‘Oh Ruffy, I’m so bored!’ From her seat by her bedroom window overlooking the rolling green lawns of Greenacres, Louisa Greenwood pouted as her maid placed a cup of hot chocolate on the small table to the side of her.

‘Bored or not you’re to drink this. You have the two of you to think of now,’ Ruffy scolded, and yet she was smiling as she looked at this young woman who she had loved and cared for for as long as she could remember. Louisa was the only child of wealthy, indulgent parents and Ruffy had started out as her nanny when Louisa had been less than a month old some twenty-eight years ago. When she had been of an age when she no longer needed a nanny, Maude Ruffin, or Ruffy as Louisa had affectionately named her, found that she was unable to leave the girl and she had become her maid. Even Louisa’s marriage to Barnaby Greenwood some ten years before had not separated them and Ruffy had followed her young mistress from her parent’s estate in Pickering to Greenacres – the house Louisa’s parents had given her as a wedding present.

Ruffy was now well past middle age: her dark hair peppered with grey and her figure matronly, and she no longer thought of the life she might have had if she hadn’t been so devoted to her young mistress. Her own husband had died before they’d had a chance to have a family, and Louisa had become the daughter she had never been blessed with, and she was totally devoted to her.

Louisa sighed as she lifted the cup and sipped at the chocolate before grimacing. ‘Ugh, you’ve put lots of sugar in it again, Ruffy, you would have me be as fat as a pig if I let you,’ she said miserably. ‘And I don’t need you to remind me that I’m with child again. I feel like a breeding mare! I really can’t understand Barnaby and my father’s obsession with having an heir, I really can’t. But then, I suppose being in this delicate condition does have some compensations. At least now Barnaby might leave me alone for a few months and hopefully sleep in his dressing room again.’

Laying the cup aside she absently stroked the ears of the little Cavalier King Charles spaniel curled up on her lap as Ruffy began to tidy the pile of magazines that Louisa had carelessly dropped onto the floor after glancing through them. She always dressed in the very latest fashions and every week magazines were delivered to Greenacres regardless of the expense.