Bluebell's Christmas Magic: A perfect and heart-warming cosy Christmas romance for 2019

by Marie Laval

  He was attracted to her.

  It had taken all his self-control not to wrench her away from Morse’s car earlier, and hold her in his arms to keep her safe. But that was nothing compared to what he had felt as he pulled up in front of Bluebell Cottage. The urge to kiss her, and feel her soft lips under his, had been almost too strong to resist. Thank goodness for that stray cat that had shaken him back to his senses.

  He unlocked the front door and stomped his boots onto the mat to get the snow off before hanging his coat on the rack and pushing open the door to the drawing room. What had happened there?

  The room looked different, felt different. It even smelled different. And yet, nothing much had changed… The furniture had been rearranged. Pine sprigs, holly and red winter berries made a splash of colour on the mantelpiece. Several boxes of chocolates were piled up on the coffee table next to Vaillant’s diary, and a huge cushion in festive colours sat on the sofa – probably Cassie’s handiwork, if her grandfather was to be believed. As he breathed in the fresh scent of pine mingling with Cassie’s lemon fragrance, the tension in his shoulders ebbed away, and he couldn’t help the smile forming on his lips.

  Not only did Cassie clean and cook for him, but she struck a bit of her Bluebell fairy magic to make Belthorn a nicer, more comfortable place… He pictured her grey eyes, in turn sparkly or limpid, the dimples that appeared on her cheeks every time she smiled, and her hair the colour of sunshine, and his chest tightened.

  Being attracted to Cassie was a very bad idea, and he’d do well to keep away from her as much as possible…

  He made some coffee, picked up André Vaillant’s diary and went up to bed where he read until the writing blurred and danced on the page and he couldn’t focus any longer. For the first time in weeks, he fell asleep straight away and didn’t dream of anything until the grey light of dawn filtered through the curtains and woke him up the following morning.

  He made a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches, filled a bottle of water, grabbed a banana and a handful of chocolates and stuffed everything in a rucksack. It looked cold so he zipped his parka up, wrapped his scarf tightly around his neck and pulled down his woolly hat before locking the door.

  Taking a deep breath of crisp, clean air, he glanced up at the soft blue sky. A faint crescent of moon and a few stars still shone over the ragged peaks to his right, but the snowy fells already sparkled under the pale morning sunshine that peeped over the summit. A ribbon of mist captured the sun’s golden rays and floated halfway up the mountains. Trees stood still and fluffy with frost. It was a picture of beauty, peace and serenity.

  Charlie once told him that some valleys were so narrow they didn’t get any sunshine at all during winter months. The thought made him shudder. He couldn’t imagine spending months trapped in the shadows…

  He started on the steep path behind Belthorn Manor. He had worked out a circular route that would take him to Patterdale in the next valley then back to Belthorn Manor. He hadn’t chosen the walk at random. He wanted to see the farm André Vaillant mentioned in his journal, if it still existed. It was the farm Charlie’s great-grandfather had owned and tenanted to Ruth Merriweather’s family and where young Ruth had taken André one sunny summer’s day.

  Because of André’s injuries, the couple had walked on the path that meandered at the bottom of the dale. He, on the other hand, would try to ascend the fell and walk down into the next valley.

  As he started on the trail, Stefan recalled the words the convalescing pilot had written after his first visit to Patterdale – words of hope that were etched into his mind.

  I feel like a man again, a man who dares to hope that he has a future. Today was a dream come true, not only thanks to the beauty of the valley, the scents of the meadows, the sunshine that warmed my skin and brought brightness to my soul, but because I was with Ruth.

  The path to Patterdale followed a chirping, fast-flowing beck. Wild flowers covered the vast expanse of pastures like a colourful carpet, or hid like tiny secrets in the glades or the cracks in mossy stone walls. Ruth named them as we walked. There were white Wild Angelica, yellow Adder’s-tongue, Spearwort, vivid blue Harebells, cup-shaped brownish Water Avens and many others.

  Ruth… whispering her name brings back the sunshine of that wonderful day. She slipped her small hand in mine to help me through the rough terrain, and left it there until we reached the farm. And when we set off on our way home after having tea and scones with her mother, it was I who reached out for her hand, and she didn’t snatch it away.

  Dare I hope that Ruth’s timid smile, her kindness and the warmth I read in her eyes are not caused by pity for a lonely, crippled man far from his loved ones at home? Dare I hope that my life is not over as I feared, but merely at a crossroads?

  Stefan dislodged loose stones as he climbed up, and the sounds they made as they rolled down the fell echoed in the morning’s silence. He soon got into a rhythm and found that he walked faster and with less difficulty than the day before. He reached a beck singing between snowy banks, its crystal clear waters trickling down the hillside, and looked back.

  If it weren’t for the manor house below, he could easily believe he was in a forgotten world that had lain hidden and untouched since the beginning of time. Today, Wolf Tarn made a circle of perfect blue in the landscape. Yet, even in the glorious sunny morning, he couldn’t help thinking that there was something almost sinister about it.

  The sun turned warmer as the morning wore on, the mist burned out and the snow covering the hillside started to melt. He was alone except for a few sheep. Their bleating echoed across the valley and accompanied him all the way to the top of the fell. At last he reached the cairn marking the summit. Out of breath and his muscles burning, he found a boulder to sit down on and have his lunch and savour the view and the silence.

  He could see for miles, all the way to the flat, golden shores of the Irish Sea. Coniston and Monks Water Lake were long blue shapes in the distance, and the landscape was a succession of rocky crags, barren fell tops, vertiginous drops and narrow ridges.

  He finished his sandwich, drank half his bottle of water, and spread his map flat on the boulder to check his route. If he followed the ridge to another cairn he could just about spot in the distance, he should find a path to his right, go down via a disused quarry road, and end up in Patterdale.

  It felt good to walk, climb, and scramble down the crag and onto a narrow sheep trail, and not to think about anything else than the next step, the next foothold.

  The quarry was an ugly grey scar on the hillside. It was fenced off and signs to keep out had been nailed to an old gate. Rusty cables as thick as his thigh snaked across the path or sprung from the ground, whilst man-made mounds of broken slate scattered the surroundings. A couple of old wagons lay tipped on their side next to a derelict stone hut.

  It may be a ghost town these days, yet men had carried out noisy and dangerous work there in the past, and Stefan tried to imagine what it must have been like to work this high up in the mountain, in the cutting wind and pouring rain, the freezing cold and the stifling heat.

  He was about to carry on when he heard a voice singing. It sounded like a child. Stefan looked at the gate and the fencing around the quarry. It looked sturdy enough to keep people out, especially a child. And yet, someone had ventured inside.

  ‘Hello? Who is there?’ he called.

  Immediately a boy with pale blond hair appeared at the window of the ruined hut. He looked to be about eight or nine years old and wore a bright red anorak.

  ‘Hello,’ the boy replied.

  ‘What are you doing in there? It’s not safe.’ Even though he wanted to climb over the fence and yank the child into a safer place, Stefan forced a smile. He must take care not to scare the little boy.

  The child showed him the toy he was holding. ‘I’m trying my new metal detector. I got it for my birthday. I want to find treasure, so I can buy toys. My dad said I’ve been naughty and won’t get a
nything from Santa this year.’

  ‘You won’t find any treasure in there, just old rusty tools and machinery. Where are your parents?’

  ‘At the farm.’

  ‘I’ll take you back,’ Stefan decided. He looked at the gate and the fence. They looked secure. ‘How did you get in?’

  The boy walked to the far end of the fencing, crouched down and lifted a piece of loose mesh wire. He thrust his metal detector through first then twisted his little body and made it to the other side. He grabbed hold of his metal detector then ran towards Stefan.

  ‘Do you often come here?’ Stefan asked.

  The boy nodded. ‘All the time.’

  Stefan frowned. ‘It’s dangerous. You could get hurt and nobody would know where you are.’

  The boy didn’t reply but stared at him. ‘What’s wrong with your face? Have you been in the war?’

  Stefan looked at the snowy peaks and the bright blue sky and nodded. ‘Yeah, you could say that.’

  ‘Where was it?’

  ‘A long way from here.’

  ‘Your voice is weird too. What happened to you?’

  ‘None of your business. Come on, now.’

  The boy shook his head. ‘I’ll only come if you tell me.’

  Stefan sighed. Damn, that child was stubborn. ‘All right. I’ll tell you as we walk. Is this the way home?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘I’m Stefan, by the way. What’s your name?’

  ‘Louis Merriweather.’

  Stefan frowned. ‘Merriweather?’ That was Ruth’s family name.

  ‘Now tell me what happened to your face. You promised.’

  As they walked, and in a few brief sentences, Stefan told him about his former job carrying supplies and people in his helicopter – soldiers, doctors and nurses, people who’d been hurt.

  ‘I was in Mali last year. Do you know where Mali is?’

  The boy shook his head.

  ‘It’s in Africa,’ Stefan explained.

  ‘Where they have lions, and elephants and camels?’

  Stefan laughed at the boy’s excited voice. ‘Yes. They have all that, especially camels.’

  ‘Did your helicopter crash?’

  Stefan nodded. ‘My co-pilot and I were trying to evacuate a clinic – doctors and nurses and people who were very sick and their families – and…’

  They were shot at as he was taking off. He lost control. The helicopter started spinning and fell to the ground, and when he crash-landed they were shot at again. He managed to pull a couple of children and an elderly woman out of the craft, shouting out all the time for Charlie and Isa to get out. He ran back into the helicopter to find Isa slumped against the cockpit, her eyes open but glassy and blood soaking her flight suit. From the odd angle of her neck he had known straight away that she was beyond help. Charlie was unconscious but breathing, so he dragged him out and was about to go back when there was a second of deadly silence as if the whole world was sucked into a void… then the craft exploded.

  He pushed away the memories of carnage and mayhem, the sounds of crying and screaming, the stench of blood and death that so often came back to haunt him. If only he had been faster and could have rescued more people before the helicopter exploded. If only…

  Aware of the boy staring at him, he finished. ‘There was an accident, and I got injured.’

  ‘Was your face all smashed up?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Did you cry?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘I would cry a lot if my face was all broken like yours.’

  ‘When you’re in pain, you have to focus on other things. They teach you stuff like that in the army.’

  ‘I want to know all about it.’ He stretched his hand in front of Stefan. A grubby plaster was wrapped around his thumb. ‘I cut my finger the other day and it hurt so much I couldn’t stop crying. My dad got annoyed with me and told me to man up but it didn’t work.’

  Stefan couldn’t help but smile in front of the boy’s indignant face.

  They walked down the path in companionable silence for a while, then the boy spoke again. ‘Did everybody die in the crash?’

  Images flitted in Stefan’s mind – images of death and destruction that were imprinted into his brain, into his soul.

  ‘No,’ he lied. He looked at the boy and forced a smile. ‘Everybody was fine.’

  ‘That was lucky. You must be very brave, and very clever, to have saved everybody. I want to be brave and clever like you when I grow up.’

  Stefan swallowed a denial. He was neither brave nor clever. There were too many people he hadn’t saved that day.

  They followed the path down towards the dale where copses of fir trees painted splashes of dark green against the snow, and smoke billowed out of the chimney of a long farm building. From the top of the path he saw a tractor, several cars and a quad bike.

  ‘That’s my farm,’ the boy announced. ‘It’s called Patterdale. It’s my birthday today. You have to come in and eat some cake. Mum made a huge chocolate cake. It’s very good.’

  Patterdale? So this was what used to be Ruth Merriweather’s farm, and in all probability it was still in the Merriweather family.

  Louis ran ahead, climbed over the ladder stile and carried on into the farmyard and Stefan followed. Two sheepdogs barked furiously and jumped at him as he made his way towards the farmhouse. He gave them a pat on the head, and followed the boy to the front door. He had to speak to Louis’s parents, tell them where he’d found him. The quarry was too dangerous a playground for a little boy.

  Louis pushed open the door to the farmhouse and gestured for him to come in. He wiped the snow and mud off the soles of his boots on the doormat. A woman was laughing in a nearby room. As he walked through the hallway cluttered with dirty boots, coats and toys, he realised with a bump to the heart that he knew exactly who the woman was.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Mum! Dad! I found a man who pilots helicopters in Africa and I told him he could have some of my chocolate cake,’ Louis announced at the top of his voice as he ran into the dining room.

  Cassie looked up just as Stefan Lambert walked into the room, bending down to avoid banging his head against the door lintel.

  Her first thought was that she was glad she had discarded her dungarees and changed into the top she’d recently bought from Cecilia’s studio. Her second was that Stefan didn’t seem in the least happy to see her.

  ‘By heck, Lambert! What are you doing here?’ her granddad exclaimed. He turned to Rachel and her husband Tim. ‘That’s the man I was telling you about, the Frenchman our Cassie is looking after at Belthorn Manor.’

  Rachel and Tim jumped to their feet, a welcoming smile on their faces as he hesitated on the doorstep. ‘Come in. Please.’

  Stefan looked at the bottle of Prosecco, the plates and cakes on the table, and put a hand on Louis’s shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt a family celebration. I found this young man in the quarry and wanted to return him home safe and sound.’

  He narrowed his eyes as he looked at Cassie, and added, ‘I had no idea you would be here. The boy said his name was Merriweather, not Bell.’ He sounded almost reproachful, as if he’d been lured into a trap and it was all her fault.

  ‘That’s because he’s my cousin Tim’s son,’ she explained, ‘and Tim is a Merriweather, from my grandmother’s side of the family.’

  Rachel gave her son a stern look and wagged her index finger at him. ‘You went to the quarry again, even though we forbade you to. You’re grounded, young man. Go to your room right away.’

  Louis’s lower lip started trembling. He turned to his father, but Tim said in a stern voice, ‘You heard your mother. Give me your metal detector. You can’t have it until I’m sure I can trust you.’

  The boy cast Stefan an accusing glance as he brushed past him on his way out. There were stomping noises on the stairs, and a door slammed shut on the first floor.

  ‘I’m sorry
I upset him.’ Stefan pulled off his woolly hat and raked his fingers in his brown hair, leaving it all spiked up.

  ‘What do you have to feel sorry for?’ Rachel asked. ‘You were kind enough to bring him home. He knows he isn’t allowed in the quarry.’

  Gesturing to the table, she added, ‘Please make yourself at home. You must have a drink and some cake too.’

  He shook his head. ‘Thank you, but I must go back.’

  ‘Come on, son,’ Cassie’s grandfather called out. ‘You can’t refuse our Rachel’s hospitality. And if you don’t mind me saying, you look as if you could do with a rest.’

  Stefan looked about to protest again, and shrugged. ‘If you’re sure I’m not imposing. Thank you.’

  Suddenly everybody was fussing around him. Rachel took his parka and his rucksack. Tim asked him if he wanted tea, coffee or wine, or something a bit stronger. ‘I have an excellent brandy, if you’re interested.’

  Stefan said he was, and Cassie’s grandfather invited him to sit down.

  ‘Let’s give the man some cake. It’s a long walk from Belthorn. He must be famished.’ Turning to Stefan, he added, ‘By the way, it seems I must thank you for looking after our Cassie again and driving her home last night. Two flat tyres at once… who ever heard of such bad luck?’

  ‘I’m glad I could help.’ Stefan sent her a pointed look, but thankfully said nothing about Darren. The last thing she wanted was for him to start accusing him of stalking her and interfering with her tyres in front of her family.

  ‘Sit down, Lambert.’ Her granddad gestured to the empty chair next to her. ‘She’s one of a kind, our Cassie – a hard worker with a heart of gold. She’ll make a terrific wife to a lucky man one day.’

  ‘Granddad!’ Cassie hissed in shock. What was he playing at?

  Ignoring her, he leant towards Stefan and winked. ‘She’s a real softie, you know, that’s why we nicknamed her—’