She minimised the screen and rubbed her eyes with her knuckles until stars leapt and danced in her vision. The list of requirements was getting ever more ridiculous, but when an A-lister chose your hotel as their wedding venue you didn’t quibble with anything they asked for, even if you did privately think that a hot-pink carpet was tacky or that matching thrones were very 1990s Beckham. Georgie Angel was the most talked-about celebrity of the moment and was currently starring in Wreckers, ITV’s answer to Poldark. His handsome, glowering face was everywhere, from mugs to tablecloths. His now famous white shirt, slashed to the waist to reveal rippling pecs and tantalising whorls of dark hair just above his belt, drove women of a certain age mad. His wedding was certainly driving Ella mad because not a day went by without yet another demand.
Sorry. Did she say demand? What she meant was request.
She clicked the mouse and instantly another email pinged into her box. This time it was a message from Tabitha, the bride-to-be, suggesting the paparazzi be secretly allowed into the building to take pictures – even though last week Ella had been read the riot act regarding the need for privacy to protect magazine deals. All this was making Ella’s head hurt. If any other customer had behaved in such a manner, she would have considered telling them to find another venue. The only thing stopping Ella from firing back a curt reply was the fact that Georgie was such a big star, whose wedding here was bound to generate invaluable publicity. If everything went well, it would cement the hotel’s position as the place to get married.
She took a deep breath, flexed her fingers and started to type a reply. Ella was so deep in trying to explain why it would be unwise to invite the paparazzi – half the guests were celebrities, after all, and one Premier League footballer on the list was notoriously volatile – when the pressure of warm lips against the bare skin of her neck made her cry out.
Her heart hammering, Ella spun around in her wheelie chair to find Charlie Barton grinning at her. Her eyes widened. He was stark naked apart from a chef’s hat placed in a strategic position.
“Jesus! Charlie! What the hell are you playing at?” Ella shot up from her chair and locked the office door. If anyone walked in on them she could kiss goodbye to having any authority with her staff.
“Giving my sexy boss a classic dish. I call it Charlie’s Sausage Surprise,” Charlie said, raising his eyebrows in a suggestive fashion. “Come on, Ella, don’t be coy. You know you want me.”
Ella knew for certain that, actually, she really didn’t. As Charlie reached for her she caught a blast of his breath and recoiled.
“You’ve been drinking!”
It was only just past noon. Instantly Ella was on red alert. She had one hundred and sixty guests due at two o’clock, all of whom were expecting to sit down to a hugely expensive wedding breakfast prepared by Cornwall’s very own Charlie Barton. Oh Lord. He hadn’t been cooking naked, had he? Or, even worse, not prepared the food?
“A little,” Charlie admitted. “I was making the champagne jellies and a red-wine jus, so I had a little tester. Chef’s perks. A bit like this!”
He whipped the hat off his privates and attempted to pull her against him and bend her over the desk. It would have been sexy in a rather basic way, had he not been so plastered. Instead, he staggered and ended up in a heap on the floor.
“Oops!” he grinned, holding out his hand to her. “Never mind. The carpet’s quite soft. Come and join me here, babe.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Ella hissed. “There’s a function on today! You should be in the kitchen!”
“Relax. It’s all under control. I’ve worked the Charlie magic so it’s all ready, the TV people have their footage and Klaus is in charge now. My work is done… in the kitchen anyway! Now come here!”
Klaus was an excellent sous-chef but it wasn’t his food that her guests were paying for. Ella was furious. “Get up and cover yourself, for heaven’s sake. You’re being ridiculous. No, worse than that, unprofessional! I pay you to be a chef not an idiot!”
The humour faded and petulance flickered across his features. “Not nearly enough. I could get double if I went to Rock. Triple even.”
Ella’s heart clenched. She didn’t doubt this for a moment and they both knew it was true. Charlie had been nagging her for a pay rise for months. She’d already given him one and thrown in her Range Rover too in order to keep him sweet, but she’d always known it wouldn’t be enough. Nothing would ever be enough for Charlie Barton. He was avaricious to the last cell in his (naked) body.
But, as with vicious dogs, to show fear was to show weakness, so Ella just gave him a scornful look. “Not if you behave like this. What kind of a reference do you think I’d give you? You’d be lucky to get a job in the pasty shop.”
Charlie hauled himself up, leaning heavily against the desk, and curled his lip. “You think I’d need a reference? Dream on. You’ll need one from me, more like. Anyway, you know I’m good. You should give me a pay rise or I might just decide to go and see what’s elsewhere. And then where would you be?”
An icy finger traced a path down Ella’s spine. Up a well-known creek without paddle was where she’d be. Georgie Angel was a fan of Charlie’s and had booked the Polwenna Bay Hotel especially. She knew it and so did her chef.
“Ten grand a month should cover it – and that’s on top of my basic.” He reached out and grabbed his checked trousers from where he’d tossed them onto the filing cabinet, stepping into them as though he didn’t have a care in the world while Ella’s brain did some rapid mental arithmetic. Ten grand. Where on earth was she going to find ten grand?
She’d have to sell something. Lots of things. Already she was making an inventory of all her handbags and shoes. How much did second-hand Louis Vuittons go for these days?
Charlie, now dressed in his trousers, was unlocking the door. As it opened he swayed a little before clutching the doorframe for support. Then he laughed.
“You know something, Ella? It might have been easier just to have had some fun with me. You like it and I like it. Would it really have been so difficult? But I’m starting to feel very glad you didn’t. I think our relationship just moved to a whole new level.”
And with that he swaggered out, albeit a little unsteadily. She heard him laugh all the way down the corridor. Ella slammed her office door with such fury that the filing cabinet shook.
Even so, it wasn’t trembling nearly as much as she was. Things with Charlie were about to get a great deal uglier – and right at the beginning of the wedding season, this couldn’t have come at a worse time. What on earth was she going to do?
Chapter 4
Jules Mathieson closed the vestry door and leaned against it. Phew. Another successful wedding service at St Wenn’s concluded and, outside, the wedding party happily posing for photos against the beautiful backdrop of Polwenna Bay. Even with the sun playing hide-and-seek and the sea alternating between blue and grey, Jules knew the happy couple would look back on their wedding album and agree they couldn’t have chosen a better spot to take their vows.
As she shrugged off her cassock, showering the vestry floor with pink confetti (which she knew would give her verger, Sheila Keverne, a great excuse to moan), Jules couldn’t help feeling smug. Goodness, she hoped this wasn’t the Sin of Pride? But she did feel proud of what she and her team here had achieved in such a short time. Not so long ago the future of St Wenn’s had hung in the balance: with a falling congregation and circling property developers, the villagers had been worried they might lose their church. After lots of ingenious ideas for fundraising (some of them slightly less ingenious than others, admittedly), the future was looking far less bleak. Jules knew they still had a long way to go and that the bishop would review the parish registers at some point, but they’d turned a corner and this was in no small part down to the church proving to be a very popular wedding venue. With Ella St Milton plugging Polwenna Bay in expensive magazines, the word was slowly spreading. Jules couldn’t afford to
buy these publications herself, but she’d sneaked a few peeks in Betty Jago’s shop and been thrilled to see her church nestled between the property pages and features about driftwood art. She hadn’t been quite so chuffed with the shot of her looking plump and tufty-haired; on the other hand, at least now Jules could say she’d been a model in a glossy magazine.
“It’s not technically a lie, Lord,” she said out loud. “And it’s all for a good cause.”
With any luck today’s happy couple would show their pictures to all their friends, flood social media and upload so much video footage to YouTube that she’d be inundated with even more couples wanting to get married at St Wenn’s. The register would overflow with names, there would be lots of christenings to follow and Bishop Bill would be thrilled that the future of her lovely church was safe for centuries more to come. Getting told off for the confetti was a small price to pay.
Still, Sheila could be quite scary and Jules made a mental note to hunt out the dustpan and brush from under the vicarage sink. She’d have a quick clean-up before tomorrow’s early-morning communion service. Until then she’d just swish it under the rug. The flurries outside would have drifted all over the churchyard by now; dealing with them would be a job for Big Rog Pollard and his shiny new leaf blower. Assuming that Jules could ever prise him out of his shed, that was. Big Rog had missed the last Parochial Church Council meeting because, according to Little Rog, he was at a crucial point with his boat build. Jules wasn’t quite sure what was going on but had decided she’d only worry when she spotted animals trotting two by two up the hill to the Pollards’ cottage.
She hung her robes up, pulled her dog collar out from her shirt and donned a hoody. It was a lovely day but still chilly out of the sun – and since she was meeting her boyfriend Danny for a walk, Jules wasn’t about to do the classic British thing of mistaking a ray of sunshine for tropical weather. Knowing Danny, he’d find somewhere interesting for their lunch spot and she didn’t want to be cold. An ex-soldier, Danny might still bear the injuries that had forced him out of active service but he didn’t hang about or hold back when he was hiking. Since they’d first starting spending time together, enjoying a friendship that had slowly blossomed into love, Jules had lost over three stone keeping up with him.
Hmm. She still had a couple more to go, Jules thought critically. The trouble was that she lived in a village overflowing with pasties and scones. She also spent a lot of time visiting ageing parishioners and probably consumed her own body weight in cake every week. The Vicar of Dibley episode where Dawn French had had to scoff several Christmas dinners was closer to a documentary than a sitcom; many a time Jules had forced herself to eat another piece of sponge when her stomach was already fit to burst. Still, spring was on its way and with it the lighter evenings. She’d make a point of walking over the cliffs a couple of times a week. Maybe she could even ask her friend Summer if she could go running with her? Kind Summer wouldn’t laugh at Jules’s red-faced and wheezy attempts to get fit – and if anyone was a great advert for this form of exercise it was Jake Tremaine’s girlfriend. Jules would be a size zero before she knew it.
Or maybe not. Jules shook her head at this unrealistic thought. She could run to Truro and back every day for the rest of her life but she’d never be as skinny as Summer. On reflection, Jules decided that she ought to stick to the walking and try to avoid the ice cream or sausage roll reward at the end.
The vicar locked up the vestry and made her way through St Wenn’s, as always savouring the tranquillity of the place. The church was filled with a peace born of centuries of prayer and reflection. It wasn’t unusual to find villagers in here at random times of the day, searching for answers or perhaps just looking for a few minutes out from the whirl of twenty-first-century life. St Wenn’s belonged to the village and to anyone who needed it, and for this reason Jules tended to leave the main door unlocked. It was often surprising who came through it in search of the church’s solitude and comfort.
Outside, the wedding party was busy taking part in the photo shoot. The bride and groom were posing in the arched gateway, with the village tumbling away behind them and the sun silvering the sea. The couple had their arms wrapped around one another and seemed unable to tear their mutual gaze apart. Jules felt a lump rise to her throat. They were clearly in love, and so happy. Knowing that she’d played a part in their special day meant a great deal to her, and as she paused to let the photographer perfect the shot, Jules offered up a quick prayer for their future. She was well aware that life threw all kinds of curveballs at couples and that marriage wasn’t easy – her divorced and still warring parents were living proof of this – but moments like this filled Jules with hope. These newlyweds stood together now with the rest of their lives ahead of them like untrodden snow. How could Jules be cynical about love when she spent nearly every weekend marrying couples?
While the vicar reflected on these things, she watched the photographer attempting to arrange the bride’s train. In the strong breeze, it was billowing like the sails of the boats in the bay. Despite this, the bride looked absolutely radiant. Her dress was a gorgeous froth of lace and silk, delicately embroidered with daisies and bees, and modest rather than exposing too much cleavage or unsightly goosebumps. As she’d conducted the service, Jules – who was somewhat of an expert in these things by now – had admired the gown and thought privately that if she ever got married (and lost enough weight, of course) it was exactly the kind of dress she would choose.
Not that Jules was expecting to get married or even engaged. Although she’d been with Danny Tremaine for over a year now and they were very happy, marriage wasn’t something they discussed. It had become a big dancing elephant in the room, trumpeting loudly and waltzing around, but they both ignored it pointedly. Jules, regularly fielding comments from her mother about ticking clocks and dusty shelves, didn’t want to make Danny feel cornered. Besides, Danny was only recently divorced and, she assumed anyway, in no hurry to repeat the experience. He didn’t appear cynical about his marriage and he’d certainly made his peace with Tara, his ex-wife, but not once had he raised the subject of a second marriage with Jules.
“We’re really happy,” Jules told her mother over and over again. It was true: they were. Danny completed Jules. He brought out the best in her, was her best friend and truly her other half, and the time that she’d spent with him so far had been the happiest of her life.
“If you’re so blissfully happy then why aren’t you engaged?” her mother would snap, and then Jules would have to think hard for a plausible reason. This wasn’t easy because for her part she really couldn’t come up with one. The only answer she had was that Danny didn’t seem in a hurry to ask.
“So ask him!” her mother would say. “You’re equals, aren’t you? It’s what my generation burned our bras for!”
Jackie Mathieson was a well-preserved bottle blonde with a passion for country music and Dolly Parton. Like her idol, she was very unlikely to go braless. And as for being a feminist? Not if Jules’s father’s complaints about the huge amounts of alimony he still had to dish out each month were to be believed.
“We’re okay as we are, Mum,” was all Jules would say, uttering a swift plea to her Boss for patience. “Honestly, we’re fine.”
The trouble was, these conversations always left Jules feeling unsettled. She wasn’t a Bridezilla by any means and she’d certainly never been the kind of girl who’d spent her childhood dreaming of being swept off her feet by a handsome prince. Jules had always quipped that with her Dairy Milk addiction the prince would need a crane anyway. Unlike her friends, who’d fantasised over dream wedding dresses and chosen their stationery and flowers practically after the first date, Jules had been too busy studying. The only white flowing garments she’d hoped for were ecclesiastical robes. Marriage was about far more than a pretty dress and a guest list, she always told the couples who came to her asking to have their banns read. There was the symbolic union of Christ and the
Church to think about, as well as the fact that it was a bond sealed in the eyes of God.
The problem was that, when it really came down to it, these considerations didn’t seem to matter half as much to Jules as simply wanting to be with her soulmate and being able to utter the magic words “my husband” or sign her name Jules Tremaine. (Of course, if Jules had ever practised this on the blotting paper in the vicarage office, she was determined that it would stay a very closely guarded secret.)
The bride and groom were getting into line for the group pictures now, so Jules was able to make it through the gate without photobombing any shots. As she wandered down Church Lane and towards the village, she continued to mull everything over. By the time she was passing Magic Moon’s shop window, Jules had come to the conclusion that she would have to talk to Danny fairly soon – even if the thought alone made her insides curdle.
It’s not that I’m desperate, she thought. Nor, she told herself, had her mother’s tick-tocking noises made her start to think about the fact she was already into her thirties. Jules was far too busy with St Wenn’s and the demands of her flock to be thinking about babies. No. Jules’s issue was more of a practical one and would probably sound utterly ridiculous to most young women living in the twenty-first century. Some people might even think she was crazy. Not that this bothered Jules in the least. Or Danny.
Jules was a vicar and as a vicar certain things came with the territory. It wasn’t just the dog collar and a draughty church Jules had taken on when she’d been ordained. Those were merely the outside trappings. What was more important to Jules was that she’d promised to live her life in a particular way – however unfashionable this might seem nowadays – and to uphold the beliefs she held dear, even if at times she found this hard. She couldn’t move in with Danny unless they were married and she certainly wouldn’t be taking their relationship to the next level outside of wedlock.
Recipe for Love: A gorgeous Cornish romance (Polwenna Bay Book 5) Page 4