‘It’s much better if Mrs Whittaker thinks it’s her idea than for me to ask her to reach out and see who can help us tomorrow. And besides, she’ll be able to rustle up a small army. In the meantime, can you call the head at Hawke’s High? She’s used to the harvest season by now and is more than used to calling in the sixth formers from their summer holidays. They get to put it down as work experience, and we get the help. It’s win, win. I’m sure they won’t mind the short notice.’

‘And you’ll be …’

‘Preparing the food. No army marches on an empty stomach.’

CHAPTER NINE

AT 6.30 A.M. THE following morning, Henry heard a car coming up the drive.

Thank God.

Henry stopped pacing back and forth in the hallway, and launched for the door, pulling it open to find a beaten-up old beige Volvo pulling into a wide arc and shuddering to a rather alarming stop.

‘Lily?’

The window wound down in jerks and he could just about make out Lily pumping the handle on the driver’s side door.

‘Where did you find this? It belongs in a museum!’

‘It belongs to Kate, and for the use of it you will thank her profusely,’ Lily said. ‘I’m going to pull it round to the back of the kitchen. Can you open up the—’

‘What does the kitchen have to do with the harvest?’

‘All in good time,’ she replied cryptically. And the only reason he relented was because the kitchen was near the coffee machine. And he needed more coffee.

Lily crunched the gears into place and took off round the side of the estate, leaving him half-open-mouthed and very much confused.

Clamping his mouth shut with a snap, he remembered her words from the night before.

I promise, Henry. It’ll be fine. You just have to trust me.

Realizing that they had echoed his words to Lily only a few weeks earlier, he shook his head. How had she done that? She had trusted him, and now it was his turn. And … And he was freaking out. Maybe he should have some brandy.

He’d been stupid to send all the staff away. Yes, he’d been thankful of the time and space he’d had, but Lily had been right. It was a working vineyard and although people could be cancelled, nature couldn’t, and he really should have known better.