The Chocolate Collection. Trisha Ashley

from the museum. Presumably the Misses Frinton had had the extension done long before planning regulations became so restrictive.

      A polished wooden counter ran right across the front of the room and behind it were worktops, a sink and racks of drawers labelled with fascinating things like ‘Teddy Bear Noses’, ‘Doll’s Eyes – Blue’ and ‘Whiskers – Large, Black’.

      There were several electric sockets where I could plug in the Bath – the machine that tempered the couverture chocolate – and even a small double gas ring, presumably once used for melting glue, or something like that, but now perfect for a bain-marie, or for making toffee. The place was ideal!

      Behind it was a small sitting room that looked as if it had been used most recently for storage, since the one bare bulb dangling from the ceiling shone down onto flattened cardboard cartons littering the balding lino floor. The deeply recessed window facing onto the garden was murky and festooned with furry cobwebs, but had a seat built in beneath it. There was an open fireplace bordered by art nouveau purplish-pink glazed tiles, and a twisting staircase went up in one corner behind what I had thought was a cupboard door until I opened it.

      The kitchen had been added onto the back at some more recent point in time, with a very utilitarian white bathroom above it – though I was just grateful it had one at all and not just an outside toilet! But Grumps had said something about the Frintons having had tenants in the cottage in the dim and distant past, so I suppose they had updated it a bit then.

      Upstairs, as well as the bathroom, were two bedrooms and a small airing cupboard housing the water tank and an ancient immersion heater – all mod cons provided! And although the cottage smelled chilly and unused, it didn’t seem damp and the thick stone walls would keep the heat in in winter, and out in summer.

      Finally I went out through the kitchen into the garden, which was surrounded by a tall wall of mellow bricks, with matching paths in a herringbone pattern, slimy with damp and disuse. Large, half-moon beds ran around the walls and there was a big central round bed in which was a tree – plum, I suspected. It looked half dead, but plum trees love to fool you like that.

      It was all very overgrown, and at this time of year it was hard to tell what was there. It would be exciting to see what came up in the spring, and to clear and replant parts of it. There was certainly lots of room for my pots and my little greenhouse – there was even sufficient space to have a bigger one, when I could afford it.

      I absolutely loved it – it was like having my very own Secret Garden – and I decided then and there that I would have the back bedroom overlooking the courtyard, leaving the front for Jake, even though it was slightly larger.

      When I finally looked at my watch it was already noon and I had been there for hours, although it felt more like minutes! I left hastily, retracing my path through the Old Smithy and the house, locking the doors behind me, one by one.

      When I emerged the road was momentarily deserted, though to the right I could just see Felix’s swinging sign for Marked Pages, the first of the High Street shops. They were increasing steadily in number: as well as the Spar near the Green and an old-established saddlers, there was now a new café-cum-craft gallery (Witch Crafts), a delicatessen and a couple of gift shops. Another teashop was in the throes of being renovated.

      The Shakespeare find at Winter’s End a couple of years ago had really revitalised the village, so Grumps was lucky to have got the Old Smithy, especially at what seemed to be a very advantageous price. I wondered how he’d managed that.

      There was no sign of Felix and Poppy until I crossed the road to the Falling Star and saw them waving at me from the bow window of the snug. Mind you, if I didn’t know them so well, I wouldn’t have recognised them behind the thick bull’s-eye glass panes, because they looked like dubious sea creatures seen dimly lurking in green waters.

      As usual I tried to avoid stepping on the clean square of pavement as I went in, because it seemed an unlucky thing to do. Mrs Snowball was now sitting behind a tiny reception desk under the stairway (the inn lets rooms, mostly to business reps), knitting something voluminously pink and fluffy while watching a portable TV. She looked up at me, described a suspiciously pentagram-like shape in the air with one needle, and grinned gappily.

      Oh God, not another of them? She’d never done that before!

      Slightly shaken, I turned right into the snug, where Felix was now at the bar buying me a ladylike half of bitter shandy (I was driving, after all). He turned and gave me a hug – a tall, loose-limbed man with soft, light brown eyes, floppy hair and the sort of nose that has a knobbly bit in the middle. It’s a nice face, in its way, but you can’t call it handsome.

      ‘Hi, Chloe – you look lovely,’ he said warmly, though I was just wearing jeans garnished with cobwebs and the odd streak of garden slime, but he’d probably just said exactly the same to Poppy, because he’s nothing if not kind. I sometimes think I’m imagining that he’s trying to move our relationship onto a new, more romantic footing and actually I do truly hope so, because I like things just the way they are.

      ‘Is that my drink? I’ll carry it, then you can manage the other two,’ I said, kissing his cheek. He smelled, not un-attractively, of old leather book bindings.

      ‘Look what Felix found for me!’ called Poppy, gaily waving a paperback copy of I Had Two Ponies by Josephine Pullein-Thompson. ‘The last one of hers I hadn’t got!’

      ‘Great,’ I said, sitting down next to her. She smelled of sweet hay and horses, and I expect I was permanently chocolate-fragranced, with just a hint of scented geranium, so anyone with a good nose could guess blindfold what the three of us did for a living.

      ‘I thought I had a Heyer for you, Chloe, but the cover was torn,’ Felix said.

      While Poppy loves old children’s pony adventure books, I collect vintage Georgette Heyer hardbacks in those lovely, misty, dream-like paper jackets. Felix also looks out for the rarer volumes Grumps would like to add to his already huge, esoteric and eclectic library, which is probably where most of his income goes.

      Poppy was almost as excited about my moving to the Old Smithy as I was. ‘But I still think it was mean, not letting us view it with you.’

      ‘I just wanted to see it on my own the first time,’ I explained. ‘I’ll have to come back and measure for curtains and furniture, so perhaps if you can both get away, you can see it then?’

      ‘I’ve been in the museum and the doll’s hospital, but not for years,’ Poppy said. ‘So, what’s the rest like?’

      I described it all in detail, but I may have dwelled rather longer on the garden than the rest of it put together. Anyway, they both generously volunteered to help me clean and paint the cottage.

      ‘Or anything, really, that you need another pair of hands to do,’ Poppy added. ‘Now, do you want to hear our news?’

      ‘Our?’ I looked from one to the other of them, with a raised eyebrow. ‘You’re getting married and you want me to be bridesmaid?’

      ‘Don’t be silly,’ Poppy giggled.

      ‘It would be nice to settle down with someone, though, wouldn’t it?’ Felix suggested rather pointedly. ‘Just not Poppy!’

      ‘Yes, because the three of us are so like family that it would be like marrying a sibling,’ she agreed. ‘Completely out of the question.’

      ‘It certainly would be,’ I agreed heartily, and Felix looked gloomy.

      Poppy said, ‘What I meant was the news from last night’s emergency Parish Council meeting.’

      ‘Did you tell them that Grumps had bought the museum?’

      ‘No, though I expect we both looked totally guilty. Luckily, something else was distracting Miss Winter, because she usually has eagle eyes. You remember I told you that the bishop was trying to find a non-stipendiary vicar to take over All Angels?’

      I nodded. ‘Have