“Why is that?” Cleo asked.

“Well, this isn’t a castle site like Kenilworth, for example,” Finn said. “It’s a country manor house so I would expect the garden to be relatively modest and in keeping with that.” He gave a little shrug. “Hopefully we’ll find out in time.”

Lucy was tracing the course of the stream on the map as it meandered down the valley. “There’s a lot of water channeled down the hillside, isn’t there,” she said. “When it’s dry like it is at the moment you forget how fierce the stream can get, but I remember sometimes in winter when we visited it was almost in flood.”

“I think they harnessed the water supply for the Tudor gardens,” Finn said, nodding. He gestured to the picture, “There’s another pool here at the bottom of the valley. It’s a marshy sort of pond today, but we found evidence of lead-lined cisterns and some colored glass and stone down there so it could even have been an early bathing pool.”

“The waters rise from the springs under the hill, don’t they?” Lucy said. “I remember Verity saying that the chalk hereabouts filters the water and it is exceptionally pure. A sort of early spa treatment.”

“Wow!” Cleo’s eyes were round. “Verity could open a well-being center and make a fortune!”

Finn rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Well, she’s very keen to restore the gardens and open them to the public if we find enough evidence of what they looked like,” he said, “but more for the historical value than anything else, I think.” He looked up, straight at Lucy. “If you did want to help out at all on the project, you’d be doing me a big favor, actually. I haven’t had the time to catch up with all of Charlie’s written research yet because I’ve been flat out looking for clues on the ground. Someone needs to take a look at the old documents and notes he collected and see if there’s anything useful in there.”

“Oh.” Lucy was startled at the offer, and instinctively thought to refuse. “I don’t really think I’ve got the right sort of qualifications to do that kind of work,” she said. “I wouldn’t know what I was looking for.”

Finn shrugged as though it was a matter of complete indifference to him. “No problem,” he said. “I just thought I’d ask.” He stood up. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said to Cleo. He raised a hand to Lucy. “I’ll see you around—but not too often,” he added dryly. “We’ll make sure we don’t disturb your holiday.”

He strolled back inside the barn, taking his coffee mug with him, and Cleo hopped up to follow and show him out. Geoffrey, meanwhile, went as far as the patio doors then stood looking helpless, ears flat.

“You really don’t want to go inside the house, do you?” Lucy murmured. “Poor old thing—no one’s going to hurt you.”

Geoffrey’s dark gaze flashed with misery. He made a whining sound.