AT WHITE SAILS, A COTTAGE IN CORNWALL

Not exactly what I had expected. Belinda is keen to stay and fix it up. Frankly I think she’s being a trifle optimistic. Foul weather. Cold and damp. I’m missing Darcy.

Belinda pulled onto the grass beside the road. “I see the sign but I don’t see a house, do you?”

“Not at the moment.” I opened my door, only to have it nearly snatched out of my hands by the force of the wind. I grabbed my scarf as the wind threatened to rip it from my head and tear open my overcoat. I held on to the car as I came around it. I heard Belinda utter a swear word as her door nearly slammed on her. “Who in their right mind would build a house here?” she asked. “And where is it, for God’s sake?”

We peered together over the gate.

“Oh, there it is,” I said. Through the growing darkness we could see a steep flight of steps going down the hillside. And below them we could make out the roof of a house.

“Extraordinary,” Belinda said. “No wonder Granny never mentioned this. She’d never have made the steps with her rheumatism. I wonder why she bought it in the first place. Perhaps it came with Trengilly. Oh well. We’re here now. Let’s go down and investigate, shall we?”

The gate opened with a creak and we started down the steps. It wasn’t easy going, as they were wet and steep and there was no rail. The house was in a little gully, sheltered from the worst of the wind.

“I don’t fancy carrying groceries and supplies down here,” Belinda called to me. The wind snatched away her words. “I hope someone delivers.”

“Are you sure this is the right place?” I shouted back. “It doesn’t seem the sort of place your grandmother would want, does it? Somehow I’m pretty sure there is no servant in residence.”

The steps turned to the right, crossing a rushing stream by a little bridge, and there below us was the house—well, rather a gray stone cottage with a slate roof. It sat on a rocky platform, nestled into the cliffside, not far above the shoreline and to one side was a natural harbor in the rocks, onto which a stone jetty had been built, protecting it from the worst of the waves.

“Oh, I see,” Belinda said. “I understand now. It was probably built as a smuggler’s cottage with that convenient little harbor beside it. And more recently it was a fishing cottage. Yes, I do remember somebody mentioning this once. My uncle Francis was staying at the fishing cottage and Granny said not to get our hopes up that he’d ever catch anything because he was bone idle.”