Make ’em laugh, make ’em cry, make ’em wait, says the old advice to aspiring writers. I’ve done the last with my story about Eleanor, Duchess of Haverford. I’m having a go at the first two. Here’s a bit. What do you think? And what do you want to share?

Ah yes. Of course. It should have occurred to her, but it had not. She had been about to ascend to the traditional chambers of the Duchess of Haverford—an entire suite of rooms that mirrored and were adjacent to the duke’s suite.

Another reminder that she was no longer the mistress of this house and the other houses of the ducal estates. She climbed the stairs with her heart sinking, turned into the family wing, and stopped at the indicated door.

Tears welled in her eyes. The suite had been fully refurbished. She saw new wallpaper and drapes in her favourite colours, the comfortable chairs that had sat for years either side of her fireplace looking as fresh as the day they were purchased, now each side of her new fireplace. Above it was the same painting of her two sons as little boys that had been over her mantle since the day the painter delivered it.

She drifted around the room, touching one familiar item after another, and stopping to examine the new pieces that someone had selected with care and an eye to her comfort. A warm throw rug in soft fur. A replacement for the old footstool that had always been just a little too low.

And, yes, the fireplace chairs had been recovered, but the original fabric had been copied exactly.

Following her dresser through the door into her new bedchamber and beyond into her dressing room, she found the same touch, redolent of love in every detail. Her study, too, on the other side of the sitting room, was perfect—almost a duplicate of the one she had created in the duchess’s quarters, with her delicate desk, all her books in glass-doored bookshelves, and her own comfortable reading chair. The one addition was delightful: a window seat from which she could look over the formal gardens enclosed in the u-shaped formed by the main house and the two large wings that stretched towards the river.

It must have been Charlotte. For the first time in months, Eleanor allowed the hope that she had been forgiven to unfurl in her heart.