The Earl Maid

By Susannah Donim

Rob is a shy and reserved young man, but an unexpected inheritance suddenly makes him the centre of attention. His wife helps him find a way of hiding in plain sight.

Chapter 5

The Countess brings in a private investigator to help counter the threat the Hadleighs are facing. Martha the maid goes undercover.

CHAPTER 86
Marty must have had his chat with Gemma, for she asked for a house meal the next Friday evening, which brought a flurry of urgent requests for additional places to be laid, one of them for a much smaller person. No Blake, however, as it turned out he was doing some coppering job or other. What the hell; I had asked Paul and Paula as well, so it was the second dining room, as ever, for a full House. Gemma insisted on doing the cooking, really pushing the boat out with little savoury nibbles to start with followed by a full-on chicken dinner with more trimmings than a Mod’s Vespa, and as she bustled around the kitchen, directing some of the other girls to ‘pour this’ or ’peel those’, I found myself looking properly at Marty, as he sat in an alcove, as much out of the way as he could manage, given his size.

The Earl Maid

By Susannah Donim

Rob is a shy and reserved young man, but an unexpected inheritance suddenly makes him the centre of attention. His wife helps him find a way of hiding in plain sight.

Chapter 3

The Hadleighs start to host meetings of local societies to ease their financial difficulties. Rob gets drawn into a rather unusual demonstration at a meeting of the Pink Ladies.

The Earl Maid

By Susannah Donim

Rob is a shy and reserved young man, but an unexpected inheritance suddenly makes him the centre of attention. His wife helps him find a way of hiding in plain sight.

Chapter 2

The Earl and Countess move into their new home, but Rob is still too shy and tongue-tied to be comfortable. Then Susie suggests a new game to relax him, using the old clothes they find in the attic.

When we arrived at the Hall on Saturday morning, Martha answered the door.

CHAPTER 85
I spent some time as the days lengthened once more working with Heidi and the local colleges, and to my delight we found a couple of vocational places for Charlie and Tiff, while Clara settled into her own A-level preparations, and we lost Alicia.

The Earl Maid

By Susannah Donim

Rob is a shy and reserved young man, but an unexpected inheritance suddenly makes him the centre of attention. His wife helps him find a way of hiding in plain sight.

Prologue

CHAPTER 84
It was odd, in that I felt almost as tired as Di must have, just with the waiting around. Once we were all back at the House, and Paula had departed with her man, I slept the clock round. Of course, that might just have had something to do with what we drank at Harry’s, but I did my best to claim otherwise, even if only to myself. I rattled round the House on my own that day, the girls all being either at school, work or on some teenager mission of other to the city centre.

The kidnap of the Texan sister Sandra has opened up a further can of worms by exposing tome high level government involvement in central America (Guatamala) and the complications arising from the incident has widened and lengthened the case. The delays mean that Lola, Erica, Angela and Olivia will be stuck in Texas for months as the case is prepared.

“’I was thinking last night,” said Melody as we ate an early Breakfast.

“You seem to know an awful lot about business for someone who says that they don’t want to be involved in it?”

She’d got me bang to rights there. Melody was proving to be a very astute person indeed.

Meagan's Tail

A new Universe, a New story!

Intermission of our story

Pixie time!

CHAPTER 82
Cathy didn’t speak much as she drove us home, but I suspect that was simply the way she approached her driving, like everything else she did: measured, methodical, cautious and then, after all options had been weighed, decisive. It wasn’t until we were safely on the M4 that she offered a comment.

“What was it Peggy Hughes said to you as we left, Debbie?”

Byline chapter 24

CHAPTER 81
The girls had recorded the news, of course, and once we had finished creating a new underwater hazard, we settled in as a crew to watch it a few times, although Jazz and Nell had made their apologies and driven home as we had finished, still being kind enough to fit some of the girls into their cars..

It was Paula who surprised me, her cheeks glowing pink with wind and effort, a smile seeming fixed to her lips. As the rest of us stumbled over the shingle back to the bus stop and Paul’s car, she squeezed my arm in delight.