The Christmas Wish: A heartwarming Christmas romance

by Tilly Tennant

  The Christmas Wish

  A heartwarming Christmas romance

  Tilly Tennant

  Also By Tilly Tennant

  The Christmas Wish

  The Summer Getaway

  The Summer of Secrets

  * * *

  An Unforgettable Christmas series:

  A Very Vintage Christmas

  A Cosy Candlelit Christmas

  * * *

  From Italy with Love series:

  Rome is Where the Heart is

  A Wedding in Italy

  * * *

  Honeybourne series:

  The Little Village Bakery

  Christmas at the Little Village Bakery

  * * *

  Hopelessly Devoted to Holden Finn

  The Man Who Can’t Be Moved

  Mishaps and Mistletoe

  * * *

  Mishaps in Millrise series:

  Little Acts of Love

  Just Like Rebecca

  The Parent Trap

  And Baby Makes Four

  * * *

  Once Upon a Winter series:

  The Accidental Guest

  I’m Not in Love

  Ways to Say Goodbye

  One Starry Night

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  A Very Vintage Christmas

  Tilly’s Email Sign-Up

  Also By Tilly Tennant

  A Letter From Tilly

  The Summer Getaway

  The Summer of Secrets

  Rome is Where the Heart is

  A Wedding in Italy

  The Little Village Bakery

  Christmas at the Little Village Bakery

  A Cosy Candlelit Christmas

  Acknowledgements

  For Mel, who kicks me up the bottom when I need it!

  One

  The front door was scuffed and scratched and it wore a faded version of the same bottle-green paint that had been slick and smart while Granddad had been alive. The honeysuckle that had once prettily garlanded the frame was burdened by the husks of dead flowers, with tendrils that stretched and crept and snagged, like the thorns in Sleeping Beauty that kept the prince from Aurora. Two empty milk bottles stood on the scrubbed grey doorstep along with a note in a spidery hand that read: One extra please. Esme shook her head with a small smile. Who even saw milk floats out on the roads these days? She’d been away for three years, but while her life had changed beyond recognition, it seemed that nothing much had changed here in the sleepy village of Little Dove Morton. But that was OK; it represented reassuring familiarity and that was what she’d come for.

  Her attention turned to the windows. All looked quiet within – not that she’d expected anything else. But something nagged at the back of her mind – all wasn’t as it should have been. Her grandma had always been so fastidious about the whiteness of her nets and yet today they had more than a hint of grey about them. Esme’s gaze went back to the honeysuckle that badly needed pruning, the peeling green paint of the front door and the weeds on the path beneath her feet. Perhaps Grandma was struggling of late. Perhaps she’d welcome a little help around the place and some company in the evenings. Esme raked her teeth over her bottom lip and hoped all that would be true. Now that she was here, she wondered if she ought to have phoned ahead. You couldn’t just turn up at someone’s house in a state, even if that someone was the grandma who’d always told you they loved you most in the world.

  But she was here now and she didn’t have anywhere else to be. She raised her hand to the knocker and took a deep breath. Before she’d touched it, the door was flung open and her grandma stood on the step, cheeks pink with delight, her silver hair still cut into the same cute bob pinned on one side with the diamanté grip that Granddad had given her the Christmas before he died. For a moment, Esme was ten years old again, standing on the doorstep with her overnight bags ready to be spoiled with home-made chocolate puddings and snuggles in front of the television with her granddad. Except she wasn’t, and that girl had been gone for a long time.

  ‘Esme!’ Grandma cried. ‘What a lovely surprise!’ But then her smile faded. ‘What on earth is wrong?’

  The reply got caught somewhere in Esme’s throat, and suddenly she couldn’t see for the tears she’d sworn she wouldn’t shed. She threw herself into her grandma’s open arms and breathed her in, the smell of lavender soap and talcum powder and the safety of childhood.

  She was in the only place she wanted to be right now.

  She was home.

  Two

  Esme opened her eyes. The autumn sun streaming in through a chink in the curtains was mellow, like apples aged in a hayloft, illuminating the dust that spun in the beams. She took in the details of the old bedroom, so familiar and yet rendered strange by absence: wallpaper patterned in delicate florals; the old sheepskin rug covering the floor and worn flat by years of bare feet; the antique dressing table she’d once been mortified to spill blue nail varnish over, layered by generations of polish and the stains of her accident still visible; the old iron bedstead creaking as she shifted. In that bright moment, all her troubles seemed distant. She was safe and warm in the arms of the past, a place where Warren didn’t exist and couldn’t hurt her. How wonderful it would be to stay here forever so she wouldn’t have to face the present again. As for the future, she barely had any interest in that right now either.

  There was a faint tap at the door and then it opened, the swollen wood dragging on the carpet. Her grandma appeared with a chintzy cup and saucer that rattled as she carried it to the bedside table.

  ‘I thought you might like tea,’ she said, setting it down.

  Esme pushed herself up and reached for the drink. ‘How did you know I’d be awake?’

  ‘The sun always comes round to this window at this time of the morning and it’s hard to stay sleeping when it fills the room.’

  Esme’s smile was a faint, brief shadow. Of course it did – how could she have forgotten all those teenage weekend visits when she’d complained about not being able to stay in bed because of where the spare bedroom was? A peculiarity of Thimble Cottage’s location that had always been a natural alarm clock to wake Esme for a day of fun with Granddad during her prepubescent years had become a torture to be endured when she’d wanted to sleep the day away during her teenaged ones. And Esme had made no bones about how much it annoyed her. She coloured at the memory. God, she’d been a royal pain in the butt at that age. It was a wonder her grandparents hadn’t put a stop to her visits entirely. More than a decade had passed but she felt like that much of a pain now, though the reasons were very different.

  Her grandma gave a strained smile as she sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Do you feel like telling me what happened now?’

  Esme shook her head, eyes burning again. After the previous night, how could there be any more tears? She’d lost so much, so many of her dreams had been shattered – the wedding that would now never happen, the life she’d mapped out for herself that she’d now never have. She’d wept so much for those things that there couldn’t possibly be
anything left. And yet, the mention of what had driven her back to Little Dove Morton after three years away tightened her throat once more. Fat teardrops spread dark pools on the bed sheets.

  Grandma rubbed a gentle hand over Esme’s. ‘When you’re ready; there’s no rush at all.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Esme whispered.

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘That I haven’t been to see you in so long.’

  ‘You’re here now, that’s the only thing I care about.’

  ‘You’re not angry? I didn’t give you any warning…’

  ‘How could I be angry with my best girl? I’m happy you chose to come here to see me instead of suffering in silence alone – I couldn’t bear to think about that. Whatever ails you, I’m glad you chose me to help. And when you’re ready to receive that help, I’ll be ready to give it.’

  Esme gave a jerky nod. Words of gratitude and love whirled in her head, just out of reach, and even if she could grasp them they wouldn’t have been big enough or profound enough to express what was in her heart for Matilda Greenwood, the grandmother who would never let her down, who would always make space in her life for Esme, no matter what.

  Matilda took the cup and saucer from Esme’s shaking hands and placed it back onto the bedside table.

  ‘It’s a little hot right now,’ she said, her understanding instinctive. Esme’s fragile mental state would be all the worse for anything drawing unnecessary attention to it, making it an issue they would have to discuss sooner rather than later. Her grandma understood – she always understood – that Esme would talk when she was strong enough, and that time wasn’t now. ‘I’ll leave you to finish up when it’s cooled. And if you like, have a lie down afterwards – the sun will move round the house soon enough and you look as if you need some extra sleep.’

  Esme didn’t need a mirror to tell her that her eyes were gummed and swollen from hours of crying. It didn’t matter because there was only Grandma here to see and she’d never judge.

  ‘There’s a lovely pack of bacon in the fridge from the farm shop,’ Matilda continued. ‘For when you feel hungry. I can easily get some eggs.’

  ‘Don’t go out on my account. I don’t think I’ll be able to eat much today.’

  Matilda patted her hand again. ‘Get some rest.’

  Esme nodded shortly again and turned onto her side, tears soaking the pillow where she settled. Her grandma rose slowly from the bed, her steps across the room stiffer and slower than Esme remembered, and closed the door, the wood dragging on the old carpet as she left the room.

  * * *

  It was mid-afternoon by the time Esme felt able to go downstairs, too late for a bacon breakfast but her grandma cooked one anyway. Esme had asked her not to, knowing she’d struggle to eat any, which would only add to the list of reasons her arrival was bad news for her grandma, but the remarkable woman who was Matilda Greenwood, née Smith, the woman who had brought up Esme’s father practically alone while her husband, Stanley, travelled the world as a merchant sailor, would have none of it. The villagers had gossiped and wondered why he stayed away, and they hadn’t stopped until he’d finally come home to stay, but Matilda hadn’t given it a moment’s attention. And as the salty smell of frying bacon drifted through the house, and the old radio babbled in the corner with the silken tones of Matilda’s favourite presenter, Esme sat at the table and sipped hot, sweet tea, and it was like salve for her soul. The future lightened by degrees, so that the long tunnel of hopelessness she’d constructed for herself shrank before her eyes, and she could almost see the pinpoint of light beckoning her to something better.

  ‘Do your parents know you’re here?’ Matilda spooned beans onto a plate next to two crisp rashers of bacon.

  Esme shook her head. She had refused to discuss much of what had brought her back to Little Dove Morton and, so far, Matilda had seemingly been content to wait for explanations. But this time, Esme knew she wanted an answer. ‘Would it make any difference if they did?’

  ‘I think so.’ Matilda turned back to the stove, adding a golden-yoked egg to the plate.

  ‘They made their feelings clear the last time we spoke.’

  ‘It takes two to have a fight.’

  ‘It wasn’t a fight… it was a difference of opinion.’

  ‘A difference of opinion?’ Matilda wiped a hand on her apron. ‘Hmm. A difference of opinion so strong that it’s stopped you going home when you’re in trouble?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For landing on your doorstep like this.’

  Matilda waved a vague hand as the pan hissed and spat. ‘You know I’d never turn you away. I do think your mum and dad would want to know what’s going on though.’

  ‘Trust me, I don’t think they’re as bothered as you imagine.’

  ‘I’m not sure they know the full extent of the situation you were in.’ Matilda stopped and paused, her back still showing to Esme. ‘I suspect none of us really do, and if they did know perhaps things could be sorted. All it would take is a phone call—’

  ‘Sorry… Maybe some day, but not yet. I can’t…’

  ‘Stubborn as the day is long.’

  ‘That’s Mum, not me.’

  ‘And where do you think you get it from?’

  Esme tried to smile but it wouldn’t come. ‘Maybe. I can’t phone them yet and that’s that. It’s just too complicated for me to think about.’

  ‘But you will think on it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ Matilda turned to face her. Slowly, with that same stiffness Esme had noticed before, she brought a plate loaded with bacon, eggs, black pudding, beans and fried bread to the table. Esme suppressed a groan – there was no way she could eat even a fraction of that.

  ‘Grandma, I…’

  ‘I know,’ Matilda said, plonking the plate down in front of Esme before lowering herself into the opposite chair. ‘You don’t need to eat it all, just take what you can.’ She reached for the teapot. ‘Would you like a top-up?’

  Esme nodded, the world looking warmer and brighter by the second. Returning here had been instinctive, but now she knew this was the only place that could heal her. She watched as tea spilled from the spout of the old chipped pot that her grandma would never part with, its lid stained from years of use, and she took comfort in the fact that whenever she wondered if she’d made the right decision in leaving Warren, she would only have to think of this moment to know that she had.

  Three

  The kitchen in Thimble Cottage was warm, the air scented with dark sugar and rich fruit and spicy sherry. The autumn that Esme had spent with her grandma was making way for winter, and the hills outside the village were crisp with frost in the mornings now, the sunlight bright and clean as it cascaded down into the valleys. It was too early to decorate, but the house was transforming, gradually, falling into the yuletide festivities by deeds and chores, sights and smells and discussions. Christmas was still six weeks away but it felt imminent as Matilda began to ready for it in the same ways she always had.

  ‘I should have started this earlier,’ she said now, shaking her head as she laboured over a huge mixing bowl.

  ‘I’m sure we don’t even need a Christmas cake this big.’ Esme brought over the dried fruit she’d just weighed.

  ‘We do if we’re expecting guests.’

  Esme didn’t reply, but returned to fetch a net of oranges from the pantry.

  Matilda stopped mixing and looked up. ‘Are you nervous?’

  Esme put the oranges down. ‘Not nervous, exactly. I’ll admit to being apprehensive.’

  ‘And you’re telling me the truth when you say you haven’t heard from that man this week?’

  Esme made the sign of a cross over her heart. ‘Not a peep. A whole week… perhaps he’s finally given up. It has been over two months since I left, after all, and I would imagine that’s enough time for anyone to get the message.’

  ‘You could have gon
e to the police,’ Matilda said, returning to her task, ‘nipped this in the bud before he’d had time to upset everyone. He might have been in prison by now and it would have served him right.’

  Esme frowned. This wasn’t a new conversation. It was hard to understand why her grandma hadn’t been able to let it go since Esme had first made the admission. Esme had almost come to terms with her broken engagement. The future she’d planned and longed for as Warren’s wife had been snatched away from her but she was putting it behind her now – at least she was trying to. She supposed her grandma was probably more devastated on Esme’s behalf for all that she’d lost than Esme herself was. It was hard to see injustice done to those you loved, harder than bearing injustice yourself. If things had been the other way around and someone had hurt Matilda in that same way, perhaps Esme would have been just as angry, just as reluctant to let it go. ‘And say what? Warren hadn’t done anything criminal.’

  ‘He intended to,’ Matilda said tartly.

  ‘Well, we can all intend things but unless we do them they’re only intentions, and you can’t be arrested for an intention.’

  ‘I’m quite sure you can—’

  ‘Warren’s not a terrorist, Grandma. Just a pain in the arse.’