Christmas at the Little Clock House on the Green

by Eve Devon

  ‘Yes. Nothing to worry about,’ he called from the tearoom. ‘I needed a bit of a sit down. I hope that’s okay?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, moving to switch on the main light. As soon as she could see with her own eyes that he was all right she relaxed. Pulling out a chair for him, she asked, ‘Can I get you anything? A drink?’

  ‘No, I’m fine. I had some of your fine hot chocolate off The Clock House stall. Gloria’s doing a good job serving. She let slip that her being there was your doing.’

  ‘That’s kind of her but really I’m just pleased she’s found something to help her feel more—’ she broke off, pretty certain Gloria wouldn’t appreciate having someone psychoanalyse her.

  ‘She needs something at the moment,’ Isaac said, letting the subject go with, ‘I’m glad you noticed. And listened.’

  ‘Comes with the territory,’ Emma explained, indicating the bar. ‘Can I sit awhile with you?’

  ‘I’d be honoured. You can tell me how you’re enjoying Whispers Wood?’

  Emma leaned her chin on her hand and grinned. ‘I love it. I love the sense of community. I love the characters. Sorry, I know they’re people, not characters.’

  ‘Oh, I think Whispers Wood has our fair share of characters. But I expect tonight our village green looks a bit like a film set.’

  ‘With Trudie’s singers all dressed up in Victorian costumes and Jake and I in our Santa suits, it really does,’ she agreed. Was that why she’d felt so comfortable being part of it all?

  ‘It’s a very good thing you did tonight.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You and Jake.’

  ‘Oh.’ Emma could feel herself going red. ‘We’re not—’

  ‘Of course it’s not really so surprising,’ Isaac said, looking up at the chandelier and then looking back at her with a warm smile on his face.

  ‘Why does everyone keep saying that? And why does everyone point to that thing when they do?’ she asked.

  Isaac chuckled. ‘Been keeping the plot-twists to themselves have they?’

  ‘Kate mentioned you might fill in those gaps for me. I know your grandfather’s friend – Jake’s ancestor – commissioned the chandelier.’

  ‘George Knightley? That he did. For his Anna-Rose.’

  ‘Such a sad story.’

  ‘Not when you realise it paved the way for the real love of his life.’

  Emma sat forward, intrigued. ‘I thought Lillian and George shared a marriage of convenience.’

  ‘Is that what Jake thinks?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s easier to believe that than believing two people from opposite sides of the world could meet under a chandelier and fall in love.’

  ‘So they met under the very chandelier George hated being around because it reminded him of Anna-Rose?’

  ‘It was Christmas 1927. A year after George had given William the chandelier so as not to be reminded of Anna-Rose. William kept it in the attics so George wouldn’t see it. But his friend never visited anyway. He holed himself up in his big house, working on his gardens, day and night. Finally William decided to put the chandelier up in here, the formal dining room.’

  Emma tried to imagine what the room would have looked like back then. The grandeur. The ambiance.

  ‘Within days of the chandelier going up,’ Isaac continued, ‘the snow started falling and didn’t stop. That Christmas it snowed and snowed and snowed. And then William’s wife, Irene, had an idea. Why not have one big Christmas day lunch for the whole of the village? Anyone who was alone, or didn’t have enough food, could come and share the day with them. William decided George had been allowed to mope around in his gardens for too long and dragged him from Knightley Hall. George and Lillian were the only two people unattached that day. They were sat next to each other for lunch,’ Isaac paused and Emma enjoyed being made to wait for the rest of the story.

  She smiled. ‘Did they hate each other on sight?’

  ‘I don’t think they could have because they spent the entire day with eyes only for each other and were married the following year. The chandelier went back up into the Clock House attics when war broke out, but the story is always told that two unattached people, who meet under the chandelier at Christmas time, will bring romance and snow to Whispers Wood.’

  ‘It’s a magical story. But none of this proves Lillian and George were in love.’

  ‘I guess that depends on whether or not you believe in magic,’ Isaac commented, studying her intently. ‘I rather think you do.’

  Emma didn’t know how to answer. She didn’t want to disappoint him. He made it sound perfectly normal to believe in magic. More than that, he made it sound as if believing in magic somehow helped the world go round. She’d grown up in a land where movies were synonymous with magic and where the magic was supposed to happen every day.

  And she’d tried every day for a lot of years to be part of that magic. To be positive. To be hopeful. To believe. But now she was supposed to believe everyone here assumed she and Jake were going to magically fall in love with each other because they’d been unattached when they’d stood under the chandelier?

  ‘I can see I’ve left you with some things to think about,’ Isaac said, getting slowly to his feet. ‘How about we make our way back for the big switch on?’ Isaac said.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, getting up too, her mind spinning.

  ‘We always sing O Christmas Tree after the lights go on, so have your songbook to hand.’

  By the time they rejoined the crowd outside, she’d managed to get herself back in the moment.

  ‘Isaac, Emma,’ Kate greeted. ‘Come and stand with us.’

  Emma wandered around to stand with Kate, Daniel, Juliet and Oscar, and within seconds was unable to stop herself from scanning the crowd again for Jake.

  He wasn’t where she’d last seen him, between Trudie and Mary.

  ‘Five, four, three—’ Crispin bellowed from his podium.

  What the hell was she doing, she thought angrily. It wasn’t like this was New Year’s Eve and she felt desperate in the countdown for a man – any man – to kiss.

  ‘—two, one!’

  She whipped her head around to the tree, and watched as pretty golf-ball sized lights bathed the branches in festive red, green, blue and yellow.

  As the cheers went up, The Clock House lights came on, hundreds of tiny white lights illuminating the architecture and highlighting the clock face.

  A second cheer went up and Emma could not have been more proud to be part of it all.

  This was what she was in Whispers Wood for.

  This was what she’d been missing out on for so long … this sense of belonging.

  ‘Right everyone,’ Crispin said, all happy smiles now the evening had gone off without a hitch. ‘If you’d all like to turn to the last page in your songbooks, although I’m sure you know all the words by now, Trudie will count us in…’

  As the first line of O Christmas Tree rang out, Emma heard a distinctive male baritone sexy enough to send tingles up her spine.

  Knowing before seeing, the smile had already formed on her face as she turned to see Jake standing about five people away from her, singing his heart out, looking proudly up at the tree.

  His tree.

  From his land.

  ‘Why aren’t you singing?’ Kate whispered in her ear.

  ‘I am.’ Flustered, she turned to the last page in her booklet and stared down at the words.

  ‘Why it’s almost like you’re specially attuned to one voice.’

  ‘Stop that,’ Emma hissed, and began singing loudly.

  ‘You do realise you’re dating Ryan Gosling,’ Kate laughed.

  ‘I am not dating Ryan Gosling. Or Jake Knightley.’

  ‘Are you sure? You had a romantic dinner with him last night. And you took a romantic sleigh ride with him tonight. And he has a baritone to die for.’

  ‘You’re being ridiculous,’ Emma said.
r />   ‘Hey, Hollywood?’

  Emma was pretty sure the crowd’s singing drowned out her squeak as Jake appeared beside her.

  ‘Ha,’ Kate said. ‘He might as well have said, “Hey girl”. You are so dating Ryan-Jake-Gosling-Knightley.’

  ‘O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,’ Emma sang, feeling the panic swell with the chorus, because Jake’s voice wrapping itself around her made her want something he’d made clear he didn’t think would be good for either of them.

  And as her gaze slid inexorably to him once again, she thought of the snow, she thought of the chandelier, and forgot all about how he didn’t want to start anything.

  ‘Want to grab a hot chocolate, with me?’ Jake asked as the last notes of the carol died out.

  Emma blinked, her stomach fluttering as he smiled at her.

  Her brain obviously interpreted grabbing a hot chocolate as code because as she fixed her gaze firmly on his chest and noticed the sprig of plastic mistletoe sticking out of his pocket, and felt herself nod in answer to his proposal, she had a feeling she was about to end up on the naughty list again.

  ‘So did you have fun tonight?’ Jake asked as they left the throng of people gathered around the tree and headed towards the cluster of tents that had been put up.

  ‘The best,’ she said, grinning up at him. ‘It’s not every day a gal gets to ride in a cow-drawn carriage pretending she’s Mother Christmas to your Father Christmas.’

  ‘No? You wouldn’t do that in Hollywood?’

  ‘I think it would depend on the leading man, and then I’d only do it if the scene really demanded it,’ she joked back.

  ‘You probably had a lot of leading men in Hollywood.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  His expression turned horrified. ‘No. Jeez. That’s not what I meant. I meant, leading men over here are different.’

  ‘What, they don’t spout lines for a living?’

  He frowned. ‘Did you get a lot of that? Men feeding you a line?’

  ‘Only from the ones not confident enough to emulate the blatant ones who only want something casual. But that’s the harsh reality of the modern dating scene, is it not? It’s probably no different to anywhere else.’

  He slowed his pace. ‘I’m not used to you doing cynicism.’

  ‘Pretty convincing though, right?’

  ‘Not really,’ he replied, stopping to stare at her.

  Had he just called her a crap actress? She stopped walking too.

  ‘Hollywood—’

  ‘I know,’ she sighed because she recognised the look on his face. ‘You think we’d be safer putting all the chemistry between us into a HazMat box.’

  He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. ‘It’s just that—’ he paused and she didn’t want to hear another rejection.

  She understood where he was coming from but she didn’t want the last thing between them before he left for Cornwall to be that. Surely, just because getting involved might not be good for them in the long run, it didn’t mean a little fun wasn’t just what they needed now and reaching out she grabbed the mistletoe out of his pocket. Besides, maybe she’d got it wrong and his mouth on hers hadn’t been the sexiest gift ever.

  The air thickened tangibly and she knew he was staring down at her twiddling the mistletoe because as her gaze flicked up to meet hers she could see heat and desire and conflict.

  ‘Emma.’

  Her name on his lips, spoken like a prayer, was all she needed to hold the mistletoe over their heads, lean into him, reach up on tiptoes and whisper, ‘It’s just that what, Jake? It’s just that, this?’ She touched her lips softly to his. Inhaled his shaky exhale and stole the kiss she wanted – needed – in order to banish the rejection.

  The whole of Whispers Wood faded away as she drank in the sweetness, the tenderness, the heat, the mastery and the seduction as his arms came around her and his mouth sought hers, over and over again.

  There was no need for directing. No need to explain motivation.

  There was only Jake and Emma, lost to everything as they discovered exactly how the chemistry between them raged.

  Right up until the wolf whistling and the bellow of, ‘Get a room, bro,’ had them springing apart.

  Dazedly, Emma looked in the direction of the interruption to see the grin slipping right off Seth’s face as Gloria, looking unapologetic, poured the hot chocolate she was serving him onto his shoes.

  Emma decided that wasn’t near punishment enough and with a frustrated pout, turned to Jake and said, ‘Would you mind awfully if you had one less brother by the end of the evening?’

  Chapter 30

  Miss Emma’s Feeling for Snow

  Jake

  Jake could hear hammering and banter, which was confusing considering he was standing underneath a blanket of stars with a blonde wood-nymph in his arms, her face tilted up to his, her mouth begging to be kissed under the mistletoe.

  Shaking his head to dispel the image, he opened his eyes to find his brother Seth standing over him with a hammer in his hand.

  ‘What. The. Actual, Seth!’

  ‘All right, Jakey,’ Seth greeted, beaming at him. ‘Glad you’re awake. We could do with an extra pair of hands before you shoot off for Cornwall.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  He wanted back in his dreams.

  Where he could want Emma and Emma could want him.

  With zero complications.

  Looking at Seth now, Jake decided he should have let Emma kill him last night. Instead Jake had been too busy taking the coward’s way out, backing the hell away from the magic and walking over to his brother to make sure he was all right after Gloria had tried to melt his feet.

  Hang on a minute?

  ‘Who’s “we”?’ he grumbled. ‘An extra pair of hands for what?’

  ‘Emma—’

  ‘Emma’s here?’ In an embarrassing show of modesty he pulled the super-kingsized royal-blue duvet up to cover his naked chest.

  ‘No. Blimey. You need to start doing yoga or something, bro. Gardening’s obviously not cutting it anymore.’

  ‘No you start doing yoga,’ Jake retorted like a child. Scraping a hand over his face, he considered why it was so very hard to be told what was going on. With a sigh, he threw back the duvet and got out of bed. ‘Right. I am now awake. I think. Start talking.’

  ‘Wow – you could warn a guy before you,’ Seth pointed with his hammer and then made a show of looking anywhere else. ‘I never figured you for the brother who slept in the nude. Marcus, maybe, but not you.’

  ‘Oh, darn, I misplaced my designer onesie,’ Jake answered dryly, running his hand through his hair and then walking over to the window. ‘Aargh!’ he exclaimed, rearing back at the view that greeted him. ‘What fresh hell is this?’

  ‘It’s called snow.’

  ‘But there must be at least a foot of the filthy stuff.’ Walking forward, he peered out of the window again. It didn’t make sense. Turning around he squinted at his bedside clock, the combination from the glare of the white snow and white sky making him see spots. Stomping over to his bedside table he picked up the antique carriage clock and brought it closer to his face. ‘I’ve only been asleep a couple of hours.’

  ‘Well that’s not my fault,’ Seth said.

  To be fair it wasn’t.

  It was Hollywood’s.

  She kept pulling him in.

  Getting him involved.

  Making it harder for him to get in his car and leave.

  God, those kisses last night.

  He’d been so hyped … so inspired by the time he got in last night he’d spent hours sketching designs, wondering where he could fit them in at Knightley Hall, knowing he wanted to create them here. Not save them for clients. He’d fallen into bed around four in the morning and it hadn’t been snowing then. It was – he peered at the digital display – now seven. How on earth could the sky have dumped such a large amount so quickly?
r />   ‘You said “Emma”,’ he growled. ‘What did you mean?’

  ‘When she realised how hard it was snowing and remembered you were off to Cornwall she phoned Daniel and Oscar and asked if they could come and fit the tarpaulin over the leaking part of the roof – you know, make sure it was secure – so that you could go away without worrying about it.’

  Emotions, several, and each one stronger than the last, rushed to the surface.

  Did she really think a few kisses followed by that magical repeat last night entitled her to muscle her way into his life and start giving orders about what was or was not to be done about his home?

  ‘So, yeah, I have no clue what to get her,’ Daniel said, as he hammered in a few more tacks. ‘You know that saying: No question is too dumb? Apply that here as suggestions because there’s only, I don’t know, how many shopping days left?’

  ‘Damned if I know,’ Oscar said, ‘But you can double the amount if you’re buying online because of the whole twenty-four hour shopping thing. That’s why you don’t see me panicking about not finding anything that’s quite right for Juliet, yet.’

  Jake gritted his teeth and felt around in the tub beside him for a few more nails to secure the protective patch before they then tied down the tarpaulin. He didn’t have time to calculate shopping days ’til Christmas. He’d done all his shopping weeks ago. Wrapped everything up and stored it round Sarah’s so she could get it to wherever they were all going to be, come the big day. He didn’t even have time to sit down with Seth and talk about what was happening with him and Joanne.

  Not now he had to cover his roof because of the damn snow.

  Every few minutes he found himself looking out over the edge of the roof, to the knot garden below, as if to check it really was covered in white. Then, he’d glance up at the sky and have to admit to himself all over again, that it did indeed look like it was going to dump a whole lot more.

  And everyone would be going on about the bloody chandelier magically making it snow, which meant they’d then be going on about him and true bloody love, like it existed for the Knightleys for real.

  Feeling the tension across his shoulders he tried to look on the bright side.