Hattie's Home for Broken Hearts: A heartwarming laugh out loud romantic comedy

by Tilly Tennant

  Hattie's Home for Broken Hearts

  A heart-warming laugh-out-loud romantic comedy

  Tilly Tennant

  Books by Tilly Tennant

  The Mill on Magnolia Lane

  The Christmas Wish

  The Summer Getaway

  The Summer of Secrets

  An Unforgettable Christmas series:

  A Very Vintage Christmas

  A Cosy Candlelit Christmas

  From Italy with Love series:

  Rome is Where the Heart is

  A Wedding in Italy

  Honeybourne series:

  The Little Village Bakery

  Christmas at the Little Village Bakery

  Hopelessly Devoted to Holden Finn

  The Man Who Can’t Be Moved

  Mishaps and Mistletoe

  Mishaps in Millrise series:

  Little Acts of Love

  Just Like Rebecca

  The Parent Trap

  And Baby Makes Four

  Once Upon a Winter series:

  The Accidental Guest

  I’m Not in Love

  Ways to Say Goodbye

  One Starry Night

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  The Summer Getaway

  Tilly’s Email Sign-Up

  Books by Tilly Tennant

  A Letter from Tilly

  The Mill on Magnolia Lane

  The Summer of Secrets

  Rome is Where the Heart is

  A Wedding in Italy

  The Little Village Bakery

  Christmas at the Little Village Bakery

  The Christmas Wish

  A Very Vintage Christmas

  A Cosy Candlelit Christmas

  Acknowledgements

  For Louise, who will wish this book had more cats.

  Chapter One

  Life could be good and sometimes life could be a little less than good, but one constant remained. Paris, no matter what else was happening in Hattie’s life, would always be magical. There was something about the place, an indefinable quality. It was in the cobbles, slick in the lamplight, and it was in the welcoming glow of a backstreet bistro. The tourists tramping the Champs-Élysées with weary feet and wondering eyes soaked it up and when they went home their lives were a little richer for it. The French had a phrase for it – je ne sais quoi. Trust the French to make I don’t know what sound romantic.

  Hattie sat on the low wall and looked out towards the Seine. A humid dusk embraced the city, indigo skies washed into velvet blackness. Boats cleaved their way through the choppy waters of the river – most of them the low, broad, glass-walled pleasure boats full of tourists that had become such a familiar, unremarkable sight to Hattie over the last two years, dotted with lights that reflected back and scattered into explosions of gold over the dark waters. Along the banks stood rows and rows of pristine and glorious façades, grand and beautiful old buildings brightened by so many lights it was as if they were trying to compete with the stars, and away in the distance the proud Eiffel Tower looked over the city and dared it to argue that it was not the most wondrous sight of all in this most magical of places.

  Hattie looked out on the place she had called home for the past two years, and the sights that had become so familiar over that time had never before been such a source of sadness. Her flight back to England was booked. Given time, perhaps Alphonse might have asked her to reconsider, but the damage had already been done. She didn’t know if their working relationship could ever get back to the way it had once been and part of her didn’t know if she even wanted it to. Perhaps the catastrophe of the opening night of his new collection was a sign. Though she loved Paris, Hattie had been plagued by the vague feeling that something wasn’t quite right for a few months now. She’d been employed as his PA, eager to learn about the business, but all she’d done since she began working for him was run around fetching his lunch and dry-cleaning. She’d mentioned it to him more than once, but he’d just tapped his nose and warned her not to run before she could walk and all would be well. That was easy for him to say when the star of his own career as a fashion designer was rising, and soon it would be about as high and bright as it was possible to get. Certainly, it was far above the less impressive orbit of Hattie’s own.

  Then it had happened: Alphonse had finally trusted her with the task of stage dressing for the opening of his show, and Hattie had been beside herself. But it had all gone horribly wrong and Alphonse’s rage had been such that Hattie had feared for his life, if not her own, and he’d sacked her on the spot. He’d repented, of course, once he’d realised that he’d have to run for his own coffee and dry-cleaning if Hattie left, but the incident had made Hattie’s mind up for her.

  She stood up and drew a lungful of air. It’s been good, Paris, she thought, and I’ll never forget you… but it’s time to go home.

  Chapter Two

  No matter how apprehensive the thought of coming home made her, the sight of the foxglove-edged lanes as the taxi drove her towards her parents’ house, the meadows of wildflowers and copses of ancient trees that became blurs as the car raced past, the picture-perfect houses of the Dorset village where she’d been born – all thatched roofs, rose bushes and pastel-rendered walls – would always soothe her. Early summer was a remarkable time of year here, when the landscape seemed to burst into life. She’d left many troubles behind when she’d left Gillypuddle, but she’d left good memories and good people too. She couldn’t deny that it would be nice to catch up with those people again, relive some of those memories and maybe make some more.

  ‘Nice place,’ the taxi driver remarked approvingly as he pulled up outside the sweeping driveway. Hattie never really thought about how posh her parents’ home might look to strangers, but every now and again an admiring, covetous glance would remind her that what was unremarkable to her was very remarkable to others. It was just the place she’d grown up in, just home. But as she looked out of the car window now, she really appreciated for the first time just how imposing and grand it was. Unlike a lot of the cottages in the village, the high roof was tiled instead of thatched. It was much larger than the houses surrounding it, the original façade an elegant Georgian design, while sections had been added over the years. It sat in impressive grounds, dressed in an abundance of mature frothing shrubs and leafy trees – a product of her dad’s love of gardening. They were a mile or so away from the ocean; while the sea fog sometimes rolled this far inland and smothered the house, they couldn’t see the sea from here, though being close enough to walk to the beach had always been one of the best things about growing up here.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, glancing up at the meter and paying him with a note that would cover it. ‘Keep the change.’

  The driver tip
ped an imaginary cap and got out to fetch her bags from the boot. Hattie walked round to the back of the car and found he’d already placed them on the ground for her.

  ‘Alright now?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ Hattie said. ‘I can manage now.’

  ‘Righto.’

  With another brief nod, the driver got back into his car and drove away. Hattie looked up at the house and took a deep breath. Her mum and dad would be happy to see her, wouldn’t they? Grabbing her bags, she walked up to the house. She’d soon find out one way or the other.

  ‘Helloooo!’

  Hattie closed the front door behind her and dropped her bags to the floor. The entrance hall was silent and she called again.

  ‘Hello! Anyone home?’

  Nothing. Her parents must have gone out, but she’d half expected that. Perhaps a little part of her had almost hoped for it. One thing was certain, she could hardly complain about it when she’d given no warning of her return.

  Her parents had decorated again. The grand entrance – and it was just that, a room that opened out to various doorways and a staircase that curled into the next two floors – had been covered in a heavy paper last time she’d been to visit, but now the paper had been stripped and the walls had been painted in contrasting variations of sage and cream. It looked brighter, cleaner… more optimistic. The usual gallery of photos remained, however, and with them the pervading sense of sadness, reminders of what was lost, the immobility of time that had choked Hattie during the years before she’d left home. She took a slow tour of the walls, stopping to inspect each image as she reached it. There was her older sister, Charlotte, beaming down with her violin award. Charlotte winning the gymkhana. Charlotte in her school uniform proudly displaying her head-girl badge. Charlotte on her sixteenth birthday, Charlotte in her choir robes, Charlotte shaking the hand of the mayor and beaming for the camera…

  Then the one at the end of the row, next to the stairs. Hattie and Charlotte together on the beach, squinting into the camera, smiles crinkling their faces as they held hands, the sun somewhere out of shot but bright and fierce. Hattie could still remember the feel of it burning her back. Hattie would have been six or seven here, Charlotte five years older. Hattie had long suspected that the only reason this photo had made it into the gallery was because Charlotte looked so unutterably angelic on it. Hattie herself looked like a smudge on legs and there were far nicer photos upstairs in her mother’s album.

  Hattie sighed as she gazed at the photo. Her parents would never stop mourning Charlotte and Hattie would never expect them to, but sometimes it felt as if they existed simply to mourn. Since Charlotte’s death, keeping her memory alive had overshadowed everything else. It had become such a defining feature of Hattie’s own childhood that it had engulfed it quite completely, and she sometimes wondered if they’d forgotten they had another daughter.

  And there were the constant comparisons too, the constant disappointment that Hattie was not all that her sister had been. While Charlotte had been alive her parents had been able to celebrate the differences in their two daughters – and there had been many – safe in the knowledge, perhaps, that at least one of them would become all the things they valued and approved of. Once Charlotte was gone, it seemed to Hattie that she herself had suddenly become a living epitaph to their dead daughter, that they now expected Hattie to become all the things that her sister had been, to fill the gap her death had left in their lives. Charlotte, by virtue of never growing up, would never fail. She’d never go off the rails, marry an unsuitable husband, have children too early or too late, never disappoint or make mistakes or lead a messy life. She’d always be there: a perfect daughter in a photo, frozen in moments of achievement and triumph, while Hattie – live and fallible – made all the messes. Like running off to Paris against her parents’ wishes and screwing everything up when she got there.

  Hattie walked back to her cases and looked down. When it had all gone wrong in Paris, coming home had seemed so appealing, but now Hattie wasn’t so sure it had been the best idea after all. The hallway where she now stood represented everything she’d run away from in the first place. She’d been so ready and eager to rush back to it when her life had taken a turn for the worse in Paris, but why? Had she expected her old life to offer some comfort and safety? In financial terms perhaps it would, but emotional comfort might be harder to come by.

  She hauled in a breath and pushed her shoulders back. Her parents would be happy to see her and it would be good to be home again. And, even if they weren’t, being back in the village where she’d grown up would offer so much in the way of welcome familiarity that it would be worth spending some time here. It wouldn’t be forever anyway – she just needed a breather, time to regroup, decide what to do next with her life…

  Dragging her cases into a corner of the hall, she went through to the kitchen. Sunlight was pouring in through the glass roof, bouncing from gleaming marble worktops. To judge from the smell of disinfectant, Carmen, their cleaner, had recently been in. Hattie went to the fridge and opened it to find the shelves groaning with food. Her flight had been delayed and she hadn’t eaten since her early-morning check-in; she didn’t think her parents would mind if she opened a pack of ham and made herself a sandwich. It was good ham too, Hattie remarked silently as she eyed the packaging – better than the stuff she’d been forced to eat living away from home. Her parents had always liked the best of everything and Hattie had grown up with no idea of what value brands looked like – until she’d gone to Paris, of course. There, with her extortionate rent and low wage, she’d soon found out the meaning of value. At first, she’d sort of enjoyed having to economise – it had almost been a kind of rebellion against her upbringing – but she soon realised just how privileged her home life had been and been filled with a sense of guilt for all she’d had before. She’d wanted to distance herself from that life and she would never tell new friends about it. Right now, a slice of luxury ham was very welcome – maybe she could forgive her parents’ high standards just this once.

  She’d just settled on a seat at the kitchen island with a ham and pickle sandwich and a large glass of cold, fresh orange juice when a voice floated into the kitchen. It was quiet and distant but unmistakable. With a faint look of regret at her lunch, she got up and went to the entrance hall to investigate. The letterbox of the front door was open and a mouth filled the slot.

  ‘Dr Rose…? Mrs Rose…?’

  Hattie smiled as she recognised the voice. Rushing to the door, she yanked it open and a tiny old man almost fell into the house. He looked up, his expression of shock and bewilderment giving way to a beaming smile.

  ‘Hattie!’ he cried, and she threw her arms around him.

  ‘Rupert!’

  ‘Nobody told me you were coming home!’ Rupert said, holding her at arm’s length now to look at her, smiling all over his face.

  ‘I didn’t know I was coming myself until yesterday,’ she said, trying not to think about the events that had led to that decision. It was far too lovely seeing her old neighbour to let that sort of melancholy ruin the moment. ‘How are you? It’s so good to see you!’

  ‘All the better for seeing you, my dear,’ he replied cheerily. ‘I expect your parents are thrilled to have you home.’

  ‘They don’t know I’m here yet – I’ve just arrived and nobody’s home.’

  ‘Ah,’ Rupert said. ‘That answers my question. I wanted to have a word with your father about my gammy knee.’

  Hattie raised her eyebrows. ‘Still not a fan of the new village GP?’

  Rupert looked faintly guilty. He was of the generation that held anyone of any qualification in the utmost esteem and reverence, and he must have been half afraid that being less than complimentary about the village’s new doctor would cause a bolt from heaven to strike him down.

  ‘I’m sure she’s very good but Gillypuddle is not the place for someone like her. She’d be better suited to a big city where she doesn�
��t have to care about being part of the community.’

  ‘Dad says she’s very professional; that’s why she doesn’t get involved personally with her patients.’

  Rupert gave a dramatic sigh. ‘I suppose it’s a modern thing. It’s a sad sign of the times, though, when your family doctor can’t stay for a pot of tea and a slice of cake.’

  ‘I expect she’s got a lot of work to get through,’ Hattie said carefully. She was used to hearing all about Rupert’s disgruntlement from phone calls to her mum and dad. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing personal.’

  ‘It isn’t and that’s precisely the problem,’ Rupert continued, determined that Hattie’s assessment wouldn’t sway him to have even the tiniest bit of sympathy with the new doctor’s probably massive workload. Her dad had started his career back in the days when the village GP was everyone’s friend, when people who worked in the health service had time to spare, but for many years now he’d been saying that it wasn’t like it was in the old days and that the job got tougher every year. It had been one of the deciding factors in his recent decision to take retirement.