A Christmas Cracker

by Trisha Ashley

  He grinned again, maliciously, then got up with his drink and sauntered over to the bar. Lacey didn’t seem that overjoyed to see him, eyeing him warily over her glass.

  ‘Are we ever going to finish this game of dominoes?’ grumbled Phil, and we turned back to it again. Bradley had def-initely done something sneaky with the tiles while our attention was elsewhere.

  There was a lot more concentrated slapping down of tiles, until Joy nudged me.

  ‘That Guy’s coming back again – but I bet it’s not because he wants to introduce you to his relatives. He may have his eye on you, but you’re an ex-con like the rest of us and he’s just after a bit of fun, you mark my words.’

  ‘He’ll have to find it with someone else, then,’ I said. ‘I’m not a fun kind of girl at the best of times and anyway, I’m not looking for romance.’

  ‘Safer that way,’ Brad agreed. ‘Gardening and making crackers, that’s all I want to do.’

  ‘And cheating at dominoes,’ Lillian said pointedly.

  ‘Who, me? I never did,’ he asserted virtuously.

  Chapter 35: False Start

  Randal

  On the whole, it had been a trying day.

  It had started off reasonably well, when Lacey found that my bedroom suite occupied the whole upstairs of the east wing, with a sitting room, bedroom and en suite bathroom. It had once been my uncle and aunt’s, but on his death she’d decided that she’d like a smaller and cosier room and turned it over to me.

  Lacey cheered up a bit and remarked that, like the rest of the house, the décor of the bedrooms needed dragging into the current century, but at least we had enough bathrooms, unlike a lot of old houses she’d visited.

  ‘Though someone else is sharing my bathroom,’ she added.

  ‘That’s probably Tabby, because it’s the nearest to her rooms, just up the old backstairs.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like sharing one, especially with the help.’

  ‘Tabby is Mercy’s PA, so I don’t think you can really describe her as the help,’ I said mildly.

  ‘She’s an employee and an ex-prisoner, so she’s not the type I really want to mix with socially, let alone having to share my bathroom with her,’ she snapped, which reminded me of how she treated her long-suffering housekeeper, Maria.

  ‘Mercy constantly invites all kinds of people to dinner, or to stay, so when we’re married you’ll just have to adjust to having random strangers from all walks of life around,’ I told her a bit shortly, because this snobbish streak was not a side of Lacey that I found endearing.

  ‘If you’d seen some of the ghastly places abroad I’ve had to put up with, you’d be grateful to have a bathroom at all,’ I added. ‘But if sharing one with Tabby really offends you, then Mercy’s is just along the passage a bit and you could use that instead.’

  Seeing I was looking cross she slipped her hand in my arm and smiled up at me beguilingly, her wonderful blue eyes glowing. ‘I don’t mean to be difficult, darling – and now we’ve seen the rest of the house, let’s go out for a while, just you and me,’ she coaxed.

  Unfortunately, Lacey had insisted we head for a huge shopping mall her friend had told her about, where she could buy a particular handbag at a cut price. I don’t know why she was so pleased about it, because it looked like a satchel to me. And those big retail outlets were hell on earth, so far as I was concerned.

  Then Lacey wanted to stop on the way back for a drink and to call her friend to tell her about the handbag while her mobile still had a signal, so it was getting close to dinnertime when we got back.

  She only belatedly remembered Pugsie when we were going up to change, but he was where I thought he would be: in the kitchen with Mercy, who was cooking.

  ‘Something smells good,’ I said, giving her a hug and kissing her cheek.

  ‘Kedgeree – but I haven’t spiced it up too much, because I know you’re still trying to keep to a fairly bland diet,’ she said, looking rosy and pleased.

  ‘I’m a lot better, just still a bit cautious.’

  Tabitha’s big, black cat oozed through the flap and fixed me with those strange odd eyes. I blinked first.

  ‘Sorry we didn’t let you know we would be so late,’ I apologised.

  ‘That’s all right, Randal. I know you young people like to get out and about, and Tabby kept us company at tea. She and Silas are fine-tuning the plans for the museum displays – the project has brought him quite out of himself!’

  ‘Yes, she’s become quite indispensable, hasn’t she?’ I said drily, but I was angry with myself, really: I should have been there, discussing the museum and the rest of the mill redevelopment, but instead I let Lacey lure me away to that blasted mall.

  ‘Where is Tabby? Shouldn’t she be giving you a hand with the cooking?’

  Mercy looked surprised. ‘She often does help me cook, but it’s not part of her job and the weekends are entirely her own. But she’s such a sweet, helpful girl that I forget she isn’t part of the family.’

  ‘I hope you’ll soon feel the same way about Lacey,’ I said, a bit stiffly.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure I will,’ she agreed. ‘Such a beautiful girl, isn’t she? And very enterprising, for someone so young.’

  I thought we’d better avoid the discussion of Lacey’s particular enterprise right then, so I asked, ‘Can I do anything to help?’

  ‘You could lay the table in the parlour for me. There’ll be four of us, because Tabby will be out.’

  ‘Oh? I expect she’s making the most of having her tag off and her curfew removed.’

  ‘It was most irksome for her, but she said it was wonderful being able to take a little walk in the dusk last night with her sweet kitty, and watch the bats flying.’

  ‘I bet it was,’ I said, and the sweet kitty gave me another of those looks.

  At dinner Lacey put herself out to be charming to Mercy and Silas, and asked all kinds of questions about the history of the house, though then she blew it by glazing over with blatant boredom once Silas really got going on the subject.

  He’s not stupid, so he soon clammed up and then went back to his rooms afterwards, without waiting for coffee.

  After that, it seemed like a good idea to remove Lacey from the scene for a bit, so we drove up to the Auld Christmas in Little Mumming, which had lots of old-world charm as well as good beer, though something loud and modern would probably have cheered Lacey up more.

  It was full when we went in and the first person I spotted had to be Tabitha, playing dominoes at a table with some of the cracker factory workers – and sitting right next to her was Jude Martland’s younger brother, Guy. He was leaning forward to whisper something intimately into her ear, but her face was just as secretive and shuttered as ever, under that heavy, dark fringe.

  We found Jude and his wife, Holly, at the bar, so Guy had probably walked down from Old Place with them. I introduced Lacey and Jude gave her his usual lowering look under his heavy brows, which meant nothing; it was just his way. Holly smiled at Lacey and said they’d walked down for some air, since Becca had volunteered to listen out for the sleeping infant.

  I wasn’t sure I’d entrust anything non-equine to Becca Martland’s care, but they seemed happy enough.

  ‘Here’s Guy,’ Jude said. ‘We weren’t expecting him this weekend, but he keeps turning up like a bad penny.’

  ‘I heard that,’ Guy said darkly. ‘Hi, Randal – and, Lacey, what a surprise! I wasn’t expecting to see you here.’

  ‘You know each other?’ asked Holly.

  ‘Everyone’s bound to meet on the London party circuit at some point,’ Lacey said unenthusiastically, so I deduced that she didn’t like Guy much. She flashed her huge ring at him. ‘Randal and I are engaged.’

  ‘So I’ve been told – congratulations!’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘We’re going to be based up here when we’re married – have you heard about the plans to redevelop Friendship Mill?’

  ‘It’s been me
ntioned, but I wasn’t paying much attention,’ he confessed, with a charming smile – charm just naturally ooze out of Guy, but you wouldn’t want to trust him further than you could throw him. Maybe that was an asset in international banking.

  ‘I should think your aunt is over the moon at the prospect of having you both living at Mote Farm … and presumably you’ll be moving your business up here?’ he added to Lacey, in what I could only think was a pointed way.

  ‘Mercy’s delighted, of course,’ I told him repressively.

  ‘I’m sure she is, and it’ll be great having you around all the time,’ Jude said. ‘Won’t it, Holly?’

  ‘As to that, nothing’s been decided yet,’ Lacey said.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t have thought being stuck in the middle of Lancashire redeveloping a mill would be your kind of thing, Lacey,’ Guy said. ‘I don’t see you as a clog-and-shawl kind of girl.’

  ‘Well, you don’t know me at all really, do you?’ she said, and then seeming to lose interest in him, turned her shoulder and started asking Holly if she’d visited the shopping mall we’d been to.

  Guy headed back to join Tabby and the others again, so it looked like she might be the draw that was making him spend so many weekends at Old Place recently. I hoped someone had warned her what he was like … I mean, not that I cared if she lost her heart to him and then got dumped, but it would upset Mercy, now Tabby had wormed her way so far into her affections.

  Chapter 36: Charm Offensive

  Q:Did you hear about the man who bought a paper shop?

  A:It blew away.

  ‘I don’t think that fiancée of Randal’s was pleased to see Guy, though he’s certainly turning on the charm,’ Dorrie said, critically observing the group at the bar. ‘Maybe she’s one of his past flings?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said, though the way he’d made a beeline for the beautiful Lacey the moment she’d appeared had brought home to me just how little his flirting meant. ‘His name was mentioned at dinner last night, but she said she’d only met him once or twice in London.’

  ‘Hey up, luv, he’s on his way back,’ she warned, nudging me with a sharp elbow.

  Guy plumped himself down next to me, eyes sparkling wickedly, and I edged away slightly. He looked about as beautiful and trustworthy as a rattlesnake.

  ‘Reading between the lines, I gather the new bride-to-be hasn’t been an unmitigated success with Mercy and Silas so far?’ he said, raising one dark eyebrow quizzically. ‘But then, she and Randal are an unlikely pairing in the first place.’

  ‘I don’t see why, except that he’s quite a bit older than her,’ I said.

  ‘There’s the whole Quaker thing, too. His mother lapsed after she married, but enough’s still rubbed off to give him a bit of a puritan edge, according to Jude. They’re old friends.’

  ‘I don’t know either of them well enough to judge, but he can’t be that much of a puritan, since he doesn’t seem bothered by what line of business she’s in,’ I said.

  ‘I used to know Lacey … very well,’ he murmured, looking across at her under lowered lids. She glanced uneasily at him and then turned away and smiled up at Randal.

  I hadn’t known his stern face could soften like that and found myself hoping for his sake that things would work out, because it appeared Dorrie was right, and Lacey hadn’t entirely told the truth about Guy.

  ‘This is going to be entertaining! I think I’ll be spending a lot more weekends up here,’ Guy said. ‘Which means you’re going to see a lot more of me, too, you lucky girl! We should arrange to go out and have fun one evening, next time I’m up.’

  ‘I don’t do fun,’ I said repressively, wishing now I’d never encouraged him by replying to one or two of his text messages. ‘This is about as much excitement as I can take.’

  ‘Come on, loosen up, Tabby!’ he said, draping one arm along the settle behind me and leaning intimately close, which seemed to be his speciality. ‘I could skip the family lunch tomorrow and we could go out together – how about that?’

  ‘You told me your brother likes you to be there. And I’m working.’

  ‘On a Sunday? I didn’t have Mercy down as a slave driver.’

  ‘She isn’t, I’m going to work on one of my pictures – a papercut. I did tell you I was an artist, as well as Mercy’s PA.’

  ‘Did you?’ he said vaguely. ‘But you can do that any time, can’t you?’

  ‘No, and anyway, I want to do it tomorrow, whereas I don’t want to go out with you.’

  ‘Look, what if I get Holly to invite you to lunch?’ he said, as if that was a prospect I couldn’t possibly resist.

  I shrugged. ‘Mercy says I’ve got an open invitation to Sunday lunch anyway, so – no thanks.’

  ‘I’d give up, lad,’ Phil advised, leaning across the table, and I noticed that the others had packed up the dominoes and were getting ready to leave.

  ‘We’ll be off then,’ Lillian said. ‘Are you coming, Tabby, or staying here for a while?’

  ‘Stay and I’ll run you back later,’ Guy offered. ‘I drove down separately from Jude, because I knew Holly would want to get back soon. She was edgy about leaving the sprog.’

  ‘Actually, they left ten minutes ago and Randal and Lacey went at the same time,’ I told him and he spun round and looked at the bar where they’d been.

  ‘Sneaky!’ He looked disconcerted – and even more so when I got up, said goodnight and followed the others out.

  But I didn’t find it hard to resist his blandishments, especially not now I’d seen him turning the charm on Lacey, too.

  The front of the house was in darkness, so I hoped everyone had gone to bed, though when I went round the side I could see that Mercy had kindly left the kitchen light on for me.

  I let myself in – and found Randal there, with the revised plans of the mill and the architect’s drawings of what the mezzanine café area might look like, spread out in front of him, weighed down with a plate of chocolate biscuits and a half-empty mug.

  He looked up, his hazel eyes narrowing. ‘You’re back, then.’

  ‘Like a bad penny,’ I agreed, taking my jacket off and hanging it on the back of the door.

  ‘I thought you and Guy Martland might be making a night of it – you looked pretty chummy at the Auld Christmas.’

  ‘There is no “me and Guy Martland”,’ I said icily.

  Pye, who had greeted me outside, but then lingered, stuck his head through the cat-flap, raked Randal with a narrow-eyed, disdainful stare, then decided to come in.

  ‘Oh, look, there’s your familiar,’ he sighed. ‘He was here when I arrived, but he gave me one look and then went out.’

  ‘I don’t think he likes you very much,’ I told him.

  ‘Pfft!’ agreed Pye, going to his bowl and staring into it, as if he might really magic up some extra dinner.

  ‘I expect he’s picking that up from you,’ he observed coldly.

  ‘Except for your annoying assumption that I’m some kind of petty thief out to cheat Mercy, I feel entirely indifferent towards you,’ I said.

  ‘Then bring your indifference over here, and explain some of these changes to the plans since I last saw them,’ he ordered.

  ‘Like what?’ I said, reluctantly drawing closer and peering over his shoulder and a long strand of my hair slithered into his cocoa.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, fishing it out, ‘I’ll make you another.’

  But somehow I ended up making some for us both and showing him where the plans had simply had to be amended.

  ‘It’s sort of evolving organically as we go on,’ I explained. ‘Like here …’ I pointed. ‘Instead of blocking up the opening through from the cracker stockroom to the museum rooms, we had to fit a fire door, and now it seems we’ll need to have a fire escape from the café level to the rear of the building, too. And the lift will have to go here, near the front, rather than where we’d originally put it, so there’s enough room to turn a wheelchair easily.’<
br />
  ‘Right,’ he said, frowning, so I wasn’t sure that he was entirely convinced. ‘But I still think its rash of Mercy to do so much work before the planning permission’s been granted.’

  ‘She’s certain she’ll get it, but she said at least if she didn’t she’d still have a much better workspace, producing amazing new kinds of crackers. Have you seen the women’s toilets?’ I added enthusiastically.

  ‘Strangely enough, no,’ he replied.

  ‘No, I suppose not – but they’re an absolute palace. Dorrie and the other women won’t let the men use them while theirs are upgraded, so they’re making the disabled toilet cubicle first and they can use that as a temporary measure.’

  ‘There’s a lot of money going into this – and if you and Mercy are wrong about the cracker-making bringing in visitors, we’ll have wasted some of that.’

  ‘We’re not wrong,’ I said positively. ‘Visitors will love watching the crackers being made and then they’ll want to buy some in the Christmas shop, along with lots of other things. It’ll all be a big success.’

  ‘If we get the planning permission.’

  ‘I expect we will,’ I said, then yawned and got up to wash out the empty mugs. The end of my hair that had been in the cocoa had dried stiffly, so I rinsed it under the tap and wrung it out. I looked round to find him watching me, his expression unfathomable.

  ‘Right, I’m off to bed. Pye, are you coming with me, or do you want to stay here and stare fixedly at Randal for a bit longer?’

  ‘It’s OK, I’m going,’ he said, giving my cat an uneasy look and rising to his feet with such haste that he narrowly missed banging his head on the low light fitting over the kitchen table.

  He was down early for breakfast, too – there seemed to be no getting away from him. But evidently he’s not a morning person, because he didn’t say very much, though he did look surprised when Pugsie followed Pye back in through the cat-flap.

  ‘Lacey puts him out of her bedroom early every morning,’ I explained, ‘so I bring him down with me.’

  ‘She has a live-in maid at home, who sees to him,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘I expect it’s a habit.’