“Oh, how lovely. But that’s very formal.…” There was a pause, and she leaned across the table and said, “I would like to invite you to supper next week. I’m a good cook in fact; I love it. Nothing fancy, just a bite to eat, to get to know one another. Won’t you come to my house? I live just across from the Traveler’s Rest, the pub at Hill Top. Please say yes.”

“I say yes to ye, Angela.” I’ll say yes ter anything ye want, he thought, filled with excitement by her invitation.

“Which is the best night for you?” Angela asked, sounding slightly breathless.

“Wednesday would be possible, sure and it would, because I’ve finished me latest project and will be at me drawing board all day. What time do ye want me?”

Angela stared at him, seemingly transfixed for a moment, before she said, “I think about six o’clock, if that’s all right with your schedule.”

“Indeed it is,” he replied, his voice hoarse. “I think I know yer house. It’s standing at the edge of the moor, and it has dark-green shutters. Is that the one?”

She merely nodded and gave him a lovely smile, as she picked up the teapot and filled three cups.

Sarah arrived at the table and seated herself between them. As she looked at her sister and then at Blackie, noticing the unexpected ease that now existed between them, she smiled inwardly.

She had noticed the immediate attraction between them, the way their eyes had met. No one could have missed that pull between a man and a woman. How right she had been to leave them alone. She was happy for Angela. Her good taste and manners seemed to make it hard for her to meet the right kind of man. She had married up—her husband, Anthony Welles, had been from a good family from Harrogate and, after his aunt had died, he had inherited a small sum, just enough to buy them the little house. But he had yearned for the Royal Navy and had joined when he was seventeen.

And while Angela had put up a good front and decorated their house in perfect taste, she had been very lonely. Sailors at sea did not make good husbands. Also, there had been no children, and Sarah had often wondered about their relationship, the intimate side of their married life and how much they really had loved each other.

Blackie would pay court to her, assuage her loneliness, put a spark back in her eyes again, Sarah decided, as she sipped her tea and listened to her sister chatting away to Blackie. She noticed the rapt expression on his face, the brightness in his eyes.