Page 89 of Moonlight Kisses at Willow Tree Hall

‘Apparently so,’ said Megan. ‘But you’d still need to clean each morning.’

‘That’s OK,’ said Lauren quickly, looking more animated than Lily could ever remember seeing.

‘It’s just cleaning the bathrooms and hoovering,’ Lily told her. ‘They’re happy to do without all the rest for the time being.’

Lauren nodded on autopilot.

‘Perhaps you and I could sit down with Annie and talk about what she would like. Menus and all that.’ Lily smiled. ‘Then you can write out a food shopping list and I can organise to get it delivered. What do you say?’

Lauren nodded again, too excited apparently to find the words.

Lily glanced at Megan, who gave her a wink of approval.

So the cleaner problem had been resolved, she thought. And the housekeeping of the home was more or less at an end as well.

But that left the huge problem of the album launch venue.

Later that day, Lily met with Sam. Together, they sat down at the kitchen table to discuss the details.

‘Look, I think I could sort of pull together an event like that,’ said Lily. ‘The practical side of the organising I’m used to. But theming and all that kind of thing is totally beyond my skills.’

Sam smiled. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ve invited Alex and the band back up to the house for the weekend. We’ll sit down then and see what we can come up with.’

But Lily was still concerned that she was out of her depth.

She wandered outside, planning on seeing her grandad. But instead she came across Arthur heading out to walk Dylan.

‘Why don’t you join us, my dear?’ he asked.

She was about to reply that she couldn’t possibly spare the time when she thought again about Jack’s advice to stop and live in the moment. So she replied, ‘Thank you. I’d love to,’ and started to walk along with Arthur.

Despite the late afternoon sun, the weather felt a little cooler that day. The sun already had less warmth as the nights began to draw in a little.

Dylan, however, continued to bounce joyfully about in the long grass.

Lily and Arthur kept walking until they came across the blackened remains of the shed.

‘Dear me,’ said Arthur, shaking his head. ‘You were very lucky not to be in there when it went up.’

‘I know,’ she told him, reminded once more of Jack’s bravery.

They skirted around the charred pile and continued to walk, eventually coming to a rotten wooden gate.

‘I think this is where we ended up,’ said Lily.

‘You mean, in the orchard,’ said Arthur, opening up the gate and heading through into what Lily had assumed was another field.

Instead, it had long lines of ancient trees, all heavy and laden with ripened apples. Quite a few were already on the ground beneath.

‘I didn’t even know this was here,’ said Lily, taking a deep breath. The air was full of fermenting apples and alive with the buzzing of insects.

‘It’s a little neglected these days,’ Arthur told her, picking an apple off the nearest tree. ‘In the old days, they were all harvested and pressed. We made our very own cider, you know.’

‘Really?’ said Lily, smiling.

‘Oh yes,’ said Arthur, pointing at a building at the far end of the orchard. ‘The old press is still in there.’

‘Why did you stop making it?’ asked Lily.