Page 170 of The Cottage at Brambleton Hall

Sammy snorted. ‘They need a temporary housekeeper.’

‘No.’ Jean’s voice was firm. ‘They need you. If he wanted any temporary housekeeper, he’d have rung an agency.’

Sammy stared out of the window. She hadn’t thought of that. ‘It’s only for a few days.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not. But Magnus didn’t walk down that track because he couldn’t manage. He walked down it because he knows you can.’

‘That doesn’t mean I’ve got my job back.’

‘No. In fact, I’m fairly sure you haven’t.’

Sammy chuckled. ‘Thank you for the vote of confidence.’

‘I’m serious. Don’t go back because you’re hoping he’ll change his mind. If you do this, do it because it suits you.’

Sammy looked around the half-packed cottage. ‘I suppose I could hear him out.’

‘Now you’re talking sense.

Stop It . . . Nate . . . Her stomach did an unhelpful little flutter. For the first time since Magnus had dismissed her, the future didn’t feel dismal.

For two full days Sammy forgot she had been fired.

This was what she wanted to do. The buzz from preparing the house for exactly what it had been built for. Not the polishing or the endless laundry loads, though she didn’t mind either. It was the anticipation she loved. Bedrooms aired and beds turned back, lamps switched on, flowers gathered, menus planned.

Sammy came to a stop outside the housekeeper’s room.

For months she’d walked this corridor without entering. Valerie’s door had always been shut, the room feeling as remote as Magnus’s office.

She turned the handle and walked straight in. The room smelled of lavender.

Everything was exactly as she’d expected: labelled files, lists pinned to a noticeboard. A framed photograph of Valerie and her late husband on the desk.

Sammy smiled.

Valerie would hate anyone knowing she kept cookbooks hidden amongst the housekeeping manuals. Yet there they were. She pulled out a stack, spread them across the desk and started planning menus, telling herself she needed to prepare a shopping list for Magnus. Absolutely nothing to do with spending the morning discussing vegetables with Nate.

With her ideas on paper, Sammy messaged Nate:

I need to discuss menus for this weekend. Kitchen?

‘Right,’ she announced. ‘Let’s see what we’re feeding them.’

Nate walked into the kitchen carrying a large box of vegetables. ‘Them being the Hastings?’

‘Them being anyone who happens to wander through the front door looking hungry. They’re bringing a house party!’

Sammy reached for a pencil.

‘Three pumpkins,’ he said.

‘Three pumpkins,’ she repeated, writing. ‘I thought there would be more, I’m planning soup; and then a roasted vegetable platter . . . are there anymore?’

He rolled his eyes at her. ‘As if I’d just grow three. He plopped a potato on the table. ‘Plenty of those in the shed. Enough potatoes to survive a siege.’

‘Good.’

‘Swiss chard?’ he suggested.