“It is my pleasure. What else is she good for?” He slaps the roof of his pickup with obvious affection. There’s a grand total of two motorized vehicles on our easily walkable Lute Island, and given that the other is a motorbike, this is the only one with a usable flatbed. He takes pride in showing it off, even if the name emblazoned on the side is NATIONAL TRUST, not JOHN ASHFORD, WARDEN AT LARGE.

A muffled huh-woof resounds from the house a second before our half-feral Labrador comes barreling outside, and I curse myself for forgetting to shut the door. Usually Max would be off at a wild tear, halfway across the island by the time I can so much as shout his name—not that he listens to it—but today, the truck has his attention. When he tries to jump in with the luggage, frothing happily, I seize the opportunity, pulling him gently by the collar back inside where Sally waits with a headshake.

“Daft creature,” she says. “Come on, Max. You’re stuck with me this week, but I’ll give you some treats.”

By the time I’ve got the door shut, Emma has decided to emulate the dog, trying to clamber inside the truck, pulling and falling, shouting, “Up! Up!”

Oh, my sweet fully feral thing. I round the truck and kiss her on the head, smelling strawberry shampoo, and pull her with me as I climb into the passenger seat.

“Milady. M’junior lady.” John Ashford’s Scottish accent always pops out more when he’s speaking in grandiose terms. Which is often.

He shuts the door for us, ever gallant. Everybody does everything for us on Lute. It’ll never not be disconcerting. We Treadways are like permanent resort guests, and most of the people who help us aren’t even on the Alder House payroll. After nearly seven years, I still struggle to see how we’ve earned all this goodwill.

John Ashford’s truck bumps us out of the tidy lines of wych elms penning in the drive, and I wince again from the afternoon light off the sea. Emma’s hanging too far out the open window, arms outstretched like she’s trying to catch a drift and fly away.

“I hear the pony!” she shouts.

I tug her carefully back into my lap and answer John’s questioning smile with a shrug. “She really wants a horse.”

He chuckles. There aren’t any horses on Lute. Never have been. It’s not the way of things—they get skittish here, apparently—and I’m not going to be the first Lady Treadway to upend tradition just because my preschooler begs me to. She can go out riding with her aunt and cousins when we get to Surrey tomorrow.