The Colonel watched her pleasure with quiet satisfaction. Under his conventional appearance the pilot light of a romantic nature flickered. Devotion to Queen and country, family values, loyalty, idealistic views about service, liking for order and tradition: these old-fashioned attributes were on the surface for all to see – though none the less genuine for that – but less obvious qualities including an eye for the beautiful, a dry sense of the ridiculous and a capacity for love were there for the discerning to discover. The great silver beech trees of Tillydrum, through which sunlight filtered on to moss, bluebells, wood anemones and a few remaining primroses, made a kaleidoscope of purple, green and gold which made him think of the graceful fan-vaulting and richly coloured stained glass of York Minster, where his father-in-law had been a canon, and where he’d exchanged vows with the wisp of a girl he’d adored. She’d followed him round the world, given him two children and been not only the perfect wife for a commanding officer, but his best friend. John Smithson had been devastated by her death in a car crash only a year after his retirement from the army. It had seemed very bitter that after moving house and uprooting her possessions so often, she had only been able to enjoy her first real home in thirty years of marriage for so short a time. After her death, he’d got on with his life in the only way he knew – uncomplainingly, but her absence left an aching void. Plenty of women, paid up members of the casserole army who specialise in hunting widowers, had tried to woo him with tasty dishes, but he’d never been tempted – until now. This unassuming woman with no guile or pretensions to glamour, who thought so little of her own talents but who was such an enjoyable companion, made him wonder if something unlooked for and marvellous was about to happen to them both. Even as the thought occurred to him, she glanced in his direction and they exchanged a moment of shared happiness – something that hadn’t happened to either of them for a long time.

Louisa saw the look and felt like crying. It was one thing to envy Marnie the attentions of the glamorous Christopher, but that the unaccustomed feeling of isolation and bleakness which kept blowing through her like an icy wind could be triggered by such a pair of old stooges – nice old stooges, thought Louisa, but stooges all the same – as the Colonel and Morwenna left her baffled and disturbed. What is the matter with me? she wondered. Isobel had asked her much the same question the previous evening when they’d had a pre-bedtime drink in the kitchen together, and Louisa had enquired how Rory’s departure had gone.