by Alice Ross
Alice Ross
Never
Propose
On
Christmas Day
Contents
About the Author
Also by Alice Ross
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
About the Author
Alice Ross used to work in the financial services industry where she wrote riveting, enthralling brochures about pensions and ISAs that everyone read avidly and no one ever put straight into the bin.
One day, when nobody was looking, she managed to escape. Dragging her personal chef (aka her husband) along with her, she headed to Spain, where she began writing witty, sexy, romps designed to amuse slightly more than pension brochures.
Missing Blighty (including the weather - but don't tell anyone), she returned five years later and now works part-time in the tourism industry.
When not writing, she can be found scratching out a tune on her violin, walking her dog, or standing on her head in a yoga pose.
Also by Alice Ross
The Trouble With Great Aunt Milly
Never Drop Dead on a Friday
Lovelace Lane
The Little Cottage
The Big House
The Wedding
Christmas
New Arrivals
The Birthday
The Cosy Castle on the Loch
Spring
Summer
The Cotswolds Cookery Club
A Taste of Italy
A Taste of Spain
A Taste of France
Countryside Dreams
An Autumn Affair
A Summer of Secrets
A Winter’s Wish
Regency
The Very Unaccomplished Lady Eleanor
Under the Willow Tree
PEBBERLEY CASTLE Hotel
17 December 2018
Dear Mr Pankhurst
Thank you for your recent booking and your attached list of questions which we have read with interest. Please find below our answers:
We do agree that it is a lovely idea to propose to your girlfriend on Christmas Day, however, I’m afraid we are unable to honour your request to hide a string quartet in your room, primarily because four people and a cello wouldn’t fit into the wardrobe.
Your suggestion of having the engagement ring delivered to your restaurant table dangling from the antler of a live reindeer is certainly original, however, due to health and safety constraints, animal welfare, and the reaction of the restaurant manager, I am obliged to stress that we would much rather you considered an alternative method.
I’m afraid the cheapest bottle of champagne we stock is £70. Although we sympathise that this is significantly higher than your £25 budget, I’m sorry to inform you that we do not allow Tesco food deliveries to the hotel.
As the cost of your booking has already been drastically reduced due to it being a last-minute cancellation, I regret we are unable to offer any further discount, even if you did bring your own towels as suggested.
I do hope you understand that we receive many varied requests from our guests and although we would like to honour all of these, it is not always possible to do so.
We look forward to welcoming you to Pebberley Castle on 23 December and very much hope you enjoy your three-night stay with us.
Yours sincerely
P Tomkinson
Hotel Manager
Chapter One
I re-read the email from the manager of the Pebberley Castle Hotel for what must have been the seventieth time, and award myself an enormous pat on the back.
Not only have I secured a booking at the much-sought-after destination - offering “luxurious and lavish accommodation in the heart of the Scottish Borders” - but I’ve managed to bag it at half its normal price. And, I’ve added in a few little surprises too. Not as many as I would have liked, due to some of them apparently not being “possible”, but still enough to make the stay special. And the reason for all this impressive organisation causes excitement to tango up and down my spine…
I, Adam Pankhurst, at the grand old age of thirty-one, have decided to take a momentous and slightly scary leap into the world of adulthood. On Christmas Day I’m going to pop The Question to Ellie Marsden, my girlfriend of three years. And it’s not going to be any old, boring, low-key proposal. Oh no. It’s going to be a full-on romantic experience that both of us will remember for the rest of our lives.
‘There’s no other way to do it, mate,’ my best pal, Kyle, had assured me, when I’d fessed up after a few too many lagers and a doner kebab the other Saturday night.
‘But Ellie’s not into all that stuff,’ I’d slurred, after divulging my original plan – admittedly not the most imaginative – to plant the ring in a Christmas cracker, along with a singing Santa thong and a couple of her favourite Ferrero Rocher.
‘Bollocks. All girls are into that stuff. And I should know.’
Even I, in my inebriated state – which can sometimes make me a tad argumentative – couldn’t argue with that. Mainly because my best pal – who I’d once heard described as a hunkier version of Leonardo DiCaprio - had had more women than I’d scoffed doner kebabs. And he’d popped The Question three times. The fact that he hadn’t actually made it down the aisle yet, had much to do with him having had more women than I’d scoffed doners, continuing to add to that burgeoning list even when newly-affianced.
To be fair, though, he did appear to have placed all such shenanigans behind him now that he’d slid a whopping great sapphire onto the third finger of the left hand attached to the gorgeous Ingrid. Ingrid was Swedish and a solicitor. I don’t know if it was because she was Swedish, or because she was a solicitor, but the woman did not suffer fools gladly. Nor did she put up with any crap. At just over six foot, with a sheath of platinum blonde hair and a body that wouldn’t look out of place on the cover of Sports Illustrated, she cut an intimidating Nordic figure. So much so, that I used to refer to her as the Scary Swede, before Ellie adapted the moniker to the Terrifying Turnip.
‘I look like one of those troll dolls when I stand next to her,’ my beloved had whined.
Naturally, I’d pooh-poohed this observation, while secretly acknowledging that it did contain a grain of truth. Most lesser mortals looked like trolls next to the majestic Ingrid. But, that point notwithstanding, I still considered Ellie to be the sexiest woman on the planet, her five-foot-two frame curving in all the right places, her mass of dark curly hair curtaining an adorably cute face, and her huge absinthe-green eyes still having the ability to turn my insides to mush whenever she flicked them in my direction.
The instant we’d met, when I’d been out on a stag night dressed as a traffic cone, I’d known she was the one for me. Well, perhaps not the exact instant, given she seemed to be the one-hundredth-and-twenty-seventh person to stand on my toes in the pub while she’d been collecting glasses. But very shortly afterwards – the minute she’d gazed up at me with those enormous eyes and apologised. Unfortunately, it had taken a little longer for Ellie to realise that I was the love of her life.
‘Fancy meeting up one night next week?’ I’d suggested, doing my best to play it cool. No mean feat when you’re impersonating a triangular-shaped piece of fluorescent plastic.
‘Not a chance in hell,’ had zoomed back the reply.
Aware that faint heart had never won fair lady, and that, in all probability, neither had a traffic cone, and unable to shake the image of those glorious green peepers from my mind, I hadn’t given up. The
next day, despite the hangover from hell, I’d dragged myself back to the pub, thrilled to find her working behind the bar again.
‘Hi,’ I’d chirped. ‘Remember me? The traffic cone from last night.’
‘Sod off,’ she’d hurled back.
There being nothing remotely ambiguous in that directive, and with me feeling decidedly delicate in the aftermath of the evening before, I’d admitted defeat, slunk off home, and avoided the pub for weeks afterwards. Not just because of her lack of enthusiasm at spending time in my company, but because, the day after my most recent visit, I’d spotted her in town, holding hands with the male equivalent of Ingrid – a tall, tanned bloke, with spiky blond hair and a rugby-player physique. An impressive package my pathetic biceps, red hair and resolutely ‘English’ complexion couldn’t hope to compete with. Recognising when I was beaten, I immediately called time on all wooing attempts.
Until, two months later, when I’d bumped into her – literally – again. This time when she was on a night out with her friends.
‘Hi. Remember me?’ I’d spouted.
By the blank look that settled over her gorgeous freckled face, she evidently hadn’t.
‘The traffic cone. From a few weeks ago,’ I’d added hopefully.
‘Oh. Right,’ she’d muttered, before catapulting herself over to the other side of the room to join her gang.
And that had been the uneventful end of that. Or so I’d thought. Until, leaving the pub with her cronies a couple of hours later, she’d detoured – in a zigzagging fashion - over to me.
‘Sorry for being rude when I first met you, but I get all sorts of weirdos coming on to me in the pub. I know I’ve probably burned my bridges, but if you’d still like to go out, I’m free on Thursday.’ She’d offered me a diffident smile. And, as my heart had skipped a beat, I’d gazed into those heavenly eyes and realised I was already a tiny bit in love.
Not that I had the slightest intention of letting her in on my secret. Not when she’d been a bit of a cow up until then. Two could play at that game. In theory.
I’d contorted my features into a pensive expression. ‘Actually, I’m busy on Thursday.’
‘No, you’re not,’ she’d countered, mouth curving into such a cheeky grin that a swarm of butterflies had taken flight in my stomach. ‘You’re playing it cool because I’ve been a bit of a cow. I’ll meet you in the Feathers at eight,’ she’d concluded with a wink, before zigzagging off and taking a piece of my heart with her.
And the rest, as they say, is history: a few more dates – during which she’d fessed up to finding me rather cute in my traffic cone outfit, and I’d fessed up to having written her off completely after seeing her holding hands with the male Ingrid equivalent.
‘His name’s Calum,’ she’d informed me matter-of-factly. ‘He’s a trainee pilot. We went out for two years and now it’s over. And if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it.’
So we hadn’t. ‘Calum The Trainee Pilot’ hadn’t been mentioned since. A circumstance which hadn’t perturbed me in the least, the words ‘it’s over’ being the only ones I needed to hear.
Meanwhile, mine and Ellie’s relationship trundled along nicely, ticking all the right boxes in precisely the right order: our first night together – admittedly a disaster as we’d gone camping, forgotten the tent pegs and ended up in a dodgy B&B that reeked of cat sick; various clothing and toiletries gradually being deposited at one another’s flats. Then, last year, moving in together. There’d been no great discussion about whether we should cohabit, it had merely seemed the logical thing to do when Ellie’s landlord announced he was putting her pad on the market and had issued her with a month’s notice.
‘Why don’t you move in with me. It’s stupid us paying two lots of rent when we’re always together anyway,’ I’d pointed out.
At this – in my opinion – very sensible suggestion, she’d looked slightly taken aback at first, but had quickly rallied. ‘Oh. Right. Yes. I suppose it is. Well, OK then.’
And so, it had come about through practical, rather than romantic reasons, that we’d ended up living together. Not that the reason mattered. The main thing was that we were living together. And I loved every minute of it. I loved waking up with Ellie every morning and going home to her every evening. I loved watching TV with her and cooking with her. I loved the way she pretended to be Beyoncé in the shower every morning; seeing her shoes next to mine in the hall; and the way she diligently buttered her toast so she didn’t miss a single millimetre. And even when she snored like a trooper after one too many glasses of plonk, it didn’t bother me. Well, not much anyway. No, I think it was fair to say that we’d settled into a convivial living arrangement where we rubbed along nicely together. One some people our age might find a bit staid but, for me, was just about perfect.
She was my ideal woman. And she knew me better than I knew myself.
Which was why I fully intended making her my wife, starting with the popping of The Question on December twenty-fifth.
‘Good day at the office, darling?’
Ellie asks me the same question every evening – in her best Stepford Wife voice - when I return home from work to what is now our flat.
‘Great,’ I chirrup merrily.
From the kitchen table, where she’s surrounded by piles of accountancy books, an eyebrow kinks over the top of her reading glasses, which immediately makes me kick myself.
My job as Marketing Analyst for a national supermarket chain does not normally elicit such an effusive response. Usually, in reply to Ellie’s daily enquiry, I grunt back something along the lines of ‘Crap’, ‘Bollocks’, ‘Do you think anyone would notice if I never went back again?’ or, my favourite - ‘There has to be more to life. Let’s bugger off to Australia/Canada/Papua New Guinea (depending on my continental preference on the day) and get away from it all’.
Little wonder then, that today’s buoyant riposte – courtesy of my proposal excitement – evokes suspicion.
‘Well, obviously the only reason I’m saying great,’ I bluster, grabbing a metaphoric shovel to dig myself out of my metaphoric hole, ‘is because it’s Friday tomorrow, then there are only two more working days next week before the Christmas holidays.’
A second eyebrow appears. Bugger!
‘Should we… wrap the presents tonight?’ I blurt, in what I deem to be a sterling effort to change the subject. Wrapping Christmas presents ranks among Ellie’s list of favourite things. Mainly because it’s the only time of year she can get away with sticking ribbon rosettes in silly – and usually rude - places they really weren’t designed to be stuck. This year, however, the activity appears to have slipped from its top three ranking.
A deep crevice forms on her forehead. ‘I’m too tired. I’ll do it tomorrow.’
‘I’ll do it if you like. It’ll get me into the Christmas spirit.’
She tugs off her specs, rubs her eyes and fixes me with one of her looks. ‘Are you certain you haven’t partaken of a bit of Christmas spirit already today - at the pub?’
‘Of course not,’ I reply airily. ‘Just looking forward to the festive season, that’s all.’
‘But you hate Christmas.’
This observation is spot on. I am not a fan of all things festive, nor have I ever been. As the only child of elderly parents, my memories of the latter part of December consist of being dragged along to Granny Jane’s house for what felt like six months, being fed copious amounts of dates and sprouts – occasionally together, depending on how many sherries my elderly relative had partaken of beforehand; and enduring daily re-runs of The Generation Game – the same episode over and over again, until we’d rhymed off everything that had sat on the infamous conveyor belt. Even the receiving of gifts hadn’t brightened the dreary occasion, they usually coming in the form of vests, socks and strangely shaped underpants - which I sometimes suspected weren’t quite new - from Granny Jane, and Talcum Power for Boys and ‘educational games’ from my parent
s.
When I’d reached adulthood and Granny Jane and my parents had shuffled off the mortal coil, I’d hoped I might, at last, discover something of the magic of the season. Yet, despite spending the main event in a variety of locations – including an all-day toga party in Lanzarote (not recommended for all manner of reasons, most of which I’d prefer not to think about ever again) - the allure continued to evade me.
Since Ellie and I had become an item, all seasonal celebrations had been spent at her parents’ posh abode in Northumberland. Which, in fairness, would probably have been fine, were it not for the fact that her sister, Rachel, also rocks up for the duration, accompanied by her supercilious banker husband, Dominic, and their two irritating, uber-confident offspring.
I suppose, given we’re expected there as usual, I’d better phone Ellie’s mum and, after making her swear not to divulge a word of my plan, explain why we won’t be there this year. In the meantime, though, I will continue to divert any scent of proposal activity away from my intended.
‘How’ve you got on today?’ I ask, wandering over and squishing a kiss on top of her dark curls.
‘Terrible. I don’t know why I’m bothering. I’m never going to pass.’
Ellie is studying to be an accountant, an endeavour I completely applaud and wholeheartedly support. After three years working as a maths teacher in a comprehensive school, she packed in her job and went back to being a full-time student, working behind the bar in the pub where I first saw her, to supplement her income. Her final exams are in January and she’s so determined to pass them, she’s working her butt off.