the half-empty table top. Most of the cakes had already been sold. ‘You should have said.’