by Laura Briggs
Dear Aimee,
Remember how you thought Cliffs House would be like the Grantham’s home on Downton Abbey? Well, let me tell you, the bedroom I’m staying in would NOT disappoint you. It’s so beautiful I don’t even know where to start. An antique four poster bed, wallpaper with a delicate floral design, an antique wardrobe made out of oak, my very own fireplace and mantle—it’s like waking up on the set of a BBC period drama miniseries! Even the drapes are so beautiful, I’m tempted to pull a Scarlett O’Hara and fashion them into a chic gown for my first big event here. Of course, I would be jailed for the destruction of valuable property but wouldn't it be worth it to make that grand entrance on the staircase?
My ridiculous postcard message to Aimee was interrupted by the sound of my mobile phone’s alarm going off. After just two days in my new surroundings, I didn’t trust my internal clock for any appointments, so I was relying on alarms to prompt me. Setting down my pen, I turned off the phone alarm and prepared to go downstairs.
My workspace was almost as nice as the bedroom I was so kindly being allowed to use until I could secure a place in the village. Despite Lady Amanda's laughing advice, there were no stuffed birds or antique andirons cluttering it up. Just a beautiful white mantelpiece and an antique globe that stood beneath my wall chart — I had copied the wedding's timeline from Lady Amanda's file, so I could see step by step each day between now and the ceremony. I had already marked deadlines — flowers chosen by this date, cake arriving by that one — and programmed reminders into my mobile so I wouldn't miss even one.
Just breathe. I inhaled slowly, reminding myself I had planned events before. Not ones like this, true, but they were still real celebrations with real people. I had everything under control. Repeating this one last time, I slipped on my tan sandals, grabbed the sketches from my desk, and went downstairs to talk with Dinah the chef.
Dinah's kitchen was an old-fashioned one transformed into a modern cook's paradise of efficiency. No utensils without hooks, no pots without a place within easy reach of her stove and range. Dinah, Lady Amanda had explained, cooked everything from simple meals for the house's family and staff to French cuisine for visiting dignitaries and businessmen at Cliffs House's galas and conferences.
"This is how I envision the cakes for the Saturday luncheon," I said, showing her a few sketches I had made, as well as some pictures I had copied from my books on formal receptions. "Light saffron and orange flavors sandwiched together with marmalade — Cornish and English flavors," I said. "Covered in fondant stenciled with a Cornish tartan design, and served with chocolate truffles and ginger and orange spiced biscuits."
I was proud of myself. I had spent two days reading up on Cornish cuisine and consulting the menus of several Cornish bakeries. I wanted this first step in the wedding planning to include the Cliffs House staff before I turned to any bakeries, local or not.
"Well, it's not an impossibility," said Dinah, studying the pictures. "And I rather like the idea of saffron and citrus, maybe even with a hint of cinnamon. But with the citrus being the primary one, of course."
"Those are pretty," commented Gemma, who was one of the local girls who assisted Dinah. "Who're they for?"
"For the wedding party," said Dinah.
Her accent, while not as strong as Gemma or Pippa's, was stronger than Geoff Weatherby's, with lots of rich 'r's' — I was guessing that Dinah was native to Cornwall.
"For Donald Price-Parker's wedding?" asked Pippa, sounding awed.
"That's the one," I answered.
Gemma sighed. "Isn't he lovely?" she asked. "I had a poster of him on my wall when I was fifteen. 'My 'ansum' as my mum used to call it — I'd blush roses every time, but his looks was rich enough that I didn't take it down."
Pippa groaned. "I can't imagine ending up with the likes of him. I've seen the model he's marrying, and there was no hope for me." She laughed. "Still, I had dreams of it until he went off to America and met that girl from the nail varnish advertisements."
"Do you think she looks like that other model — the one who's dad isn't a man anymore?" asked Gemma, confidently. She was briskly stirring a pan of melted chocolate as Dinah measured out flour — my mouth was watering, imagining a chocolate cake at the end of this process.
"I think she's not pretty enough for him, since he could've had that actress instead," said Pippa, who was peeling potatoes for tonight's soup. "What do you think?" she asked, glancing at me.
"He's definitely handsome," I answered, since this was the safest choice of words, rather than admitting that he wasn't my type. "In a ... beefcake sort of way."
Do they use ‘beefcake’ to describe a man’s physique in Cornwall? I wondered how much of what I said was basically a foreign language to them, and if I could ever learn enough about their culture to pass muster with the locals.
"I think it's the other way round between the two of them," said Dinah, who cracked an egg against her bowl. "But who am I to know anything? Especially compared to you two, who read every celebrity mag there is and gossip with your besties about it until the wee hours, no doubt, until not a boy in the county could compare with him in your eyes."
The two girls exchanged glances. "No boys in the county look that good in a football jersey," answered Pippa.
"Except for Ross," supplied Gemma, with a saucy grin.
"Ross is no boy," scoffed Dinah. "He's got nearly a decade on you both."
"Besides, he doesn't play football — he's too busy with the dirt and the like," said Pippa. They left me wondering who Ross was, and why it was important that he played — or didn't play — football. English football, I imagined, and found I had a hard time remembering what the uniforms looked like.
Pippa studied the mini cake pictures I had shown Dinah. "That's a proper treat for a to-do," she said. "Did you think it up yourself?"
"I did," I confessed. "That's actually what my old job mostly entailed — me coming up with wedding favors, or bridal shower treats. Nothing big, just something attractive for the serving table."
Pippa blinked. "You mean you didn't plan weddings before now?" She raised her eyebrow.
"No." I realized that making this confession was probably a mistake. Both of the girls exchanged glances, this time with a mixture of surprise and skepticism. That's what I read in the slight uplift of Pippa's eyebrow, and the bemused smile on Gemma's face, which quickly vanished as she busied herself with pouring the chocolate into Dinah's dry ingredients.
"There's a first time for everything," said Dinah. She lifted my sketches and slipped on her eyeglasses. "Hmmm...spice biscuits...truffles in milk chocolate?"
"The bride wants a little touch of the U.S.," I answered. Suddenly, I felt a tiny little doubt spring up inside me, one I tried to quickly crush. Had I taken a leap too big for my abilities? "So both dark and milk chocolate truffles would be served at the luncheon."
I still had sketches to make of possible flower arrangements and a consultation with Lady Amanda about how to rearrange the drawing room for the champagne luncheon, but I thought I would get a breath of air and steady my confidence first. A walk was what I needed. A chance to breathe in some Cornish sea air and refocus my thoughts, reminding myself how long I had waited and prepared for this.
"I'm going out for a walk," I said. "I thought I would take the path to the Channel overlook that Mr. Weatherby suggested. Which way is it?"
"To the right — just past the hedge opening that leads to the formal garden," said Dinah. "It's a view not to be missed. If you've been here two days already and not seen it, that's two days too long."
"Out walking?" said Gemma, looking up from the soup. "In those shoes?" Another funny smile crossed her lips. I glanced down at my tan sandals, and envisioned a steep, rocky path to the cliff and me stumbling down it after breaking a heel on the rocks.
"In these shoes," I said, with a confident smile. I thought I caught a cool, impressed glance in the girl's eyes as I turned to leave, hoping I wasn't heading to my doom along t
he garden path.
"... maybe she's got 'moxie' as they say in the States," I heard Pippa say before the door closed behind me.
One of Cornwall's milder breezes swept across me as I found my way past the formal hedgerows to the winding little path to the sea. I buttoned my green pea coat as I climbed down, gradually moving from the craggy slate walkway carefully built like a natural stair to the soft, wild grass growing alongside it. I angled my way towards the view of the water below, hearing it surge and crash against the cliff's walls.
The wind rose and batted my hair across my face. I could see the Channel below, washing its way between the shores. I could see the beach, the stones and sand lost along the shallow edge whenever water rushed up from the sea. I sucked in my breath, imagining the power of the waves if I were below, walking along the strip of white foam instead of the soft grass and delicate purplish flowers around me.
That's when I noticed I wasn't alone. A man was kneeling near the edge of the cliff a few yards away at the foot of the stone path, watching the water also. Wind swept his dark, unruly hair back from his brow, and fanned the edges of his worn brown canvas jacket. Between his fingers was a sprig of something dark green, a plant or a leaf of some kind.
Sensing my gaze, he turned towards me. I felt my breath catch. He was attractive. But more than that, he was… familiar.
The handsome stranger from the railway station, his dark good looks even more impressive against the stunning backdrop of the cliffs and water below. A day’s worth of stubble made his well-formed features even more pleasing: features that were accented by eyes that I imagined as dark as coffee beneath those perfect lashes and sculpted brow. For a moment, we stared at each other. Then he spoke.
"Do you mind getting off the heath?" A gruff, commanding voice that was filled with disgust — even though he was practically shouting over the ripple of wind and tide, I could detect that much.
I gaped at him. "What?" I asked. His manners weren’t as pretty as his looks, apparently. I felt a surge of annoyance along with my confusion for the accusation in his voice. Why was he talking this way to a perfect stranger? Who did he think he was anyway? Besides a good-looking…but no. That wasn’t enough to justify the rudeness etched in his perfect face, or the scowl he offered my shoes.
"You're standing on it," he said. "The heath. What are you doing off the footpath? Can't you see you're trampling it with those spiky shoes of yours?"
I looked down and saw that I was standing in the middle of a bright patch of soft, green needles and the purplish flowers I had been admiring before. Quickly, I stepped aside, seeing that my heels had indeed left indentation in the soft earth around the plant.
So? I thought. I was pretty sure I recognized it from a website as a native wild plant here in Cornwall. "Sorry," I said, although my tone was a little annoyed with this apology. "But it's just heath, isn't it? It's not as if I killed it by walking on it."
"That's still no reason for you to crush it, is it?" he retorted. "It's a protected plant, by the way."
"Don't you think you're being a little rude?" I asked. Fed up with this insensitive behavior. He might be gorgeous enough to rival the view of the Channel below, but that didn’t mean he could treat me like a criminal.
"I think I provided a pathway for people to walk on so they wouldn't walk on my plants," he answered, his voice still loud because of the distance between us. "Didn't you see the sign?"
I hadn't, actually. I had walked down the pathway without noticing any posted warnings or requests. "It's a wildflower that will bounce back in no time, I'm sure," I snapped. "There are dozens of patches of it between here and the house —"
"All of which deserve a chance to grow and propagate," he countered.
I had retreated to the stone path now, not sure why he was so angry. What right did he have to order a stranger around over a little plant? "Who are you — the wildflower rescuer of Cornwall?" I asked, sarcastically.
"No," he answered, in the same tone. "I'm the gardener of Cliffs House."
Oh. Well, then. Question answered.
Way to go, Julianne. Putting your foot in it—literally.
I was aware that my cheeks were turning several shades of color equal to the heath along the pathway. "I see," I answered. I sounded lofty, even though my voice had a thousand cracks in it. "Well, that's hardly a great way to greet the guests of Cliffs House, is it?"
With that, I turned and walked quickly back up the path. I thought I heard his voice behind me, and I glanced back. I could see him scrambling to collect something — a tool belt of some sort, I thought — so I turned away and walked as fast as I could towards the house.
I retreated inside before he could catch up with me. I imagined that a pair of legs as long as the ones I'd glimpsed, clad in worn, corduroy trousers could walk fast, too. Safely inside with the door closed, I peered out from behind the lace curtains. I could see a man's shape on the path near the formal garden. He had stopped, gazing all around. Probably trying to spot the tourist woman in the green coat somewhere among the ornamental gardens. The one who went around trampling Cornish beauty beneath her expensive heels.
My cheeks blushed several shades of fire again. The gardener. Would I have to see him often? Or could I never see him again, if I played my cards right while living here at Cliffs House? Maybe I could avoid ever needing table arrangements from his garden. Imagine what he would think when he found out that it was the estate's new event planner who had been out crushing his life’s work. I felt terrible, even though the whole thing was a silly misunderstanding involving a hardy and resilient Cornish weed. At least, according to the website I'd been reading on Cornish facts ... which, come to think of it, might have said something about it being a rare species after all.
"Is that you, Ms. Morgen?" Dinah was in the hall, appearing from the direction of the kitchen with a tea tray.
"Yes. It's me." I forced a smile to my lips.
"Tea's in the main parlor, if you're hungry."
"Sounds great." I hoped that the gardener was not invited to join us. Not until I had time to humble myself to an apology, or think of a better retort than 'don't be rude to tourists.' That made me sound crass and entitled, and definitely wasn't the start I wanted as a newcomer to Cornwall. And for all I knew, Lord William might have a passionate fixation on his valuable heath plants that explained why the gardener hated my intrusion on the open ground.
***
