Trisha Ashley 3 Book Bundle. Trisha Ashley

really, I didn’t mind at all,’ I assured him truthfully, ‘and thank you for the lovely flowers.’

      Actually, that wasn’t a total lie because I quite liked the bamboo. I’d put it in a tall, thin glass vase on its own and it seemed to be sending out roots.

      He still lingered in a hopeful sort of way so I felt I had to invite him in, even though I was working. I sat him down and then carried on brushing chocolate into winged heart moulds.

      ‘The party was quite fun, actually,’ he said. ‘Digby – he asked us all to call him that – is such an interesting man, and some of the things he told us about over dinner were quite fascinating.’

      ‘Like what?’ I asked, but he didn’t seem to be able to remember specifics. I suspect he and the rest of them were hypnotised by that golden voice. I didn’t ask him who he took as his dinner partner either, because if it wasn’t Mel Christopher, I’ll eat all my scented geraniums.

      ‘To show you forgive me, I thought you might come with me for a second look at that cottage near Rainford, and the converted barn near Scarisbrick,’ he suggested. ‘Those were your favourites, weren’t they?’

      ‘Yes, but that isn’t important, is it, because I won’t be living there. It’s which one you preferred.’

      ‘I think you have a better eye for these things,’ he insisted. ‘Do come with me. I’ll arrange later viewings on Wednesday afternoon and then we can go and have a drink in the Green Man afterwards – even dinner?’

      I tried to get out of it, because I was now not only entirely sated with house-hunting but had started to find poor David terminally boring. However, he made it impossible to get out of, though I did insist that I had to get back home after a quick drink at the pub. ‘I can’t leave poor Jake on his own all the time!’

      ‘He’s an adult now, certainly old enough to take care of himself,’ he pointed out.

      This was true and I had started to feel a pang or two at the thought of him grown up and off, just like any empty-nester. I didn’t mention that ‘poor Jake’ was usually either up at Kat’s house, like a Goth version of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in the Old Smithy kitchen being stuffed like a Strasbourg goose by Zillah, or foraging perfectly successfully for himself at home.

      Instead I tried to make it plain to David that this would be my last house-hunting expedition with him, because my business was now so busy that I simply didn’t have time any more. We must have seen everything for sale in his price bracket in the entire county by now anyway.

      He didn’t seem to take in what I was saying and I was just psyching myself up to be much more blunt when Zillah waltzed in, beaming away like a lighthouse.

      ‘Ah, David – how lovely! Are you well…just at present? I remember when you used to come out in the most alarming rash every time you came to see us,’ she said, then settled down as if she had all day to chat.

      Only five minutes later he was roaring off in his noisy sports car as if the devil himself was after him.

      ‘He didn’t have to leave,’ Zillah said, looking vaguely surprised. ‘I only came to see if you and Jake fancied coming over for beef and carrots later, followed by fruit salad with marshmallows.’

      ‘Marshmallows?’

      ‘Those tiny ones that you see sprinkled on hot chocolate in cafés,’ she explained – or rather, didn’t explain. Some magazines have a lot to answer for.

      ‘I think you might have to have Kat too, because she and Jake offered to help Grumps unpack and display all that stuff he bought from an auction this afternoon, and it’s bound to take ages.’

      ‘That’s all right, there’s plenty. Gregory seems to have quite taken to Kat since she started redoing all the museum notices with her calligraphy pen and volunteering to help run it when it opens at Easter.’

      ‘It’s getting really close, but it’s almost ready to open, isn’t it? We just need some more stands for books and gifts behind the desk, and a postcard rack.’

      They were to stock my Chocolate Wishes, though I would also throw open my workshop doors to the public on the afternoons when the museum was open and sell the chocolates direct. I intended to make a stock of treacle toffee cat lollies, too, which Zillah thought would be bestsellers even though young children were to be excluded from the museum.

      Raffy was now not so much avoiding me as turning tail and fleeing whenever he glimpsed me, so I had no way of letting him know that I really had forgiven him. I didn’t know if I was making him feel so guilty he couldn’t stand the sight of me, or if he thought my kissing him was a sign that I expected him to take up where we left off…or maybe both?

      But no, on reflection, I thought he was just indulging in a major guilt trip. And I was…sort of missing him, which was odd, since I hadn’t seen much of him to miss since he moved here. I even told Felix that he could invite him to go to the Falling Star with us any time he wanted, and he did, but Raffy said I didn’t really mean it!

      But actually, I did, because something strange was happening between Poppy and Felix and I was starting to feel such a gooseberry that a fourth person would have been very welcome – even Raffy!

      Poppy had stuck to the moisturising and minimal makeup routine she’d learned on my birthday and said she was never going back to frizzy hair again, now that she’d realised that conditioner and serum would instantly make her look more Pre-Raphaelite than unshorn sheep.

      Chas emailed me to say that he’d pulled some strings and finally managed a quiet chat with Carr Blackstock, but it had been a really tricky meeting. For a start, he’d been angry that Chas knew anything about him and Mum, until he learned that Chas had been in the same boat. He was also very suspicious of my motives, though Chas reassured him that I only wanted to know whether he was or was not my biological father, but had no interest in him other than that. And, of course, I’d sent a letter for him via Chas that said the same thing.

      Chas said it was clear he firmly believed he wasn’t my father and in the end agreed to provide a DNA sample to prove it once and for all. But actually, I hoped it was him, even if he was horrible, because then I’d be able just to draw a line under it and forget all about him!

       Chapter Twenty-nine Rites

      When I went to collect Grumps’ chapter on Wednesday morning he was highly pleased with himself and insisted on showing me an old map of Sticklepond that he had acquired from Felix the previous day.

      ‘Have you found a new marker for your ley line?’ I asked, helping to hold down one curling end.

      ‘No, no – something quite different. A piece of extremely useful information about the lido field that I have passed on to Felix, so he may tell the rest of the Parish Council.’

      ‘Right,’ I said, putting his tea down on a corner of the map.

      ‘See here?’ He pointed, the large red stone in the silver ring he wore on his index finger glinting dully. ‘The so-called lido field has never been built on for it once formed the gardens of a long-gone small monastic house. But this map was drawn up later, after the first wave of the Black Death had swept the land, and you can see here that the area is now clearly marked as “Plague Pit Field”.’

      ‘Plague Pit Field? You mean there was a mass grave there for plague victims?’ I asked, startled. ‘I suppose they did have to bury them quickly.’

      ‘Precisely. And then over the years the name has been forgotten, until eventually the area became a popular local picnic spot, leased from the owner of Badger’s Bolt, by the council, as a public amenity.’

      ‘But how odd, to think what is there, forgotten.’

      ‘And