Isaac laughed. “I mean, it suits him, the extra responsibility. I suppose we’re alike in that way, both taking over where our fathers left off.”

“I’d like to think I’ll have someone to leave my bookshop to one day. Maybe I’ll start training up my nephews now.”

“Ha, good luck with that. Thom’s already got them earmarked for the nursery.”

Of course he has. Thom was like her dad, all about keeping the family business going. Nory couldn’t help feeling that she had somehow betrayed them by not sticking around to play her part.

The clock on the fireplace read 1:00 a.m., and Nory could see Isaac struggling to stifle his yawns. If she didn’t move soon, she was liable to nod off on his sofa.

“I’m going to head back up to the castle,” she said, forcing herself to get up. “If they’re not all in bed, they’ll at least be too drunk to notice me.”

Isaac stretched and stood. “I’ll drive you round.”

“There’s no need, it’s not that far.”

“It’s far enough in the cold and the pitch-dark. The castle staff will have turned off the outside lights by now. I’d rather not find you tomorrow frozen in the maze, like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.”

“Well, when you put it like that . . .” Nory smiled.

She was grateful that Isaac had ignored her polite protestations and even more grateful for the fur-lined Wellington boots he loaned her. The temperature seemed to have dropped even further, and the sky had the eerie yellow glow it got when it was holding on to snow. It only took five or six minutes in the car to get back to the castle, but Nory knew it would have taken her three times as long on foot in the dark. The old Range Rover was comfortable but definitely a working vehicle; the backseat was strewn with work gloves and jackets for varying weather. It smelled of earth after the rain with an undercurrent of damp dog.

Isaac pulled up at the back of the castle, beside a far less impressive door than the one she had entered upon her arrival. Here, a little porch light offered friendly sanctuary and lit a courtyard filled with old whiskey barrels, troughs filled with plants, and various brooms and other outside work tools leaned up against a wall, as though just left while the owner took a tea break. Isaac pulled out his phone and speed-dialed a number. Nory could hear a jovial voice on the other end of the line.

“How did you know I wouldn’t be asleep?” came the voice.

“Because I know you. Who’s winning?”

The voice laughed—a hoarse sound that suggested many cigarettes smoked and much alcohol consumed over countless years.

“I am, of course!”