It was only a few days until Christmas and although the grass still retained its coat of frost in the most shadowy corners, the sunlight felt warm on my face.

‘In memory of Ted Butterworth.’ Marjorie leaned forward in her wheelchair. ‘Forever loved, much missed and never forgotten. Nothing brings people together like good wine and nobody achieved that better than Ted.’

‘That’s lovely.’ Betsy pressed the corner of her hanky to her eye. ‘Perfect. Thank you, Lottie.’

‘You’ll be able to sit here and talk to him, or just enjoy being here,’ I said, releasing Jensen to give her a hug. ‘The wooden bench will go just there, behind us, in Ted’s favourite spot. You can come and breathe it all in anytime.’

She looked at me with her watery pale blue eyes and my heart ached for her. In the six months I’d known her, her sight had already deteriorated. But she was moving in with Marjorie in the New Year and it would be the start of a new adventure for both of them. As long as they had each other, they’d be happy.

‘He’d love it.’ Sidney twirled the end of his moustache and winked at me. ‘And such a practical solution too.’

The rose bush was a memorial to Ted and his ashes would be sprinkled here too when Betsy felt up to it. But the plan was to plant a rose at the end of every row of vines which would look beautiful in summer but would also serve another purpose. Sidney told me that this was what they did in his estate in Reims as a way of detecting possible diseases early and now I was adopting it here too.

Betsy cleared her throat. ‘And talking of practical solutions …’

She turned to Marjorie, who lifted up one buttock and removed two envelopes from under her.

‘With our warmest wishes, literally,’ she said, shooting Marjorie a look, before handing Jensen and me an envelope each.

We glanced at each other curiously and tore into them.

Mine was a letter from a solicitor, stating that I’d been given a ten per cent share in Butterworth Wines.

I opened my mouth to protest, but Betsy shushed me. ‘You’re part of the family now, Lottie, and Ted would want you to have it. Besides, you’ve run this place almost single-handedly this year, I’ve no doubt you’ll go from strength to strength.’

‘It’s a lovely gesture, Gran,’ said Jensen, tapping his own letter into his palm, ‘as is giving me an even bigger stake in the business, but Lottie is going to have her hands full next year; I don’t think it’s fair to expect too much.’