“No Ameerah?” her mum asked, looking at the door as though she might be about to walk through it.

“Not this morning; she’ll come down later in the week. She’s brought a date with her, so she doesn’t feel she can leave him until he’s a bit more comfortable with everyone.”

“That’s fair. Did she say I’ve invited her for Christmas? She’s just waiting to hear back from her parents. Such a shame, all that money and no time to spare for their only daughter.”

“To be fair, I don’t think they’ve got too much time for their only son either.”

“Where is young Ahmed at the moment?”

“Last heard of residing in a private rehab in South Africa.”

Her mum tsked. “Poor lamb.”

Ameerah’s elder brother, Ahmed, was a forty-six-year-old playboy. No one who had ever actually met him would call him a lamb. Nory had met him twice, and both times—high as a kite on cocaine—he had tried to seduce her. Nory had had no trouble resisting his charms because he looked uncannily like Ameerah and was smoother than a James Bond baddie.

“Your dad’s just got an order pickup and then he’ll be in for a cuppa. Poinsettias are very popular this year—the garden centers ordered twice as many as usual. They must be having a resurgence; they seemed to go out of fashion for a while. Are you seeing anyone at the moment?”

This is how her mum’s side of conversations went, a stream of consciousness. Those who loved her best had learned to sift out the most salient points and leave the rest. It was her mum’s way of dealing with the hundreds of things per day she was required to juggle. Her dad was a self-confessed workaholic, but her mum was the backbone of the business, quietly orchestrating and maintaining the life they had built.

“No, not just at the moment,” Nory replied, though she thought about Isaac as she said it.

“That was nice of Isaac to bring you down here.”

How did her mum do that?

“Well, it was on his way.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t usually offer lifts to guests.”

“I’m sure most guests’ parents don’t live in Hartmead,” said Nory, taking a bite of crumpet and slurping up the hot butter.

“Maybe.” Which was her mum’s stock response to anything she didn’t agree with.

“I expect he’s very popular with the guests.” Nory was fishing for information. She could imagine the swanky hen parties, which the castle catered for, being all over the sexy gardener.

“Yes, I expect he is. But the marquis likes the staff to be very professional, so I doubt there’s too much hanky-panky.”

Nory didn’t think the marquis’s opinion would make much difference; she’d been to hen parties and some of those hens got pretty wild.