Christmas was only six weeks away and she wanted to get on top of all the preparations early. Neither she nor Charles had large families. Their parents were dead, and whilst Grace had her sister Charlotte to buy for, Charles was an only child. But there were the staff to think about as well as the vicar and his wife and all the tenants, the master of the hunt and the huntsmen, the lady who kept the post office in the village . . . The names just went on and on.

Grace sat herself down at Charles’s desk in the office and set to making a list. She liked a list, the way it made her force some sense of order into her brain. She was sure that her ability to think clearly was still all over the place after the birth of Clio. Maybe it had never recovered after Hector had arrived, she thought with a smile to herself. But a nice neat list which she could tick off as she went along – this Grace liked.

She hadn’t got very far when the telephone rang. Usually the housekeeper would answer it but Grace was just sitting there, next to an extension and perfectly capable of answering her own telephone.

She picked it up. ‘Hello. Grace Montgomery Smith speaking.’

‘Ah, hello,’ said an elderly voice on the other end. ‘This is Honeyborne here. From the bank. Is Mr Montgomery Smith available?’

Grace didn’t recognise the name. The bank manager that she dealt with for the estate was called Wolfe, which she always thought was an unfortunate name for a banker. ‘I’m afraid he’s at work at the moment,’ she said. ‘Can I help?’

‘I’m sure you can, my dear,’ said Mr Honeyborne, and Grace cringed. She was not and never had been anybody’s ‘dear’.

‘We’re just wondering,’ the man continued, ‘what you would like us to do with the deeds to the house. We can either keep them here in our safe or I can have them sent round to you. Either is fine.’

Grace was puzzled. The Hall had been in her family for hundreds of years, and any paperwork was held in a safe at the office of the firm of solicitors that had been looking after the estate since her great-grandfather’s time. Did he mean one of the workers’ cottages? But why would the title deeds be anywhere else?

‘I’m not sure I quite follow . . .’ she began.

‘The deeds,’ Mr Honeyborne repeated, as if he were talking to an elderly relation or someone dim-witted. ‘To the house in Whitley Bay.’

Now Grace really was confused. She didn’t have a house in Whitley Bay. ‘I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

Mr Honeyborne spluttered at the other end of the phone. ‘Well, perhaps I’d better talk to your husband, dear. Could you ask him to ring me when he gets home?’