‘I’m home. Me and Rose.’

‘Rose?’

‘My daughter. Are you-’

‘I’m Hamish Douglas. I’m looking for a Susie Douglas.’

‘Oh.’

He really was the new earl.

There was a moment’s charged silence. She wasn’t what he’d expected, she thought, but, then, he wasn’t what she’d expected either.

She’d thought he’d look like Rory.

He didn’t look like any of the Douglases she’d met, she decided. He was leaner, finer boned, finer…tuned? He was a Porsche compared to Rory’s Land Rover, she decided, limping across to greet him properly. She still had residual stiffness from the accident in which Rory had been killed, and it was worse when she’d been kneeling.

But the pain was nothing to what it had been, and she smiled as she held out her hand in greeting. Then, as she looked at his face and realised there was a problem, her smile broadened. She wiped her hands on the seat of her overalls and tried again.

‘Susie Douglas would be me,’ she told him, gripping his reluctant hand and shaking. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ he said, and looked at his hand.

‘It’s almost clean,’ she told him, letting a trace of indignation enter her voice as she realised what he was looking at. ‘And it’s good, clean dirt. Only a trace wormy.’

‘Wormy?’

‘Earthworms,’ she said, exasperated. This wasn’t looking good in terms of long-term relationship. In terms of long-term caring for this garden. ‘Worms that make pumpkins grow as big as Priscilla here. Not the kind that go straight to your liver and grow till they come out your eyeballs.’

‘Um…fine.’ He was starting to sound confounded.

‘I’m transferring them to the compost,’ she told him, deciding she’d best be patient. ‘I’m laying concrete pavers to the conservatory, and how awful would it be to be an earthworm encased in concrete? Do you want to see the conservatory?’

‘Um…sure.’

‘I might as well show you while we’re out here,’ she told him. ‘You’ve inherited all this pile, and the conservatory’s brilliant. It was falling into disrepair when I arrived, but I’ve built it up. It’s almost like the old orangeries they have in grand English houses.’