‘I did not swan off in a huff! And anyway, it’s no business of yours why I decided to spend Christmas over here — nor can I see why you’re making such a fuss about laying on Christmas dinner, when everything has been provided for you by the Chirks and you’re a cook anyway!’

‘Chef,’ I said icily, though normally I don’t mind being called by either title. ‘And you obviously have no conception of the amount of work involved — not just preparing, cooking and clearing up dinner, but cleaning your filthy dining room and the downstairs cloakroom, which looks as if mud wrestlers have had a bout in there.’

‘Then get what’s-her-name — Sharon — to help,’ he said shortly.

‘You’ve forgotten — she’s resigned.’

‘Oh yes. . Well, it’s not that bad, is it? You’re exaggerating! A quick run-over with a duster and the Hoover. .’

‘Look, I’m used to keeping the parts of the house I’m using clean and tidy — though even then they don’t usually need a total deep-clean — but that’s all I’m contracted to do, other than look after the animals! Conversely, when I’m doing house-party cooking, my clients don’t expect me to do anything except produce delicious meals — and my charges for that are extremely high!’

‘Oh, I see! I suppose that’s what this is really all about, trying to get a lot more money out of me?’

‘No, it isn’t — and you couldn’t afford my prices,’ I snapped.

‘According to that boss of yours at Homebodies, I’m going to be paying you double house-sitting rates anyway, so at this rate it would probably be cheaper to send them out to a good restaurant in a taxi,’ he mused gloomily, ‘except that they wouldn’t go. They seem to think that you invited them out of the kindness of your heart — they’ve no idea how very cold and mercenary you are, Mrs Brown.’

‘I’m not in the least cold and mercenary, I simply resent being put in the position of picking up the pieces of the mess you left after you walked away from your responsibilities. And what about the elderly people in the almshouses who usually spend the day here, too?’

‘I sent them a Christmas hamper each,’ he said indignantly. ‘And Henry.’

‘Big of you, Mr Martland!’

‘You know, I think you could start calling me Jude, now we’re on insulting terms,’ he suggested. ‘Holly certainly suits you: spiky!’

‘And you’re objectionable and overbearing. And don’t you think you’re making a lot of unfounded assumptions about someone you’ve never met?’

‘Well, aren’t you?’

‘No, I’m basing my opinion of you on hard evidence. But believe it or not, my only reason for agreeing to do the cooking was that I like your aunt and uncle and Jess and felt sorry for them — Tilda’s really too frail to cope alone. But think what you want to. Meanwhile I don’t think we’ve anything further to say to each other. Good night — Jude.’

‘Don’t you dare put the phone down on me again—’ he growled, just as I did exactly that thing.

It rang again almost instantly, but I ignored it and then later, when I was going to ring Laura, it was dead as a dodo.

Chapter 11

Slightly Tarnished

Today I asked N what his home was like and he said it was an old house up in the hills — in fact, just below one of the beacons. So I said, was it Rivington Pike, because I remember a Sunday school day trip there as a girl but he laughed and said no, much smaller than that and the little stone tower on the hill — nothing much to look at.

February, 1945

Last night I lay in bed reading Gran’s journals late into the night again, more and more convinced that N.M. would turn out to be the Ned Martland she had loved and lost — and one and the same as the black sheep of Old Place and therefore closely related to the obnoxious Jude. The description of his home was the clincher.

By some amazing coincidence Fate had directed me here — but then, they say truth is always stranger than fiction.

I could tell she was increasingly fascinated by him (and he had quickly become simply ‘N’, so presumably they were now on first-name terms), but he sounded like a hardened flirt to me. Poor, innocent, chapel-bred Gran wouldn’t have stood a chance. .

However, since she then spent two sleep-inducing pages on pious reflections about the state of the world before the next entries, maybe she would prove entirely unassailable.

There was a light sprinkling of snow when I went out to the stables, but, remembering what Becca had said, I put Lady and her smelly little friend out in the paddock anyway, where she immediately started to paw the snow from the grass as she grazed.

I am quite getting into a routine now, and soon had the loosebox mucked out and freshly laid with new straw ready for the evening. The exercise made me glow, so I expect it did me good. After that Merlin and I took a little walk up to the red horse, which was actually now white like everything else, though you could still see the bumps and hollows of its outline.

I found a sheltered spot behind some gorse bushes and rang Laura on my mobile. She’d just got back from dropping the children at her mother’s house for the day, to give her a rest.

I asked her how she was and she seemed to be blooming, as she always was during pregnancy.

‘I hope mine goes as well, when I follow plan A in spring,’ I said. ‘I thought I could cook all summer to get some money in, and then retire until the baby has arrived. Assuming it works, of course — there’s no guarantee it will at my age.’

‘Haven’t you met any nice men up there? I was hoping you might, and give up the whole mad AI thing,’ she asked hopefully.

‘Yes — Noël Martland’s lovely, but he’s ancient and married. And I suppose you could say I’ve met Jude Martland via the phone, but I’m so glad I’ll have left before he gets back, because he’s selfish, overbearing, autocratic. . quite horrible! I think all he really cares about are his horse and dog.’

‘You seem to have gathered a lot about him from a couple of phone calls,’ she said, amused.

‘We argue every time — he’s quite insufferable. He’s got a really deep voice, too, and sort of rumbles at me down the phone.’

‘What, one of those knicker-quiveringly deep voices?’ she asked with interest. ‘The kind that vibrate down your spine and back up again?’

‘Laura!’ I exclaimed, then laughed. ‘But, yes, it does and I suppose it would be quite sexy if he wasn’t being so rude to me. And unfortunately I just can’t seem to stop saying horrid things back, which isn’t like me at all: normally I manage to keep a professional relationship going, whatever the provocation. But it isn’t just his calls that make me dislike him, it’s also seeing how his actions have affected everyone here.’

And I told her how he’d abandoned his duty to look after his family and the elderly people in the village and taken himself off in a fit of pique, after he saw the engagement announcement between his brother and his former fiancée.

‘I expect he was so upset he didn’t think it through,’ she suggested.

‘Perhaps not, but once he’d had time to think he could have come back, couldn’t he? And then he seemed to assume that because the Chirks had invited his aunt and uncle to Christmas dinner, I should be happy to do the same. . and actually,’ I added, ‘I am.’

‘What, cooking Christmas dinner for his family?’

‘Yes, the Chirks left an enormous turkey and Christmas pudding anyway. And then Tilda Martland is so frail I don’t think she should even be trying to cope with the cooking, especially since she has her granddaughter to stay. Once I realised that, there wasn’t anything else to do but invite them.’

‘You are kind, Holly!’

‘I’m not, really — I didn’t want to do it. Only then I started to feel that I was being as mean and selfish as Jude.’ I sighed. ‘So now I’m committed to hosting a family Christmas dinner in a house that doesn’t belong to me and which is in need of a damned good clean, using food left by someone else!’

‘You’ll cope, you always do.’

‘We’ve had some snow too, and I can see that we’re likely to get cut off if it carries on — you’ve never seen such a steep, narrow, bendy road as the one up to the village! Luckily, there’s an amazingly well-stocked shop and enough food in the house to last a year, I should think, if you don’t mind eating a lot of fish and game.’

‘Jude shoots, then?’

‘No, it’s his Aunt Becca who does that, the horsy one. And she fishes, so she’s probably responsible for the trout and salmon — and the whole frozen pike.’

‘A pike? How do you know it’s a pike?’

‘Everything is labelled. I’ve never cooked pike before, but they’re supposed to be good eating. . I have a recipe for stuffed pike in my book of old English cookery,’ I added thoughtfully.

I always took my favourite recipe books away with me, along with my giant notebook, and it was just as well. It’s amazing what I’m asked to cook sometimes!

‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes, of course. I couldn’t eat a whole one myself, it’s pretty big, so I would have to ask the Martlands back another time to help me eat it. On Christmas Day it will be turkey and all the trimmings, of course, because that’s what they’re expecting.’

‘It’s quite funny, when you think about it, that you ran away from the idea of spending a family Christmas with me, but ended up having to host one yourself!’

‘Yes, I know, I can see the irony of it,’ I agreed. ‘Still, after Christmas Day, things will go quieter and I can relax and get on with my book again. Meanwhile, Jude accused me of trying to squeeze a whole lot of money out of him for cooking for the family, when I don’t intend charging for it at all! So I’m going to phone Ellen and tell her that if he calls, she isn’t to tell him what I charge for house-party cooking. I told him he couldn’t afford me.’