Frosty Mornings at Castle Court

by Holly Hepburn

  ‘Sorry we’re a bit late,’ she said to Sadie, the words very slightly slurred. ‘We got held up in the last pub. People kept buying us drinks.’

  Sadie glanced around at the hens, making sure none of them seemed too much the worse for wear. The bride was easily identifiable – she wore a white sash with ‘Bride To Be’ emblazoned across it in hot-pink letters. There were two older women, who Sadie assumed to be the bride’s mother and future mother-in-law; one was looking around the shop with open interest and the other had her gaze firmly fixed upon Adam. But she had definite competition from some of the younger hens, who had also noticed him. Sadie swallowed a sigh and summoned up a professional smile. It was going to be a long two hours.

  ‘Not to worry,’ she told the woman before her. ‘If you give Adam your coats, I’ll take you downstairs and we’ll get you all settled in.’

  ‘I’d like to give him more than just my coat,’ a dark-haired woman said, peeling off her plum-coloured jacket with a flirtatious smile. ‘How about it, Adam?’

  He coughed and glanced across at Sadie, his face flaming and apprehension in his eyes. ‘I – er—’

  ‘I’m afraid Adam’s off the menu, ladies,’ Sadie called. ‘But don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of other fun in store for you.’

  The dark-haired woman winked. ‘We’ll just see about that.’

  Adam managed an awkward grin as the rest of the hens handed over their coats and made increasingly lewd comments. When they were all ready, Sadie headed for the stairs.

  Adam gripped her arm as she passed. ‘Don’t leave me alone with them, okay?’

  Sadie looked up at him. His cheeks were still glowing with embarrassment and she knew he was only half joking. A shriek of laughter went up from the group and Sadie turned around to see the bride-to-be was grappling with an inflatable man. The nearest table display wobbled alarmingly. ‘Believe me, I won’t,’ she told Adam grimly.

  Once they were all downstairs and seated around the tables, Sadie handed out crisp white aprons and stickers for their names. She discovered the bride was called Elle, her mother was Lois and the dark-haired woman who’d taken a shine to Adam was called Melinda. Mr Inflatable was given a sticker that declared his name to be Roger and Sadie had a sinking suspicion he was going to end the event covered in sticky icing.

  She summoned up a brisk smile. ‘Now, before we get started, would anyone like a hot drink? We can offer you tea, coffee or hot chocolate.’’

  The chief bridesmaid, whose name was Kate, frowned. ‘I thought there was going to be fizz. I’m sure it said Prosecco on the website.’

  So much for sobering them up, Sadie thought. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m just giving you all the options. Adam, would you mind?’

  He vanished into the kitchen and Sadie heard the clink of glasses. A moment later there was the unmistakable sound of a cork popping from a bottle.

  ‘Sounds like someone’s getting excited,’ Melinda said, craning her neck to see into the kitchen. ‘Do let me know if you need a hand, Adam.’

  Sadie cleared her throat and took a seat at the head of the table. ‘As you’ll see, there are a lot of different colours of icing for us to use today. Each biscuit will need two different types – one to create the shape of the design and the other to fill it in.’ She reached into the box on the table in front of her and handed round the first biscuit. It was a simple square. ‘This one is going to be an L-plate for our bride-to-be.’ She picked up a bag of white line icing and laid a square around the outside, with an exaggerated L in the centre, explaining the best technique as she went. ‘Now it’s your turn,’ she said.

  The noise level dropped as each hen copied what Sadie had done. She breathed a silent sigh of relief; maybe it wasn’t going to be as raucous as it had first seemed.

  ‘Now we’ll leave that to dry for a minute or two and move onto our next biscuit – a celebration of the bride- and groom-to-be.’

  This time, she laid out a circle and iced lacy swirls around the outside.

  ‘If that’s as easy as you make it look, then I could make you some of these as wedding favours,’ Lois told her daughter.

  ‘You’ll soon get the hang of it,’ Sadie said encouragingly, as Adam placed a glass of Prosecco in front of each guest.

  Once the lacy circles had their outlines in place, Sadie showed the hens how to fill in their L-plate design with fuchsia flood icing. Only Melinda seemed uninterested; more than once, Sadie saw her glance across at Adam. Her glass was soon empty and she lifted it up and waggled it to catch his attention. ‘How about a top-up?’

  Adam’s gaze flickered towards Sadie, who gave a tiny nod. The last thing she needed was for Melinda to cause a scene and spoil things for everyone else.

  After the circles had been filled, Sadie lifted up a bag of red icing with the tiniest of holes snipped in the end. ‘Now we’ll add the initials of the bride and groom. The alphabet can be a bit tricky so you might like to practise on the greaseproof paper in front of you.’

  She was not surprised to see Melinda writing her own name next to Adam’s. ‘See?’ the dark-haired woman said. ‘We make a cute couple.’

  He managed an awkward, non-committal smile. This would be the last time he ever volunteered to work late, Sadie thought wryly, and who could blame him? There might not be any malice in Melinda’s unsubtle attempts at flirting, but it was clearly making Adam uncomfortable.

  Sadie was relieved to arrive at the last biscuit – a gingerbread self-portrait of each hen in her wedding finery.

  Melinda turned her attention to Roger. ‘You know, it strikes me that you’re a bit lacking in the trouser department,’ she said, reaching for a bag of pale pink line icing. ‘Why don’t I see if I can help you with that?’

  ‘I really wouldn’t if I were you,’ Sadie said. ‘The icing on our biscuits is going to be baked in the oven to dry it out. We can’t do that for Roger – he’d melt.’

  Melinda looked up, the tip of the bag hovering over the doll’s plastic skin. ‘Haven’t you got a hairdryer?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Sadie replied. ‘We’ve never actually needed one before.’

  ‘Then we’ll leave it wet,’ Melinda said, her eyes narrowing.

  Sadie shrugged. ‘It’s up to you. He’ll be a bit sticky by the end of the night.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ Melinda said. She glanced at her fellow hens. ‘What do you think – shall I give Roger a great big—’

  ‘It’s a stupid idea, Melinda,’ Elle cut in. ‘No one wants to get covered in icing.’

  ‘We could always make you lick it off,’ Melinda replied, clearly unwilling to give up on her idea. ‘What’s a hen do without a bit of fun?’

  Lois tutted. ‘Honestly, you’re sex-mad. No one is licking anything off anyone. Put Roger down and finish icing your biscuit.’

  Once the last gingerbread hen was ready, Sadie and Adam loaded all the biscuits onto baking trays and put them into the oven to dry. Adam topped up the Prosecco and brought out the canapés Cat had made before she left, while Sadie offered to take some photos of the hen party. Melinda tried to drag Adam into one of the shots, but he excused himself to check on the biscuits.

  ‘She’s certainly determined,’ Sadie murmured as Adam hurried past her for the safety of the kitchen.

  He flashed her a pained look. ‘That’s one way of describing her.’

  At last it was time for the hens to leave. Sadie packed their biscuits carefully into their souvenir tins, silently wondering how many would survive the evening ahead, and gave Elle a personalised memento bearing her name and the name of her husband-to-be.

  Melinda kept darting little looks at Adam and made one last attempt to flirt, inviting him to join them on the next leg of their adventures.

  ‘You could be an honorary hen,’ she said, threading her arm through his. ‘Or better still, you could be our magnificent co—’

  Adam shook himself free and stepped back, his expression alarmed. ‘No, thank
s.’

  ‘I’m afraid Adam and I still have work to do,’ Sadie said, keeping her tone light to disguise her mounting irritation.

  Melinda’s eyes widened as she gazed back and forth between Adam and Sadie. ‘Oh, you’re a couple? I didn’t realise.’

  ‘No, that’s not—’ Adam began, but Sadie saw the chance to shut Melinda down and cut him off.

  ‘Well, we don’t like to advertise it,’ she said, patting Adam’s hand. ‘And we never mix business with pleasure.’

  Melinda leaned in closer and Sadie caught the stale whiff of alcohol on her breath. ‘I would,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’d mix them all the time if it was with him.’

  There was absolutely nothing Sadie could say that wouldn’t cause her and Adam to burn with embarrassment, so she summoned up what she hoped was a conspiratorial smile. ‘Have a good evening, Melinda.’

  It wasn’t until the sign was turned to Closed and the door was firmly locked that Sadie allowed herself a long, heartfelt sigh of relief.

  ‘Well,’ she said, leaning against the glass door and staring at Adam. ‘That happened.’

  Adam ran a hand over his face and gave a shaky laugh. ‘Did you have any idea they’d be so . . .’

  ‘Rude?’ Sadie said.

  ‘I was going to say drunk, but rude works too.’

  Sadie shook her head. ‘No. I assumed that the kind of women who booked an icing class for a hen do might be a tiny bit classier.’ She paused. ‘And, to be fair, most of them were. Thankfully.’

  He gave her a cautious look. ‘Do you think you’ll be doing more parties like that?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to work if we do,’ Sadie said, pulling a sympathetic face. ‘Come on, let’s get the cleaning done and get out of here.’

  They worked side by side, washing up the glasses and discarding the leftover icing. Sadie wiped down the tables as Adam gathered up the empty bottles.

  He held one up. ‘Can you believe they got through eight of these?’

  Sadie laughed. ‘They drank us dry. Another lesson learned for next time – stock up on Prosecco.’

  ‘It’s a shame there’s nothing left,’ Adam said over his shoulder as he stacked the empties for recycling. ‘I could do with a drink.’

  Cat’s suggestion echoed in Sadie’s head. She pushed it away; the last thing Adam needed was to feel obliged to hang out with his boss after work. ‘Sorry. I wish we did have some Prosecco, or anything alcoholic. I probably owe you at least one drink.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, you did nothing wrong,’ he said. ‘You were great, in fact – really patient. They seemed to have a good time, apart from Melinda, and I really think she was at the wrong hen party. She expected a naked butler or Magic Mike to materialise from the kitchen.’

  And that presented Sadie with a mental image that was much harder to push away; the thought of a partially clad Adam glistening with baby oil. She blinked hard and hoped she didn’t look as flustered as she felt. ‘As long as she doesn’t leave a bad review online...’

  It was just after nine o’clock by the time they’d finished clearing up and the long day suddenly caught up with Sadie. She yawned. A second later Adam was yawning too.

  ‘Definitely time to call it a day,’ she said as they grinned at each other.

  As Sadie had predicted, the traffic out of the city was quiet. She and Adam chatted in the same way as they always did, but Sadie found her gaze was drawn to the welcoming glow of the Cheshire Cat pub at the side of the road. If only she could turn into the car park and go inside; there would be a roaring fire on a cold February night like this and, if she was lucky, there might even be a pair of battered leather armchairs free beside it.

  She must have slowed the car without realising because Adam stopped talking and gave her a questioning look. ‘I’m up for it if you are.’

  Sadie glanced at the dashboard clock: 9.17. Lissy would have been asleep for a couple of hours and Daniel would most likely be snoring in front of the TV. There was nothing to hurry home for – she could easily steal half an hour to spend with Adam. It was so tempting . . .

  Reluctantly, she shook her head and put gentle pressure onto the accelerator pedal. ‘I can’t. Sorry.’

  Adam’s smile was crooked. ‘I understand.’

  It felt as though the air hummed with things left unsaid. She still remembered the way he’d looked when she’d first told him, stumbling over words that felt stiff and all wrong, that she and Daniel were going to give things another go; he had been quiet then too, but his eyes had been filled with hurt and frustration. This silence was busier, almost supercharged, and Sadie was both relieved and disappointed to pull up outside Adam’s cottage on the edge of Waverton Farm.

  ‘Night, then,’ Adam said as he got out of the car. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ Sadie said. ‘Thanks again.’

  He made his way up the path. Fighting a sudden urge to call after him, Sadie didn’t wait until he’d gone in before she turned the car towards home. Asleep or not, Daniel would be waiting for her. Daniel and Lissy. Her family.

  Chapter Three

  Cat couldn’t sleep. She lay awake for a few minutes, listening to Seb’s slow, deep breathing and trying not to move; there was no need for both of them to be up at 3.16 a.m., after all. Not without a good reason. And Cat had no reason to be awake – her early-morning baking routine at Smart Cookies meant that she was often yawning by ten p.m. and she’d been tired enough when she and Seb had made their way back from the restaurant by the canal just before eleven.

  The restaurant itself wasn’t the problem; in spite of her misgivings, it had turned out to be a pleasant but uneventful visit. She was growing used to the fact that Seb was something of a local celebrity – they seemed to run into fans everywhere they went and these fans were often female. Cat didn’t mind the fluttering eyelashes and obvious flirtation while Seb was behind the bar – it was all part of his role – but she did find it grating when they were on a date and his admirers acted as though she wasn’t there. Tonight had been a perfect example and although Seb’s manner had been friendly but discouraging, one or two women had continued to glance over and whisper to each other, causing Cat to wryly ask Seb whether he thought he’d be safe while she popped to the ladies’.

  None of that was the reason for her insomnia, Cat decided, as she stared up at Seb’s shadowy bedroom ceiling. Swallowing a restless sigh, she slid her feet out of bed. Maybe a mug of warm milk would help.

  The kitchen of Seb’s garret flat, tucked away in the roof of Castle Court, was tiny. Cat had no idea how he managed to cook in it.

  ‘It’s got everything I need,’ he’d insisted, the first time Cat had expressed her doubts about his ability to produce anything more challenging than toast. ‘Small but mighty.’

  She warmed some milk and carried it into the cramped living room, where a small leaded window with an abundance of cushions on the built-in seat gave her a bird’s-eye view of the Court.

  Up above, the sky looked ink-black, but after a few minutes of gazing at it she saw there was actually a beautiful deep indigo-blue hiding behind the darkness. It was dotted with stars and she could imagine the icy coldness outside – it would be another sub-zero morning, Cat decided as she pulled Seb’s fleecy dressing gown closer against her neck, and she’d be up while the frost was still thick, to make sure there were plenty of biscuits for the day’s orders.

  Briefly, it occurred to her to wonder how the hen party had been. She was certain that Sadie would have taken good care of them, no matter how raucous they might have become once the Prosecco began to flow. And maybe spending more time with Adam would encourage her to see that rekindling her relationship with Daniel wasn’t the right thing for either of them, no matter how much she thought it was what Lissy needed. Cat had watched her best friend bloom as they’d worked to get Smart Cookies off the ground; she didn’t want that new-found confidence to ebb away. And unless Daniel had completely changed hi
s spots, there was a very real chance that he would want Sadie to go back to who she’d been when they were together: a quieter, less self-assured version of herself. A wife who put the needs and wishes of her family well above her own.

  Cat drew her knees towards her chin and burrowed her toes beneath the cushions, sipping at her milk thoughtfully. It wasn’t that Sadie had shown any signs of being less committed at work, more that there was already pressure on her from Daniel to make room for him. Which meant that Sadie had less time to ice the biscuits they needed for stock, and she was relying more and more on Clare to help. That wasn’t a problem at the moment, but it would be if either of them fell ill or – disaster – Clare decided to leave. If there was one thing Cat had learned from working sixteen-hour days as a chef, it was never to rely too heavily on her staff. She always had a back-up plan. Maybe it was time to look at expanding the Smart Cookies staff further. And maybe that meant finding someone to help with the baking too – she couldn’t afford to burn out here the way she had in Paris. Then she’d been able to hand in her notice and regroup, but running a business with Sadie was different. They’d both invested a lot of money to get Smart Cookies off the ground – there was a lot at stake. Additional staff meant more outlay but would hopefully pay dividends as the business grew.

  Cat rubbed her forehead wearily. In some ways it had been easier running a kitchen, even one that was chasing its third Michelin star, although she hadn’t been her own boss. Now the weight of her responsibilities felt much more personal; there was more to lose than professional pride. Accepting that she and Sadie couldn’t do it all themselves was a step towards ensuring their dreams succeeded.

  The gentle shuffle of footsteps made Cat tear her gaze away from the starry sky, just as the bedroom door swung back and Seb appeared. He looked adorably sleep-rumpled as he stared at her.