“A dozen johnnies!” Laughing, Reuben held up the box to show Bunny. “We won’t run out now. Happy Christmas!”
“Snap!” Bunny held up a box of his own. It went onto the pile along with a new shirt of bright blue for him to almost fasten, a photo book capturing moments from the chequered history of Soho and even a shining red cricket ball with smooth hand stitching. Whoever had brought these gifts out to snowbound Dorset, they’d judged the recipients perfectly. It was a true Christmas miracle.
“I wish I could say I’d bought you those presents,” Reuben said. He flicked through the book about Soho, admiring an enormous pair of eyelashes on a woman photographed in the 1960s. “Because I wish I could get it that spot on. But I didn’t. I don’t…I don’t understand at all!”
But Bunny was as serene as ever. He cocked his head to one side and said, “Let’s not ask. You have sprouts to prepare, after all.” Bunny’s smile told Reuben exactly what that meant. “Merry Christmas, darling.”
“Merry Christmas, Bunny.” And Reuben kissed him.
Epilogue
Knowing from personal experience how difficult it could be to travel in the winter, Reuben and Bunny waited until summer for their wedding. They’d spent eighteen blissful months together, and Reuben had never really gone back to the flat in Greenwich, other than to move out and help Sanjay’s girlfriend move in.
Their wedding could have been glitzy, and their guest list ensured that it was to an extent, but ultimately it was a beautiful ceremony in Dorset for Reuben and Bunny to exchange vows in front of their friends.
The garden of the house where they’d spent their first Christmas together was the perfect place to celebrate, and the sun threw its rays across the grass, sparkling on the surface of every glass of champagne. There might have been household names in attendance, but it wasn’t a red-carpet event. Though everyone was spoiled rotten, Reuben and Bunny reserved the real superstar treatment for their families. In fact, everyone got on so well that it was like one big family now anyway.
And nobody, not even the Thwackers, told Bunny to draw his sword.
Until Reuben’s grandma appeared beside Bunny as they sat at the table, the worse for a couple of flutes of champagne.
“Has anyone told you, Bunny, you look just like that man off the telly? The one who says…” Granny Sheldrake blinked as she ransacked her memory for something.
Reuben cringed. Oh God, no. No. Not now. Please not now.
But Bunny didn’t look as if anything could ruffle him today. Instead he waited, one arm round Reuben and the gold band on his finger sparkling.
“Oh, that’s it!” Granny Sheldrake said. Reuben winced. “Tamsin, you wench, you have my heart!”
Reuben burst out laughing. He’d never heard anyone say that line to Bunny before.
“That’s me and that’s her!” Bunny grinned, nodding towards Linda, who was sipping champagne on the far side of the lawn. Then he turned to look at Reuben and said, “Reuben, you glorious chap, you have my heart. Now draw your makeup brush, sir! How’s that?”
Reuben took Bunny’s hand and twined their fingers together. Then he leaned closer to him and sealed their love with a kiss.
Want to see more from these authors? Here’s a taster for you to enjoy!
The Captain’s Cornish Christmas
Catherine Curzon & Eleanor Harkstead
Excerpt
Jago frowned as he heard the weather warning come in over the radio. It was the last thing he needed on Christmas Eve.
He barely noticed the cold sting of the sea spray striking his face as he powered the rescue boat over the waves. There hadn’t been an SOS, but he had left Polneath harbor anyway. Sam Coryton and his yacht, Morveren, hadn’t returned to the marina, and with bad weather moving in and little daylight left, Jago knew he would have to go out to find him.
No response on the radio. No distress flares sighted.
Jago kept his grip firm on the wheel, his jaw set with determination.
He rounded the rocky headland, so beautiful and yet, he knew only too well, so dangerous—and he saw it. The white hull and sails of the Morveren. And it appeared to be in distress. The yacht rocked from side to side in the water, the depths already boiling in anticipation of the oncoming storm. In the windows of the vessel bright Christmas lights twinkled merrily, but there was no other sign of life, no indication that Polneath’s favorite son was anywhere on board.
A chill ran through Jago’s blood as he steered closer to the yacht, and it wasn’t just at the thought of what this oceangoing Maserati must have cost. No man with an ounce of sense in his head would be so stupid as to still be out here now in the dying hours of the Christmas Eve daylight, with the maelstrom somewhere on the horizon. He remembered from summer Sam’s bad habit of swimming alone from the deck of his yacht, but surely he wouldn’t be so stupid as to do it in the depths of winter?
Even Sam Coryton wouldn’t be so idiotic as that.
Jago pulled up alongside the yacht and let the engine idle. He called over the sound of the waves and the seabirds, “Sam! Sam Coryton—it’s Captain Treherne. Are you there, Sam? Can you hear me?”
He paused, but heard no reply. There was no sign of anyone in the water, and Jago wondered if Sam had been taken ill, alone in a cabin on the yacht. “I’m coming aboard!”
Jago lashed the rescue boat to the Morveren, then heaved himself onto the deck. His boots squeaked as he crept along the deserted craft.
“Where the bloody hell is he?” Jago muttered to himself as he lifted the hatch on the companionway and stared down into the vessel. The Christmas lights were the only illumination in the stairwell, but from beneath he could hear the gentle strains of light classical music and smell fresh coffee, suggesting that someone was or, in the worst-case scenario had been, aboard until recently.
Jago called Sam’s name again, carefully descending the stairs into the yacht’s living quarters. He had seen some impressive vessels in his day and this was certainly high among them, a sleek craft from the outside and a comfortable home within. The hallway that stretched ahead of him was brightly lit, the walls decorated with enormous canvases showing cheery riots of color, but that made the scene feel somehow even more uneasy. There was something in the air, an indefinable tension that fired Jago’s instincts as he looked in on the rooms and found nothing out of the ordinary, but no sign of the man who had sailed this vessel from the safety of the harbor.
Where was Sam Coryton, successful crime author? Surely this wasn’t one of Sam’s thrillers come to life? Would Jago pull open a door and find—no, he couldn’t bear to think of that. Not on his watch, not Polneath’s famous boy.
“Sam? Can you hear me?”
He shouldn’t have thought of Sam’s thrillers. Now Jago was thinking of the bright Cornish villages with their casts of colorful locals and the violence just beneath the surface, of murder and—this was just the sort of plot Sam Coryton would come up with—Christmas lights on a floating yacht with a gory surprise lurking somewhere within.
Only one set of double doors remained in the living quarters now and they stood, as they would in a murder mystery, right at the end of the hallway ahead of Jago. He hadn’t seen a master bedroom so this must be it. Despite himself the lifeboat captain, sturdy, brave, fearless, paused with his hands on the door handles. He drew in a deep breath, told himself he had seen worse than a dead author and pushed the doors open.
Jago had only time to see a brief impression—a figure, sprawled across a bed. A naked body. Was this the work of some depraved psychopath? “Bloody hell, no—Sam!”
“Jesus bloody Christ!” Sam’s hand—the hand that hadn’t been busy elsewhere—flashed out and seized the pristine white sheet. He pulled it over his naked, sweat-sheened body at the same time as he tried to jump from the bed. Instead he succeeded in catching his feet in the crisp linen, ending up in a tumbled heap on the floor, bare bottom uppermost.
“Everything’s fine,” award-winning author
Sam Coryton, whose latest book was to be dramatized as the BBC’s big Boxing Day drama, exclaimed. “I was just— I was— I fell asleep!”
Jago stared at the sprawled figure. He stared at the perfect, firm buttocks.
And looked away.
“I…just…there’s a storm coming! I was trying to get hold of you on the radio and got no reply, and I thought you were in trouble and—bloody hell, Sam, you were in your cabin all along, having—” Jago swallowed with difficulty, his throat constricted with rising fury for his wasted journey and his pointless fear. “—a swift one off the wrist!”
“A wank. Yes, Jago, I was having a wank in my bedroom on my yacht, in private prior to sailing for the harbor. Is that illegal nowadays?” Sam managed to scramble to his feet, the annoyingly stylish look of his impromptu toga rather spoiled by the bruise that was already blooming around his right eye. “Bashed my bloody head thanks to you!”
Jago realized his gaze had settled on the toga. He forced himself to look Sam in the eyes. His sparkling dark eyes. “I’m bloody well sick and tired of dealing with people like you who go out on the sea without knowing how to sail properly. You’re supposed to keep an ear out for any emergency information over the radio. And what were you doing? Having a—” A wank. “Having a rest in your cabin! Naked!”
Sam didn’t seem to be listening, however. Instead he stalked across the room to a full-length mirror and put his face close to the surface, turning his head slightly this way and that. “I’m going to have a black eye for Christmas. Cheers, mate!”
Jago wagged his finger, using the tone he reserved for young scamps who got blown out to sea on inflatable dinghies on windy days. “Or you could’ve had your yacht smashed to matchsticks on the rocks, and you along with it. I came out here to see if you were all right, to make sure you were safe. But don’t worry, Sam—don’t mention it!”
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About the Authors
Catherine Curzon
Catherine Curzon is a royal historian who writes on all matters of 18th century. Her work has been featured on many platforms and Catherine has also spoken at various venues including the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, and Dr Johnson’s House.
Catherine holds a Master’s degree in Film and when not dodging the furies of the guillotine, writes fiction set deep in the underbelly of Georgian London.
She lives in Yorkshire atop a ludicrously steep hill.
Eleanor Harkstead
Eleanor Harkstead often dashes about in nineteenth-century costume, in bonnet or cravat as the mood takes her. She can occasionally be found wandering old graveyards, and is especially fond of the ones in Edinburgh. Eleanor is very fond of chocolate, wine, tweed waistcoats and nice pens. She has a large collection of vintage hats, and once played guitar in a band. Originally from the south-east, Eleanor now lives somewhere in the Midlands with a large ginger cat who resembles a Viking.
Sign up to receive their newsletter at https://curzonharkstead.co.uk/newsletter/
Catherine and Eleanor love to hear from readers. You can find their contact information, website and author biographies at https://www.pride-publishing.com.
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