Anyone else would have retreated but she had always been intrigued by the contents of other people’s bookcases and she wasn’t going to resist delving into these, even if she could do with a torch.

It was the library but the room was incredibly dark and gloomy with only one narrow window directly across from her. Where on earth was she? Lady Heaton hadn’t brought her down here the other day, had she? Weren’t the signs to keep the public out of certain rooms supposed to have gone up by now? A door to her right was ajar and she pushed it open. This wasn’t good, she thought ten minutes later, turning down yet another similar-looking corridor in the bowels of the house. The heart of the sprawling house had once been the monastic church, and opening a side door, she went inside. Taking the computer printout of her tour and the map – kindly drawn by Lady Heaton – out of her handbag, she set off across the now redundantly-named stable yard towards Heaton Abbey House. The estate manager occupied one flat, she was to occupy the second, and the third was still vacant. The cloisters had become stables and were now offices, while the lofts overhead had recently been converted into living accommodation. The grass had long been cobbled over and they were now covered with gravel. Read An Excerpt… Leaving her boxes in the car in what had once been the abbey’s cloister garth – the grassy area around which the cloister arcades ran – she got out and took a long look around her.

A Summer of Secrets by Lorna Peel