She must have fallen asleep at some point because she awoke with a start to find she had overslept and it was five o’clock. Although she prepared everything the night before and baked a certain amount of food she still had masses to do every morning and she raced around like a mad thing, dropping a tray of loaves fresh from the oven and burning two large fruit cakes. By the time she had taken Betsy to school and opened the shop she was tired and overwrought, and it didn’t help matters that the weather had turned boiling hot, making the front of the shop unbearably warm.

It was mid-morning when the shop bell rang just as she was piling some ginger biscuits into a basket in the bakery to bring through to the front of the premises. She smoothed down her hair which she coiled on the top of her head in a bun when she was working, and checked that her apron was clean before walking through, only to stop in the doorway with a little gasp.

‘Hello, Rose,’ said Alexander Bembridge, for all the world as though they were old friends. ‘I’ve just come home on leave and I thought I’d treat myself to some more of those fruit tarts . . .’

Chapter Twenty-One

That day in the summer set the tone for the future. Whenever Alexander was home on leave he would arrive at the bakery every day at some point, ostensibly to buy tarts or cakes. Daisy was in awe of him for a little while – he was one of the gentry, after all – but Alexander would tease and joke with her and soon she was his greatest ally. He would dilly-dally in the shop and often call back once or twice, saying he had forgotten to buy something but with a twinkle in his eye that made it hard to be cross with him. Almost every day he asked her out to dinner or suggested she take a walk with him once the bakery was closed, and although Rose refused it didn’t seem to bother him at all. Christmas came and went, and when he presented her with tickets for the pantomime she thanked him coolly but said she had already bought some herself. He took this with his normal good humour, promptly passing the tickets to Daisy and then turning up later that day with four more tickets so she could take all her children. He was impossible, Rose thought. A law unto himself.