Christmas at Willoughby Close (Return to Willoughby Close Book 3)

by Kate Hewitt

  “Why did you register, then?” Lindy couldn’t help but ask. “Was it just for your mum’s sake? She is your mum, isn’t she?”

  A tiny pause, like a flinch, although Roger’s expression didn’t change. Lindy was starting to think it very rarely changed. “Yes, she is, and yes, that is more or less the reason,” he said, the words offered reluctantly, making Lindy wonder.

  The waltz was coming to an end, and so with a quick, apologetic smile, Lindy stepped back from Roger and then hurried over to turn the music off.

  “Right, everyone, that was a brilliant start,” she sang out cheerfully. “How are you all feeling?”

  “Brilliant,” Ellen parroted back enthusiastically while Maureen rubbed her lower back.

  “Like I’m a bit creaky,” she said in her no-nonsense, almost brusque way. “But then I am, and more than a bit.”

  “Why don’t we have a tea break?” Lindy suggested. They’d only been going for half an hour, but she felt the need for a cuppa, and she thought her pupils did, as well. “And then we’ll start again.”

  She glanced at Roger—she wasn’t sure why—but he wasn’t looking at her. He had gone over to his mother, and was stooping slightly to speak to her, a look of concern on his face, making Lindy wonder. Again.

  As if sensing her speculative gaze on him, he looked up, right at her—and frowned. No jolt this time, unless it was of embarrassment. Lindy quickly turned away, wondering yet again just what intrigued her about Roger Wentworth, when he had to be one of the dullest, most staid people she’d ever met.

  Chapter Three

  The door to Tea on the Lea, Olivia James’s bakery and teashop, jangled merrily as Lindy followed her friends Ava, Harriet, Alice and Emily inside. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon, nearly a week since she’d started her dancing classes, and she’d been more or less strong-armed into joining everyone for a Saturday afternoon cream tea. Lindy was game enough, although she wished Ellie had been able to make it. She’d only seen her friend once since she’d moved down south, and while she understood that Ellie was busy, it still felt a bit disappointing.

  “So, Lindy,” Harriet said as she pushed two small wrought-iron tables together and then began arranging chairs, clearly a woman in charge, “you’ve got to dish all the gossip on who is dancing with whom.”

  “I don’t think there’s any gossip to dish,” Lindy replied with a smile. Monday’s class had gone well enough—after practising the waltz for another half hour, she’d moved on to a basic cross step. Maureen had had to stop midway because her arthritis was playing up, and Simon and Olivia had been fairly hopeless if cheerfully willing. As for Roger and Ellen…every time Lindy thought of them she fought an urge to laugh, or at least smile.

  Ellen had been so relentlessly chipper, and Roger had looked…tortured. Perhaps constipated. Actually, both. She hadn’t really had a chance to talk to him again beyond giving him instructions, and yet she had been weirdly curious about a man who seemed to be the definition of ‘what it says on the tin.’ Surely there were no hidden depths to a man like Roger Wentworth. Most people would call him a bore, if not a downright pillock. He was pedantic, sanctimonious, stuffy, and grumpy.

  When Lindy had been making the tea, he’d wiped the inside of the mugs with his handkerchief. Admittedly the cups had looked a bit tea-stained and grotty, but still. Something about his prim fussiness got right up her nose, and yet he made her curious.

  “You seem like the sort of man who is in possession of a cotton handkerchief,” she’d teased him as she’d brought out the tea, and he’d given her a blankly uncomprehending look before replying, “I would prefer to be a man with a cotton handkerchief than one without.”

  Again Lindy had wondered if this was his deadpan humour, but she had a feeling he was just being serious. Very serious.

  “There must be some gossip,” Harriet insisted as they all sat down and Olivia came from behind the counter to take their orders.

  “Well, there are two lovebirds in my class,” Lindy said in the voice of someone telling a secret. She grinned at Olivia who smiled and blushed. “They’re completely smitten.”

  Harriet rolled her eyes. “You must mean Simon and Olivia, and we all know that. How could we not?” She gave Olivia an affectionate look. “The wedding is only three months away now.”

  “Three and a half,” Olivia corrected with a smile. “Don’t panic me, Harriet! I’ve still got so much to do, but it’s not until after Christmas. Now what is everyone having?”

  “Cream teas all around, I think,” Harriet said with an enquiring glance for everyone at the table. “Clotted cream and jam, please, and two scones each.”

  “Two!” Ava exclaimed in mock horror. “Harriet, are you trying to fatten us all up?”

  “One simply isn’t enough,” Harriet declared in the tone of someone stating a universal truth. Lindy decided not to contest the point. She could put away two scones easily, even if her waistline wouldn’t thank her for it.

  As Olivia bustled away to prepare their cream teas and everyone settled more comfortably into their seats, Lindy glanced covertly at the group of women she was only just coming to call friends. There was Harriet, clearly a leader both of this little tribe as well as in the village; Lindy had already heard of the organisations she was running and the PR business she’d started.

  Ava was another leader, in her own, understated way—oozing confidence and sex appeal in equal measure, voluptuous in the fourth month of her pregnancy.

  Then there was Alice, who seemed younger than the others, with a fragile, blonde beauty and an ethereal air. She seemed to be growing into her role as lady of the manor, possessing a shy confidence that only occasionally wilted. Lastly there was Emily, the other resident of Willoughby Close; she’d moved in just a few months before Lindy. Like Alice, Emily was younger, quieter, possessing a sense of containment that bordered on wariness, although from all the snippets Lindy had heard, she seemed to have relaxed since coming to Wychwood-on-Lea and starting to date Owen Jones, the former owner of the village’s ‘rougher’ pub, which was now a pop-up pub in a van.

  They all, Lindy suspected, had grown into themselves since moving to Wychwood-on-Lea, something Olivia had confirmed when Lindy had mentioned it.

  “Willoughby Close seems to have that effect on people,” she’d said with a laugh. “At least it did on me.”

  Which had, of course, made Lindy wonder if her new home would have a similar, magical effect on her. Would she grow in confidence? Gain a sense of serenity? Or maybe find true love?

  She was smiling rather wryly to herself at the thought of any of those, but especially the last one, when Harriet once again broke in with a request for gossip. “So who is taking the ballroom dancing class?” she asked. “Besides Olivia and Simon?”

  “Only a few other people.” Lindy took in all the avid expressions and wondered at divulging any personal details. “A variety of beginners,” she said in a tone that suggested she was done with the conversation, but Harriet didn’t seem to take the hint.

  “Anyone interesting?” she asked with an over-the-top waggle of her eyebrows. “Anyone single?” For some stupid reason Lindy thought of Roger Wentworth and started to blush. “There is someone!” Harriet crowed gleefully and everyone leaned forward in expectant interest. Even worse, Lindy started to laugh. It tended to be her default in a lot of situations in life, which was sometimes good and sometimes—not.

  “Who is it?” Ava asked with a throaty gurgle of laughter. “Because your face is on fire.”

  “No, honestly, there’s no one,” Lindy managed when she’d got her gasps of laughter under control. “Absolutely no one. There’s one single man in the class and he’s—” She stopped abruptly, not wanting to gossip, and even more importantly, not wanting to say anything blatantly unkind about Roger Wentworth.

  “He’s what?” Harriet asked and Lindy shook her head firmly.

  “He’s not suitable.”

  “That makes him all
the more interesting,” Ava protested with a wicked glint in her eye and Lindy decided she needed to nip this one in the bud.

  “No, really, he isn’t anyone I’d ever think that way about at all. Which is good, really, because he’s a pupil of mine and it would be inappropriate. So.” She let out a huff of breath, hoping she’d convinced everyone. They were looking somewhat sceptical.

  “Olivia?” Harriet called finally, towards the counter where Olivia was assembling the pots of cream and jam. “What do you think? Who is this oh-so-unsuitable man in your dancing class?”

  “There’s no one unsuitable, per se,” Olivia returned with a sympathetic look for Lindy, “although we’re all beginners.”

  Laughingly Harriet threw up her hands. “I’m looking forward to meeting this guy. He sounds intriguing.”

  Thankfully, and helpfully, Alice moved the conversation on, with an effort akin to pushing a very large boulder up a very steep hill. “You’re doing a children’s class too, aren’t you, Lindy?”

  Lindy threw her a grateful look. “Yes, it starts next week.”

  “Any other classes?” Harriet asked, and regretfully Lindy shook her head.

  “No, sadly not. I was hoping for an intermediate class but there haven’t been any takers yet.”

  “How did you get interested in ballroom dancing?” Ava interjected. “It’s such a cool hobby.”

  “My dad, actually,” Lindy said. “He was a great dancer, and he taught me pretty much everything I know.” She smiled in memory. “When I got a bit older, I started taking lessons on my own, and I joined a ballroom dancing club up in Manchester.”

  “Your dad must be so proud then,” Emily told her with a warm smile, and Lindy hesitated for a fraction of a second before surrendering to the inevitable.

  “I know he would be,” she said in the firm, upbeat tone she’d learned to adopt for moments like these. “Unfortunately he died a long time ago. My mum, too.” Might as well get it over with in one fell swoop. Lindy was half-amazed this conversation hadn’t happened earlier; she’d been living here for two months, after all, but somehow the subject of her orphan status hadn’t come up. It didn’t always, when you hit your midthirties. Often she discovered she wasn’t the only one, which was a sight different from when she’d been nineteen and completely alone.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Emily blurted, looking horrified by her seeming faux pas, and Lindy smiled at her in reassurance.

  “Like I said, it was a long time ago.” She registered the usual spectrum of expressions, from stricken to sympathetic with a hefty dose of awkward thrown in. She was used to it. She was also used to the unabashed relief that washed everyone’s expressions clean when she told them it was a long time ago, implying she was completely over it. She certainly tried to be.

  “I’m sure he would be proud,” Ava said quietly, giving Lindy a look that suggested she had some inkling of what she really felt. Lindy smiled back, and then looked away, because whenever she skirted too close to the grief she’d firmly put away more than fifteen years ago, she felt her throat go tight and her eyes start to sting, and she definitely didn’t want to go there. Life was for living, for enjoying, for wringing the zest out of. It wasn’t for looking back.

  Olivia started bringing over their cream teas, which looked delicious, and thankfully the chatter moved on to talk of bumps and babies and weddings—all of which was completely outside Lindy’s experience.

  They were just setting to slathering scones in several heart attacks’ worth of clotted cream when the bells on the door jangled again, and to her surprise and then dawning horror, considering what she’d just said about him, Lindy saw Roger Wentworth coming into the teashop. And even more alarmingly, he saw her.

  *

  Roger’s gaze zeroed in on Lindy sitting in the back of the shop with a gaggle of women and his heart seemed to bump in his chest before doing a sickly plummet towards his toes. This was definitely not good.

  Could he just pretend he hadn’t seen her? Difficult, when they’d most certainly made eye contact. Somewhat surprisingly, considering how often he suspected he appeared to be, Roger didn’t like to seem rude. And ignoring Lindy now, when she was still gazing at him, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, would be rude indeed.

  But the alternative was surely not to be contemplated. To walk across the room and say hello—with not one or two but four women all watching him with goggle-eyed speculation—was surely impossible. Literally impossible. His feet felt as if they were stuck to the floor.

  The more rational part of his brain reminded him that he was thirty-eight years old, not thirteen; he was in charge of an entire department at work; he was perfectly capable of basic social niceties, or even more advanced ones, at least on occasion. In other words, he could do this.

  And yet…all four women had looked up to gaze at him with such blatant curiosity, and Lindy…Lindy looked amazing, Roger acknowledged as his heart, in addition to bumping and then plummeting, seemed to do a weird little flip in his chest. Technically impossible, but still.

  That’s what it felt like when he looked at her—her golden-brown hair tumbling halfway down her back, bright blue-green eyes fringed with luxuriant lashes. She had, he noticed, a little mole at the corner of her mouth. She was dressed in a far less ridiculous outfit than when she’d been leading the dance class—a plain white T-shirt and a loose, dark green cardigan that was half-sliding off her shoulder, with a pair of skinny jeans that made the most of her generous curves.

  Roger noticed all this in a heart-stopping instant—yes, his heart now felt frozen on top of all the other sensations he’d experienced—and with a smile that he knew must look more like a rictus, he began to walk stiffly over to the table, keeping his gaze on Lindy who, unfortunately, was now looking as if she’d rather he’d stayed where he was, that initial smile sliding off her face just like the cardigan was off her shoulder, her eyes clouding in a way he didn’t understand but felt fairly certain had to be ominous.

  Had he read the social cues incorrectly? Would it not have been rude to ignore her? Perhaps this act of approaching her—a teacher, not an acquaintance or friend—was actually the rude thing to do. Inappropriate, violating her personal time and space. Roger realised he had no idea, and he hated the swamping at-sea feeling that created in him—a sensation he was, unfortunately, well used to when it came to moments like these.

  “Roger.” Lindy’s voice and accompanying smile both sounded a bit forced. “How nice to see you.”

  “I’m just picking something up for my mother.” Inwardly Roger cringed at the words that emitted from him almost robotically. Could he sound more awkward, more weird?

  “For Ellen?” Lindy said, her smile looking slightly less fixed, and Roger nodded.

  “Yes. Scones. She likes the cheese ones in particular.” As if that was in any way relevant to this abysmal conversation. He really needed to stop. He had this most unfortunate habit—a kind of tic—to simply state facts and consider it conversation. He pressed his lips together to keep from saying anything more. He could already feel the women all looking at him with a curiosity that was both amused and a bit horrified, something else he was well used to. He couldn’t see any of the other women, because he was refusing to make eye contact, which he realised belatedly was most likely another weird thing, since he seemed to be staring at Lindy so fixedly, but he could feel their transfixed curiosity.

  He forced himself to move his gaze a little bit to the left, where there was a rather garish plate fixed to the wall from the Queen’s Jubilee. He studied it with an intensity he didn’t remotely feel.

  “You must be from Lindy’s dance class,” a woman said, her voice so obviously laced with rich amusement that Roger tensed even more. The woman sounded as if she knew all about him. Had Lindy been talking about him? Laughing about him? He knew he shouldn’t even be surprised, and yet some part of him felt not surprised, but…no. He didn’t feel anything. Why should he?

  He turned to gaze
at the woman who’d spoken—about his age, with a knowing manner, her eyes alight, her head cocked to one side.

  “Yes, I am from the dance class,” he said stiffly, and fortunately he managed to leave it at that. He did not want to say anything that would either embarrass or implicate him further.

  “Roger is attending with his mother Ellen,” Lindy explained. “Doing her a favour, I think.” She smiled at him, inviting him to share the joke, and Roger knew—in his head, at least—that this would be a perfect opportunity to lighten the moment, to ruefully say something about how he’d been dragged to the dance class, how he had not two but actually three left feet, how Lindy just might make a tango-er of him yet. Something. Anything. He could see the script running through his head, and yet somehow it was beyond him to articulate any of it.

  What he said was, in the rather petulant voice of a little boy, “I don’t like dancing.”

  Everyone stared.

  “We’ll see how you are at the end of the term!” Lindy returned brightly, and after another excruciating pause, Roger decided they’d all had enough.

  “Yes. Well. I shall see you on Monday.” He nodded stiffly, not meeting anyone’s eye, and then retreated to the counter. The silence in the shop felt suffocating, as if a lead blanket was draped over the room. Roger focused on his breathing, staring straight ahead, as Olivia came to the counter with a smile.

  “Roger! Four cheese scones as usual?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “How is Ellen?”

  “Fine.”

  “It was lovely to see you at the dance class,” she said quietly, a look of sympathy in her eyes, and Roger just nodded.

  Olivia fetched the scones and Roger stayed where he was, conscious of the women all huddled together in the back of the shop, silent and seemingly expectant, no doubt waiting for him to leave so they could gossip about him.

  “Well,” one of them said after a moment in what he suspected was meant to be a whisper he wasn’t supposed to hear, “I get what you mean about him being unsuitable.” This was followed by a hasty ‘shh’ and then some smothered laughter.