Hannah felt woefully ignorant, which wasn’t like her at all. At work she was renowned for being well prepared and thorough in her research but that was different; that was serious stuff. For a starter, she’d seriously underestimated the prestige of Killorgally. Part of her had been sold by the fact it was close to Aidan and Sorcha and she thought it would be fun to see them. Clearly bloody Conor Byrne had assumed she knew who he was. Did he think that was why she’d kissed him? Flip. Of course he flaming well did.

Adrienne breezed up with a glass of wine, thrusting it into her hand before turning to address some comment to Jason.

‘You all right, Hannah?’ asked Izzy kindly. ‘You look a bit…’

‘I’m fine.’ Apart from dying of embarrassment inside. ‘I think travelling always takes it out of you. Where did you come from today?’

‘Oh I had quite the journey. A drive to Edinburgh to catch a flight to Luton and then a flight to Kerry. And then I picked up a hire car. I’m cream crackered. I’ll be taking to my bed not long after dinner if we’ve got to be up early tomorrow.’

‘No chores tomorrow,’ Adrienne piped up, turning again from her conversation with Jason. ‘We’ll sort out who’s doing what later and we’ll take it easy on your first day. It’s going to get intense though.’ She beamed at them. ‘I can’t wait to knock you all into shape.’

Hannah and Izzy exchanged a quick glance and when Adrienne moved on to talk to Alan, Izzy whispered. ‘God, sounds like cookery boot camp. I might have bitten off more than I can chew but I need to learn to cook really well, really fast and this seemed the best option.’

‘I’m sure it will be fine,’ said Hannah, wondering at Izzy’s need for urgency.

‘It’s going to be fun,’ said Meredith. ‘Feeding people and making them happy. What could be better? It will be a joy. Trust me.’

‘You sound like my sister. She loves feeding people. Now, she can cook. She runs a cafe in Switzerland and does the cooking for a small ski chalet.’

‘That sounds wonderful. Have you been?’

‘Only for a long weekend but it was fabulous. The scenery was incredible and Swiss cakes… who knew? Some of them are amazing.’

‘Ooh. I’m looking for cake recipes for my cafe. I want to create some real signature pieces that people can’t get elsewhere.’

‘I’ll have to put you in touch with Mina, although chocolate is her real passion.’

‘Sounds heavenly. Chocolate cake.’

‘And don’t forget the cheese,’ added Meredith.