‘Sweetheart, it just looks a bit like Norris. You can’t—’

‘What’s going on?’ Kate, who knew better, held her breath as the red Audi went into a handbrake turn, circling the war memorial at the end of the street before roaring back up the road towards them.

Another squeal of brakes and it drew to a halt beside Dexter and Kate.

‘Oh my God,’ Kate said faintly as Barbara Kendall buzzed down her window and Norris, clambering across her with no regard whatsoever for MaxMara trousers, squeezed like toothpaste through the narrow gap onto the pavement. Hurling himself joyfully at Kate, Norris let out a volley of high-pitched yodelling barks.

Rather than follow him through the open window, Barbara Kendall opened the driver’s door and stepped out.

‘There you are! I just drove up to your house but there’s no one at home. Thank goodness I caught you. All he’s done since we got him home is howl nonstop.’ Her words spilled out in a torrent. ‘It’s driving us insane. We can’t hear ourselves think. Can I be frank with you? Bernard and I have actually enjoyed not having the responsibility of caring for a pet for the last six weeks. If we didn’t have one, we could take so many more breaks, whenever we wanted, and to be honest, neither of us finds it much fun having to take this one for walks. So we wondered if you were serious about taking Norris off our hands, because if you are, well, we wouldn’t mind a bit.’

Kate would have marvelled at Barbara Kendall’s couldn’t care-less attitude but she was too busy kneeling on the hot dusty pavement getting her face thoroughly licked by an ecstatic Norris. Dexter, who had heard what had gone on in the kitchen at Dauncey House this morning, frowned.

‘So why didn’t you say this before? When Kate offered to keep him?’ And save me having to put up with all this grief for the last three hours?

Barbara Kendall, enthusiastically brushing dog hairs from her smart trousers, looked up and said,

‘Hmm? Well, it was one of those silly misunderstandings! Bernard and I have only just admitted the truth to each other. We inherited Norris when his aunt died, you see. Bernard was never wild about dogs, but he tolerated Norris because for some reason he thought I wanted a pet. And of course I wasn’t that keen at all, but I pretended to be because I didn’t want to hurt Bernard’s feelings. So that’s all sorted out,’ she said cheerfully. ‘And the thing is, look at Norris now! He seems so much happier with you than he does at home with us!’

‘I wonder why,’ Dexter muttered, just about beneath his breath.

‘So?’ Barbara was jangling her car keys and looking expectant. ‘What d’ you think?’

I think you’re a cruel heartless witch with a face like a donkey, Dexter was sorely tempted to retort, but heroically he kept this opinion to himself. For Kate’s sake rather than Barbara Kendall’s.

‘We’d love to keep him.’ Kate beamed, hugging Norris so hard she almost lost her balance. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘Well, that’s done.’ Barbara Kendall looked relieved. ‘I must say, from all the things I’d heard about you, I didn’t have you down as a dog-lover.’

Norris lovingly licked Kate’s neck. As she fondled his gorgeous ears, it crossed her mind to demand furiously what on earth Barbara Kendall meant by that.

Then again, did she really want to know?

Honestly, where was Marcella? It wasn’t like her to not be here when she’d promised not to be late. Feeling hot and slightly put-upon, Maddy carried two huge bowls of cherries outside, to add to the food laid out on the trellis table. Everyone else, it seemed, was far too busy being one half of a couple and chatting in a couply fashion to other couples, to bother giving her a hand. Kate and Dexter were here, along with Oliver and Estelle. And Jake and Juliet, doing their best not to fuss over Tiff who was – in honour of the fact that he was an invalid and this was his party – holding court from the shaded hammock.

As for Norris and Bean, they were a picture of perfect coupledom, rolling joyfully around together on the freshly mown grass. Romping together, frisking together, even frolicking .. .

Lucky things, Maddy thought, experiencing a pang of envy. What she wouldn’t give for a romp and a frolic.

Oh dear, it came to something when you found yourself wishing you could be a dog.

Sophie, tugging at Maddy’s elbow, said, ‘Dad says we need more ice for the drinks. We’re running out.’

‘Hang on.’ Feeling like Cinderella, Maddy headed inside to the cool of the kitchen, where Nuala was putting together a Waldorf salad. Of course, how could she even think she was the only one on her own? She and Nuala could be batty spinsters together, growing old and becoming increasingly pernickety as the years slid by.

‘Bugger,’ said Maddy, peering into the freezer. ‘That was the last of the ice.’

‘Bugger.’ Sophie heaved a sigh, rolling her eyes with glee.

‘I can get a couple of bags from the Angel,’ Nuala offered. ‘Dexter’s always got loads, he won’t mind. If you finish this,’ she gestured to Maddy, ‘I’ll get the key to the pub off him and zip over there.’

Maddy washed her hands and obediently crossed to the table to take over from Nuala. Making salads together, this was only the start. Before long they’d be crocheting tea cosies, writing to the council about the state of the highways, tramping about the countryside in matching patchwork waistcoats and floral wellies-

‘ Yowww,’ Maddy yelped. She’d squeezed a lemon with a bit too much vigour and managed to squirt juice into her eye. ‘Oosh.’ Blinking, she managed to dislodge her contact lens and had to bend double in order to pop it out then neatly catch it in the palm of her hand. This was just one of the drawbacks you learned to deal with when you wore contacts; every so often, like babies, they demanded attention this instant.

Luckily her handbag was lying on the window ledge and inside it were the necessary bottles of contact lens cleaning and soaking solution. Grabbing the bag, Maddy headed upstairs to the bathroom, still blinking lemon juice out of her eye.

Chapter 60

‘Right,’ said Marcella, ‘here we go.’ Her dark eyes danced as she climbed out of the dark blue Mercedes. ‘Kerr, you come with me. Darling,’ she turned to Den, ‘would you mind awfully waiting here for a few minutes? It’s just that Jake’s at the party, and I want to be able to explain everything to him first.’

‘That’s fine.’ Den wasn’t offended. ‘No problem. I’ll just sit here on this wall.’ At the sound of a door slamming behind him, he turned and saw a girl emerging from the Fallen Angel, the same girl he’d seen here the other day. Her hair was lit by the sun and she was carrying two hefty bags of ice. As she looked up and saw she was being watched, her eyes widened in recognition. Fumbling with the keys to the pub, she clutched both ice bags to her chest, which surely couldn’t be comfortable.

‘Nuala!’ Marcella clapped her hands in delight. ‘Just the girl! Will you do me a huge favour, darling? Wait out here for two minutes with this charming young man and keep him company?’

‘Um ...’ stammered Nuala, going bright pink and gazing helplessly at Den, then briefly at Kerr, then back again at Den. ‘Er, OK.’

‘You two just have a nice chat,’ Marcella said helpfully, ‘and we’ll give you a shout when we’re ready for you. Now,’ she went on, slipping her arm through Kerr’s, ‘let’s have a bit of fun, shall we?’

Nuala watched Marcella and her mystery companion disappear together through the front door of Snow Cottage. Finding her tongue at last, Nuala said, ‘Hello.’

‘Hi,’ said Den.

‘Um, did I see you here the other day?’

‘You did.’ Den nodded, discreetly taking in the gorgeous curvy legs which had previously been hidden by a pair of jeans. ‘Watch out for frostbite, by the way.’

‘Hmm? Oh!’ Belatedly discovering she still had the bags of ice cubes clamped to her chest, Nuala placed them on the ground beside her feet. Attempting to hide the fact that beneath her white top her nipples (yelping, ‘Ouch, we’re cold!’) were standing to attention, she said, ‘So, um, who was that with Marcella?’

Den wanted to kiss her. OK, not yet, have some decorum. ‘Him? That’s my brother.’

‘And who are you?’ Nuala was studying him with just as much undisguised pleasure as he’d been studying her.

It wasn’t just his imagination, he realised. She really wanted to kiss him too. Feeling as if he’d truly come home, he took a step towards her.

‘I’m his brother,’ said Den.

The ice cubes were beginning to melt at Nuala’s feet. Moving them into the shade of the garden wall would help, but Nuala was finding it hard to care about the fate of a bunch of ice cubes. She hadn’t the faintest idea where Marcella had managed to get hold of these two brothers but she was jolly glad she had. Anyway, that was Maddy’s mother for you; you never knew what she might do next.

In a daze, Nuala wondered if Marcella had met the pair by chance in Bath, running into them in the street and persuading them, in that impulsive, irresistible way of hers, to come along with her to a party in Ashcombe. Or maybe she’d been for one of her antenatal appointments at the hospital and had got chatting to them, as you do, in the waiting room .. .

Oh Lord.

Gulping, Nuala blurted out, ‘Is your wife having a baby?’

‘I don’t have a wife.’ His thin, tanned face – oh, those cheekbones! – registered amusement at the question. ‘Or a girlfriend. And I most definitely don’t have a baby.’

Having screwed the tops onto the plastic bottles of cleansing and wetting solution, Maddy checked her face in the bathroom mirror. The contact lens was safely back in place. She could see again – namely, her own unsmiling reflection, in sharp contrast to all the cheerful animated faces out in the garden. This wasn’t good enough, it really wasn’t, she should be looking jollier, today was a celebration of-

‘Maddy, are you up there?’

Maddy looked in the mirror, reminding herself of a tight lipped, long-suffering mother whose wayward teenage daughter had promised to be home two hours ago.

Except this was no wayward teenager, it was Marcella.

‘So you bothered to turn up at last,’ she called out, unzipping her make-up bag. ‘You were supposed to be back before three.’

‘I know. Sorry, darling. I got held up. But I’m here now,’ Marcella shouted. ‘Are you coming down?’

Why? Did they need her to make more salads? Rustle up a few quiches? Find a mop because someone had just spilled their drink?

Slowly taking out her Maybelline mascara, because all that faffing about with her contact lens had left her with a bald right eye, Maddy called out, ‘In a minute. I’m busy.’

There, see? She wasn’t a pushover.

‘Come down now.’ Marcella’s tone was cajoling. ‘I’ve brought you a present.’

‘What is it?’

‘Something nice.’

Maddy finished with the mascara and gravely regarded her reflection. She loved Marcella more than life itself, but when it came to presents her taste could be inescapably dodgy. The last time she’d done this had been after Maddy had happened to mention in passing that she’d enjoyed the latest Harry Potter film.

Two days later, following a visit to Aldridge’s Auction House in Bath, Marcella had arrived home in a taxi with a moth-eaten stuffed barn owl in a glass case.

‘Come on,’ Marcella said now. ‘You’ll like it, I promise.’

Hmm. Maddy squirted on some perfume in an attempt to launch herself into more of a party mood. Her lipstick had worn off. Should she put more on, or not bother? If it wasn’t going to cheer her up, was there really any point?

No, sod it, why should she?

‘Maddy, will you get out of that bathroom!’

‘I’m BUSY,’ Maddy bellowed.

‘And I’m PREGNANT,’ Marcella shouted back up the stairs, ‘which means I win, because if I don’t get to the loo this minute, I’m going to—’

‘OK, OK.’ Conceding defeat, Maddy irritably straightened the straps on her pink dress then unlocked the bathroom door. As she stomped out onto the landing, she froze.

There he was. Kerr. Maddy blinked and clutched the banister rail, wondering if she was in fact awake.

Right, pinch yourself. Go on, pinch your arm really hard – ow.

It made no sense, but it appeared to be actually happening.