That Would Be a Fairy Tale - By Amanda Grange Page 0,4

your neighbours, don’t forget. They have to want to attend your gatherings, and more than that they have to want to attend them decked out in all their finery. Otherwise there will be nothing to tempt the thief to strike again.’

‘Which is our only hope of catching him. I know.’ He thought. ‘She didn’t look important,’ he said. He divested himself of his car coat, which had protected his narrow trousers and jacket from the dust of the road. ‘Fine grey eyes, a determined chin, and a tantalising figure. Probably just a girl from the village.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Roddy. ‘Well, what do you think?’ he asked, changing the subject, as he looked round the empty but beautiful hall.

‘It’s a fine old place,’ said Alex. He, too, looked round the hall. It was light and bright, and with its cream walls it had a pleasantly cool and spacious feel. Although it was at present bare - no paintings or portraits lined the staircase, and no console tables or other items of furniture took away from the emptiness - the proportions were elegant, and the tall windows let in plenty of daylight.

He turned round slowly, taking it in. An imposing staircase led upwards. He let his eyes return to the ground floor. A number of doors, half open, led into different rooms. He walked across the hall, his footsteps echoing on the wooden floor. He threw open the first door. A large, high-ceilinged room was revealed, with windows looking out over the front of the house.

This room was not entirely empty. A few pieces of good furniture - an impressive mahogany dining-table and chairs, and a mahogany sideboard - remained. Alex looked enquiringly at Roddy.

‘Miss Haringay had to let some of the furniture remain with the house,’ he explained. ‘She did not have room to take it all to the Lodge.’

Alex nodded. He cast his eye round the room once more. ‘It’s very impressive,’ he said, before wandering back into the hall and looking round again. ‘My agent chose well.’

‘I still think you should have looked it over yourself before buying it.’

‘What for? I have an efficient agent who knew what I was looking for: an imposing residence in the right area. It’s not as though I wanted to call the place home.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Roddy. ‘It needs modernising, of course.’

‘It does. But as I don’t propose to live here permanently that isn’t a consideration. What matters is that it’s of the right stature, and it’s in the right place.’ His glance ran round the hall once again, and then suddenly his voice took on a steely quality. ‘Once it’s baited it will make the perfect trap.’

Cicely propped her bicycle up against the wall of the Lodge. Much of the mud had been dislodged on the journey home, and she knew that a good dousing with the watering can would restore it to most of its former glory. The handlebars she had already managed to bend back into shape. They had not been badly damaged, fortunately, and it had been an easy matter to put them straight.

She went down the garden to the shed and fetched the watering can and then cleaned the bicycle herself: Gibson had enough to do, without cleaning her bicycle as well.

Having successfully carried out her task she left her bicycle drying in the warm June sunshine and went into the house. Avoiding Gibson, her butler, who had refused to leave her service no matter how impecunious she had become, she made her way up to the bedroom where she stripped off her wet things.

Her short black boots were first, followed by her fawn gaiters, which she unbuttoned with the help of a button hook. Then came her divided skirt, her drawers, her shirt and her chemise. They would have to be cleaned, but that was a problem for later on. Right now, she wanted to clean herself.

She ran a bath, thankful for the fact that the Lodge had had plumbing installed in one of her father’s rare bursts of enthusiasm for something other than his beloved bicycles. But she noted with a sigh that the range must not be working properly as the water was not very hot. Nevertheless, it would have to do.

Slipping into the tepid water she gave both herself and her hair a thorough wash, rubbing her hair dry with a towel before dressing herself in fresh, clean clothes.

Unlike most other young ladies of one-and-twenty, Cicely did not have a maid, and