The Chocolate Collection. Trisha Ashley

don’t need a visit, thanks. I’m not one of your parishioners!’

      ‘No, I think I’ve already grasped the message that the Lyons aren’t churchgoers from your grandfather. But I would like to talk to you – please?’

      If I hadn’t just at that point inconveniently remembered what the Angel cards said that morning and hesitated, then I’m sure he wouldn’t have managed to insinuate himself over the threshold. But somehow there he was, standing in the middle of the workshop and looking around him in an interested sort of way.

      ‘It smells delicious in here,’ he said appreciatively, ‘but I hope I’m not disturbing your work?’

      ‘No, I don’t make chocolate every day, and actually, I’m going out shortly.’

      ‘Oh? Then I won’t keep you long,’ he said, but he still didn’t seem in a hurry to come to the point of the visit. I had plenty of time to notice the changes in him: the fine lines on his pale, translucent skin, the resolute set of his mouth and square chin. Boy to man: the past and present Raffys seemed to coalesce into one before my eyes.