Frosty Mornings at Castle Court

by Holly Hepburn

  ‘You picked the wrong team, Greg,’ Cat said, glowering at him. ‘No matter how much you deny it, François is guilty.’

  A faintly triumphant expression flashed across Greg’s face. ‘We’ll see about that.’ He glanced across at Jaren, pity in his eyes. ‘Don’t turn your back on this one – she might be pretty, but she’ll stab you the moment you’re not looking.’

  Jaren scowled in dislike. ‘If I want your advice, I’ll ask for it. But don’t hold your breath.’

  Greg chuckled and shook his head. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ He turned on his heel and walked away towards the bistro.

  Jaren dropped the blackened sponge into his bucket in disgust. ‘What a moron. There’s no way he wasn’t involved in this.’

  Cat nodded, fury leaving her unable to speak. But just as Greg had said, there was no way to prove it; Greg was too clever to have left a trail signalling his involvement.

  ‘Come on,’ Jaren said, jerking his head towards the bright windows of Let’s Go Dutch. ‘Why don’t we get cleaned up and claim that drink from Seb? I think we’ve earned it, don’t you?’

  ‘We really have,’ Cat replied. ‘But this one is on me. I really appreciate your help, Jaren.’

  He waved her thanks away. ‘I keep telling you – we look after each other here. No thanks needed.’

  Cat felt so grateful that she might cry. She dipped her head. ‘Even so, I’m buying, okay?’

  Jaren smiled. ‘I think I can live with that.’

  Chapter Seven

  Sadie was filled with horror when Cat called her on Saturday morning to explain what had happened the night before.

  ‘That’s awful!’ she said. ‘Shall I come into the shop? Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘No, it’s mostly all cleaned up now,’ Cat told her. ‘At least the glass is. Our lovely blue paintwork is looking pretty grubby though.’

  Sadie almost swore, then remembered Lissy was sitting at the kitchen table, drawing. ‘We’ll get it redone.’

  ‘Not until after this meeting is out of the way. Seb says he’ll see if anything was caught on CCTV, but I’m not hopeful.’

  ‘And no one saw anything?’

  ‘Not a thing,’ Cat said. ‘It all happened so fast – by the time Earl and Andrew came out of the diner, the culprit was long gone.’

  Sadie gnawed at her lip. ‘And you’re sure there’s nothing I can do?’

  ‘I’m sure. Concentrate on getting those wedding favours done. I’ll see you on Monday.’

  Sadie was distracted for the rest of the day. She pumped Adam for information before he was even through the front door that evening, but he knew nothing more than Cat had told her earlier. The stress gave Sadie a headache and she was uncharacteristically short-tempered. After an hour of icing in virtual silence, she’d had enough.

  ‘I’m sorry, Adam, but I think we’d better call it a night. I’m not very good company today.’

  ‘It’s understandable,’ he said. He held up a finished biscuit to show her. ‘Look, I’m not bad at this now. Why don’t I take a box of biscuits and finish them at my place.’

  Sadie hesitated. Was he good enough to work unsupervised? Then again, the order had to be completed by Tuesday and there were still over a hundred biscuits left to ice, as well as stock for the shop. She couldn’t afford to say no. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Just take things slow and steady.’

  He nodded. ‘Don’t worry, I will.’

  She gave him a tired smile. ‘And I’m sorry for being so grumpy. This Greg business has me all on edge.’

  ‘Get some rest,’ he said sympathetically. ‘I’ll check in with you tomorrow.’

  Sadie closed the door after him and rested her head against the cool wooden surface. She’d never expected running a business to be easy, but really, did it have to be quite so challenging?

  *

  By Monday morning, she was feeling more positive. The wedding favours order was complete, thanks to extra efforts from Adam and Clare. Cat reported the weekend takings were excellent, and the damage to the paintwork wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. The sun was shining, bathing Castle Court in light and chasing away what was left of her despair.

  Even Cat’s frown when she told her about Daniel’s reaction to Adam couldn’t dampen Sadie’s spirits.

  ‘I’m not entirely sure it’s any of Daniel’s business, to be honest,’ Cat said, once Sadie had finished. ‘Seb doesn’t know how I spend every minute of my time when I’m not with him and he certainly doesn’t expect me to apologise for doing my job.’

  ‘I think he was just surprised,’ Sadie replied. ‘And he’s right, I should have told him.’

  Cat eyed her closely. ‘And how do you feel about a Valentine’s Day dinner for two?’

  Sadie took a deep breath. The truth was, she wasn’t sure how she felt about the prospect of what would almost certainly be a romantic evening with Daniel. He’d kept his distance physically since they’d agreed to give things another go – the most they’d shared was an awkward hug. But she knew he must want more. ‘He couldn’t get a babysitter for tomorrow night, but there was one free tonight. So we’re going tonight instead.’

  ‘You haven’t actually answered the question,’ Cat pointed out dryly. ‘How do you feel about it?’

  Sadie hesitated, then plunged in. ‘Fine. It’ll be nice to have the chance to talk, away from home.’

  Cat lifted her eyebrows, clearly unconvinced.

  ‘It will,’ Sadie insisted.

  ‘If you say so,’ Cat murmured.

  ‘How about you?’ Sadie asked, turning the tables. ‘How are you feeling about the meeting tomorrow?’

  Cat let out a long, unsteady breath. ‘Okay, I think. I’ve sent all the witness statements over to my lawyer in Paris – he’s going to meet me before we’re due at Martin et Moreau to go over everything. And I’ve done as much as I can here, so . . . I think I’m all set.’

  Sadie gave her best friend a reassuring smile. ‘Good. You’re going to teach François a valuable lesson.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Cat said. She shifted her gaze to the boxes of wedding favours. ‘Let’s get these bagged up and ready to go over to the wedding venue tomorrow morning, shall we?’

  They worked in silence. Sadie couldn’t be sure, but she assumed Cat was thinking about the hearing. And Sadie herself was going over Cat’s question in her mind: how did she feel about dinner with Daniel tonight?

  ‘Sadie, did you check these biscuits as you were doing them?’

  There was an odd tone to Cat’s voice that made Sadie look up warily. ‘What? Yes, of course I did. Why?’

  ‘Because most of them have been iced as “Sonny” with an “o”. And the rest say “Sunny” with a “u”.’

  Sadie felt the blood drain from her face. ‘They can’t be wrong. I did most of them myself and the rest were done by Adam and Clare.’

  And then she remembered that she hadn’t checked the box Adam had taken away with him on Saturday night. Hadn’t he complained that the names had started to look weird after a while? ‘Let me see.’

  It only took her a few seconds to see that Cat was right; a significant number of the biscuits bore the unmistakable name of Sunny.

  ‘Can you fix it?’ Cat asked.

  Sadie shook her head. ‘Not without making it look even worse. We’ll have to do them all again.’

  ‘We can’t,’ Cat said, her expression a mixture of disbelief and dawning anger. ‘I’m leaving for Paris in a couple of hours – I don’t have time to bake. And you’ve got a birthday party booked in at four o’clock – you haven’t got time to ice them.’

  ‘Haven’t we got any spares?’ Sadie asked, glancing at the clock. It would be tight, but she might be able to squeeze in some icing before the party, if the biscuits were already baked and cool.

  ‘No. They’re all iced, ready for the Valentine’s Day rush.’ Cat looked down at the biscuits in frustration. ‘How could this happen?’

  Sadie
crossed her fingers. ‘I don’t know. But does it really matter? The important thing is that we find a way to fix the situation – can Adam take over the baking?’

  Cat let out a short, hollow laugh. ‘No. I don’t think I trust anyone except me right now.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sadie said, ignoring the needle of hurt her best friend’s words caused. ‘Let’s find out how many biscuits we need and take it from there.’

  There was a tense, angry silence. Eventually, Cat nodded and reached for the nearest box. ‘Fine.’

  At first, Sadie was optimistic; the number of wrongly iced biscuits was low. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours to bake some replacements and give them time to completely cool down. Then she could ice them and get them dry, ready to be bagged up. It was going to be fine. Then Cat unpacked the final box. Every single biscuit had the same spelling mistake.

  ‘Sixty-one,’ Cat said, once she’d counted the mistakes. ‘Sixty-one Sunnys.’

  Sadie groaned. ‘Bloody hell. Now what?’

  Cat gave a huff of irritation and reached for her phone. ‘Now I see whether I can change my flight and you see whether you can cancel that icing party.’

  ‘I can’t ruin a child’s birthday like that,’ Sadie said, aghast. ‘She’d be devastated and her mother would be furious. Can you imagine the bad publicity?’

  ‘There’s a lot more riding on the wedding favours,’ Cat countered as she tapped at her screen. ‘How are you going to get the new batch iced if you’re tied up with the party until five-thirty?’

  Now it was Sadie’s turn to reach for her phone. ‘I’ll do them tonight. Daniel knows how important this order is – he’ll understand.’

  There was a long silence when she gave him the news. ‘I don’t suppose I’ve got any choice,’ he said, after she’d suggested they rearrange their date.

  ‘Does it really matter when we go out for dinner?’ Sadie asked, conscious that Cat was listening.

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ Daniel said, and Sadie heard an edge of frustration in his voice. ‘But it’s hard not to feel like second best sometimes.’

  She thought of all the times he’d called her to say he was working late – had left her alone to look after their tiny daughter – but said nothing.

  He sighed, relenting. ‘Do you need me to collect Lissy?’

  ‘No. I’ll pick her up from the childminder and ice the biscuits once she’s gone to bed. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours – I’ll be finished by ten.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll see if I can rearrange the babysitter.’

  Cat was speaking to the airline when Sadie rang off. She listened as she changed her flight to a later one and then ended the call.

  ‘All sorted?’ she asked.

  Cat nodded. ‘You?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s not especially happy but he’s okay.’

  ‘And you?’ Cat said, giving her a searching look. ‘How do you feel about having to reschedule?’

  ‘It can’t be helped,’ Sadie said, hoping her shrug was nonchalant enough to stop Cat asking questions.

  ‘No,’ Cat agreed. ‘But if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say you were relieved.’

  Sadie focused on clearing the work surface of misspelled biscuits. ‘Of course I’m not. I’m glad Daniel took the news well, that’s all.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Cat said, clearly unconvinced. She opened a drawer and pulled out an apron. ‘I need to be at Manchester Airport by 5.45 p.m. We’ve got an hour and a half to bake seventy biscuits.’

  Sadie’s stomach churned with anxiety. ‘Is that enough time?’

  Cat lifted the stainless-steel bowl from the mixer. ‘We’re about to find out.’

  *

  It was almost ten o’clock when Sadie laid down her bag of white icing and stared wearily at the rows of glistening biscuits. She’d been paranoid as she’d written the names, checking and rechecking for mistakes. But this time she was certain that they were all correct.

  Stretching her aching back, she glanced at her phone and saw she had a message from Daniel, sent a few minutes earlier: How’s it going?

  Done, she typed back. They just need to dry out in the oven.

  No sooner had she placed the trays into the warm oven and set the timer for thirty minutes than the doorbell rang. Frowning, she hurried to the hallway and peered through the spyhole: Daniel was there. Her frown deepened as she opened the door.

  ‘What – how—?’ she began.

  He raised his hands, in which he held a brown paper bag and a bottle of Chardonnay. ‘I’ve got a chicken bhuna and a prawn madras. Which do you fancy?’

  Sadie couldn’t help smiling as she stood back to let him in. ‘When have you ever known me to eat a madras?’

  ‘There’s a first time for everything,’ Daniel said. He stopped by the kitchen table and shook his head. ‘I’m glad you finished on time – I’d have had to eat both if you hadn’t.’

  Sadie laughed and took a pair of plates from the cupboard. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been sat outside, watching the clock?’

  ‘Of course I have,’ he said. ‘My car smells like the inside of a curry house and there are poppadom crumbs all over the carpet.’

  The aroma of pungent spices made Sadie’s stomach rumble as she lifted the lid from the foil containers. ‘Thank you,’ she said, filled with gratitude at his thoughtfulness.

  ‘No problem,’ he replied. ‘I knew you wouldn’t have eaten.’

  They ate at the kitchen table, once Sadie had cleared away the bags of half-used icing and cooling racks. The curry tasted heavenly – Daniel had gone out of his way to collect it from what had always been their favourite Indian restaurant – and once again, she felt her heart soften at his kindness. He was on good form, too, making her laugh and topping up her glass the moment it was empty. But she only really relaxed once the biscuits were safely out of the oven and cooling.

  ‘Have you heard from Cat?’ Daniel asked as they carried their drinks through to the toy-strewn living room.

  Sadie checked her phone. ‘She says she’s just cleared passport control.’

  Daniel settled beside her on the sofa. ‘How is she feeling?’

  ‘Well prepared,’ Sadie replied. ‘Which isn’t to say she’s finding it easy – I think she’s hiding how much it’s bothering her.’

  He sipped his wine. ‘Do you think this François will back down?’

  Sadie sighed. ‘Cat’s lawyer thinks so, eventually. A lot depends on whether they accept the witness statements she’s collected. I’m still a bit amazed that Cherie has swapped sides.’

  ‘Sounds like she had an attack of conscience,’ Daniel said. ‘Whereas this Greg appears to be missing a conscience entirely.’

  The conversation turned to other things. Slowly, the wine in the bottle grew less and less and Sadie became aware that she was laughing a lot. I’m tipsy on a school night, she thought as she giggled at another of Daniel’s jokes. She gazed at him as he talked; was it her imagination or had his eyes grown bluer? The touch of silver at his temples was definitely new; she was surprised he hadn’t had that taken care of. And then she realised he was watching her, a questioning look on his face.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘I said, it’s probably time I was going.’

  Sadie was surprised by her faint sense of disappointment as she checked the time. ‘Oh. Yes, I suppose you’re right.’

  He rose, holding out a hand to help her up, and then led the way through to the kitchen to deposit the almost empty wine bottle and collect his coat.

  ‘This was fun,’ he said as they stood at the open front door. ‘Not quite the romantic dinner I had planned, but nice all the same.’

  Sadie’s stomach fluttered at the mention of romance: so her suspicions had been correct. But he’d given it up the moment she’d asked and had gone out of his way to work around her. She was confused to realise that the butterflies his words had caused weren’t unpleasant; unless she was mistaken, what she was feeling now was desir
e.

  Almost without realising, she stepped nearer to him. ‘Yes, it was fun. Thank you.’

  He gave her a soft smile and dropped the briefest of kisses on her forehead. ‘Any time. Sleep well, Sadie.’

  The last time he’d kissed her forehead had been when he’d nursed her through a particularly bad bout of flu, long before Lissy had been born, Sadie recalled, with sudden acute recollection. He’d been kind then, too, she thought – kind and patient, exactly as he was behaving now. Giving her space but supporting her when she needed it, just like the Daniel he used to be . . .

  Turning away, he stepped through the door.

  Sadie caught at his sleeve. ‘Daniel, wait—’

  He gazed at her in surprise for a moment and then understanding dawned in his eyes. With gentle fingers, he reached out to brush her cheek. ‘Yes?’

  She stared at him, her heart thudding. If she did this now, there would be no turning back. Was it absolutely what she wanted?

  ‘I . . .’ she whispered uncertainly. ‘Do you have to go?’

  His hand moved to stroke her hair, his expression watchful. ‘No, I don’t have to go.’

  Sadie took an unsteady breath. He was leaving it up to her, giving her every opportunity to change her mind. ‘Then stay.’

  His eyes darkened. ‘Are you sure? I’m happy to wait – as long as it takes.’

  She felt her insides constrict; she didn’t want to wait. ‘I’m sure.’

  The hand that had been stroking her hair made its unhurried way to the small of her back. His other hand cupped her cheek. And slowly, he bent his head to kiss her.

  It lasted only a few seconds. He pulled away a few centimetres, as though checking she was okay, leaving Sadie aching for more. It had been a long time since he’d kissed her like that – soft and intimate and full of tenderness. This was the man she’d loved, before everything had gone so terribly wrong. Was it possible she could love him again?

  She reached up to graze his lips with her fingers. He kissed the tips, his eyes never leaving hers, silently asking her again if she was sure. And, nodding, she took his hand and led him back inside the cottage.