Penny stood in the centre of her room. She was supposed to be getting ready for tonight. She supposed she should have thought about what to wear days ago, at least then she might have been able to get something decent together. But she was too busy traipsing around the country with her father to even think about something like that. Now, she surveyed the contents of her wardrobe critically.

She had a lot of ‘floaty’ clothes. Light coloured V-neck dresses, things with frills around the sleeves, cute little button details. But nothing that was really fitting for a more formal event like tonight’s, whatever it might turn out to be.

Well, she would just have to make do. She could entwine some of her mum’s pearls in her hair and hope that had the desired effect.

She couldn’t deny that she wanted this night to be special for more reasons than one. It was about the hotel, of course, but she couldn’t let herself hope too much for that. It was better to see it as a grand farewell party, one that they couldn’t afford to be giving, but why not? They had nothing more to lose.

Colin was leaving for good, first thing the following week. He’d done all he could to help her out with the records, and he couldn’t stay indefinitely to write the novel, not when the hotel was either about to be sold, or renovated. He needed somewhere more permanent.

Penny didn’t know how to tell him how much these past few weeks had meant to her, how he had added sparkle to her life. She hadn’t known what a fun-loving person she could be until he arrived; she hadn’t known that she craved laughter and hilarity at breakfast, lunch and dinner and a wonderfully easygoing approach to life in general. Colin brought a sense of elegance to things as well; he knew how things were meant to be done.

She supposed that she could simply tell him: ‘Thank you’. But it didn’t seem enough. It didn’t feel as though she would ever be able to say how she really felt and she didn’t want to make a fool of herself as usual. Perhaps after he left she could send him a letter.

There was a knock at her door. ‘Penny?’ she heard her dad call out softly.

‘Come in,’ she told him.

Ned opened the door and came in, holding a package. ‘This was just dropped off for you,’ he said.

‘For me?’ said Penny mystified.

Ned raised his hands, with a smile. ‘Big mystery,’ he said. ‘Although something tells me you’d better open it before tonight.’