Chapter 8

Getting back to the car, we hoisted the basket into the boot.

“Well, Constable McAvoy, we can walk to the hunting lodge from here if you’re up to it.”

“Sounds great.” He treated me to another face splitting grin.

As we made our way to the lodge, I began to tell Liam about some of the other forest creatures. “There’re more than five hundred rare and endangered insects in this place,” I said, swatting away a rather persistent fly.

“I see I’m in the presence of an expert.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to come across as an anorak.”

He reached over and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “You haven’t done that at all. I’m having a really wonderful day. Honestly I am.”

“Thanks, I am, too.” I didn’t trust myself to take that line of thought any further.

Liam gave me a gentle smile.

I decided to move onto safer topics. “You know, even though it’s known as the Elizabethan Hunting Lodge, it was originally built for King Henry VIII in 1543. Queen Elizabeth I was a keen hunter like her father.”