‘Would you like to come through to the kitchen? I must apologise – ordinarily I hold meetings in my garden office but the downpour has rather put paid to that today. I’m just waiting to have a path put in.’

In truth I was waiting for the money to be able to afford a path, but we didn’t need to go into details.

‘No problem.’

I led the way through into the airy kitchen. Thankfully, my cottage, though old, wasn’t listed so I’d had leeway to make changes when I’d first moved in. Once dark and cramped, this room had been extended and it now opened out with patio doors to the well-tended garden beyond, flooding the kitchen with light. It was probably my favourite room in the house. A loud thunk caused me to spin around and I found Mr O’Malley rubbing his forehead and looking as if he was gritting back a choice word or two.

‘Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry! I should have warned you to mind your head. I’m not used to having people as tall as you in the house.’

‘No problem,’ he said again. ‘So was that true, then? What you said about the model-village thing?’

As much as I would have loved to continue stringing this man along with the tale, I couldn’t do it and a bubble of laughter burst from within me.

‘Of course not, but you should have seen your face. I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist the tease.’

He studied me for a moment then grinned, full wattage, and a tiny voice inside me whispered, Wow.

‘Nicely done, Ms Hart.’

‘Can I get you a drink or anything while we wait for the others? They should be here soon. And, please, call me Maddie.’

‘I wouldn’t count on it. As I said, Patrick is always late and his fiancée isn’t much better.’

‘Bad weather can play havoc with travel plans. I’d rather they were late than anything happen.’ I turned back to face him as I said it, squashing the flash of memory that burst into my brain. Lorcan opened his mouth as if to say something but appeared to change his mind as his eyes met mine.

‘Definitely,’ he said. ‘And a cold drink would be great, if it’s not too much trouble.’

‘I have some home-made lemonade or there’s squash or water.’

‘Lemonade sounds great, thanks.’

I moved to the fridge and pulled out a large glass jug. Taking two tall glasses from a cupboard, I poured the pale liquid into them before returning the jug to the fridge, popped a sprig of mint in each glass from the mini herb garden I kept on the windowsill and then handed one of the glasses to Lorcan. He took a sip.

‘This is delicious. Home-made, you say?’

‘I did.’

‘By you?’

‘You seem surprised.’