Christmas in Chamonix

by Christmas in Chamonix (retail) (epub)

  Lily loved the way he said her name. Like ‘Lill-lee’.

  ‘No higher than a green run. OK.’

  Luc touched her arm. ‘I am not joking. Someone with a fear of heights like you have… that will set you back weeks. I have seen this happen many times before. You need to master skiing on the nursery slopes and then you will feel confident of your ability before going up to higher, more difficult runs.’

  ‘I’ll take that on board,’ Lily said. Seeing Luc hold his hands up in confusion again, she smiled contritely. ‘I mean, I’ve heard you and I’ll make sure I take your advice.’

  Luc sighed, a smile making his eyes crinkle up at the edges. ‘I thought my English was good before you came along. And now I realise I know nothing. Nothing. Sacre bleu!’

  Lily laughed. She decided there was something rather cute about Luc. If a man of his height and appearance could be considered ‘cute’.

  ‘Luc. Are you keeping my new member of staff from her Christmas decorating duties?’ Celine appeared next to them, giving Luc the benefit of her rather gappy smile. She was in ski clothes again, even though it didn’t look as though she had been out on the slopes yet today. Lily wondered if she ever wore anything else. Celine would probably look incongruous in a dress. Or fabulous, possibly. She had the kind of model-esque figure that would probably look fantastic in anything.

  ‘Yes,’ Luc said, as if he wasn’t about to apologise for it.

  Celine looked as though she hadn’t noticed. Lily couldn’t help thinking Celine always seemed distracted. Lily wondered if she was worried about the business, or about the thief in their midst. Lily knew if she’d been in Celine’s shoes, she would be.

  ‘Well, we need to get started in the reception area,’ Celine said, pointing to a large plastic box. ‘And then we’ll move on to the restaurant.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Luc said. ‘I’ll be in touch, Lily. About massages and about skiing.’

  ‘Cool.’ Lily felt a bit flustered again at the thought of massaging Luc, but she decided to worry about it if he actually booked one in. She was certain he was simply being kind to her and that he didn’t fancy her or anything like that.

  ‘Let’s get on with it,’ Celine said in a firm voice. ‘It takes ages to decorate the whole hotel.’

  The whole hotel? Lily’s heart sank. She loved Christmas, but this sounded like a Herculean task.

  * * *

  It took three and a half hours to put all the decorations up. By the end of it, Lily was Christmased-out. She and Celine and a few other helpers had decorated the reception area with traditional French decorations, including little nativity scenes and wreathes made from green foliage and little ribbons. A huge tree – a Sapin de Noel, according to Celine, which translated as a Christmas fir – had been erected that reminded Lily of the one in the London spa, but only in terms of its size. It was decorated with ribbons, candles, something frothy and white called ‘angel hair,’ and an array of pretty lights. Lily was confused when Celine placed tiny children’s shoes around the bottom of the tree as well as some fake presents, but was informed that French children left their shoes there instead of stockings for Father Christmas.

  ‘It’s not something people do these days,’ Celine had told Lily. ‘But I like it. It’s sweet, oui?’

  ‘Oui,’ Lily agreed, finding it all rather charming.

  The restaurant was decked out in an alpine theme with wooden stags. Larger ones were hung from the walls and smaller ones were placed on windowsills and around the mantlepiece. More little shoes were put in and around the fireplace. They then moved on to other parts of the hotel, placing ornaments and clusters of baubles on the windowsills on the landing and tables along the corridors. Mirrors were decorated with more garlands. It seemed that the French didn’t particularly favour tinsel. Not in this hotel, at any rate.

  ‘What do you think?’ Celine asked, once they had finished.

  Lily took a long look around. ‘It looks stunning,’ she said. ‘Boutique Hotel Devereux looks ready for Christmas to arrive.’

  Celine looked pleased. ‘Elodie hates Christmas,’ she said as they packed the boxes away to go back into storage.

  Lily frowned. So Elodie and Luc had that in common. ‘Oh really? Why’s that?’

  Celine shook her head of frizzy curls, her expression evasive. ‘Aah, that’s her business, but she does struggle with it every year. Are you going skiing today?’

  Lily checked her phone and saw that she had a few missed messages from Imogen, telling her where she and Ollie were. ‘Looks that way.’

  ‘You don’t enjoy skiing?’ Celine looked as though such a concept was a pure anathema to her. For someone who lived, breathed, ate and slept skiing, it was clear that Celine had become unaccustomed to anyone who didn’t do the same.

  ‘I’ve only had one lesson,’ Lily confessed, feeling defensive. ‘And I… I don’t like heights.’

  Celine looked horrified. ‘That’s terrible! Have you tried hypnotherapy?’

  ‘Luc gave me a card.’

  ‘Good.’ Celine looked relieved. ‘You need to lose that fear, Lily. Otherwise you’ll never be a good skier.’

  Lily wasn’t sure she wanted to be a good skier because her stomach was turning somersaults at the thought of going up a mountain again. Urged by Celine to get a move on, Lily quickly got changed, did up her excruciating ski boots (where was Luc when she needed him?) and hurried out to meet Ollie and Imogen, awkwardly carrying her skis and poles. Imogen was waiting for her at the bottom of the mountain, looking rather impatient.

  ‘Ollie’s up there somewhere, so I’ll take you up in the cable car.’

  ‘Up there? Cable car?’ Lily wanted to turn and run back to the hotel. ‘I don’t like the sound of either of those. Why are we going in a cable car? The nursery run is over there. I haven’t been any higher than that before. Luc said I shouldn’t go higher than the nursery run today.’

  Imogen gave her a reassuring hug, almost causing Lily to drop her skis. ‘You’ll be fine, I promise. I’ll look after you. You’re going to love it and nursery runs are only for the first day. I’m sure Luc would have taken you to this next run if he’d been skiing with you today. It’s only a little blue one.’

  A little blue one.

  What had Luc said? No higher than a green run. Was blue harder than green? She asked Imogen, who waved an airy hand.

  ‘Blues and greens are really similar. You could have a green that’s harder than a blue, you know? It’s all about the twists and the turns and the steepness.’

  The twists and the turns and the steepness.

  If Lily could have run in the opposite direction in her ski boots at that point, she would have done. She had barely been able to handle a nursery run a few days ago. How on earth was she supposed to handle a blue run? She was a total novice. Lily knew she’d sound like an idiot if she said that she was getting a really bad feeling about skiing today, but she was.

  Imogen led the way through a turnstile and Lily was glad she had re-positioned her ski pass so she wasn’t presenting her boob to the machine. Stepping heavily into the cable car, she held on for dear life as it started to move.

  ‘Oh God,’ Lily breathed. ‘I am literally petrified.’

  ‘What?’ Imogen pulled a face, obviously surprised. ‘I’ve never seen you scared in your life!’

  ‘You’ve never seen me on a mountain before, that’s why. Or in a cable car.’ Lily leant against the window and stole a glance outside. Oh good God. How high was this thing going? Catching sight of the snowy ground disappearing beneath them, Lily closed her eyes. This was horrific. She had waves of nausea coursing through her body and she quite simply didn’t want to be here. In this cable car or anywhere near a mountain.

  ‘Lily, are you really feeling that bad?’ Imogen looked worried. ‘I thought you were exaggerating when you said you had this height thing going on.’

  ‘No,’ Lily muttered, wondering if her complexion was as green as she f
elt. ‘I’m really not, Ims.’

  ‘Oh Gawd.’ Imogen looked guilty. ‘Look, Ollie is such a strong skier. I know he’ll be able to reassure you and get you down.’

  Lily found that she couldn’t speak at that point. Her mouth felt parched, as though it were full of cotton wool. As the cable car alighted at the top of the mountain, Lily caught sight of the view. Stunning. But Jesus, they were high up. She stepped out of the cable car, almost slipping because she was so nervous. Ollie was waiting for them, surrounded by some of the other chalet staff. Including Elodie.

  ‘Lily,’ Elodie said, eyeing Lily’s random selection of ski clothes scathingly. ‘I didn’t realise you were joining us today.’

  Lily opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Without a gallon of water, she wasn’t going to be able to articulate anything because this felt like the worst case of dehydration.

  ‘She’s not,’ Imogen told Elodie smartly. ‘She has a private lesson with Ollie today.’

  Elodie sneered. ‘I didn’t realise Ollie was a qualified instructor.’

  Imogen narrowed her eyes and was about to retaliate, but Ollie stepped in. Not literally, because he was on skis, but figuratively.

  ‘I’m not a qualified instructor,’ he said agreeably. ‘But I am pretty good at this and I think I can help Lily.’

  ‘We can all help Lily,’ Elodie said, clearly wanting to see Lily skiing and failing miserably at it. ‘Luc said she did very well the other day.’

  ‘Yes,’ chorused the rest of the staff, sounding far kinder than Elodie.

  ‘We’ll get you down,’ Amelia said.

  ‘We will,’ Joe nodded.

  Knowing that everyone apart from Elodie was being genuinely encouraging and supportive, Lily suddenly found herself trembling all over. The thought of skiing in front of all of these people was utterly terrifying. The thought of skiing itself was terrifying, let alone doing it in front of people she didn’t know who were most likely superb at it.

  ‘We’re not skiing with them,’ Imogen assured her quietly.

  ‘Good, because I can’t… I simply can’t…’

  Lily clutched her poles, not sure what to do with herself. Her heart was pounding, she was sweating and aside from it being chilly, she was feeling cold all over. She desperately wanted a helicopter to descend onto the top of the snow-capped mountain and fly her away. Or to be whisked away on a skidoo, or whatever the things were that looked like jet skis on ice. Or to strap on a parachute if anyone had one and just… no, maybe not that one. Lily would still have to confront her fear that way. Looking around, she could see everyone watching her eagerly, wanting her to enjoy this sport they were passionate about. Wanting her to love it as much as they did. The pressure felt suffocating and the sense of panic was overwhelming.

  ‘I think we should all leave Lily alone,’ Amelia said, out of the blue, sliding closer to Lily. ‘I have this horrible fear of cats and it makes me go like that – all shaky and weird and like I could faint.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lily whispered, swallowing repeatedly to try and get some saliva into her mouth. ‘That.’

  ‘I’m telling you, I couldn’t even stroke a cat,’ Amelia said vehemently. ‘If one walked up to me now…’ She shuddered. ‘God! Even the thought of it is making me freak out. So if you feel anything like that, Lily…’

  ‘That’s exactly how I feel,’ Lily managed, wishing she could squash down her feelings of panic. How had Luc managed to do this with her the other day? Lily was sure she had felt just as bad as she did now.

  ‘Right.’ Amelia took control and Lily could have hugged her. If she could have achieved that on skis. ‘We’re going and we’re leaving Lily, Ollie and Imogen here.’ She pushed her poles into the snow and started to move away. ‘Follow me, guys…’

  Looking affronted that she wasn’t in charge because she was a Devereux and clearly thought she was the best skier, Elodie followed Amelia and everyone else waved and followed them. They soon disappeared down the mountain, dropping down one after another like brightly coloured lemmings.

  ‘Right.’ Ollie looked at Lily sympathetically. ‘Let’s get started. I know you’re scared, but sometimes being thrown into the deep end a little can make you overcome anything.’

  Lily started to shake again. Being thrown into the deep end? No way. That was the last thing she wanted.

  ‘I’m assuming you can do snow plough turns,’ Ollie said, snapping his goggles down over his eyes. ‘So that’s all we’re going to do here. It’s the same thing, just down a slightly steeper slope.’

  Shit, shit, shit. Lily wanted to throw up. Why on earth was she up here on a blue run? The nursery slope had scared the living daylights out of her.

  ‘Trust him,’ Imogen pleaded, putting her hand on Lily’s arm. ‘It’ll be OK…’

  Not trusting herself to speak in case a barrage of swear words came out, Lily pulled her goggles down and gritted her teeth. She would rather be anywhere but here. Literally anywhere but here.

  ‘We’re heading for that restaurant down there.’ Ollie pointed with his pole to a pretty chalet-style building covered with Christmas fairy lights.

  ‘OK,’ Lily said with teeth that were chattering. Not from the cold, but from sheer terror.

  ‘We’re going to shuffle over to the edge here.’

  The edge. Even the expression made Lily feel panicked. She shuffled closer, her legs wobbling, and she was grateful when Imogen held on to her.

  ‘You’re doing great,’ Imogen assured her.

  Lily couldn’t even speak at this point. Fear was consuming her like a cold, snowy blanket and she wanted to vomit.

  ‘Lily, if you want to go back down in the cable car, I’ll take you,’ Imogen said suddenly, grabbing Lily’s pole anxiously. ‘Ollie, I don’t think she should go down there.’

  ‘Ims.’ Ollie threw her a confident smile. ‘I can do this. Lily. We are going to head across the mountain. OK? Not down, across. All we have to do is get from side to side. I’ll go first, you follow and then Imogen can go behind you.’

  Lily nodded. She could hear the blood thumping in her ears. As she looked over the edge of the mountain, she felt her legs go slightly out from under her.

  ‘We’re going across like this.’ Ollie set off sideways, snow ploughing across the steep, snowy mountain face. He made it look so easy, gliding across and flaring one ski out to the side to turn. ‘It’s all about the weight distribution. Lean from side to side and then you’ll…’

  His voice was lost as he travelled further down. Where the hell was he? Luc had stayed with her the whole time. Lily felt her entire body tense as she set off, which Luc had told her was the worst possible thing to do because skiing was about being relaxed and just allowing the body to glide and turn with controlled but graceful movements.

  Lily felt herself shaking all over as she crossed the mountain. She tried to remember everything Luc had taught her a few days ago, but her mind had gone blank. Ollie was miles away and Imogen was behind her. The slope was so steep! Horribly steep. Nothing like the nursery run. It was as though she had gone from flat to vertical. Lily had never felt so out of control in her life.

  She managed to do a clumsy snow plough turn and started talking to herself as she crossed the mountain. You can do this. You just have to get across and turn. That’s all you need to do. Don’t look down. Do. Not. Look. Down.

  Another voice popped into her head. ‘Don’t be such a BABY, Lily! So what if it’s high? Don’t be so weak. Why can’t you do this? Everyone else can do this. It’s EASY. You must be so stupid…’

  With that, Lily lost her nerve completely. She was flailing about all over the place, her skis doing their own thing, her poles stabbing desperately at the air as if it might somehow help her. Lily gathered speed and momentum and found her skis pointing downwards, rather than across. She was going down the mountain. Fast. She thought her pounding heart might burst right out of her chest. Imogen was screaming to Ollie to help her and out of the corn
er of her eye, she could see Ollie turning around and doing some weird sliding thing with his skis to get to her.

  But Lily couldn’t seem to stop. She could hear Ollie yelling at her to slow down, to turn. To point her skis together at the front and hold them in a triangle. Lily could hear him, but she couldn’t seem to do anything. Fear had taken hold and she was a gibbering mess. As she hurtled down the mountain faster than most of the competent skiers alongside her, Lily had no time to think. She could barely breathe. She sensed Ollie nearby but still couldn’t seem to steer herself. She was petrified that if she lost her balance, she might break every bone in her body.

  ‘Slow down!’ Ollie shouted next to her. ‘Snow plough, SNOW PLOUGH!’

  Lily did her best to angle her legs, but her skis seemed to have a mind of their own. She could see the lights from the pretty chalet they were headed for getting closer and closer and closer and the panic in her chest was almost painful. How was she going to stop? She tore down the mountain, heading for the chalet. Should she just fall over?

  Lily was seconds away from the chalet. Imogen had caught up and Lily could hear her screaming commands to her, but she couldn’t make sense of them. Lily careered off to one side suddenly, managing to slow down. She turned her skis into a snow plough and skidded towards a wooden shack. Then smacked into it. Hard.

  Lily’s poles went through in the air, she lost her skis and fell in a heap.

  ‘Oh my God, Lily!’ Imogen snapped herself out of her skis and dropped to her knees. ‘Are you OK? Did you hit your head?’

  Ollie sent up a spray of snow as he stopped and leapt out of his skis. ‘Lily. Shit. Are you all right?’ He took his goggles off. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I had no idea you were that scared.’

  Lily stared at both of them, dazed. ‘I think I hit my head,’ she mumbled. And then everything went black.

  Chapter Twelve

  Twelve Hours Later

  Lily groggily opened her eyes. Where the hell was she? And sweet Jesus, why did her head hurt so much? She ached all over. Her arms, her legs, her stomach. But especially her head.