Andee swiped through the presentation again. “You have an incredible eye for color and detail,” she commented admiringly, “and presumably a thriving business—unless all these pictures were taken in your own home.”

Claudia laughed as a flutter of nerves went through her. “No, they’re from clients’ homes,” she replied, “or past clients.” She couldn’t think what to add to that apart from, “I’m glad you like what you’ve seen.”

“I love it, and if you’re interested in the commission we need to start talking dates, styles, fabrics, pricing . . . You mentioned on the phone that you haven’t built up a team of workers yet, but there’s a good chance you can take over Cassie’s. Do you have someone to do the installations?”

“I don’t,” Claudia admitted, “but if . . .”

“Not to worry, I can help with that. Now, if you take a look at the show home on my laptop you’ll see the furniture that we’ll be bringing here. The colors have come out reasonably well, but it’s probably best if we visit it in storage so you can be certain of shade. Before that though, we should discuss style. So, over to you. Can you talk me through how you see these windows and French doors being dressed?”

In her element now, Claudia began to describe her ideas, illustrating them with examples of drapes she’d made before, suggesting modifications here and there, varying lengths and swags, pleats, tucks, linings, and waterfalls, always careful to gauge Andee’s responses before continuing.

Two hours later, having been into every one of the six downstairs rooms and all five upstairs, with Claudia taking photographs, making sketches, and explaining her vision, they were back in the hall and laughing at how fast the time had flown.

“I think we’re going to work very well together,” Andee announced, clearly as pleased with their new partnership as Claudia was, “especially if you can pull most of it off inside a month. Obviously you’ll need plenty of backup for that, so I’ll make some calls from the car on my way home to pave the way for you.”

Claudia said, “Thank you, and I’ll try to email over estimates of cost by tomorrow. If I think I’m going to have any problems sourcing the fabrics we’ve discussed I’ll let you know right away.”

“Excellent. And thanks so much for coming today. I finally feel as though everything’s going to be possible again.”

Thrilled, Claudia tucked away her measuring tapes and camera and heard herself saying rashly, “I’d really like to see the coach house before we go?”