The party was suddenly interrupted by the entire Cat and Fiddle congaing out on the terrace from the dining room.

‘You left the door open!’ whooped the chef. ‘We came to suss out the competition! Join on to the back – we’re going to do the whole village!’

The dinner party rushed to participate, clinging to waists and kicking their legs in wild enthusiasm. Caroline, tentatively clutching Peter and laughing, was bringing up the rear as the tail of the conga whiplashed past Drew and Maddy on the terrace.

Maddy closed her eyes. It looked as though Caroline Fitzgerald was here to stay.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-four

There was hardly time to draw equine breath between The Derby and Royal Ascot, but for the less horsy inhabitants of Milton St John, life had returned to normal. For Maddy, whose life in the village could never have been described as mundane, normal was a thing of the past. Kit and Rosa had returned to Jersey. Caroline hadn’t.

‘Mrs Fitzgerald moved in permanently, then?’ Bronwyn asked two weeks after The Derby as Maddy, craving chocolate, made a lunchtime stop at the Village Stores. ‘She’s going to move her vineyards over here, is she?’

‘I don’t think it’s as easy as that.’ Maddy dug deeply into her purse. ‘I don’t know what her plans are. She hasn’t told me.’

‘She wouldn’t though, would she?’ Bronwyn looked beady. ‘I mean, you and Drew were getting a bit too pally by my way of thinking.’

‘No we weren’t.’ Maddy blushed. ‘We were just friends. We still are. I suppose Caroline will go back to Jersey eventually and then –’

‘You ought to take up with young Charlie.’ Bronwyn was ripping open cardboard containers. ‘Especially now he’s moved into Peapods. I thought you were getting on so well at their party.’

‘We’ve always got on well.’ Maddy wanted to stuff a whole Mars bar in her mouth and was itching to get out of the shop. She didn’t know Charlie had moved into Peapods. ‘But he’s hardly my type. He’s far too flighty.’

‘Takes one to know one,’ Bronwyn muttered, ducking down behind the counter to arrange meat pies and sausage rolls temptingly for the ever-starving stable lads.

Maddy flushed angrily. Her head ached. So did her back. She was in no mood to fight with Bronwyn. ‘Look, I’m not having an affair with Drew Fitzgerald. I do not want to become the next notch on Charlie Somerset’s bedpost. In fact, right now, I’ll be very happy to become a spinster with cats and spend my dotage nodding in a rocking chair and dribbling. OK?’

Bronwyn straightened up and smoothed her overall. ‘And there’s no need to take that tone. Your parents are very worried about you. They told me.’