‘In fact, for your masthead, rather than a photograph of you, I’d like to use this drawing of your house.’

Her house.

That would be one she was house-sitting, for an absent aging academic who was studying some long-lost language in foreign parts.

‘That’s not a problem for you? Clearly you’ll want to keep a measure of privacy?’

‘No,’ she said. A problem would have been if Mrs Cochrane had wanted a photograph of her. That would have blown her cover on day one, and she doubted Mrs Cochrane would be amused to discover that Lady Gabriella, far from being a lady of leisure, was Ellie March, a very hardworking cleaning lady.

Her drawing, on the other hand, was no more than an impression. The turret, a window or two, a terrace. It could be anywhere.

‘I think that’s a great idea.’

‘Well?’ Stacey demanded, when she returned her suit and shoes. ‘What did she want?’

‘To offer me a contract to write a monthly lifestyle column for the magazine.’

Ellie took great satisfaction in watching her clever, successful older sister’s jaw drop.

It didn’t take her long to recover.

‘You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?’ Then, perhaps realising that was a little harsh, ‘I mean, it’s ridiculous. You don’t have a lifestyle. Let’s face it, you don’t even have a life.’

‘True,’ Ellie said, keeping her face straight with the greatest difficulty. ‘But you’re missing the point. I write fiction. I’ll make it up.’

‘Good book?’

A deep, velvety voice penetrated the cold, swirling mists of the Yorkshire Moors, jerking Ellie back into the twenty-first century.

Not an entirely bad thing.

She’d started the afternoon with the intention of giving the study a thorough bottoming. Keeping on top of the dust in the rambling old house she was ‘sitting’ while its owner was away was not onerous, but it did require a schedule or she lost track; today it was the study’s turn. Unfortunately, her attention had been grabbed by the unexpected discovery of a top-shelf cache of gothic romances, and she’d forgotten all about the dust.