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I shrugged. ‘A dark, handsome man was going to come into my life. I told them he already had, because he was living practically on the doorstep, but the full description should have been “dark, handsome and bossy”.’

‘I’m not bossy,’ he stated, then blew it by adding, ‘By the way, we’re going out for lunch.’

‘There you are: bossy,’ I said. ‘Case proven! And won’t Sheila wonder where we’ve got to?’

‘No, because I rang her to say I’d heard from a contact in Skipton, so we’d have lunch there and see what he’s found for me. Nice place, Skipton.’

‘I was going to spend my afternoon in the library, working on my book,’ I objected.

‘You’re surely entitled to a bit of free time?’

‘Not according to my agent … and it’s now less than two weeks to the book delivery deadline. But I suppose I could take the afternoon off, because actually after this morning I don’t think I could concentrate,’ I admitted. ‘Tomorrow morning I’ve got to deliver those plates to the man Bel found who can turn them into cake stands, but I’ll go straight back to my flat after lunch and work all afternoon and evening to make up.’

‘I’ll be having an early night tomorrow, because I’m headed for bonny Scotland at the crack of dawn on Monday and I’ll be away a few days,’he said. ‘There’s an auction I want to attend and a few contacts to go round while I’m there.’

‘You could call in at my friend Edie’s guesthouse if you’re anywhere near,’ I suggested, and when I told him where it was he said he could make a slight detour if I liked. ‘I suspect you have an ulterior motive?’

‘Yes, I’d like to send her one or two things, but only if it’s not too much trouble for you.’

‘I expect I’ll survive. Is there anything I can bring you back? A haggis, perhaps?’ he teased.

‘Yes – a box of Edinburgh rock, I loooove it,’ I told him.

‘It’ll rot your teeth,’ he said seriously, but with a glint of laughter in his smoke-grey eyes, ‘not to mention give you worms!’

By unspoken mutual consent we didn’t talk about anything contentious, so that our expedition to Skipton turned into one of those magical days you look back on for ever afterwards with a warm, golden, fuzzy feeling.

First we had lunch in an ancient pub and then afterwards walked around Skipton, while Nile told me snippets about its really interesting history. There was even a canal full of narrow boats and Nile took my hand as we walked along the towpath, which was slick from earlier rain. After that it seemed the most natural thing in the world to stroll hand in hand around the remains of Skipton Castle, and I found myself telling him how, when I was a little girl and we lived near Granny Rose in Knaresborough, she would walk with me to the Dropping Well, where I was fascinated by all the strange things visitors had hung up to be petrified.

In return, he described some of the madder things the Giddings family did when he first went to live with them, like suddenly deciding to have a long weekend in France at an hour’s notice and then only realizing they hadn’t brought the tent poles when on the wrong side of the channel.

‘And we couldn’t all fit in the VW campervan, but luckily it was warm weather so some of us slept under the awning, instead.’

‘It sounds like the sort of fun I had with Lola’s family after we movedto Shropshire when I was eight,’ I said. ‘When you put the good times in the balance, they always outweigh the worst, don’t they?’

‘That’s true,’ he agreed, squeezing my hand. ‘You don’t forget the bad bits, but they’re overlaid with the happier memories.’

Then he looked at his watch and said we’d better go and visit his contact before she shut up for the day – and by then I’d totally forgotten the reason for our trip!

Violet Grange was a small, thin, upright lady with a head of upswept white hair and a sharp pair of blue eyes. She kept a tiny but very expensive antiques shop off the main street and while Nile was looking through the things she’d put to one side for him, I drooled over a locked case of jewellery, especially a glorious ring with a single large sparkling pale yellow stone.

‘Yellow diamond on a platinum band,’ she said, spotting my interest with a honed hawk eye for a sale.

‘Oh?’ I said, disappointed that it wasn’t a citrine, which I might just have been able to afford. But before I could say anything else, she’d unlocked the lid and was sliding it on to the ring finger of my left hand.

‘It would be the perfect engagement ring, wouldn’t it, Nile?’ she asked, so I guessed she’d spotted us walking up hand in hand and leaped to the wrong conclusion.

‘I suppose it would – for the right person,’ he agreed. ‘It certainly suits you, Alice.’ He turned back to Violet wearing his by now familiar dealer’s poker face. ‘Might be a bit overpriced, though, Violet. Not everyone wants a yellow diamond – it’s a limited market.’

‘It’s a very good stone … and, of course, foryouI might reduce it,’ she suggested.

‘Ican’t afford it at any price,’ I said firmly and, pulling it off, handed it back, though by then I was feeling distinctly Gollum and desperately wanted it, my Precious. But there was a thin paper band looped through it bearing the price and it reallywasprecious – way outside my reach.

Nile picked it up and examined it. ‘I don’t deal in a lot of jewellery, but I might have a customer for this,’ he said. ‘At the right price, of course.’

Then he turned to me. ‘This is the boring bit, Alice, where we haggle and I settle up with Violet for what I want – so why don’t you go next door to the teashop and I’ll join you in a few minutes?’

I ordered afternoon tea for two with a lavish disregard for the expense (and a keen interest in what their idea of a good tea would be like).