The Last Available Room: The Proposition

The cider press groaned under another rotation, the wooden screw biting deeper into the layered apple pulp with a wet, grinding protest. Eliza March tightened her grip on the handle and leaned her weight into the turn, her shoulder muscles burning pleasantly after hours of repetition. The smell of fermenting fruit hung thick in the barn, sweet and sharp, underlaid by the mustier scent of old straw and the mineral tang of stone walls that had stood for two centuries.

Footsteps on the gravel path outside. Heels, not boots. The rhythm was deliberate, unhurried, and utterly out of place among the festival volunteers hauling crates and untangling fairy lights.

"Miss March."

Eliza did not stop turning the press. She recognized the voice from the front desk of the Bramblewood Inn, from overheard phone calls in the lobby, from the particular way certain hotel guests went quiet when a particular car pulled into the car park. Delphine Crane stood in the barn doorway, backlit by the pale autumn sun, a silhouette of impeccable tailoring and calculated stillness.

"Ms. Crane." Eliza gave the handle one more quarter-turn before releasing it. "You are a long way from the lobby."

"I have been searching for you." Delphine stepped inside, her eyes adjusting to the dimness. She wore a cream cashmere coat over something darker, and her dark hair was pinned in a style that suggested she had consulted three mirrors before leaving her room. A leather portfolio hung from one manicured hand. "You have been rather elusive since the festival began."

"I have been rather busy since the festival began. Pressing cider. Helping Margaret Hollis with the jam tent. Avoiding the hay bale incident." Eliza wiped her palms on the apron Margaret had lent her. "Is there something Theodore Ashford needs from the front desk? I am not on duty until six."

"Theodore is asleep. He takes a nap before dinner, as you have surely noticed." Delphine moved closer, the crunch of her heels on scattered straw loud in the quiet barn. "I am here about your sleeping arrangements. Specifically, about the fact that you have been sharing Theodore's bed."

Eliza met her gaze without blinking. "I have been sleeping in a room with a connecting door that was never locked. If Mr. Ashford has a complaint about the arrangement, he can take it up with the front desk. Or with me, directly, like an adult."

"He has no complaint. He finds the company pleasant." Delphine's smile did not reach her eyes. "I, however, find the situation unfortunate. Particularly the rumors."

"Rumors."

"The village is small, Miss March. The inn is smaller. You arrive alone, you book the last available room, and within forty-eight hours you are sharing a bed with the most prominent guest we have had in years. People talk. People imagine." Delphine opened the portfolio, extracting a single sheet of paper. "I imagine things myself, as a professional habit. It saves time."

She held the page out. Eliza did not take it.

"What is that?"

"A draft. A piece for the Bramblewood Bugle. Our local gazette has a devoted readership among the weekenders and the retired gentry." Delphine tilted the page so the late afternoon light caught the typed lines. "The headline I am considering is 'Mystery Woman in Theodore Ashford's Bed: Who Is Eliza March, and What Does She Want?' It has a certain ring, I think. The repetition. The implication."

Eliza's pulse did not quicken. She had been threatened by men with badges and men with budgets. A young woman with a portfolio and a grudge required only patience.

"The implication being what, precisely?"

"That you are a woman of flexible virtue. That you are angling for money. That you are, perhaps, angling for something more permanent." Delphine's voice remained cool, almost bored. "Small towns love a scandal. Even smaller ones love a redemption arc. I could write either. The question is which one you prefer."

"You are here to blackmail me."

"I am here to offer you a choice." Delphine closed the portfolio with a soft snap. "A pre-approved interview. Your words, vetted by my hand, printed under your own byline. You get to control the narrative. You become the plucky freelance journalist writing a piece on the autumn festival rather than the opportunistic stranger warming an old man's bed for unclear reasons."

"And if I refuse the interview?"

"Then I print the piece I have already written. It is not kind, Miss March. It is not inaccurate, exactly, but it is not kind." Delphine stepped closer still. The scent of her perfume reached Eliza, something green and floral with an edge of something sharper beneath. "I do not enjoy doing it. I find the work distasteful. But I have spent three years managing Theodore Ashford's public image, and I will not have some outsider dismantle it for the sake of a few weeks' lodging."

"You think I am after something."

"I think everyone is after something. Theodore is after novelty. You are after a story. I am after order." Delphine tilted her head, a bird assessing a rival on a feeder. "The question is which of us is willing to bleed for it."

Eliza considered the cider press. The wooden frame was old, well-maintained, the kind of craft that no longer existed in factory production. She thought of the handle under her palm, the resistance of the pulp, the slow yielding of juice into the waiting trough.

"You are afraid," she said quietly.

Delphine's composure flickered. Only for an instant, a tightening around the eyes, a fractional shift in weight. Then the mask resettled.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You have spent three years managing Theodore Ashford. You have curated his schedule, vetted his callers, selected his wines, chosen his reading material. You have made yourself indispensable, and in return you have received a salary and the occasional evening alone with a man who treats you as furniture he has grown accustomed to." Eliza kept her voice level, almost conversational. "And now I appear. A stranger in his room. Someone he actually talks to. Someone who makes him laugh, which I suspect is rarer than you would admit. And you are afraid that if he has a choice, he will not choose you."

The barn fell silent except for the slow drip of cider into the waiting bucket.

"You know nothing about my relationship with Theodore."

"I know that you threatened me within an hour of my arrival. I know that you searched my room while I was at the festival. I know that you have positioned yourself between Theodore and every other person in this village since the moment you arrived." Eliza folded her arms. "That is not the behavior of a woman secure in her position. That is the behavior of a woman who suspects she is being replaced."

Delphine's fingers tightened on the portfolio. The leather creaked softly.

"You are playing a dangerous game, Miss March."

"I am not playing a game at all. I am booking a room and writing a story. You are the one who introduced stakes." Eliza reached past Delphine and picked up the bucket of fresh cider. "Here is my counterproposal. You do not print your piece. I do not write anything about Theodore Ashford, his assistant, or the nature of their arrangement, which I suspect would make very interesting reading in certain London circles. We both behave like professionals and enjoy the rest of the festival."

Delphine stared at her. The mask had cracked further now, revealing something raw and furious beneath the polish.

"You would not dare."

"I am a journalist, Ms. Crane. Dare is my profession." Eliza hefted the bucket. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have fourteen gallons of cider to deliver to the tasting tent before the festival opens properly. Some of us have actual work to do."

She stepped past Delphine and walked out into the thin autumn sun, the bucket swinging at her side. Behind her, she heard no sound of pursuit, no sharp retort. Only the quiet creak of the barn door closing, and then the soft, deliberate footsteps turning back toward the inn.

Eliza did not look back. She counted her steps instead, matching her breath to the rhythm, letting the cool air settle the heat in her chest. At the count of forty, she allowed herself one glance over her shoulder.

Delphine Crane stood in the doorway of the barn, very still, watching her go. The portfolio hung at her side. The expression on her face was unreadable.

Eliza turned back to the path and kept walking.

The tasting tent occupied the lower paddock, where the grass had been cut short and trestle tables assembled in long ranks beneath strings of unlit lanterns. Eliza could hear the festival waking as she approached: the clatter of crockery from the kitchen staff, the lowing of cattle in the holding pens beyond the hedge, the distant percussive rhythm of someone testing a PA system.

She set the cider bucket on the nearest table, flexing her fingers to restore circulation, and surveyed the operation. Margaret Hollis stood at the far end of the tent with a clipboard, directing two young volunteers who were arranging tasting glasses in precise rows. Margaret looked up as Eliza approached, and something in her expression shifted from professional neutrality to cautious welcome.

"The cider is here," Eliza said. "Fourteen gallons, as promised. Where would you like it staged?"

"End table, near the apple press." Margaret consulted her clipboard. "We open the tasting in forty minutes. Theo's promised to give the opening remarks, though I have not been able to pin him down on exactly what he intends to say."

"He is probably composing something appropriately grand."

"Knowing Theo, it will be half classical allusion and half self-congratulation." Margaret's mouth twitched. "You will stay for the opening, I hope. As my guest. Consider it partial compensation for being conscripted into cider delivery."

"I would not miss it."

"Good." Margaret glanced past Eliza toward the lane. "I noticed you speaking with Ms. Crane earlier. In the barn."

Eliza kept her face neutral. "She was curious about my camera."

"Delphine is curious about many things. It is her particular talent." Margaret's gaze lingered a moment, assessing, then moved on. "Well. I have fourteen other crises to attend to. Find me if anything needs resolving that cannot be handled with a corkscrew and a firm manner."

She moved off, clipboard tapping against her thigh. Eliza watched her go, then turned her attention to the cider.

The bucket was heavy, and the work of decanting it into the smaller serving jugs was methodical. She welcomed the labor. Her hands needed occupation. Her mind needed silence.

But silence, it seemed, was not to be had.

"I thought I might find you here."

Theo Ashford's voice came from behind her, rich and unhurried, and she turned to find him approaching along the trestle row with the loose-limbed ease of a man who had never rushed anywhere in his life. He wore a tweed jacket the color of wet bracken, a pale yellow waistcoat, and an expression of faintly amused expectation.

"Theodore." She straightened. "I was just decanting your cider."

"So I see. An unexpected pleasure. I had assumed Margaret would press the volunteers into service." He came to stand across the table from her, hands folded behind his back. "You have been busy this morning."

"Someone had to be."

"Indeed. And I have been meaning to speak with you about the matter of that busyness." He paused, letting the word hang. "Specifically, the matter of your employment here, and the photographs you have been taking."

Eliza's hands stilled on the jug she was lifting. "My employer is Miss Hollis. My photographs are of her inn and her festival. If you have a complaint, you should raise it with her."

"I have no complaint. Quite the contrary." Theo's pale eyes studied her with an attention that felt almost physical. "Your work is exceptionally good. I observed you yesterday at the orchards. You have a composer's eye. A sense of where the light ought to fall."

"You were watching me?"

"I watch most things, Miss March. It is a habit of my profession." He smiled, and the smile did not reach his eyes. "And it occurs to me that we might be of mutual assistance."

Eliza set the jug down carefully. "I am listening."

"The festival requires certain photographs. Not the candid atmospheric work you have been producing, which is admirable, but something more formal. Portraits of significance. The committee, the hostess, the honored guests. Images that will communicate to the regional press the importance of this event, and by extension, the importance of the man underwriting it."

"You want me to photograph you."

"I want you to photograph me in a manner that suggests I am a benefactor rather than a developer. There is a difference, though a subtle one." Theo tilted his head. "In exchange, I am prepared to offer you a small compensation. A fee, naturally, but also something rather more valuable."

"Such as?"

"Information."

The word dropped between them like a stone into still water. Eliza did not move.

"You are a journalist," Theo continued. "A freelance, if the registration card at the desk is accurate. I have known many journalists in my time. Some excellent, most tedious, a few dangerous. You strike me as the first category." He paused. "I am also aware that journalists require stories. And that a quiet cider festival in an obscure corner of Somerset is unlikely to provide the sort of story that justifies the expense of travel and lodging."

Eliza's pulse ticked up, but she kept her voice level. "What are you proposing, Mr. Ashford?"

"Allow me to be direct. There is a story here, though not the one you imagine. It is not a scandal. It is, in fact, precisely the opposite." He leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice. "It is a respectable story. A love story, if you will. A man of a certain age, returned to the country of his birth after many years abroad. A beloved inn, restored. A festival founded. The patronage of the arts. The quiet philanthropy of a private citizen."

"You want me to write a profile."

"I want you to consider it. The compensation would be generous. Exclusive access. Cooperation from myself and my staff." His eyes held hers. "Including, I should mention, Miss Crane."

Eliza felt the trap close another notch. "Including Miss Crane."

"Especially Miss Crane. She is, as you have perhaps observed, a person of considerable interest. Photogenic. Fashionable. The sort of young woman the magazines adore." Theo spread his hands. "A profile that frames her correctly would do wonders for her career. And for mine. And, I might add, for your own."

"And what would be the price of this generosity?"

"Discretion. Nothing more. The simple assurance that certain other matters, which I am sure you have noticed and which would make a far more sensational piece, remain unremarked upon." He smiled again. "We all have arrangements, Miss March. Some are uglier than others. I am offering you the opportunity to describe only the prettier ones."

Eliza was quiet for a long moment. The cider breeze stirred the lanterns overhead. In the distance, the PA system emitted a short squeal of feedback.

"I will need to think about it," she said.

"Naturally. Take the afternoon. But do not take too long. Miss Crane grows impatient with delay."

He inclined his head in a small bow and moved off along the trestle row, hands still folded behind him, his gait unhurried. Eliza watched him go. Her hands had begun to tremble slightly, and she pressed them flat against the table until the tremor passed.

The cider sat in its jug, golden and still. Beyond the tent, the festival crowd was beginning to gather: early arrivals drifting across the paddock, families with small children, a cluster of journalists from the regional press conferring near the gate.

Eliza picked up the jug and resumed her work. She had decisions to make, and the morning would not wait for her.

She was halfway through the third jug when she sensed someone watching her. Not Theo's particular brand of scrutiny, nor Delphine's sharp surveillance, but something more tentative. She glanced up.

Tom Bramble stood at the entrance to the tent, his hands in his pockets, his posture suggesting he had been there for some time. He caught her eye and offered a small wave, half-apologetic.

"Sorry," he said, approaching. "I did not mean to startle you. I was sent to fetch the first cider jug for the press table."

"Of course." Eliza handed him the filled jug. "Be careful with it. It is stronger than it looks."

"Stronger than it looks." Tom turned the phrase over. "That is an interesting observation. Do you apply it to cider, or to other things?"

"To whatever fits." She wiped her hands on her apron. "Are you writing copy for the festival programme, Mr. Bramble?"

"I am attempting to. With varying degrees of success." He set the jug down on a tray one of the volunteers had brought. "I have been told I am too literary for a cider festival. Too many adjectives."

"Impossible."

"I am glad you think so. My editor does not share your confidence." He hesitated. "Miss March, I wonder if I might ask you something. Off the record, as it were."

"That depends on the question."

"It is a simple one." He met her eyes with an earnestness that sat oddly on his sardonic features. "Why did you come here? To this festival, this inn, this corner of the world. You are not from Somerset. Your card at the desk says you are based in London. There are any number of festivals closer to home."

Eliza considered the question. She could give him the polite answer: a pleasant weekend, an interest in cider, the attraction of a quiet place. She could give him the professional answer: a commissioned piece, a story to file. She could give him no answer at all.

Instead, she said: "I came because someone recommended it. A colleague who had stayed here last spring. She said the inn was honest, and the cider was good, and the proprietor did not ask unnecessary questions."

"And has that been your experience?"

"So far." Eliza tilted her head. "Why do you ask, Mr. Bramble?"

"Because I am trying to understand the geometry of this place. Who belongs here, and who has been arranged." He spoke slowly, as if selecting each word with care. "It is a peculiar festival. The hostess is unusually sharp. The patron is unusually polished. The assistant is unusually present. And the journalist who arrived yesterday has a camera that sees rather too much."

Eliza went still.

"I am not criticizing," Tom continued. "I am observing. It is what I do." He paused. "It may also be what you do. Which suggests we have more in common than a fondness for adjectives."

"Perhaps."

"In any case." He picked up the tray with the cider jug balanced on it. "I will leave you to your work. But if you find yourself inclined to talk, later, I will be in the press tent. Writing things that are too literary for a cider festival." He smiled, a small rueful expression. "Or walking in the orchard. I find the orchard restorative."

He moved off across the trestle row, the tray steady in his hands. Eliza watched him go, and felt the careful structure of her morning shift once more, as if a card had been drawn from somewhere in the middle of the house.

Three conversations in one morning. Three men who had noticed her. Three different forms of pressure, applied with three different degrees of skill.

She picked up the empty jug and carried it back to the bucket.

The festival was opening in twenty minutes. The crowd was thickening. And somewhere in the orchard, Tom Bramble was walking among the apple trees, thinking thoughts he had chosen not to share.

Eliza finished the decanting in silence. She had a great deal to consider, and very little time in which to consider it.

The festival crowd thickened around the trestles as the hour approached. Eliza could feel the energy shifting, the way a room full of strangers begins to coalesce into something with its own weather. Laughter carried from the cider bar. The brass band warmed up with a scale that wobbled on the high notes. Children chased each other between the booths, their sneakers bright against the trampled grass.

She had been pouring for nearly an hour when she saw Theodore Ashford cross the green.

He moved differently than he had the night before. Slower, more deliberate, as if he had considered every step before committing to it. His coat was the same charcoal, but he had added a scarf today, deep green cashmere, looped once at the throat. Delphine Crane walked a half pace behind him, sunglasses on, a leather portfolio tucked under one arm. She looked like a woman attending her own execution.

Eliza watched them approach. She had a glass in one hand and a cloth in the other, and she made herself continue wiping the counter as if she had not noticed. But her shoulders had gone rigid under the cotton shirt, and she knew, without looking up, when Ashford stopped at the trestle.

"Miss March."

She raised her eyes. The morning light caught the silver at his temples, turned it almost white. He looked older today, she thought. Or perhaps simply less armored.

"Mr. Ashford."

"I wonder," he said, "if I might impose upon you for a moment of your time. When you have a spare interval."

She glanced toward the booth. Margaret was working the press end of the bar, chatting with a reporter from the Weston Gazette about the proper serving temperature for Kingston Black. There was a small lull. People were drifting toward the music.

"Perhaps now," Eliza said. "If you don't mind talking while I work."

He considered this. "I don't mind at all."

He stepped around to the side of the trestle, out of the flow of foot traffic. Delphine remained where she was, hovering at the edge of the trestle's wooden shadow, her face unreadable behind the dark lenses. Eliza pulled a fresh glass from the rack and began polishing it, slowly, giving her hands something to do.

"The young man you were speaking with earlier," Ashford said. "Tom Bramble. You know him."

It was not a question. She let a beat pass before answering.

"He's the cider maker. Yes."

"And the conversation was?"

She set the glass down. Met his gaze. "I beg your pardon?"

"Forgive me. I do not mean to pry. I only wondered whether he had mentioned anything about his pressing schedule. I have a small interest in the subject."

Delphine shifted her weight. The portfolio under her arm creaked.

Eliza picked up another glass. "He mentioned it was a good year for Kingston Black. I believe that is a variety of apple."

"It is."

"Then that is what we discussed."

Ashford studied her for a moment. Then he smiled, the same small, careful expression he had used the night before. "You are very good at your craft, Miss March. Both of them, I suspect."

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"I think you are."

He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small envelope, cream-colored, unsealed. He set it on the trestle between them, beside the bowl of apple slices she had laid out for tasting.

"A business proposition," he said. "Of a sort. I would like you to consider it. There is no obligation, and no immediate answer required."

Eliza looked at the envelope. Then at him.

"Consider what?"

"Reading it, to begin with." He stepped back, smoothing the front of his coat with both hands. "I have admired your work for some time. From a distance. I should very much like the opportunity to discuss it more directly."

The festival noise swelled around them. A child shrieked with laughter somewhere near the bandstand. Margaret was laughing too, her voice carrying above the hum of conversation.

"I don't understand," Eliza said.

"I believe you do." He inclined his head. "I will be at the Red Lion this evening. Should you wish to continue the conversation. Or should you wish to decline, I will respect that absolutely. I am not in the habit of imposing my interest on unwilling parties."

He turned and walked back across the green, Delphine falling into step beside him. The woman did not look back, but Eliza saw her hand tighten on the portfolio until the knuckles went white.

The envelope sat on the trestle.

Eliza stared at it for a long moment. Then she slipped it into the pocket of her apron without opening it, and returned to pouring.

The afternoon blurred into a long succession of small transactions. Glasses filled, emptied, rinsed. Palates discussed. The festival wound through its program, the brass band played three sets, the rain held off in merciful defiance of the morning clouds. Eliza smiled until her face ached, recommended the Kingston Black to a man who turned out to be allergic to apples, and learned the correct pronunciation of perry from a Welsh couple who insisted on demonstrating.

She thought about the envelope. She thought about Ashford. She thought about Tom Bramble, somewhere out in the orchard, walking among his apple trees and not asking her any questions at all.

At half past four, Margaret found her.

"Off you go, love. I've got it from here. Theo's covering the last shift at the bar."

Eliza untied her apron slowly. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. Go on. You've been on your feet since seven." Margaret gave her a small, knowing look. "And whatever's in that envelope, you'll want to read it somewhere quiet."

Eliza flushed. "I don't know what you mean."

"Course you don't, dear." Margaret was already turning back toward the press tent, a stack of clean glasses balanced expertly in her arms. "There's a lovely bench at the bottom of the orchard. Under the old Egremont. You can't miss it. Just follow the gravel path past the long grass."

The orchard was quiet in the late afternoon. The light came through the leaves in long golden shafts, picking out the mottled skin of the russets and the deep crimson of the dessert apples. A blackbird sang from somewhere high in the Bramley, and a bee droned past, heavy with the last of the day's foraging.

Eliza found the bench. Sat. Drew the envelope from her apron pocket.

Inside was a single sheet of cream-colored paper, folded once. The handwriting was small, precise, the ink a dark sepia that looked expensive. She read it twice, slowly, then a third time, parsing each sentence for what it said and what it didn't.

Dear Miss March,

I have followed your work with great interest for some years now. Your piece on the Pemberton affair was, in my view, the finest example of investigative journalism produced in this country in the past decade. I will not insult you by pretending otherwise.

I find myself in a position where I require the services of someone with your particular talents. The matter is delicate, and I would prefer to discuss it in person rather than commit it to paper. If you are willing to hear me out, I should be grateful for the opportunity.

Whatever your decision, I should like you to know that I have enormous respect for your work, and that this letter is offered in that spirit alone.

Yours, T.A.

Eliza folded the letter. Unfolded it. Folded it again.

She sat with it for a long time, the bench warm beneath her, the blackbird still singing in the tree. She thought about the Pemberton affair. About the source who had lied to her, and the source who had risked everything to tell her the truth. About the piece she had written at three in the morning, her hands shaking so badly she could barely type, knowing as she wrote that it would end her career or remake it.

It had nearly ended her. She had been blacklisted for two years. She had written advertising copy for a car dealership. She had lived in a bedsit in Bristol with a damp patch on the ceiling shaped like Italy.

And then the story had broken, and she had won the prize she had not let herself hope for, and her career had resumed, battered but intact. Ashford had been right. It had been the finest work of her life, and no one had noticed at the time, and she had built herself back from the wreckage with her own two hands.

She had done it once. She could do it again.

Or she could walk away. Decline the envelope. Go home. Write the piece about Tom Bramble and his lost orchard, and let the larger story remain a story she had chosen not to chase.

She closed her eyes. The sun was warm on her face. The orchard smelled of apples and grass and the faintest trace of woodsmoke from somewhere down the valley.

When she opened her eyes, Tom Bramble was standing at the edge of the long grass, a canvas bag over one shoulder, looking at her as if he had known she would be there.

He didn't speak. Just waited.

"I'm thinking," she said.

"I can see that."

"About a job offer. Of sorts."

He nodded slowly. Took a few steps closer, but not so close as to crowd her. Leaned against the trunk of the Egremont tree, the bark rough against his shoulder.

"From Ashford," she said. It wasn't a question.

"How did you know?"

"Lucky guess."

He smiled, faintly. "You don't strike me as someone who guesses."

She looked down at the letter in her lap. The sepia ink caught the light.

"For what it's worth," Tom said, "I think you should take it."

She raised her eyes. "You do?"

"I think you're the kind of person who needs to know. Whatever it is he's hiding, you won't be able to walk away until you do." He paused. "I've known people like that. Journalists. They can't leave a door unopened. It eats at them."

"Is that how you see me?"

"It's how I see most of the good ones." He looked out through the trees toward the valley. "The bad ones can leave a door alone. They don't need to know. Only the good ones can't."

Eliza sat with that for a moment. The blackbird had gone quiet. A light wind moved through the leaves above her, and a single apple fell somewhere in the long grass, with a small, soft thud.

"And if I take it," she said, "and it destroys me?"

"Then it destroys you." His voice was gentle. "But it won't. You've survived worse. I can tell."

"Can you?"

"Yes." He looked at her directly. "You have the look of someone who has already survived the worst thing. And is still standing."

She folded the letter one more time. Slipped it back into the envelope. Stood up from the bench, brushing a few stray leaves from her skirt.

"I'm going to go," she said.

"To the Red Lion?"

"Yes."

He nodded. "Then I won't keep you."

She started up the gravel path, then paused. Turned back.

"Tom."

"Yes."

"Thank you. For the cider. And the talk. And not asking me any questions I didn't want to answer."

"You're welcome, Eliza."

She walked back up through the orchard, the envelope in her hand, the festival noise swelling again as she approached the green. The band had struck up something old and jaunty. People were dancing on the grass in front of the bandstand, their shadows lengthening in the late afternoon light.

The Red Lion rose at the edge of the common, its windows catching the sun. She could see the shape of someone standing at the bar inside, the glint of silver hair.

She squared her shoulders. Tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

And walked in to hear what Theodore Ashford had to say.