A Winter Affair

by Minna Howard

  She saw the hurt in his eyes, perhaps thinking of Jerry letting him down by siding with Debra over the avalanche.

  ‘I haven’t heard from Gaby, I think she’d have said if she’d gone home,’ Eloise said, wondering what decision Gaby had made over her relationship with Jerry. She would text her later, suggest they meet up in the village. She sat down to make a list for dinner – their last one – this evening. She could hear them getting ready to leave; the chatter, the clump of ski boots. Lawrence came into the kitchen.

  ‘I’m taking them down and then I’m skiing myself, do you want to come with me, Eloise?’ The remark was thrown out as if he felt it would be churlish not to offer.

  ‘No thanks, I’ve lots to do here and Bert and I will go for a walk later. Have a good time.’ She threw him a smile, hoping he couldn’t see the pain in her heart. She would miss him, miss everything about the place, but that is how it was saying goodbye to places and people that had crept under your skin and become part of you.

  ‘OK, see you later then.’ He turned to go, then said, ‘By the way Desmond is coming here for Easter.’

  And before she could answer he’d gone. She heard the front door open, felt the cold rush of air while everyone trooped out. Then the door closed and she assumed they had all left, so she went down the passage to the stairs to go to her room. Debra was sitting on the bench putting on her boots; she looked up and saw her.

  ‘Debra, I… I thought you’d gone with the others,’ Eloise blurted.

  ‘I’m just about to.’ Debra stood up and picked up her bag.

  ‘I… I’m really sorry if I upset you,’ Eloise said in a rush, ‘I didn’t mean to, but thank you so much for changing your mind about taking legal action. You have saved Jacaranda.’

  Debra blushed, ‘I wouldn’t say I’ve done that, but I listened to what you said and understood what you meant, and as Ken said, no one was hurt.’ Debra made for the door and then she turned and faced her. ‘I wanted a good and secure home for my son and I hope I’ve achieved it, but I see now there are things money can’t buy, I’m just not sure I‘ve done it right.’

  ‘I’m sure you have, and Radley is very talented.’ She was about to praise his beautiful photograph and article about the chalet, when she remembered his bundling it away when Debra had called him, better to leave it. ‘Anyway thank you so much,’ she added instead.

  Debra just shrugged opened the door and went out to join the others, leaving Eloise feeling sorry for her. Debra had done her best in the way she knew and she shouldn’t judge her.

  A few minutes later Eloise left to go down to the village to shop for the dinner. After the party left tomorrow morning they had a few quiet days before the next group – friends of Lawrence’s – arrived for a long weekend, so there was not much to buy today.

  She saw no one she knew in the village; Saskia had gone to Geneva with Quinn, and she thought she’d leave Gaby to get in touch with her if she wanted to. When she got back to Jacaranda she found that Vera had left, so she and Bert were alone in the chalet.

  She had just finished tidying away the shopping when she heard the door of the chalet open. It was probably Debra and possibly Ken coming back and Eloise went down the passage to see, closely followed by Bert who was hoping it was Theo who’d returned. It was Aurelia. Both women stared at each other.

  ‘Oh, Aurelia, what are you doing here?’ Eloise struggled to appear composed, surprised and concerned to see her.

  Aurelia quickly hid her own shock at seeing Eloise, and putting on her imperious voice, she said, ‘It’s OK, I just came to… measure up properly, see the space… there’s so much wasted potential.’

  ‘Measure up for what?’ Eloise demanded. Had Aurelia and Lawrence decided to go into business together after all, and she had come to lay her claim? But if he was going in with her why was he not here to show her round, discuss it with her?

  ‘I won’t bore you with it,’ Aurelia waved her hand dismissively as if she wouldn’t understand anyway. ‘I just want to look round, see the size of the bedrooms, bathrooms – see how many there are, and all that.’ She turned towards the stairs.

  It was not her business and yet she could not let Jacaranda go with a fight. There was something about Aurelia’s stance that made her suspicious.

  ‘Did you tell Lawrence you were coming? I would have thought he would have liked to show you around the chalet himself?’ she said, moving to bar the stairs. Bert, sensing the atmosphere, growled.

  ‘That dog’s dangerous,’ Aurelia said, watching him warily. ‘Shut him away,’ she commanded.

  ‘He’s fine; he belongs here and is just guarding the place. I think it best that you come back when Lawrence is here, see what he thinks.’

  ‘He’s off skiing now, I saw him at Medran, ready to go up.’

  ‘So he knows you’re here?’

  Aurelia wouldn’t look at her, she said firmly, ‘As I’m here I’ll just take a look around.’ She took out an iPad and a tape measure from her bag and made for the stairs, a determined look on her face. ‘Move out of my way please, Eloise, this is absolutely nothing to do with you, you came here to cook and I understand you leave in a few days.’

  ‘Our guests are still here and I doubt they’d feel happy knowing a stranger was going into their rooms. I’ll text Lawrence’ – she took her mobile out of her pocket – ‘and see what he thinks, but while I’m here alone, I will not let you go upstairs.’ She began to text him.

  ‘Just because this used to belong to your godfather it doesn’t mean you belong here,’ Aurelia said, her eyes spiteful. ‘Jacaranda is Lawrence’s now and he and I could make a real go of it, modernize it, bring in clients like these ones every time, now he’s with this top agency, but he’s got to change things if he wants to stay there.’

  Eloise struggled with her feelings. Aurelia no doubt spoke the truth, but she would not allow her to poke round the chalet without Lawrence being here. She finished her text.

  Aurelia arrived to look round. Told her to wait until the guests have left and you are here

  Her finger hovered over ‘send’ as she watched for Aurelia’s reaction. ‘I’ll wait and see what he says.’

  Aurelia’s mouth twisted in anger, ‘I’ll come back later, I’ll tell Lawrence how rude you are, acting as if you own the place and have forgotten you’re only the cook, and not a good one at that. He’ll be relieved, we all will, when Paddy comes back, he’s the sort of chef the clients who come here expect.’ She snatched at the door handle, jerked it open and stamped outside to her car without shutting it, leaving the cold air to seep in.

  Eloise shut the door and deleted the text. There was no point in bothering him, spoiling his skiing. She struggled to collect her feelings. Aurelia was right, she was only the cook, and though Lawrence had asked if she would stay on as Paddy had another job, Jacaranda’s fate was nothing to do with her. It was a business and perhaps Lawrence had decided that to keep it viable it would be best to make some sort of arrangement with Aurelia. After all, if all her food were here there would be no need to worry about getting and keeping a chef.

  She wished now she were skiing high on some mountain surrounded by the savage beauty of nature, the snow under her feet and the feeling of liberation as she skied down with the wind in her hair and her worries blown away in the magic of it all.

  Bert barked at the door, wanting to go out, and she decided to drop everything and go with him. It would only be a walk, but it would be a long one, and she needed to be outside to calm her troubled mind.

  She opened the door to let him go while she put on her coat and boots and they set out. It was very cold but the sky was dazzling blue and they took the path that led to the main mountains. Either side of the path were fir trees, their branches heavy with snow. There was a stillness about the place, every so often broken by the soft fall of snow toppling from an overladen branch. Bert ran here and there, picked up a fir cone in his mouth and nudged her legs until she threw it, and h
e ran, barking excitedly, to bring it back to her to do again and again until she protested that she was bored of the game.

  They went on up the path until they reached the top of one of the nursery slopes, the last bit of the run from the top. The skiers coming down turned on to it to ski to the bottom and home.

  Ahead she saw someone coming straight towards the path they were standing on. She stood aside so the person could pass them, but Bert began to bark and run round in circles.

  ‘Bert,’ she called, going to him and bending down to calm him, ‘what a fuss; other people are allowed to use this path as well as us.’

  Bert broke free and ran yelping in excitement, narrowly missing being run down by the skier, who stopped and, laughing, bent down to pat him, and she realized it was Lawrence, his face covered with goggles and a scarf.

  With Bert under one arm trying to lick his face, he came slowly down to where she stood.

  ‘Eloise, out for a walk?’ He put Bert down and lifted his goggles and pushed away his scarf.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’ve hardly done any walks since I’ve been here and I love this place.’

  ‘Me too,’ he said, studying her face as if he had not looked at her properly before. He said, ‘Have you come to a decision about staying on. I’m sorry, I must know today, the chef Paddy recommended has been offered something else and needs to know at once.’

  She was leaving, was she not? She’d stay until the next chef arrived as planned and then go home, and leave Jacaranda… and Lawrence for Aurelia. And yet she could not bear to leave. Standing here beside him in the snow, at the base of the mountain surrounded by pine trees, the fresh scent of them sharp on the air, she wanted to stay, where else in the world would she feel so alive, so much a part of nature?

  Lawrence bent down and took off his skis. ‘It’s easier to walk down from here,’ he said. ‘So have you made up your mind?’ His voice was harsh now; he did not look at her.

  ‘Yes.’ She felt a stab of pain at his tone; she was still sore after Harvey’s departure, and there was Aurelia waiting to grab Lawrence, had grabbed him already for all she knew. ‘I‘m going home. Of course I’ll stay until the next chef arrives.’

  ‘I see.’ He looked away, his mouth set firm. ‘If that’s your decision. Theo will miss you, all your baking, and Bert.’ He gestured towards the little dog who was playing catch the fir cone with himself.

  ‘And will you?’ The words she didn’t mean to say hung in the silence. How foolish she was, she was about to make a joke only she couldn’t think of one. He turned to face her.

  ‘What do you think, Eloise?’ he said quietly.

  What could she say? Whatever it was it would sound wrong. ‘I doubt you will,’ she said, ‘you won’t have to worry that I’ll mess up with some terrible cooking fiasco, or let Bert mangle the dinner, you’ll have a real chef and it will be a relief and…’

  ‘No,’ he said and before she knew it she was in his arms, his lips fierce upon hers. She kissed him back, their passion rising, all she wanted was to stay here with him forever.

  He lifted his head and gazed at her his eyes warm with love. ‘You cannot go,’ he said, stroking back her hair, ‘I will not let you.’

  ‘But… I…’ It felt so right being here in his arms, but if he wanted to go into business with Aurelia it couldn’t work and she’d not be hurt again. ‘I know that you want to – have to, upgrade Jacaranda to move with the times, and Aurelia will be a good partner, and you need a professional chef for that, I understand.’

  ‘What?’ he frowned. ‘What’s all this about Aurelia?’

  ‘She came to the chalet when you’d left. Said she’d come to measure up, as she put it that you and her were going into business together… I quite understand.’

  ‘But that’s not true,’ he protested. ‘It’s true I thought about it when I worried that I’d lose Jacaranda, but you saved that disaster.’ He kissed her again and she felt herself melting, yielding to him, she must trust him, stop being afraid of being hurt as Harvey had hurt her.

  ‘But Aurelia seems very determined,’ she said, holding him back a moment, ‘and she does have a good business of her own which could tie in well with yours.’ She yearned to stay with him and yet she could not cope with Aurelia’s scorn.

  ‘She’s a determined person and that’s one of the reasons I’d never go in with her, I was tempted, it’s true, when I thought I’d be landed with huge legal bills if Debra sued, but even then I had begun to realize it just wouldn’t work, she and I in business together.’ He kissed her again and she felt herself relax, she’d let her pain over the break-up of her marriage stifle her growing feelings for Lawrence. She loved him, plain and simple, and she would go with it wherever it led.

  ‘I love you,’ she said, kissing him again.’ I love you, Lawrence.’

  His face was radiant. ‘I think I’ve loved you since that night Bert stole the lamb,’ he laughed, ‘but I hid it from myself and from you, thinking you were still in love with your ex-husband, and maybe he’d come here to try and make up.’

  ‘No, it was a dreadful coincidence that he was here and now that is a chapter ended.’

  ‘Come on, let’s go back to Jacaranda. I want to make love to you.’

  They walked back together along the path, Lawrence carrying his skies on one shoulder, his free arm round her, and Bert running beside them. Eloise felt complete, her lost and lonely feelings gone. She thought of how nervous Desmond’s insistence that she could cook at Jacaranda made her and how she’d taken the challenge. He was a wily old bird, had he known all along how it would end? She laughed, joy filling her. ‘Your father started this,’ she said. ‘Do you think he meant us to fall in love?’

  ‘We’ll have to ask him when he comes,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘I’m longing to see him, but…’ She frowned as the thought hit her. ‘Perhaps if you want to keep with this top agency, it may be best that you do employ a top chef.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ he protested. ‘You’re like Maddy, have the same gift of making a place seem like a home and that’s what Jacaranda is to be in the future, a home from home.’ He kissed her again. ‘Kiss the cook, your apron says, and that’s something I’ve been longing to do ever since you came.’

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  Acknowledgements

  My sincere thanks to my agent Judith Murdoch and my editors Caroline Ridding and Sarah Ritherdon at Aria.

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  Read on for a preview of Book Title:

  Alice finds herself suddenly widowed in her early forties, leaving her with an empty house and a lonely heart. Laura and Evie, her twenty-something daughters announce their separate and unexpected news, which ploughs Alice straight out of grieving and into the prospect planning a wedding and becoming a reluctant – yet glamorous – granny.

  Frank, an old family friend returns to give his godchild Laura away at the wedding. A whole host of secrets unfold that rock the family’s foundations and set Alice free to begin a new, exciting chapter of her life.

  Can’t wait? Buy it here now!

  1

  ‘No … Evie, you’re pregnant?’ Alice sank down on the sofa, staring in dismay at her younger daughter. This was a bad joke, it couldn’t be happening, not just now. ‘You… you never said you were seeing anyone,’ she said weakly, imagining some careless young man barely out of uni the same age as Evie with little hope of giving the child a decent start in life.

  ‘But you’re going to be a granny, Mum,’ Evie
said as if awarding her a prize.

  ‘I don’t want to be a granny, nana… whatever… like this Evie, and just when you’ve got that wonderful commission for your drawings.’ Alice was near tears now, tears of panic at having to deal with this without the support of her beloved husband.

  ‘You’ll be such a glamorous granny, a glammy granny.’ Evie, who’d tossed out her bombshell almost as an afterthought as she was leaving the room, appeared to mistake her mother’s reaction as the fear of being thought old jumping too soon into the world of cardies and slippers. She frowned, her mouth set in that sulky way she had when thwarted. ‘It’s no big deal today, people do have sex before marriage you know, Mum, and sex makes babies.’

  ‘Not if you’re careful,’ Alice snapped annoyed by Evie’s apparent lack of responsibility in this serious situation that had poleaxed her. ‘So… how old is the father, has he a job, is he going to stand by you, by the child you are both expecting together?’

  Evie now appeared troubled, her eyes, a moment ago so defiant, now stared at the floor. She chewed her thumbnail, a habit she had when stressed, her body sagged, all her cocky energy gone. ‘It’s Nick’s,’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh Evie… you don’t… you can’t mean Nick Ebury?’ That was surely the worst. Nick Ebury, the village roué and married man. ‘That is wrong.’ Alice struggled to curb the fury that threatened to splash out like acid over both of them, causing even more damage to their fragile state. How could Evie have been so stupid, so careless? Now she wished that it had been a young man, someone who loved her, would do his best to support her and their child. Not Nick…

  Alice believed in fidelity in marriage – though she accepted she’d been lucky in hers, and besides, she liked Freya, Nick’s long-suffering wife, and counted her as a friend.