Escape for Christmas (10 page)

Sliding in next to Cal, Gemma reached for the laptop again. Earlier on when she’d been in Cornwall she’d had the fleeting idea that maybe she and Cal could book another weekend away. Well, sod the weekend, thought Gemma, munching cake with great determination. They were going to go away for a bit longer than that. It was the least they deserved after this evening and working so hard.

Dream Cornish Cottages
announced the website proudly. Now, as a Cornish woman born and bred, Gemma was torn when it came to the whole holiday-cottage debate. On the one hand she’d seen so many of her friends forced out of the villages they’d grown up in, as second homers pushed the prices of cottages higher than any local could ever hope to afford, but on the other hand she was now being seduced by images of log fires, snug sitting rooms and idyllic settings.

Seagull Cottage in Rock caught her eye instantly. Small, cosy and right in the heart of the pretty village where she and Cal had first bumped into each other (quite literally, in the doorway of a cake shop), it was simply perfect. A quick click through the website revealed a wood burner, a huge sleigh bed and a big roll-top bath.

This was perfect! She could see it now: her and Cal hand in hand strolling through Truro late-night shopping; having drinks with her friend Dee on Christmas Eve in a small Cornish pub, all low beams, real ale and swathes of greenery; and waking up in that big bed to unwrap their presents or, even better, each other.

For a second the mouse icon hovered over the bookings page before Gemma clicked. The next thing was to fetch her credit card. Stuff the show, stuff the business and stuff Kenniston Hall. It was time they put themselves first.

She and Cal were going to escape to Cornwall for Christmas.

Chapter 9

Gemma had no idea how she managed to sleep in until nearly half past ten the next morning – although staying up until three might have had something to do with it. By the time she’d managed to find her credit card, hidden by Cal in an attempt to stop them spending any more money until the overdraft was cleared, it had been almost half past two. Eventually, after ransacking the place, Gemma had found it inside the dusty grand piano in the drawing room that they never used. Elated, she’d booked Seagull Cottage straight away and then, carried away on a riptide of excitement, she’d ordered a deluxe food hamper, a Jo Malone goody basket and Christmas dinner at the St Moritz Hotel. She’d almost booked them into the spa too, but managed to restrain herself just in time; after all, they’d have the gorgeous roll-top bath to play with, wouldn’t they? Once her Barclaycard had taken a serious hammering, Gemma had tucked it carefully back into the piano strings, returned upstairs and curled up next to Cal.

“Jaysus, you’re cold,” he’d muttered, pulling her close and wrapping his arms around her, which had been the last thing she’d remembered until the sun had crept under the curtains and tiptoed across her pillow. It was the unaccustomed sensation of warmth that woke Gemma. Stretching out her foot to locate Cal’s whereabouts, she encountered only chilly sheets rather than the chunky hairy leg she was expecting.

Gemma opened her eyes and was shocked to see that it was daylight and that Cal, who generally started baking at half five, was long gone. A flask of tea, two halves of the handcuffs and a note on the bedside table were the only evidence that he’d ever been there at all. She scowled at the handcuffs as the events of the previous night came flooding back in all their humiliating glory. Then she remembered her Christmas surprise, which cheered her up hugely. Yawning, and hugging this lovely secret close to her heart, Gemma hauled herself into a sitting position and reached for the note.

Morning Santa! Didn’t want to wake you – too scared what else you might have in mind! JOKE! Don’t forget, birthday lunch for Daphne up at house. Drinks in library at half eleven. Xxx

“Feck,” said Gemma. “Feck! Feck! Feckety-feck!”

She felt like the Hugh Grant character at the start of
Four Weddings and a Funeral.
How could she have forgotten that today was Lady Daphne’s seventieth birthday lunch? Angel and Laurence had been planning it for months; all kinds of exciting guests had been invited and Gemma had been commissioned to make the cake. Lady Daphne, a law unto herself and one of Gemma’s favourite people on the surface of the entire planet, had demanded a Victoria sponge with seventy candles, pink icing and hundreds and thousands. Laurence had been aghast.

“Ma, you can’t have that!” he’d exclaimed when Lady Daphne had placed her order. “You’ve got all your guests coming; they’ll be expecting something really spectacular!”

“Thanks,” Gemma had said. She was off screen, so the cameras hadn’t caught her flipping Laurence a V, but Angel saw and grinned.

“Don’t be so rude, Loz. Everyone wants a Pengelley cake these days, and retro birthday cakes are fun. Maybe we could have jelly and ice cream too?”

“Oh yes!” Lady Daphne had nodded delightedly. “We must!”

“Sorry, Gemma,” Laurence had apologised. He’d run a hand through his long treacle-coloured hair and looked increasingly worried as his mother had gone off on a tangent, planning sausages on sticks and cheese-and-pineapple hedgehogs. This was the antithesis of the sophisticated brand he was trying to build for Kenniston Hall. “But you know what I mean, Ma,” he’d continued. “The Duchess of Ermingham and Lady Barrington-Smythe will expect something classic.”

“Who says I’m inviting them?” Lady Daphne had said airily, and Laurence had looked shocked.

“But they’re you’re oldest friends! You were debs together and they were your bridesmaids.”

“So maybe I’m a bit tired of them, darling? Susie Smyth is a dreadful bore – and Annabelle slept with your father. Although it saved me a job, I’ve never quite forgiven her.”

This comment had quickly become an Internet sensation and one of the classic moments of
Bread and Butlers
. Laurence’s eyes and mouth had been ovals of horror as his mother had then proceeded to not only air the family’s dirty laundry in public but iron it too. Then she’d gone on to announce that rather than the genteel guest list that her son had envisaged, she was inviting the builders, her pals from the local pub, the neighbouring hell-raising rock star with whom Laurence was embroiled in a boundary dispute, and Cal’s page-three-girl ex Fifi, to whom she’d taken a shine. After this, the choice of cake was immaterial. Gemma had slunk away at this point, nobody noticing her as Laurence and his mother hurled insults at each other. She’d soon been in the bakery deciding whether she needed to buy more hundreds and thousands to decorate the Victoria sponges.

The very same sponges she’d woken up at the crack of dawn to bake before she’d left for yesterday’s book signing, and totally forgotten to ice…

“Feck!” Gemma leapt out of bed, frantically removing her tracksuit, socks and sweater and hurling them on the floor, and raced into the bathroom. One tepid shower later, she’d probably caught pneumonia but at least she was dressed and ready to head for the house. She had less than an hour to sprint up the drive, ice and decorate the cake and wrap Daphne’s present (which was a
Star Trek
DVD – the original series, of course, because Daphne had a huge crush on William Shatner in his sixties’ heyday). It seemed just about possible.

It was a beautiful December morning: the sun had remembered its purpose and was managing to cast some warmth onto the wintery countryside. Still, last night’s heavy frost remained, and as she set off down the drive towards Kenniston (her poor Beetle was still stuck in the mud in Stag Wood), Gemma’s Dubarry boots crunched on the iced mud and cracked the puddles. The lake glittered in the sunshine as though a thousand fireflies were dancing across it, and for once Gemma understood what Capability Brown had been thinking when he’d decided to place it there. It might make the Lion Lodge damp and add an extra twisty-turny five minutes’ walk onto the journey to the house, but it also made a perfect mirror for Kenniston. The house’s upside-down double shimmered in the water.

It was hard to be cross on such a glorious morning. Birds sang, mistletoe grew thickly on the summits of trees, and even her breath looked pretty as it rose into the blue sky. Gemma was still annoyed with Laurence and Angel – last night’s misadventures made her hot with embarrassment even in these sub-zero temperatures – but she was starting to admit that there was a funny side too. Maybe once she and Cal were away from here and just on their own, they’d be able to laugh about it? Cal generally found the humour in any situation. She just needed to be a more like him and less uptight.

I never used to be uptight, Gemma thought as she reached the house and scooted around the back to the converted kitchen wing that now served as Cal’s artisan bakery. Maybe it was yet another coming-up-to-thirty thing?

For once the bakery was quiet. The industrial dough mixer was whirring away to itself and the big bread oven was humming as loaves rose heavenwards. Only Daisy, Cal’s apprentice from the local college, was present. She appeared to be hacking at a giant block of cheddar with a knife and stabbing bits of cheese onto cocktail sticks. Gemma liked Daisy, who was as fresh and perky as her namesake, and she gave her a wave.

“I can’t stop,” Daisy said breathlessly. “I’m making two hundred cheese-and-pineapple sticks and they have to be stuck in a melon and look like a hedgehog. And there are sixty party sausage rolls in the oven. Not made by us, either. These are from Iceland; she insisted.”

“Crikey,” said Gemma. So Lady D had plumped for the retro theme after all. She guessed this also meant that the mad rock star and Fifi Fluff-for-Brains were coming too. Angel would be thrilled. This would make great telly.

While Daisy carried on with her nineteen-seventies special, Gemma washed her hands, put on a white coat, hairnet and cap (the days of cooking in her own kitchen and sampling the mixture as she went along were long gone now that she and Cal had a registered business) and fetched the sponge cake, jam and cream and a bucket of icing. The sickly sweet smell made her feel a bit queasy and she was glad when the job was finished and the cake was there in all its glory, the edible pearl sprinkles glistening just as brightly as the frosty parkland outside. She was just trying to figure out the best way to cram seventy party candles onto the cake without razing one of Britain’s greatest houses to the ground when a mobile phone began to ring.

“It’s not mine!” Daisy said quickly. Phones were banned in the kitchen. The staff were in the kitchen to cook, Cal always said, not to take selfies with the first batch of the day. He was also paranoid about breaching Anton Yuri’s terrifying contract, which gave Seaside Rock
first dibs on any images to do with the business.

“Calm down. It’s Cal’s. Your boss has broken his own rules!” Gemma laughed. She’d recognise the Dukes Rangers’ anthem anywhere now. Cal had actually been known to sing his old team’s song in his sleep. Casting her eye around the room she spotted his coat hanging on the back of the door and, sure enough, when she slid her hand into the pocket, there was Cal’s iPhone.

Funny. This wasn’t a number stored on the phone or even one she recognised. It was a London number, she knew that much, but who would ring Cal from London? Everyone, bar the footballing mates he met up with sporadically to watch Dukes Rangers at their East London ground, was here. She could let it ring through to voicemail but some strange instinct was telling her to answer it instead.

Before she could stop herself, she pressed the green button.

“Cal, at last! I thought you would never answer. This is the third time I’ve called you! I got your message and I don’t think she’ll be a problem.”

It was a woman’s voice speaking – and not just any woman’s voice, either. This was a lilting Irish voice which brought to mind the wide-open spaces, broad light and bright scrubbed skies of County Cork.

It was Aoife O’Shaughnessy.

For a moment Gemma couldn’t speak: she was too shocked. It wasn’t because Aoife was calling Cal. They were friends – she knew that. Rather, she was stunned that Cal hadn’t saved Aoife’s number to his personal contacts. That could only mean one thing: he didn’t want anyone who might look at his mobile to see that she’d been calling him.

And by anyone, of course, that meant Gemma.

“Aoife, it’s Gemma,” she interrupted. “Cal’s left his phone a work. Can I take a message?”

Or maybe even give you one, like get your hands off my man?

“Oh, hello there, Gemma. How are you doing?” Aoife said sounding generally thrilled to hear from her.

“I’m great,” Gemma replied. Wow, it really was possible to sound fairly normal even when your teeth were gritted.

“That’s grand, so,” said Aoife pleasantly. Even though Gemma couldn’t see her, she could imagine Aoife smiling her pretty little dimpled smile and twirling an ebony ringlet around her slender index finger. “No, there’s no message. I just called Cal for a chat.”

Gemma’s eyebrows shot into her fringe. Had the sainted Aoife just told a barefaced lie? Only seconds earlier she’d said she was calling Cal back. And now it was just a social call? This had to be twenty Hail Marys and a few clicks of the rosary beads, surely?

“Are you sure, Aoife?” Gemma asked, so sweetly that it was amazing her teeth didn’t crumble into stumps. “I’m happy to pass anything on to Cal.”
In other words, we tell each other everything, bitch!

“Totally. It was nothing important, sure, and I’ll catch him another day. Take care of yourself, Gemma.”

Aoife rang off, taking Gemma’s peace of mind and the start of a good mood with her. Unease crawled along Gemma’s spine. There was nothing solid she could put her finger on, but something was definitely afoot. While Daisy stabbed at the cheese-and-pineapple hedgehog, Gemma leaned on the window ledge and gazed thoughtfully out at the parkland. Two of Laurence’s horses were cantering across the bottom paddock like medieval chargers, breath pluming from their nostrils, but Gemma was too lost in her own private misery to notice them. Instead the conversation with Aoife played over and over again in the sound booth of her brain.