Trisha Ashley - Twelve Days of Christmas

‘That’s all right,’ said Michael. ‘Well, I’ll leave you two to it and go back to the car — I left the engine running. I can probably get out tomorrow,’ he added awkwardly.

‘Oh, stay as long as you like,’ Jude said expansively, his good humour restored.

‘I’ll hitch a lift back up to the house with you,’ I said quickly. ‘I just slipped on the ice and it’s painful. I’ll probably have some impressive bruises on my backside by morning.’

‘Okay,’ he said and Jude went off to the studio while I fetched the saffron and then carefully locked the door.

‘Phew, I feel so much safer now Jude knows my little secret,’ Michael admitted, turning the car and heading for home. ‘I thought he was going to spoil my good looks one of these days. Are you really going to try AI, Holly?’

‘Yes, I made up my mind to go it alone, before I came here,’ I explained. ‘I knew I wouldn’t ever find another man like Alan.’

‘Perhaps not, but you might find someone very different, if you looked. . like Jude,’ he suggested.

‘He’s certainly different all right, and he brings out the worst in me.’

‘You’re attracted to each other, that’s a start.’

‘That’s just a physical thing. . and anyway, even if it wasn’t, I think our family relationship is too close for anything else.’

‘Right. . well.’ He gave me another charming sideways smile. ‘In that case, there’s always me if you want a volunteer donor that you actually know — and I can tell you from my daughter, I make very nice babies! Only for God’s sake don’t tell Jude I volunteered!’

‘That’s really sweet of you,’ I said, touched. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

Gran’s journal slowly peters out soon after the baby — my mother — arrived, but I expect she found other things to occupy her time with and was too busy. I knew she’d been a very active minister’s wife.

I was still quite stiff and sore from my fall and my bum was probably black and blue — but also maybe green, from the liniment Becca gave me to put on after a long, hot soak in the bath. She said she swore by it, so I gave it a go even though it smelt very odd and I suspected it was designed for horses. It certainly seemed to take a lot of the soreness out. I ought to try it on my fetlocks after a hard day in the kitchen!

I wasn’t quite so quick off the mark as usual going downstairs and I knew Jude had beaten me to it, because I heard him down in the courtyard as I was getting dressed. He’d cleaned out the sitting-room fire, too, when I checked. . and there was just one small, tantalising corner of the jigsaw left to do. Before I knew it, the pieces were snapped into place, and the Victorian Christmas scene complete.

I’d put saffron in water to steep overnight for the Revel Cakes, and the liquid was a beautiful golden yellow. When I’d made myself a cup of coffee, I got out the biggest mixing bowl, a vast affair with a blue-glazed inside, and made the dough. Kneading it energetically for ten minutes released quite a bit of bottled-up emotion and was probably very therapeutic. Jude came back in while I was pummelling and looked at me with some surprise.

‘Revel Cakes,’ I explained, ‘They’re a sort of lightly-fruited spiced bread, really, so the yeast needs to work for two or three hours at least, before I make them.’

I dropped the yeasty yellow mass into the bowl, covered it in cling film and set it near the Aga to rise.

‘Sorry I got the wrong end of the stick yesterday,’ he apologised, putting the kettle on and making more coffee without being asked, one of his main early morning assets, while I started on my next task, a hearty winter casserole of venison for dinner tonight, which we would have with jacket potatoes from Henry’s store, followed by a baked custard. This was apparently Noël’s favourite dessert, just as it had been my Gran’s.

‘You certainly jumped to some strange conclusions about me — but then, you’re always doing that!’

‘You’re right,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve misjudged you all along. But this time the truth is even weirder! Holly, I can’t believe you’re seriously going to go it alone and have a baby by AI! You can’t have thought—’

‘I’ve thought of everything,’ I interrupted. ‘I have it all planned — and it’s none of your business anyway, is it?’

He sighed and ran his fingers through his dark hair, which was starting to curl, being in need of cutting. ‘It feels like it is — but we can discuss it later.’

‘No, we can’t: I’m going to be busy all day and then I’ll have to pack.’

‘But, Holly, you don’t really intend to dash off tomorrow morning if the roads are cleared, do you? Why not stay for the Revels? It seems silly to miss them now and the family will be really disappointed if you aren’t there. You could stay one extra night, couldn’t you?’

I looked at him and weakened slightly, because I so desperately wanted to see them now I’d heard so much about them. . especially Jude as Saint George!

‘I suppose I could. . But I don’t have to stay on, I can pack my car and leave right after it’s over, like Michael’s doing.’

‘But he’s only driving as far as his friend’s place near Leeds tomorrow night, and you’ll have a much longer drive. Anyway, if you leave immediately, you’ll miss all the fun.’

‘What kind of fun?’ I asked suspiciously, remembering Sharon’s hints of some kind of Wicker Woman sacrifice.

‘Well, the wassail, for a start.’

‘Wassail?’

‘A sort of hot apple and ale punch that Nancy brews up.’

‘Oh yes, I think she did mention that.’

‘And Old Nan, Richard and Henry will all expect you to be there too, right to the end with the rest of the family. So you see, you might as well stay over that night.’

That brief but wonderful smile flashed across his face like a rare comet and I felt my willpower dissolving faster than sugar in hot water. .

One more night couldn’t hurt, could it?

‘Okay,’ I heard myself say.

‘Good.’ He looked pleased, but that was possibly because he knew he was going to get one extra well-cooked dinner before he was forced back onto his usual diet of convenience foods.

He started off cooking bacon for breakfast while I finished the casserole and put it in the slow oven. The pot custard could go in later, when I baked the Revel Cakes, and possibly a carrot cake — goodness knows, we had enough of those, since Henry was clearly the Carrot King.

For once, everyone else came down for breakfast at more or less the same time, except Coco, who arrived late demanding black coffee — though I made her eat an omelette too — and then went back up to finish her packing. You’d have thought she’d already have done it, if she was so desperate to leave!

Guy set off in his big Chelsea tractor right after breakfast with Coco, her white coat a testament to my laundering skills, but her hat still a trifle manky. She’d made it so unendearingly plain that she couldn’t wait to shake the dust of the place off her stilettos that we all gathered outside, prepared to wave her off with huge enthusiasm.

‘Goodbye, Horlicks!’ Jess called gaily, but she pretended she hadn’t heard.

Guy kissed everyone goodbye before he got in, including me, and wished me good luck, though I don’t know why he thought I would need it more than anyone else.

‘And by the way, I forgive you for doing the last bit of jigsaw!’ he added.

‘It was too tempting and I didn’t think you’d have time this morning. But now Jude can take it back to Oriel’s shop and get half the price refunded.’

‘Thrift is clearly your middle name,’ Jude said to me with amusement as we waved goodbye to the vanishing people-carrier. ‘Are you going to come down to the studio later?’

‘I could walk down with your lunch early, but I won’t be able to stop — I’ll need to get back and start making fifty fiddly little spiral Revel Cakes. The dough will have risen by then.’

Or at least, I hoped it would.

I made my pot custards and the carrot cake, went out to have a long talk over the fence with Lady, then gave Merlin a good brushing in the tackroom, which would be his last before I left.

That thought made me feel sad: I’d become so attached to him that I would be lost without my faithful shadow following me about. I’d miss Lady, too, and even Billy. .

We had an early lunch, which Jess didn’t eat a lot of, due to her having searched out and devoured every last remaining chocolate decoration on the tree while everyone else was occupied. The older members of the party had been closeted in the morning room with Road to Rio and Michael, who is house-trained, had washed, dried and pressed his laundry in the utility room.

I was so busy I should have asked Jess or Michael to take Jude’s lunch down to the studio for me, but instead found myself drawn down there one last time, like iron filings to a magnet.

And I was glad I had, because the sculpture was really taking shape! It looked a bit as though a tornado had whirled huge metal leaves into the semblance of a horse and woman, rather than having been purposely constructed: I suppose that was what Jude intended?

He was deeply absorbed in what he was doing and I put the basket down where he would spot it when he returned to Earth and tiptoed away — or as much as you can tiptoe when wearing wellies.