Cally was wearing a dress patterned in the same pure harebell-blue shade as her eyes and she looked to Jago stunningly beautiful – and, when she spotted him and smiled, very happy. Stella ran straight to him and he picked her up, then put his free arm around Cally when she caught up.
Her eyes shone like stars when she looked up at him and he felt such a deep joy and happiness that he thought his heart might burst, realising that whatever happened after this, he’d always treasure this one precious moment.
Chapter 42: Piece of Cake
When we walked into the village hall and everyone went quiet and stared at us, then suddenly burst into a storm of clapping and cheers, it was both moving and hideously embarrassing at the same time.
It was a relief when I spotted Jago, looking handsome with his dark curling hair shining under the lights, my very own Captain Jack Sparrow … Did he have any idea at all that he made my timbers shiver?
Then our eyes met and I thought maybe the dress had had the desired effect, because for a moment he looked quite stunned. I followed Stella across to him and he looked down at me and said with a heart-melting smile, ‘You look beautiful! And this is great, isn’t it? Stella, Father Christmas is just getting warmed up in the other room and he’ll be in in a minute.’
He was too, and possibly the smallest Santa I’d ever seen! There was a tissue-paper-draped throne ready for him and he had a sack full of presents for all the children, though Stella’s was very special – a fairy wand that lit up and then sparkled in a rainbow of colours.
Raffy called for a moment’s silence after that and reminded us that we were here to celebrate both Christmas and to welcome home Stella after her successful operation in America.
‘So please could everyone involved in the fundraising, all of Stella’s Hundred Stars, come forward and get their very own gingerbread star of merit. And there are lots more hanging on the tree for everyone else.’
Stella and I started handing the special ones out while Jago went to help get down the biscuits from the lower branches of the tree. By the time he returned the stars had all vanished and so, too, had Stella, though I could see her fairy wand twinkling like a firefly at the other end of the room. Celia and Will had gone in pursuit to make sure she didn’t overtire herself.
‘This is yours,’ I said, handing over the very last gingerbread star. ‘I thought it would look a bit suspicious if you didn’t eat your own baking.’
‘I think I’d like to keep it, actually,’ Jago said. ‘I might have a bit of croquembouche shortly, though, because that’s not something that’ll last long.’
‘Stella said it looked like a fairy wedding cake, which is a good thing, since she’s still convinced that they’re small angels … and I assume that lovely wand that Santa gave her was your idea?’
Before Jago could reply, Raffy, who had his star pinned to his chest like a slightly crumbly medal, stopped and said how delighted he was to see Stella looking so well. Then he added to Jago, with a twinkle, ‘Have you shown Cally what you’ve been doing at the Honey’s yet? Jago gave me a guided tour yesterday,’ he added to me.
‘That’s more than I’ve had since I got back!’ I said. ‘What have you been up to, Jago?’
‘Just finishing touches,’ he said vaguely, though he looked a little self-conscious … and strangely nervous.
‘We’re delighted you’re part of the community now and I hope Honey’s will be a huge success,’ Raffy told him.
When he’d gone I said firmly to Jago, ‘Now I’m dying to see what you’ve been doing! Have you been holding out on me? Added a turret or put a pool in the back garden, or something?’
‘No … well, not really,’ he qualified, still looking suspiciously shifty.
‘Which, the turret or the pool?’
‘Neither.’ He seemed to come to a decision and said, ‘Look, if Celia and Will are keeping an eye on Stella, then we could sneak off for ten minutes and you can see for yourself – it’s only across the road, after all.’
‘Oh, yes – let’s! I can’t wait any longer, and I’ll tell Ma where we’re going as well, on the way out,’ I agreed. ‘Come on, show me all your secrets!’
Nothing looked much different, except he’d installed a small log-burning stove on the hearth in the living room.
‘That’s new,’ I said. ‘Is that the surprise? It does make the whole room look really warm and cosy.’
‘No, of course that’s not it! Come on,’ he added with resolution, ‘come and see what I’ve done with the annexe.’
‘The annexe …?’ I echoed, following him through the glass doors into the new conservatory and then into the annexe, which I saw had now been totally transformed.
It was decorated in the soft pastel shades I loved, with a child’s bed in the small room and a pretty, wrought-iron white-painted one in the main bedroom. It was all very feminine and pretty …
‘Oh, it looks lovely!’ I cried. ‘Fairy-tale beautiful!’
‘Do you really like it? I asked Celia’s advice on the colour scheme and she helped me pick out the furniture.’
‘Did she? So you’ve both been holding out on me!’ I said. ‘But … I thought you were going to leave decorating and furnishing in here and the flat for much later?’
‘I was,’ he admitted, ‘but then I decided I really wanted to get it done before you came back, because—’
‘But if you’d waited, I could have helped you do it up. You know I’ll always give you a hand with anything that needs doing.’
He gave me a look I found hard to interpret. ‘Well, I did mean what I said about your prinsesstårte making a lovely alternative wedding cake and that I’d employ you – and I wasn’t entirely joking,’ he said slowly.
‘Neither was I, when I said it would be a good idea – and I don’t suppose there would be that many orders, so I could still write my articles.’
‘True – if you’re still here,’ he pointed out. ‘What I really wanted to say was, even if you and Stella eventually head off back to London, you might like to move in here until you’ve got everything arranged and you’re ready to go.’
‘You mean, you made this so beautiful for us?’ I said, stunned. ‘And are you mad? I wouldn’t pick up my old life if it was gilded by Cartier and had a ribbon round it!’
‘You wouldn’t?’ he asked hopefully.
‘No, of course not. I realised ages ago that Sticklepond’s where I want to live and bring up Stella … and if you’re serious, we’ll not only move in, but I’ll work for you, too.’
‘Actually, I had a cunning plan,’ he said, raising one dark eyebrow quizzically in his best pirate fashion. ‘I was hoping that once I’d got you under my roof, I might persuade you into some kind of permanent partnership …’
His soft brown eyes were so unmistakably full of warmth and love that my heart did a backflip.
‘What exactly did you have in mind?’ I asked, as I went willingly into his arms.
‘Wedding bells, our own croquembouche cake and Stella in a bridesmaid’s dress and angel wings?’ he suggested.
‘One thing at a time,’ I said severely, but laughing. And then we kissed with the usual result, so that when we finally surfaced some considerable time had passed and we had to dash back to the party.
We were just about to go into the village hall when Jago’s phone buzzed and he stopped and checked it to find a message – from Aimee!
It said she was stuck in Colombia and to urgently send money, because hers had all been stolen.
‘I’ve heard about this kind of thing: it’s just a scam,’ he told me.
‘Really? I mean, I suppose it could be real, though she doesn’t mention Adam.’
‘No, definitely a scam,’ he said, deleting it. Then he slipped it back into his pocket and reached for me for one final kiss before we went back in.
Chapter 43: Celestial Bliss
I suppose when we went back into the hall hand in hand, our expressions gave us away.
‘It’s like I said: nothing ventured, nothing gained,’ he told Jago.
‘He could have saved himself a lot of money on furnishings by asking me earlier,’ I pointed out.
‘You weren’t ready to think of the future earlier, though,’ Jago said.
‘No, that’s true: not when I was afraid that Stella might not have one. No one understands me the way you do, Jago.’
I looked up into his warm brown eyes and then completely forgot we were surrounded by people … Our lips were closing in fast, when luckily Stella suddenly bobbed up and said excitedly, ‘Mummy! Grandma kissed Hal under the mistletoe – I saw them!’
‘Did you?’ I said, not altogether surprised.
‘She says I need to go home now, or its tears before bedtime. Can I give Daddy-Jago his present, first?’
‘Of course – I’d quite forgotten.’ I quickly delved into my shoulder bag and handed Stella a silver-tissue-covered parcel. ‘Don’t drop it.’
‘I chose this for you in Boston,’ she said, giving it to him. ‘You mustn’t drop it, either.’
‘For me?’ Jago took the parcel and unwrapped it, revealing a moulded amber glass starfish, pierced to hang in a window. ‘That is so beautiful – the nicest present I’ve ever had.’
Stella looked lovingly up at him. ‘It’s because you’re my starriest star of all,’ she said.
Recipes, Wish Upon a Star, Trisha Ashley
Iced Mincemeat Tarts
Ingredients:
The pastry cases will be simple shortcrust – basically flour and fat with a little water to bind. The basic rule for shortcrust pastry is that you need half the weight of the flour in fat – easy to remember. You don’t need sugar in your pastry (I think sweetened shortcrust pastry is an abomination) because the filling will be sweet enough.
For the pastry:
225g/8oz plain flour (but if you only have self-raising, that works)
110g/4oz butter/lard/cooking margarine
A little water
For the filling:
Mincemeat, bought or home-made
To decorate:
Icing sugar
Tepid water to mix
Glacé cherries, if liked
Method:
Preheat the oven to gas mark 6/200°C/400°F.
Grease an 18-hole tart tin, cupcake tin or similar – you will get about eighteen little tarts from this recipe, but you can reuse the same tin if you have only a smaller one.
Sieve the flour into a bowl and add the fat, using the rubbing-in method, until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
Mix in water, a tiny dribble at a time, until you can gather the pastry together with your fingers. If you overdo it slightly and it is sticky, sieve in a little more flour.
Sprinkle flour over your board and rolling pin, and then roll out the pastry quite thinly (unless you prefer thick pastry, of course).
Cut out circles just larger than your cake tin moulds. (If you haven’t got a circular cutter, I have successfully used a large teacup in the past – improvise.)
Press the pastry into the tart tin and then put about a teaspoon of mincemeat in each one. You don’t want to overfill, because you are going to ice the tops.
Bake in the middle of the oven for 20–30 minutes, until the pastry edges are just golden brown, then remove and cool on a wire rack.
To ice:
Water icing is literally just icing sugar and water. You can halve some glacé cherries to decorate the tops at this stage, if you want to.
In a bowl, put four tablespoons of icing sugar. Add tepid water a teaspoon at a time until the mixture is smooth and will coat the back of a spoon.
With a teaspoon, dribble the icing onto the mincemeat in the tarts. Unless your tin has very deep moulds, you will still see some of the mincemeat peeping through, but the effect is very pretty. Decorate the top with half a glacé cherry.
Leave on the rack until the icing is cold and hard, then store in a box or tin.
A Traditional Trifle
Ingredients:
A packet of trifle spongecakes (about eight fingers – or you can use up slices of leftover Madeira or sponge cake)
Raspberry or strawberry jam
Raspberry or strawberry jelly
570ml/1 pint of thick custard (you can use ready-made from a carton if you want to)
150ml/ A quarter of a pint of sherry
Edible decorations, such as silver balls and hundreds and thousands
Cream to top (see below)
Method:
Halve the sponge cakes and spread them with jam. Place in the bottom of a large glass bowl. (I have my grandmother’s wonderful Victorian cut-glass one with a gold rim, but whatever you use needs to be able to easily hold 1.2 litres/two pints of liquid.)
Make up the jelly in a jug with enough hot water to dissolve, and then top up with cold water to just under 570 ml/a pint in total. Pour over the sponge cakes in the bowl. (It should be only warm by now, but an old tip if you are pouring something hot into a glass container to avoid cracking it, is to stand a metal spoon in it first.)
Leave to set firmly overnight.
Make 570 ml/a pint of thick custard (or use ready-made) and stir into it 150 ml/a quarter of a pint of sherry. Pour it over the trifle base and leave to set. (Again, this can be overnight, if you wish. I take a leisurely approach to my trifle-making.)
At this point, some people decorate the top of the custard with blanched almonds and glacé cherries, then serve the cream in a jug separately, but I prefer to cover the top in whipped cream (or the squirty dairy cream so popular with certain characters in Twelve Days of Christmas).
Decorate the top with hundreds and thousands and silver balls. Keep the trifle covered and in the fridge.
Chocolate Choux Buns
Families tend to forge their own traditions and we always have profiteroles for dessert after Christmas dinner, then eat the Christmas pudding on Boxing Day. It’s surprisingly easy to make your own choux buns – and you can even pile them up to make a little croquembouche, sticking them together with melted chocolate, if you want to!
The buns can be made in advance, because they will keep for two or three days in an airtight tin, or can be frozen, though in the latter case you will need to crisp them up in the oven for a few minutes.
Ingredients for choux pastry:
This should make about twenty or so little buns.
50g/2oz plain flour
Half a teaspoon caster sugar
40g/One and a half ounces of unsalted butter
100ml/Three and a half fl oz water
3 large eggs, beaten
Method:
Gather all the ingredients together and sift the sugar and flour together into a bowl.
Line two oven trays with baking paper and switch on the oven to preheat at gas mark 6/200°C/400°F.
Put the butter and water into a medium-sized pan and slowly heat until the butter has melted. Then bring to the boil.
Turn the heat right down as low as possible, then tip the flour and sugar mixture in all at once, beating vigorously until it forms a soft, smooth dough that leaves the sides of the pan clean.
Remove from the heat and leave to cool for about four minutes. Then gradually add the eggs a bit at a time (you may not need it all), whisking after each addition, until the mixture forms a ribbon off the spoon – stiff enough to hold its shape, soft enough to pipe through a tube.
Now, either take a piping bag with a medium plain tube and pipe small rounds of the mixture onto the baking trays, leaving enough room for expansion, or alternatively you can use two teaspoons to form little mounds instead, using a wet finger to smooth them.
Put in the oven for about twenty to twenty-five minutes, until the buns are puffed up and golden brown, turning the trays round halfway to ensure even cooking.
Leave the ove
n on, remove the trays, and pierce the end of each bun with a skewer to let the steam out. Then put back in the oven for a couple of minutes to crisp up.
Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.
Once cool, they can be stored unfilled in an airtight container for a couple of days, or frozen for later use.
Filling:
Traditionally, you would pipe whipped fresh cream or patisserie cream into the buns through the hole you made to let the steam out, but you can also cut them open like an éclair and spoon the filling inside (squirty dairy cream from an aerosol also works with these, too, if you are in a hurry).
To finish, melt a little good-quality cooking chocolate and spoon over the top of each bun, allowing to harden.
Alternatively, divide into individual dishes and trickle chocolate ganache over each one before serving.
Acknowledgements
Although I mention Boston Children’s Hospital, I have never been there and have no knowledge of the staff members, so all characters and medical procedures in the book are wholly the product of my own imagination.
On the other hand, the scenes set in Honey’s Haberdashery shop were entirely based on fact, for my Grandmother, Edith Long, started up such a shop in the early years of the twentieth century, and all manner of treasure-trove came to light when it was cleared.
Read on for an exclusive extract of
Trisha’s next novel Every Woman for Herself,
publishing in June 2014 …
Chapter 1: Alien Husbandry, 2001
Got up at the crack of dawn to kill the Fatted Breakfast before driving Matt to the airport, only to discover that aliens had stolen my husband during the night and substituted something incomprehensibly vile in his place.
Wish Upon a Star Page 37
