by Alice Ross
Alice Ross
The Little Village On The Hill
Love Is In The Air
Contents
Contents
About the Author
Also by Alice Ross
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
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 a tune on her violin or standing on her head in a yoga pose.
Also by Alice Ross
The Trouble with Great Aunt Milly
Lovelace Lane
The Little Cottage
The Big House
The Wedding
Christmas
New Arrivals
The Birthday
Easter
The Cosy Castle on the Loch
Spring
Summer
Autumn
A Party
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
A Spring Wedding
Regency
The Very Unaccomplished Lady Eleanor
Under the Willow Tree
Chapter One
Have you ever had one of those days when so many weird things happen that you have to pinch yourself to check you’re not dreaming?
Up until the last couple of weeks, my life has been quite uneventful. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that it’s been pretty boring.
But then all this stuff has started to happen. Stuff like:
getting sacked from my London job in publishing
being dumped by my boyfriend
moving back to my parents’ home in Northumberland
having hot dreams about the guy who works for my dad
and, perhaps the most surreal event yet:
discovering a Greek waiter on the doorstep, who I may very possibly have snogged the face off during a recent boozy holiday in Santorini.
It’s not only me who’s still reeling twenty minutes after discovering Dimitri at my parents’ house in Chollingflower. His arrival appears to have propelled my mother into a bigger flap than the time Mrs Downey from the newsagent’s hosted an Ann Summers Party.
.
‘Goodness, Isobel,’ she gasps, lurching into the kitchen where I’m attempting to make tea for us all, and collapsing onto a chair at the table. ‘It’s like having Omar Sharif in the house.’
Tipping boiling water from the kettle into the teapot, I furrow my brow. ‘Isn’t he from Egypt?’
‘Possibly. But the point is, he’s foreign. And very handsome. And Dimitri is foreign. And very handsome indeed.’
Dimitri is handsome. So handsome, that he really shouldn’t be allowed out without a Danger sticker plastered to his forehead. Or his bottom. Or very possibly both. Because, as well as a head of gleaming ebony hair, an impressively angular bone structure and eyes the colour of jet, the man has a rather delicious bottom. One that is on permanent display in the extremely tight trousers he favours. And one which, I discovered upon returning home from Santorini a few days ago, features heavily on my Instagram account. Indeed, upon returning home from Santorini, I discovered quite a few pictures of Dimitri on my Instagram account, most of which I have zero recollection of taking. So mortified was I at the excess, that I’d been about to delete them. Until my dad suggested that they might make my ex-boyfriend Giles jealous. Willing to try anything that might improve my chances of getting back with Giles, I’d consequently left the photos there for all my eight hundred and twenty-seven followers to see. A tactic which obviously made no difference at all, as it has since come to my attention that Giles has already moved on to his latest model, which means we will definitely not be getting back together.
‘Are you absolutely sure Dimitri’s family own the hotel where you and Gemma stayed in Santorini, Isobel?’
My mother’s enquiry sends me clattering back to the present.
‘Yes, they own it,’ I confirm, now slicing a Battenberg cake. ‘But you honestly wouldn’t want to stay there,’ I add hastily. ‘It’s much too far out of the centre.’
Dimitri’s family-run hotel – ironically named the Majest-Dick, is also a first-class dump, but there’s no way I’m telling my mother that, because she’ll freak out at me having spent a week and a half of my life somewhere the towels aren’t changed six times a day. In fact, recalling the state of the hotel towels, I wouldn’t put money on them even being changed between guests. ‘And it’s very small. Tiny, in fact,’ I add for effect.
‘Size isn’t important, Isobel,’ she says, fanning her face with a copy of my dad’s House of Hammers building magazine. ‘It’s still a hotel. In Greece. Oh. My. Word.’ She stops fanning and presses a hand to her chest. ‘I’m sure the Onassis family owned lots of hotels in Greece. I wonder if Dimitri’s related to them. I mean, it’s quite a small country, isn’t it? I’m sure, if you go back far enough, you’ll find they’re all related.’
I couldn’t care less if Dimitri is related to Julius Caesar. (Which, now I think about it, isn’t all that likely, because he was Roman.) I’m much more interested in the present than the past and wondering why the man has taken it upon himself to travel all the way from Santorini to our little Northumbrian village of Chollingflower without a word of his intentions.
‘Goodness, Isobel.’ My mother catapults off her chair so suddenly, that I almost drop a batch of drop scones. ‘Don’t use those plates. When one has a prestigious international guest with possible presidential connections, one should be using one’s best china.’
Remembering the jumble of mismatched crockery my best friend Gemma and I had tentatively eaten from during our sojourn at the Majest-Dick, which had sported cracks, chips and - more often than not - evidence of the previous meal, I really didn’t think Dimitri would mind his Battenberg being served on a plate from M&S’s Eucalyptus range.
My mother, though, was evidently of a different opinion. ‘It’s important, Isobel, when one is representing one’s country, that one pulls out all the stops. Now, where did I put our best serviettes?’
Fifteen minutes later, after an inordinate amount of scrabbling around in drawers and cupboards, the serviettes are located, and I totter through to the conservatory trying not to drop the tray, while my mother scuttles in behind me, bearing the teapot like it’s the Crown Jewels.
Dimitri, sprawled in a wicker chair in a pair of his trademark eye-wateringly tight black jeans and a pink T-shirt, seems to have made himself completely at home in the hour or so he’s been in Chollingflower. And appears to be
telling my dad about the nine hundred and sixty-three variations of tomato they grow in Santorini. (To be fair, I might be exaggerating a tad there, but as I’d encountered tomatoes at every turn on the island, I very well might not be.)
As I set out the tea things on the glass-topped wicker table around which the chairs are arranged, all tomato-chat ceases and our visitor’s attention swings to me.
‘So, you surprised to see me, Izee?’
Surprised to see him? Was Rome built in a day? (Oh, but that’s Italy again, isn’t it? And I don’t think it actually was built in a day.) To say I’m surprised to see Dimitri, though, is the world’s biggest understatement. Particularly as the timing of his appearance could not have been worse.
‘Um, yes. A bit surprised,’ I reply, as I hand him a serviette with a picture of a corgi wearing a tiara on it. ‘What made you decide to come?’
‘I come because you invite me, Izee,’ he says, looking slightly affronted that I appear not to remember.
But I don’t remember. I have no recollection at all of extending such an invitation.
‘In the neetcloob. You invite me when we are in the neetcloob,’ he goes on, referring to Shakatak Nightclub (which Gemma and I renamed Shag-Attack). The club we frequented every night of our ten-day break. Mainly because it was the only one there.
Unfortunately, I cannot refute Dimitri’s claim. There is every chance I did invite him to Chollingflower while in the neetcloob. I’m embarrassed to admit that I was generally so bladdered when I was in there, that I could have invited the entire place. In my defence, though, I was a bit of an emotional wreck at the time. As anyone who’d been sacked and dumped in the same week would have been. (Does that actually happen to other people, or is it just me?) Consequently, I hadn’t had much clue what I was doing. And, after being home for a few days, I have even less of a clue.
‘I look your Instagram page,’ Dimitri adds, with a lascivious wink.
Bollocks! I knew I should have deleted those pictures of him and his bottom. He obviously thinks I’ve kept them for more sentimental reasons than hoping they’d make my ex, Giles, jealous.
‘And yesterday, you put picture of moussaka,’ he adds triumphantly.
Moussaka? What the—? Oh no. He’s right. I did post a picture of moussaka yesterday – during a lovely meal in London (which I’d prefer not to think about right now), before implementing my ignominious plan to get back with Giles (which I’d also prefer not to think about right now. Or, indeed, ever again).
‘So I say myself, the lovelee Izee is obviously missing the Greece, so I take the Greece to her,’ Dimitri rattles on.
I attempt a smile. One so forced that my jaw locks.
While I’m carrying out a discreet bit of manipulation to set it right again, my mother claps her hands together.
‘Well, I think it’s all wonderful. And you couldn’t have timed your visit better, Dimitri. We’ve just finished decorating the spare bedroom. In Tranquil Dawn.’
Dimitri looks confused. I can’t tell if it’s the paint colour that’s thrown him, the Battenberg, the M&S Eucalyptus range plate, or the corgi serviette.
‘Tranquil Dawn is a shade of blue,’ I explain.
‘From the deluxe range,’ adds my mother.
‘Ah, the deluxe condoms,’ he says triumphantly.
‘Er, no. That’s Durex,’ I point out, as my mother chokes on a drop scone. ‘Dulux is a company name. They make paint.’
‘Oh, I so sorry, Mr and Mrs Irveeng. You have to be excusing my Eenglish. It not very good.’
‘Nonsense. It’s excellent,’ sputters my mother. ‘And by the time you go home, it will be even better. How long are you, er, thinking of staying?’ she asks, eyebrows hovering dangerously close to her hairline.
‘I staying until my Eenglish is perfek,’ announces Dimitri on a roar of laughter.
At which point my mother’s eyebrows completely disappear, my dad drops his drop scone, and I feel a bit sick.
My dad is the first to rally. ‘So, Dimitri, have you been to the UK before?’
‘No, Mr Irveeng. I never been away from the Greece.’
‘Goodness. What an adventure for you then,’ says my mother, eyebrows drifting back onto the horizon. ‘You’ll have to make the most of your time here. Was there anything in particular you were hoping to see?’
Dimitri’s sexy dark eyes swivel to me. ‘I am hoping to see all the things,’ he replies, in a tone dripping with inuendo.
Inuendo I can well do without. Because, as gorgeous as he undoubtedly is, I’m not remotely attracted to the man. I don’t experience so much as a flicker of a flame, a flip of a pheromone, or a whiff of a chemical reaction when I look at him. Or at least not until I’ve knocked back a few dubious Greek tomato-garnished cocktails and strutted my stuff to Beyoncé. After which, I might, very possibly, have snogged the face off him in Shag-Attack neetcloob. Or maybe not. When I turned my phone upside down to examine the photos Gemma had taken of me snogging his face off, there’s a chance I hadn’t been snogging at all, but simply flicking something (possibly a bit of tomato) off his lip with my tongue. If I’m confused by it all, though, I can’t really blame him for being the same.
‘I’m sure Isobel will be delighted to show you around the area,’ proclaims my mother. Causing my growing anxiety about the however-many-days-Dimitri-is-staying-with-us to grow some more.
‘Well, of course, I… I would,’ I stammer. ‘If I wasn’t working in the library.’
My mother’s face crumples like a deflated soufflé. ‘Oh. Yes. The library,’ she mutters, with a slight edge of disapproval.
Which is surprising, given she was the one who’d offered my services at the library, upon discovering that the usual volunteer will be off sick for the next couple of months. A development I had been slightly miffed about, as I suspected her motive was to galvanize me into looking for a ‘proper job’ back in London, where I could also rebuild my relationship with Giles.
‘We’ll all work around your days at the library and pull together to show Dimitri our little part of England’ she goes on, making it sound like a war effort. ‘Jim, you can take him to the pub later. Once you’ve got a couple of things out of the loft for me.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ I say – possibly a little too enthusiastically. ‘I’ll be having an early night.’ And I really will be having an early night. After a very late and boozy evening in London yesterday, combined with the drive back up to Northumberland today, and the stress of discovering a live souvenir from my recent holiday on the doorstep, I’m completely shattered.
Looking slightly baffled by my intention, Dimitri roars with laughter. ‘Izee was not having the early nights in Santorini. She was going to the neetcloob all the nights. And one night she was dancing to the Beyoncé on the bar and took off her top and—’
‘Another slice of Battenberg, Dimitri?’ I cut in, as my mother’s eyes grow as round as her M&S Eucalyptus range tea plate.
*
When I wander into the kitchen the next morning, I find William, Kate and Prince George beaming at me from a tea tray propped up between a box of Shreddies and a jar of blackberry and apple jam.
‘Er, Mum…’
‘Isn’t it gorgeous,’ my mother gushes, appearing at my side in a Union Jack apron. ‘I’d forgotten all about it. Which is why I’m so pleased I asked your father to bring those boxes down from the loft.’
‘What boxes?’
‘The ones with all our patriotic things in – some of them from the 1977 Silver Jubilee. I thought they’d help give Dimitri a proper English experience.’
While she scuttles back to the hob, and I’m wondering how many other people in our green and pleasant land are being overseen by members of the royal family while munching their cereal, I take a photo and fire it off to Gemma in London – who will no doubt find it hilarious. Then I post it to my Instagram account with the hashtags:
#VillageLife #BreakfastWithTheWindsors #ARightRoyalBreakf
ast #PassTheShreddiesWills
I’ve just finished typing, when Dimitri rocks up. In a pair of orange boxer shorts that look three sizes too small and… well… apart from the St Christopher nestling in his hairy chest, absolutely nothing else.
‘Oh my goodness. I am having the breakfast with the William and the Kate and the Gorge,’ he cackles.
My mother spins around from the hob where she’s frying bacon, with a huge smile on her face, which wobbles like an agitated jelly upon spotting our houseguest’s lack of attire.
‘Oh,’ she sputters, flushing the same shade of pink as the crimson blouse under her apron.
‘Good morning, Mrs Irveeng,’ says Dimitri, completely unperturbed by her perturbed-ness. ‘How are you the day?’
‘Well, I’m, um….’ As my mother’s bulging eyes sweep over Dimitri’s bronzed, hirsute form, he clasps his hands above his head and stretches, causing all his ‘bits and pieces’ (as she always refers to body parts) to almost pop out of his pants.
‘I think something’s burning, Mum,’ I say, sniffing the air dubiously.
‘Oh. Right. Yes. So it is,’ she witters, turning back to the pan.
‘Morning, Dimitri. Did you sleep alright?’ My dad strides into the room in his builder’s overalls, seemingly unfazed by our near-naked visitor.
‘Yes, thank you, Mr Irveening. I am having the wet dreams.’
At a clatter from the hob, I whip my head around in time to witness my mother’s spatula tumbling to the floor.
‘I was dreaming that I was in the Eenglish countryside and it was raining all the cats and the dogs,’ he adds, before guffawing with laughter.
We all join in – a little nervously.
‘So, er, what are your plans for today?’ asks my dad, dropping onto a chair at the table and reaching for the cafetiere. ‘There’s lots to see round and about.’