Eighteen months after Rose had taken on the bakery, she went next door to the gentlemen’s outfitters one evening while Daisy managed the children. She wanted to have a word in private with Albert Preston before he shut up shop for the day. She got on well with Albert and whenever she popped next door to pay him the rent and have a chat, she made sure to take some of the shortbread he liked so much. He was just locking the door when she arrived on the doorstep, and once she’d explained that she needed to talk to him he ushered her through to the back of the shop where his tiny kitchen was and made them both a cup of tea. The upper floor of the premises was a workshop where his two sons were kept busy most of the time, and where he stored all the materials and other odds and ends.

Once they were seated on two hard-backed chairs he had brought through from the front of the shop, he looked quizzically at the young woman he had a great deal of respect for. She was a hard worker and he liked that. ‘Well, what can I do for you, lass?’

Rose cleared her throat. She was more than a little nervous and had no idea how he would take what she was going to say. ‘When we’ve talked before you mentioned that when you bought the premises next door it was an investment for your old age. Is that right?’

Albert nodded. ‘Aye, that was the plan. Our Bart and Harry will take over here so that’ll mean a steady income too. Me hands aren’t what they were – arthritis, you know?’

‘Well, I wondered if you’d ever thought about selling the bakery so you could have a lump sum in the bank behind you rather than the money you get from the rent each month? You’d have the income from this place, of course, but a lump sum would enable you to do whatever you want, travel, anything,’ she finished lamely. He was staring at her in absolute amazement.

‘Sell the bakery? To you, you mean?’

‘Yes, to me.’

‘Have you got that sort of money, lass?’

She nodded. ‘I think so, depending on what you would ask, of course.’