She felt a frisson of nerves and excitement shoot through her and took a deep breath. She had learned from some of the other shopkeepers in Middle Street that the bakery hadn’t been doing too well in recent years. There had been days when Stanley didn’t open – ‘He claimed he was sick but to my mind it was a sickness that came from the bottom of a bottle of whisky’ had been said or intimated by more than one person, along with the fact that his bread had been made with more chalk than flour and some of his cakes and biscuits had been nigh on uneatable. She knew she would have to fight against the bad reputation the bakery had, and to that end she had decided to change the look of the front window. She had asked a local carpenter to fashion a three-tiered wooden stand which would fill the whole space and on which she would display fresh loaves of bread and buns, fancy cakes, pastries and biscuits, and big slabs of fruit and ginger slices. He’d also made a large sign to stand outside the shop door stating, New owner, only the best flour and ingredients used, and above that, in big, bold black letters, The Crusty Loaf Bakery.

Amy had asked her why she hadn’t used her own name – ‘Rose’s Bakery’ or even ‘O’Leary’s Bakery’ – but she felt uncomfortable about that, even though she would have liked to see her name on the new shop sign. Nathaniel Alridge was always at the back of her mind, and although reason told her that if he did come to Consett he’d probably find her anyway, advertising her whereabouts by broadcasting her name didn’t seem wise. She told herself over and over that Nathaniel had probably met a lass and was married with bairns by now, and that it was silly, even immodest, of her to think he was still interested in her, but nevertheless, the fear was always there.

Forcing her mind away from the past with all its heartache and pain, she took a long, deep breath and glanced round the bakery one last time. She would make a success of this even if she had to work twenty-four hours a day, she told herself fiercely. And she would hold true to what the sign stated, even if it meant her profits were less than they would be if she doctored the flour or used inferior ingredients for her cakes and pastries. She was already thinking that once she had become established with a regular clientele she might make broth as well as her baking wares. A basin of broth and a couple of crusty rolls made a fine lunch or dinner, and Davey had always loved her mutton or beef broth, saying it was the best he had ever tasted. But then he wouldn’t have dreamed of saying otherwise, bless him.