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CHAPTER ONE

RUE knew she had a visitor long before the old-fashioned bell-pull clanged in the s deep in his throat the moment the car pulled up outside It would probably be Jane Roselle co to collect the delphiniuoing to have to wait for half an hour, because she was early, and Rue hadn’t quite finished tying up the bunches

Five years ago, when she had first started growing and drying her own flowers and herbs, she had had no idea how quickly her sive her, but then, five years ago she had not thought it possible that life could hold pleasure for her ever again She had been wrong, though Perhaps her enjoy woman in her mid-twenties would nors that the rest of the world ht consider necessary for happiness There was no man in her life, for instance—no lover or husband to share her small pleasures and pains She had no children, no fa Horatio

But she was content in her aloneness, preferring it, even welco it for its security

The bell clanged again, rowl deepened

Rue deftly tied another bundle of the tall dried flowers and then hurried across the stone-flagged floor of the drying shed to wash her hands in the old-fashioned stone sink in the corner

Her hoer estate Vine Cottage itself had housed the estate gardener and, because of this, attached to it was a large assort shed with its old-fashioned heavy bea her flowers from Next door to it was a small two-storey stable with a boarded loft and thick stone walls that kept dry in the wettest of weathers

From the doorway in the upper storey, which had once been used, with the help of its small hoist, to store animal feed for the winter, it was possible to see as far as the big house itself and the hills beyond, as well as to look over her own ten-acre field, which was now, as they approached the end of sulorious mass of rank upon rank of rich colour as her flowers bloomed

She was just approaching the most critical period of her busy year A dry late summer and early autumn meant that she could pick her flowers at their peak Wet, windy weather destroyed the fragile bloo to waste

Horatio whined at the door as she walked towards it He was a dog of large size and indeterminate breed She had found hio and, having been unable to trace his owners, had adopted him, or rather he had adopted her, she admitted ruefully as he followed her into the house

Vine Cottage, with its small stone-mullioned s, seeinal cottage had grown over the centuries and the house was now in fact a good size, although therooed

The se with no natural daylight So when Rue opened the front door she was ht, and had to blink rapidly as her eyes adjusted to its brightness, before she realised that her visitor wasn’t the custoer…a total er

Instinctively her fingers curled into Horatio’s collar, finding co solid h he felt her tension Horatio uttered a deep-throated growl of warning

‘Miss Livesey?’

He had a very deep voice, as one ht and breadth, Rue acknowledged, at the saed that he was obviously not a e of i his words to incisive irritation, was anything to go by

As she nodded in acknowledgement, he stepped forward ‘If I could have a ith you?’

And, although he phrased the words as a question, Rue was left in no doubt that he fully intended them as a statement of intent She was forced to step back into the narrow darkness of the hall

The man had to duck his head to step under the lintel All the cottage doorere low; that did not bother her, as she was barely five foot four herself, but it would be bound to cause her visitor a good deal of irritation were he forced to inhabit Vine Cottage, as by her estiood two inches above six feet tall

Rue thought ant doorways o with the spacious, elegant rooms they opened into It would surely be difficult to find two e and Parnham Court, but Rue knehich she preferred

It seemed that she had no option but to invite her unexpected visitor into the pretty sitting-rooe faced south, war from the mullioned s into the comfortably furnished roo the bea their ancient plaster infills with a special liave the plaster a soft, warlow

She had learned a good deal in the five years she had lived in Vine Cottage, she acknowledged, glancing slightly ruefully at her clean but very short fingernails Five years ago she would not even have known the i traditional plaster infills with lio she would certainly never have drea such work herself