“Right! Yes, sorry! On it now,” she called.

The snow was fast enough to warrant the windscreen wipers. The farmers had been out salting the roads, so the lanes up to the castle were pretty clear, but she was still glad of the snow chains. She hugged the steering wheel as she drove—she only ever drove when she was home, and not very often at that.

She decided that she would seek Isaac out when she got to the castle, and once she had made the decision, she couldn’t get there fast enough. It was frustrating, therefore, when a group of pheasants took to sauntering along the middle of the lane like it was their own private highway. She beeped at them impatiently, but they only panicked, rose into the air, and landed back down on the road rather than seeking the safety of the fields beyond the hedgerows.

“You really are the stupidest of all birds,” she called out the window at them. “Get out of the road! No wonder so many of you get killed.” But they only ran faster three feet in front of the car, looking back at it every few seconds as though wondering why it was still chasing them.

Eventually she passed a farm entrance, and the pheasants ducked beneath the gate and took flight into the adjacent field. She shook her head in annoyance.

When Nory turned the car onto the long castle drive, her stomach was a jumping mass of nerves and excitement, which rose up into her chest and forced her to take deep breaths. She drove round to the back of the castle, her eyes wide and wild, hoping to catch a glimpse of Isaac, her heart quickening at being back here, where so much had happened.

Andy opened the staff entrance door as she pulled in.

“Hi, Andy!” she called as she headed round to the boot.

“Hello, young Elinor, good to see you again. I trust you’re still getting up to mischief! Ruined any more outfits recently?”

“Oh, absolutely.” She smiled, glancing around the courtyard as though Isaac might be hiding behind a barrel. “Although there are fewer manure-filled wheelbarrows to fall into in the city.”

“Pity,” he said. “They don’t know what they’re missing.”

Andy helped her in with the table centers, calling for reinforcements from a couple of housekeepers loitering by the bins on a cigarette break. Still no sign of Isaac.

“Are you working throughout Christmas?” Nory asked.

“Only until after dinner is served tomorrow and then we’re off till the twenty-ninth.”

“Wouldn’t you like to get away? Visit family?”

“There’s no place I’d rather be than here, and I don’t have much family. It’s just me and my sister. She came down the other day and she’ll stay for the holidays.”

“Oh, that’s nice. I expect she loves staying in the castle, doesn’t she?”