Then she saw that the clock on the mantelpiece was at one minute to eight and felt that it would be a mistake if the Earl came in and found her and Mrs. Newman there.
“I will go and get the first course ready,” Iona said.
She hurried back to the kitchen with Mrs. Newman following her.
By the time she had dished up the fish and the hot plate that went with it, Newman had arrived with a tray.
Iona then started working on the second course.
No one questioned whether she was a good cook, but she herself knew that she was exceptional in that she had learnt to cook from one of the most brilliant chefs her father had ever employed.
He was a Frenchman who had come to England out of curiosity and her father persuaded him to spend a month or two at The Hall.
She had been twelve at the time an
