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“I’ve just heard there was a problem yesterday.”

“Not really, no,” Lucie replied, playing it down as much as possible.

“I understand that, at the time you should have been starting your shift, you were in the family’s home, burning toast.”

“I was a few minutes late, that’s all,” Lucie lied. “I was helping Mrs Delaney with something.”

“Helping her burn toast?”

“She had a problem with her smoke alarm,” Lucie said, thinking on her feet, hoping it was vague enough not to contradict anything Hannah knew. She wondered how Hannah had found out at all. It was unlikely that Frances — or even Mara — would be telling everyone. One of the security guards must have let something slip, and it had spread from there. The likely culprit was Bob’s colleague. Bob probably had his own version of the Official Secrets Act which he kept under his pillow.

Hannah’s eyes narrowed. Lucie considered directing her to Frances, as she’d told her to, but she could fight her own battles — for now, at least.

“Well, I have warned you about being where you shouldn’t be. You are here to do one job, and that’s dealing with visitors — on time.”

“It won’t happen again,” Lucie replied, knowing she couldn’t promise that at all.

“Make sure it really doesn’t. I don’t want to have to speak to Mara.”

Lucie could have encouraged her to talk to Mara, but with Frances being tetchy about who knew what about her mum, it wouldn’t have been a good idea to invite Hannah to dig around.

Lucie nodded and forced a smile.

“The grotto has cover for the day shift, so focus on visitors on the woodland trail today, please. Make sure you take an hour’s break before your evening shift starts.”

“Okay,” Lucie replied, but Hannah had already turned and was greeting the group of elves congregating on the other side of the room.

At any rate, Lucie was relieved she wouldn’t have to interact with the group of day elves; she could wander at her leisure and, more importantly, keep warm as she walked. A two-hour shift standing around at the grotto was fairly unpleasant in the cold, without having to do it twice in one day. It also involved more crowd control and less acting, which was always less enjoyable.

Instead, she could throw herself into her elf persona and try and forget about everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours — even if keeping her mind off Frances was beginning to feel like an impossible task.

Frances looked at her office clock. It was half past eleven. Five minutes since she last checked. Clock-watching had become a habit over the last year, though only to ensure she was home at the right time for her mum. She knew she would be checking it every five minutes until it was five to twelve. An alarm never helped. She still checked the time while she waited for it to go off. It didn’t make for a relaxed working environment.

Nothing stopped her from worrying about what her mum might be doing, although the parcel sitting beside her on the desk might help ease that anxiety. With no meetings that afternoon, she considered taking her laptop home to work from there. She might stand a chance of concentrating if her mum were in her line of sight. That way, she couldn’t set fire to anything or leave the house without Frances knowing.

When she’d taken a walkabout an hour ago, the staff had appeared none the wiser about yesterday’s events, or at least no one had said anything to her. Guilt stirred inside her at the thought of her conversation with Lucie. All the woman had done was try to help — and she had.

Even though she’d known Lucie’s shift didn’t start until five, it didn’t stop her eyes scanning the team of day elves dotted around the estate. At one point, she thought she saw her; there was something familiar in the way the elf moved. It was hard to tell at that distance, though, and the elf disappeared into the woodland almost immediately. Assuming she’d imagined it, she returned to the warmth of her office, but her thoughts remained elsewhere.

A warm tingling settled deep in her stomach. She should stay away and stop thinking about Lucie. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t been trying, but the elf kept appearing — even in her home. She certainly shouldn’t be opening her CV to find out more about the woman. And yet...

With a few swift clicks, it was open in front of her. As Mara had said, Lucie had spent the last ten years in Southern Africa. Before that, she had studied drama at Goldsmiths. A quick calculation showed she started university at twenty-two. Had she been looking after her gran until then? Her address was down as the Royal Oak. Frances knew of it, but having rarely gone into the village, she’d never been inside.

Lucie was thirty-five, twelve years younger than she was. Frances let out a long sigh. Why was she even working out their age difference, and why was she googling the pub’s licensing details? The name Pete Brown appeared as the landlord alongside his date of birth, which suggested he was likely Lucie’s dad, not her husband. That brought a flicker of relief.

At the sound of a light tap on her open office door, Frances looked up. Mara stood at the threshold. The interruption to something she really shouldn’t have been doing was very welcome, and Frances closed the windows on her screen.

“Are you free?”

“Yes, come in, Mara.” Frances fixed a polite expression in place for her managing director as she crossed the room, folder under her arm.

“How’s your mum doing?”

“What?” Frances replied, her tone sharp.

She bit her lip.

“I heard about what happened yesterday,” Mara said gently. “Is she okay?”