The clothes smelled newly washed and warm from the radiator; too bad she was about to stink them up. Checking that the sitting room door was firmly closed, Nory began the process of peeling herself out of her silly cocktail dress. She had expected to have Ameerah on hand for tugging and yanking duties. She reasoned that if things got too desperate, she’d just rip herself out of the damn thing, but as it turned out, being frozen into a human ice pop meant the satin slipped off easily. She would have liked to keep her bra on, but it had suffered the same level of manure marinading as her dress and was therefore discarded along with her Spanx—oh, the sweet relief—and finally her tights, before she immersed herself into the soft leisure wear. She felt instantly refreshed. Nory pulled her clothes into a bundle, opened the front door, and left them in a pathetic pile on the doorstep, next to a potted bay tree.

Nory hesitated outside the sitting room door. Then she knocked and gingerly crept in. Lettuce was sprawled out on a rug in front of the fire; she looked briefly up at Nory and then let her head drop back onto the thick rug. Isaac was seated on one of the two sofas on either side of the fire, a book in his hand: The War of the Worlds, she noted, and added another mental tick beside his name. He smiled when he saw her.

“Better?” he asked.

“Much,” she said. “Thank you.”

“I took the liberty of making you a mug of cocoa.”

Nory clocked the two steaming mugs on the coffee table and almost purred. Next to one of the mugs was a pair of knitted socks.

“For me?” she asked.

Isaac nodded. “I figured your feet would be cold after those stupid shoes.”

“Thank you.” She beamed, pulling them on gratefully. “They are very stupid shoes. I shan’t be at all sad to see the back of them.” Nory took her mug of cocoa and settled on the opposite sofa, tucking her feet underneath her. “How long have you had Lettuce?”

“Four years. I took her on when my dad died.”

“Oh god, Isaac, I’m so sorry!”

She hadn’t considered his dad might be dead, she’d assumed he’d gone off to retire somewhere. Why hadn’t her family mentioned it? Then again, why would they?

“Thanks,” said Isaac.

“Your dad was always nice to me.”

Isaac raised his eyebrows.

“When I was at the nursery with my parents, I mean,” she clarified. “Not when we were trespassing.”

Isaac smiled at that. “His bark was always worse than his bite. He told me once he didn’t like shouting at the kids from the school, but he had to, or the castle grounds would be overrun with truants.”