She didn’t need to see the expression on Susie’s face to know what her thoughts were on the place. It was shabby. Needed work. If you were feeling mean, you might describe it as run-down. Rory had hired a steam stripper and she and Belle had spent the last two weeks stripping wallpaper and cleaning the place up. Despite joking about the steam giving them a free sauna, it had been bloody hard work and they had barely scratched the surface. Literally.

‘That’s probably a good thing: you’d be hard pressed persuading anyone to move in here, anyway. I was thinking you could find a boyfriend who lived somewhere habitable and then move in with him? You know, cut your losses.’

Susie was joking, but the thought had crossed Rory’s mind more than once in the last couple of weeks. Not the boyfriend bit, the cutting her losses. But she had never given up on anything in her life, and Belle, bless her, hadn’t complained once. No, they were going to do this.

‘You will be jealous when you see what a palace this place is going to turn into.’ Maybe if she repeated it enough times she might begin to believe it herself.

Susie topped up their drinks, although she was the only one who’d finished. ‘A palace? I didn’t think you believed in fairy tales?’

Rory picked up her glass. ‘I believe in the ones that I would write. The ones where the princess saves herself.’

At that moment, the lights and music turned off. There was a sudden gloom and silence.

‘What happened?’ squeaked Penny. ‘Did you do that on purpose?’

If Rory wasn’t terrified about the electrics, she would have laughed. ‘No, Pen, much as I am enjoying the dramatic effect, I did not do it.’

‘Mum!’ Belle shouted down the stairs. ‘My computer just switched off.’

‘It’s all right, love,’ Rory called. ‘It’s just the electrics. Don’t touch anything for a minute.’

Thankfully, she’d had the foresight to buy a couple of torches when they’d moved in, and it wasn’t getting dark yet anyway. Gingerly, she opened the door to the cupboard under the stairs and scrutinised the electricity box.

‘Bloody hell,’ Susie was peering in behind her. ‘I’m no electrician but that does not look good.’ She patted Rory on the shoulder. ‘Good luck with saving yourself from that, Princess.’

Chapter Four

‘Promise me you will NEVER touch the electrics again.’

Rory should not have told her mother about the blackout. Where ordinary people might remark on the inconvenience, in Sheila’s head, Rory was going to end up spread-eagled in the hallway with frazzled hair and smoke coming from her fingertips.

‘Mum, you do realise I am thirty-eight years old, right?’

‘Yes, and sometimes I don’t think you have the sense you were born with.’ Sheila shook her head in disgust. ‘Electrics!’

John Lewis’s soft furnishings department was predictably empty on a Thursday evening. Sheila had asked Rory to go shopping with her for some cushions for her new flat, but Rory suspected an ulterior motive. For a start, her mum already had enough scatter cushions to furnish a stately home. ‘What kind of cushions are you looking for, Mum?’

Sheila waved her hands around in front of her. ‘Stop rushing me, Aurora. I just want to have a look around, get some ideas. I need to modernise myself a bit. The lounge area in Seymour House hasn’t a hint of a high-backed chintz chair or a lap tray. Just lots of single armchairs in different colours.