Cover

Title Page

Dedication

This one is for my wonderful children,
Donna, Sarah, Christian and Aaron.

You’re my world xxxxxxxxxx

Saturday’s child works hard for a living

Prologue

November 1930

Sunday Branning smiled as she stood at the window of Treetops and watched her daughter Lavinia – or Livvy, as she was affectionately known – gallop down the drive on her horse. Livvy adored horses and riding, just like her father, who had once again built up a reputation for being the finest stud breeder in the Midlands. It had taken years to rebuild his stables after the Great War, but somehow, he had managed it, and once again people were coming from far and wide for his horses. Sunday could well remember how heartbroken Tom had been when she had written to tell him that his stock had been taken for war horses after he had left to fight in the Great War. He had raised many of them from foals and knew that it was unlikely any of them would survive. It was to his credit that through sheer hard work he had got his business up and running profitably again once he had returned.

It was just as well, for following the stock market crash the year before, money was tight for most people and businesses were closing daily. Treetops was an expensive house to run and now they no longer ran it as a children’s home, Sunday was constantly trying to find little ways of saving money.

Once Livvy had disappeared from sight, Sunday returned to her desk, where she had been writing out invitations for her sixtieth birthday party, which she’d be holding in two weeks’ time.

Sixty! She sighed as she thought back over her life. It hadn’t started so well – she had been left on the steps of the Union Workhouse as a newborn – but things had improved when she had finally been reunited with her birth mother. And then there was Tom, the love of her life. She still adored him as much as she had on the day she had married him, if not more. As if thoughts of him had conjured him from thin air, he suddenly stuck his head round the door and gave her a cheeky wink.

‘All right, sweetheart? Hope you’re not working too hard?’

Sunday laughed as she waved him away. ‘Oh, be off with you and let me get this done.’