Chloe’s Cornish Christmas (The Blossomwood Bay #7)

Chapter Eleven

‘Liz asked me to bring you another cappuccino each. On the house,’ said Jake, placing two fresh cups of coffee on the table, his muscular biceps straining the seams of his black short-sleeved tee shirt. ‘I also hear that Liz has roped you into helping out with this year’s pantomime at the village hall.’

‘And taking part in the Christmas tree competition,’ muttered Nick, darkly.

Jake laughed. ‘You’re not the only one. I was strong-armed, too.’

‘Are you acting, backstage, or front of house?’ asked Chloe, wondering whether, like the extra Wicked Witch of the Woods character, the part of Prince Charming had been written into the story to showcase Jake’s… natural talents.

‘Acting.’

‘Really? Which role are you playing?’

To Chloe’s surprise, she saw Jake’s cheeks redden.

‘ Oak Tree No. 1 .’

‘It’s better than Oak Tree No. 3 ,’ said Chloe, encouragingly.

‘I suppose so,’ said Jake, rubbing his palm across his clean-shaven chin. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with taking part in community projects. I have quite a few volunteering gigs in the pipeline for when I go travelling in the new year; mostly at sports clubs and orphanages in Mumbai, and a couple at village schools in Goa, all of which play to my strengths as a qualified sports physio. Acting… well, it just isn’t my thing.’

‘How long will you be away for?’

‘Four, maybe five months.’

‘And what do you have planned for when you get back?’

Jake’s whole demeanour changed from mild anxiety over his forthcoming arboreal debut to obvious excitement. ‘I’ve landed my dream job as a physio at a sports club in Plymouth. I love all sports – football, cricket, tennis, golf, kayaking, canoeing, surfing, basketball, hockey… well, you get the idea. I’ve been working towards this goal since I was twelve years old, and I can’t wait to get started, but I want to see some of the world first; experience different cultures, try out local sports, meet new people.’

‘Who are you going with?’ asked Chloe.

‘My cousin, Georgia, and a couple of uni friends. It’s going to be a blast.’

Jake headed back to the bar, his impressive physique drawing glances from a group of women who had just finished tucking into one of Liz’s Cornish brunches. When Chloe caught their eyes, they descended into a bout of giggles, and she couldn’t help but smile herself. No wonder Hannah was smitten. However, she could see why her new friend was worried about Jake coming home with a girlfriend – or worse, a fiancée.

Suddenly, she experienced an overwhelming urge to do something to help her new friend who had refused to abandon her long list of responsibilities at the bookshop in favour of tagging along on Jake’s backpacking and volunteering trip. Surely karma dictated that Hannah’s altruism should be rewarded? So, Chloe swallowed the last mouthful of her coffee and stood from her chair, Mitzy scuttling to join her.

‘Come on.’

‘Where are we going?’ asked Nick, catching up with her after kindly offering to settle the bill.

‘Back to the farmhouse.’

‘You’re right; we need to brainstorm ideas for the Christmas tree decorating contest. It might not be at the top of my list of things to do to pass the time while I’m in Cornwall, but now we’ve been cajoled into entering, we need to come up with something unique that’ll blow Liz’s socks off. I’m sure you have lots of ideas! Hey, this is the perfect opportunity for you to indulge your love of art! I know for a fact that my aunt has boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations stashed away somewhere in the house, so we’ll see what we can cobble together.’

‘What happened to loathing anything to do with Christmas?’

‘Not when it involves winning a trophy!’ This time it was Chloe’s turn to roll her eyes at Nick, which caused him to laugh out loud as he started the Range Rover’s engine, skirted the village green, and headed back towards Fairholme Farm. ‘Okay, I admit it, I’m a sucker for any kind of certificate, rosette, medal, or trophy. I have been known to enter a potato-printing contest because the first prize was a bag of multicoloured marbles, but then, I was only nine.’

‘Okay, let’s build on that competitive streak by…’ Chloe paused, wondering whether her idea was a little presumptive before they heard back from Nick’s aunt.

‘By what?’

‘By also searching for Ruth’s romance recipe…. Maybe?’

‘I’m always up for a bit of multi-tasking.’

‘Really? You don’t think we should wait until you have the go-ahead from your aunt?’

‘I’ve left her a message.’

‘Yes, but what if…’

‘ What if we stumble on an old recipe journal of my great-grandmother’s while we’re innocently searching for a box of Christmas tree ornaments , you mean? I’m sure she won’t have a problem with that, especially as I’ve told her that we think the recipe might help Hannah out.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure. Come on, I’ll show you the library.’

‘Your aunt has a library ?’

‘Well, it’s a sort of reading-cum-hobby room. My uncle had his barn project to keep him occupied, then his “cidery” enterprise, and my aunt has her library to escape to whenever the business of running a small-scale agricultural business in the Cornish countryside started to get on top of her.’

Nick parked underneath the yellow-and-white canvas canopy next to the barn, released Mitzy from her harness, and went to open the front door. However, instead of heading down the hallway to the kitchen, he entered the room on the left, and as Chloe stepped over the threshold behind him, she gasped.

Directly in front of her were a duo of French doors opening out onto a terrace with an uninterrupted view of the apple trees planted in carefully cultivated avenues. Just beyond the terrace was a neat lawned garden, home to a collection of sun-bleached wooden benches angled to take advantage of the view or to simply while away an hour or two with a good book. There was certainly an extensive choice of reading material; the remaining two walls of the library were comprised of floor-to-ceiling shelves housing a veritable rainbow of books.

It was a bibliophile’s idea of heaven.

However, what had caused Chloe to gasp wasn’t the view or the wide selection of books, but the baby grand sitting in the corner of the room, its lid up and a piece of sheet of music resting on the stand, extending an open invitation to the visitor to take a seat and tinkle its keys.

‘It’s… it’s a beautiful room.’

‘Aunt Ruth spends a lot of time in here. She calls it her sanctuary,’ said Nick, striding towards one of the shelves behind the piano that was home to a collection of pink patchwork fabric-covered boxes with matching lids. ‘Okay, if I remember correctly, she used to keep her journals in these boxes. Yes, here they are.’

Nick removed one of the journals and started to flick through the pages.

‘I’m not sure we should be doing this.’ Chloe experienced a swirl of discomfort. ‘I don’t think we should be rooting through your aunt’s personal papers without her permission. It doesn’t feel right.’

‘Oh, these are just her gardening and recipe journals. Look.’ Nick pointed to a small square of card slotted into the front of the box that indeed read “Gardening” and “Recipes”. ‘They’re not diaries, if that’s what you think, more like scrapbooks. Aunt Ruth used to let me and Rufus look through these when we were young. See this?’

Nick held out what was obviously one of the recipe journals, open at a page that had been adorned with pictures of pies, pasties, cakes and scones that had been cut from glossy magazines and glued into the journal in a rather haphazard attempt at découpage.

‘Yes?’

‘I did that. Oh, and look, here’s a recipe for apple cobbler; that was one of my favourites.’

Nick continued to flick through his aunt’s recipe journal, his thoughts clearly fixed on a different place, a different time. Despite his assurances, Chloe still felt distinctly uneasy about what they were doing, even though it had been her idea in the first place and suggested with the best of intentions. So instead, she perched on the piano stool and toyed with the keys for a few seconds.

Her mum had played the piano, so she and Martha had both taken lessons when they were growing up; she’d enjoyed them, Martha not so much. Sadly, along with many other things, the weekly lessons had come to an abrupt end when they moved to London, and she’d never had the chance to resume her musical hobby.

As Nick continued to exclaim at each of his discoveries, she abandoned the piano and went to peruse the bookshelves, smiling at the many gardening and horticulture books that Ruth had amassed and filed in alphabetical order. She chose one entitled The Joy of English Herbs and Wildflowers , and just as she was about to take a seat on one of the two overstuffed Chesterfields – upholstered in a vibrant sunflower-yellow velvet – she spotted an old, leather-bound notebook sitting by itself on one of the shelves, and her stomach gave a nip of excitement.

‘Could this be it?’

She handed the notebook to Nick who had no compunction about opening it to see what was inside, his eyes widening as he flicked through the handwritten pages.

‘Yes! It’s a recipe journal from the nineteen-fifties. Where did you find it?’

‘On this shelf, here.’

‘So, not hidden away in a box?’

‘No.’

‘Which means my aunt doesn’t mind who sees it.’

‘You think?’

‘I do.’ Nick’s eyes sparkled. ‘Oh, look, here’s a biscuit recipe! Let’s give it a go.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, it’s just a bit of fun.’

‘So you don’t believe what Fran told us?’

‘What? A seventy-year-old biscuit recipe that makes people fall in love? No, of course not. It’s complete hocus-pocus.’

‘Then what’s your theory about what happened?’

‘I think it was a coincidence. Obviously I don’t know the details, but I suspect that the biscuits weren’t served to the women’s respective partners during a random meet-up for a cup of tea and a chat, but at an elaborate, probably candlelit dinner, accompanied by several bottles of the best wine and soft, romantic music. That way, the stage was set for an intimate conversation about what the future held for them as a couple going forward, which both of them probably agreed included the likelihood of a wedding at the pretty village church, and things just snowballed from there.’

‘Maybe, you’re right,’ said Chloe, unable to prevent an arrow of disappointment from stabbing at her chest. ‘It’s a cute story, though.’

‘I agree.’

‘You do?’

‘And if Hannah thinks it’ll help her find the courage to have a similar conversation with Jake about how she feels about him – and what could be waiting for them in the future – then who are we to deny her that opportunity?’

Chloe’s heart soared. ‘Okay, then let’s bake!’

They headed to the kitchen and while Nick set the kettle to boil, Chloe pored over the list of ingredients written in spidery writing. She recognised the main components of the standard biscuit recipe that her own grandmother had taught her and Martha, which produced mouthwatering cookies that they went on to decorate with lurid icing and lots of multicoloured sprinkles. However there was one ingredient she didn’t recognise, although the handwriting was difficult to decipher.

‘What do you think this says?’

Nick leaned over her shoulder to peer at the recipe journal, his soft breath on her cheek sending spasms of desire dashing through her veins. The scent of his minty cologne added an extra dimension to the mix, and she found herself holding her breath for fear she would alert him to her body’s reaction to his proximity.

‘I’m not sure. I think that’s a “T” and the second word could be “diffuser”?’

‘Is it some kind of herb, do you think?’

‘Could be.’

‘Then that’s the secret ingredient your aunt used in her cookies!’

In a rush of excitement, Chloe grabbed her phone and googled “T diffuser” hoping to read all about the herb’s special love-inducing properties, but to her disappointment all she got was a list of companies selling aromatherapy oil-and-reed room diffusers.

‘Anything?’ said Nick, putting a coffee down on the table next to her.

‘No,’ said Chloe with a sigh. ‘But I think we should still make a batch of biscuits. There’s everything we need in the pantry. Oh my God, the pantry! Let’s see if the “T diffuser” ingredient is in there!’

She all-but ran into Ruth’s well-stocked pantry, with Nick and a curious Mitzy hot on her heels. She scoured the shelves and picked up a selection of the glass jars containing dried herbs with unusual names scrawled on the labels. There was feverfew, rue, fairywand, sunny smile, and one called marshmallow, but none were anything that could be the “T diffuser” they were hoping to find.

‘Never mind, you can ask your aunt what it is when she calls you. In the meantime, let’s make two batches; one using this dried lavender – I’ve made lavender-flavoured gin before and it’s fabulous! – and the other using one of these weird sounding herbs, either fairywand or sunny smile, you choose.’

‘Mmm, let’s go for… fairywand.’

‘Great choice; it actually sounds kind of magical, don’t you think?’

Nick grinned. ‘Sure.’

‘Although I do like the sound of sunny smile herb, and it smells good, too.’

‘We can go with that if you like?’

‘No, no, we’ll stick with fairywand, but maybe we can try the sunny smile later.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’

Chloe gathered together the other ingredients needed to make the biscuits, along with a jar of dried lavender and the jars labelled “fairywand” and “sunny smile”. She suspected that all three of the herbs had come from Ruth’s garden because she had seen the lavender growing in the pots around the dovecote. She placed everything on the kitchen table, met Nick’s eyes, and an idea popped into her head.

‘Want to make it interesting?’

‘What do you have in mind?’

‘Why don’t we have a competition?’

Nick laughed. ‘Best biscuit wins?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will there be a prize?’

‘The loser makes dinner.’

‘I’m up for that… as long as we don’t have to use that thing.’ Nick pointed at the Aga.

Chloe laughed. ‘Agreed.’