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

by Marie Laval

  Stefan’s face remained impassive. ‘Neither magic nor hot drinks will help, I’m afraid. My croaky voice is one of my battle wounds.’

  ‘Ah. Sorry.’ A red flush suffused Piers’s already florid cheeks. ‘I must buy you a drink some time so we can compare notes about Charlie. Is he still planning on wasting the best years of his life working for peanuts for a charity in that godforsaken country?’

  Stefan’s eyes turned icy. ‘You’ll have to ask him, although I’m not sure he would appreciate you calling his work at Inter Medics a waste of time.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant… not really…’ Piers’s colour deepened, and he shifted on his feet. He glanced down at Cassie.

  ‘I hope you won’t forget our date on Friday. I’ll take you somewhere nice for lunch after our meeting.’ His hand found her shoulder again and gave it another squeeze.

  She squirmed under his touch. ‘There’s no need for that.’

  ‘I insist.’

  She stiffened as Piers’s hand slid down her back and he bent down to kiss her cheek before finally taking his leave. Stefan watched him walk out of the pub and sat down.

  ‘You don’t like him much,’ he remarked.

  She gave him a tight smile. ‘Is it that obvious?’ She let out a long sigh. ‘Piers is all right, really. He’s been good to my family. He allowed my granddad to keep renting Bluebell Cottage for next to nothing if he takes care of minor repairs, and he gave me the Ashville holiday cottages contract after my mum retired. I owe him a lot.’

  ‘And he knows it.’

  Her fingers tightened around her glass of lemonade. That was true. Piers did take advantage of his position of power and the worst thing was that she was so afraid of making him angry that she let him.

  ‘He’s been a good friend of Charles Ashville since they were both boarders at a private school in Windermere,’ she remarked to shift the focus away from herself and her lack of backbone.

  Stefan pulled a face. ‘I find it hard to believe that he and Charlie have anything in common.’

  ‘I believe they are very close. They used to do everything together, apparently, and Piers took over the management of the Ashville Estate from his own father.’

  Stefan looked thoughtful. ‘Is Hardy a common name around here?’

  ‘Not really. Piers’s family has been here for generations, like mine… In fact, I recently discovered that his great-grandfather had once been engaged to my great-great-aunt Ruth.’

  A waitress approached with two steaming hot plates.

  ‘Who’s having the steak pie?’ she asked, staring down at the plates as if she was afraid to drop them.

  Stefan said that he was. The young woman looked up. Her eyes widened, and her hands shook so much she almost tipped the contents of his plate all over the table.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Her chin wobbled as if she was going to cry.

  ‘No worries,’ he replied, but his face paled and his eyes turned a darker, harder gold.

  The girl placed Cassie’s plate in front of her so quickly that it clanked against the salt and pepper dispensers, knocking them over. ‘Oh. No. I’m so sorry,’ she stammered again before hurrying away.

  ‘Poor kid,’ he whispered when she had left. ‘Sometimes I forget…’

  ‘Forget what?’

  He focussed his serious gaze on her. ‘That not everybody is as good at hiding their feelings as you are.’

  Her heart jumped and her face caught fire. Had he guessed that she was attracted to him? ‘What feelings?’ she stammered.

  He shrugged. ‘You know. Fear, disgust, pity. That poor girl must be wondering how you can eat with an ugly brute like me. She’s probably going to have nightmares for weeks.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ How could he think, even for one second, that his appearance was so revolting that it could give a woman nightmares – and worse still, seem to accept it?

  Yes, he had scars, and his nose was broken in two, if not three places. Yes, his voice was hoarse, harsh and raw, and he might not be in the top physical shape he had been before his accident. But he was still strong and incredibly attractive, and one look from his tawny eyes and her heart did somersaults, her skin prickled all over and her thoughts took a decidedly hot and naughty turn. She wasn’t the only one feeling that way either. Brenda and gorgeous Sadie fancied him too – not that she could tell him.

  ‘The waitress was clumsy, that’s all and—’ she started, but Stefan stopped her with a hard look.

  ‘It’s all right, Cassie, you don’t need to make excuses for the girl. I don’t resent her for being put off by me, honest… She isn’t the first, and she won’t be the last.’

  He looked at his plate, ate a few mouthfuls of steak pie and put his fork down. ‘Just what I thought… It’s good, but not as good as yours.’ He looked up. ‘Are you not hungry?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ She cut a piece of sausage, but her appetite had vanished.

  ‘By the way, what were you saying earlier about your great-great-aunt Ruth and Hardy’s relative?’

  She doubted he really was interested, but it might help him forget the unpleasant episode with the waitress.

  ‘I recently found out that they were once engaged,’ she replied.

  ‘Did they ever marry?’

  She shook her head. ‘Ruth broke up with him before drowning at Wolf Tarn during the winter of 1919.’

  ‘She drowned?’ His face seemed paler. It didn’t make sense. Why should he care about one of her ancestors?

  ‘On Christmas Eve, actually. Everybody believed it was an accident,’ she carried on, ‘but I think she committed suicide.’

  He put his knife and fork down. ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘She was desperate. Her family had disowned her when the man she loved – a French pilot who was convalescing at Belthorn – abandoned her. I recently got hold of some letters that led me to believe that they had become lovers and planned to elope together. Unfortunately, he returned to Paris to care for his mother who was poorly with the flu. She died, and he too fell ill. The last letter Ruth received was from his sister, who asked her not to write again because André didn’t wish to pursue the relationship. She wrote that André would return her letters unopened… and that’s exactly what he did.’

  She shook her head in disgust. ‘The cruel, despicable man seduced her and didn’t even have the courage to break off their liaison himself but asked his sister to do it for him. It must have been devastating for Ruth to receive all the letters she had poured her heart out in and he hadn’t even opened, let alone read. Her body was recovered from Wolf Tarn on Christmas Day, a hundred years ago exactly this year.’

  She stopped. It seemed incongruous to talk about Ruth’s death with happy Christmas music playing and people laughing in the background.

  Stefan frowned. ‘I think you’re wrong. Vaillant was a good man. Something must have happened that prevented him from coming back to Red Moss.’

  She let out a startled laugh. ‘How do you know that? And how do you even know his name?’

  ‘I found his journal at Belthorn, and from what I’ve been reading, he did mean to marry Ruth. He was planning to come back to Belthorn, that’s why he left his diary behind.’

  The diary must be the brown leather-bound book she had seen in the drawing room. ‘How very peculiar that it should fall into your hands,’ she said. ‘Will you let me read it?’

  ‘Of course, but it’s in French, so I’ll have to translate it for you.’

  ‘Yes, please, and I’ll show you Ruth’s letters. That way perhaps between the both of us, we can figure out what really happened. It will be like putting together a puzzle.’

  ‘Talking about puzzles,’ Stefan said, ‘what is the “Guess the Santa” contest everybody is talking about?’

  ‘It’s a village charity event in aid of the Mountain Rescue Team, like Comedy Night. Someone dresses up as Santa and people put a bet on to guess their identity. If nobody gets it right, all the m
oney collected goes to the mountain rescue charity. Otherwise they split the money.’

  ‘It sounds like a good plan.’

  ‘Except that nobody wants to be Santa this year. Mason even suggested that I do it. He said nobody would ever guess it was me.’

  Stefan shook his head. ‘I would.’

  ‘Really? How?’

  ‘Your perfume. Lemon. Clean. Fresh. Summery. It would be a dead giveaway.’

  Her heart sank. ‘Oh. I see. You think I smell of cleaning products.’

  He arched his eyebrows. ‘Is that what it is? I like it. Beats expensive French perfume any day.’

  He was making fun of her… Her chest tightening, she heaved a shaky sigh and looked down to glance at her watch ostensibly. Better not show that she was upset. After all, she knew what he thought of her. She shouldn’t be surprised that he thought she smelled like a bottle of ecological disinfectant.

  ‘We’d better have coffee before collecting the props from the warehouse,’ she said, glancing back up.

  Stefan reclined against the back of his chair and grinned. ‘Ah yes, the props for the infamous Tarzan and Jane wedding…’

  It was a real smile, and the first time he’d looked carefree and unguarded, and she had a glimpse of the man he must have been before his accident. She held her breath as a thousand feelings assailed her. The tips of her fingers tingled with the need to follow the line of his face, run through his brown hair, and rest on his shoulders. She longed to snuggle against his chest, feel the strength of his arms closing around her and the heat of his skin, and hear the beating of his heart… like that time, when she had woken him up and he had pulled her to him.

  A sudden thought took her breath away. This physical attraction was confusing, burning, maddening, and felt very much like… infatuation.

  She swallowed hard. Was she falling in love with Stefan Lambert?

  She glanced up. He was looking at her. His eyes reflected the soft, golden glow of the fire, and a smile still played on his lips. She’d better pull herself together, or he would see right through her, and how mortifying would that be?

  ‘About Kerry’s wedding on Saturday,’ she started, scrambling through her heated thoughts for something suitable – anything – to say. ‘Don’t worry if you can’t come. It wasn’t fair of me to put you on the spot earlier. You may have other things planned already.’

  ‘I said I would come… as long as I can keep my shirt and trousers on, and you don’t expect me to perform the Tarzan jungle call, and rescue Jane from the tree tops.’

  The image made her sigh. What wouldn’t she give to be Jane and be rescued by Stefan?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was late afternoon by the time they arrived back at the campsite, but it was so dark by then it could have been the middle of the night. With only a few static caravans and chalets rented out and nearby Monks Water Lake looking like an abyss under the starless sky, the campsite had the look and feel of a ghost town. The pebbly beach and the jetty were deserted, and the tarpaulin covering the rental kayaks flapped noisily in the cold wind. The restaurant was shut for the winter, and only a handful of lights from houses dotted the shoreline.

  ‘Are you sure you should carry all those into the clubhouse?’ Cassie pointed at the boxes piled on top of one another in the boot of the Range Rover.

  ‘We had that very same discussion in Keswick when I loaded them into the car, and I told you I was all right then.’ What kind of man would he be if he couldn’t lift a few boxes? he grumbled inwardly. He did his best to ignore the twinges in his back, and when he bent down to put the boxes on the floor in the clubhouse, he turned away so that Cassie wouldn’t see him catch his breath.

  When he’d lined all the boxes up against the wall, Cassie stood in the middle of the room and twirled on herself. ‘In three days, this place will be unrecognisable,’ she declared, flashing a smile in his direction.

  He smiled back, not wanting to appear pessimistic but it was difficult to imagine how the uninspiring reception room, with its cream walls and tartan carpet, the bar at one end and wooden dance floor at the other, could be made to look even remotely like a rainforest fit for Tarzan and Jane and their pet monkey… or was it a pet elephant – or both? He couldn’t quite remember.

  ‘What do you mean, unrecognisable?’ the campsite manager asked as he walked in.

  Cassie gave the man a friendly smile. ‘Hi, Patrick! I’m going to transform the clubhouse into a fake jungle.’

  The man recoiled. ‘A jungle? Nobody mentioned a jungle before. I thought this was going to be a normal, straightforward wedding reception.’

  ‘Don’t worry. The décor will be fun but tasteful,’ Cassie said and she proceeded to explain her vision, getting more and more animated as she described the fake foliage on the walls, the multicoloured paper flowers and animal cardboard placemats she would design and cut out.

  ‘I will hide animal masks among the foliage too so that they look as if they’re peeping out of the leaves, and there will be yellow fairy lights all around the room. Do you think the bar staff would agree to wear grass skirts and flower necklaces?’ She stopped to catch her breath and looked at the manager, who had grown very still and, Stefan thought, rather pale.

  ‘So, you see,’ Cassie finished, ‘I have everything planned, and you have nothing to worry about.’

  Patrick looked at her and scratched his head. ‘That’s a massive amount of work and you only have three days. Who is going to help you?’

  Cassie looked surprised. ‘No one… I’m doing everything myself.’

  ‘There’s no way you can possibly do all that alone. The place will end up looking a mess. The clubhouse has been hired out for a business meeting on Monday morning,’ Patrick said. ‘I can’t see how you can tidy everything up on your own. I’m sorry, Cassie, but I have to put my foot down and veto the whole jungle idea.’

  ‘I can do the whole room by myself in three days,’ Cassie insisted, ‘and I can tidy everything up for the meeting on Monday. I’m a cleaner. I’m used to clearing up mess!’

  Patrick shook his head. ‘No, love, it won’t work. You can put fairy lights up and make paper flower necklaces, of course, but that’s all.’

  ‘I’ve bought everything now, and Kerry is counting on me for her jungle. She’ll be dreadfully disappointed.’

  Cassie’s voice wobbled, and her smile disappeared, but Patrick remained unmoved. ‘You should have asked me before. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Cassie said, shaking her head.

  It was seeing the tears glisten in her eyes that did it. Stefan forgot all about his resolutions of living a quiet life and keeping as far as possible from the young woman.

  ‘What if I helped Cassie set everything up and tidy the room up for Monday?’

  Patrick frowned, looking unconvinced. ‘You would help?’

  Stefan nodded. ‘I am in the army, so I’m used to organising things so that they run like clockwork.’ He had no idea why it was suddenly so important to see the young woman smile again.

  ‘And you’re sure you can tidy up for Monday morning?’ Patrick insisted.

  ‘Positive.’

  Patrick sighed and smiled at Cassie. ‘In that case… I suppose you can go ahead.’

  ‘Thank you, Patrick, you won’t regret it!’ Cassie clapped, ran up to him and gave him a resounding kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Steady on, girl,’ Patrick said but his grin belied the stern tone of his voice. ‘I have one condition… No monkey business!’

  He laughed at his own joke, and added, ‘I’ll leave you two to it, and I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning.’

  As soon as he had left Cassie looked at Stefan. ‘Thank you.’

  The happy smile she gave him was the best reward he could have hoped for. ‘Don’t mention it,’ he grunted, but inside he felt absurdly pleased with himself.

  He shoved his hands into his coat pockets, and cleared his throat. ‘I hope you k
now what you’re doing, because the man was right. This is going to be a challenge, not to mention the fact that I may know about flying and fixing helicopters but I’m pretty useless at making paper flowers – not that I ever tried, mind you.’

  Cassie laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I have everything planned. As for making paper flowers, there’s nothing to it.’

  He had his doubts, but he said nothing.

  The following morning, Stefan met Cassie at the campsite at eight thirty. She issued him with a list of instructions before leaving for her cleaning jobs around the village, but popped back at regular intervals during the day to survey his progress, give him encouragement, and bring flasks of coffee, sandwiches and cakes from the village bakery.

  After the umpteenth cream bun, he remarked that he would soon be too heavy to climb on a ladder, but she only laughed. ‘The least I can do in return for all your hard work is feed you well. I’m sure Tarzan didn’t complain if his Jane fed him too much when he was building their tree hut… he knew that he needed to keep his strength up, like you!’

  Surprisingly, as he emptied bags and boxes, affixed netting and fake foliage to the walls, and even got to grips with the templates for the giant paper flowers, he found that he was enjoying himself. Perhaps not really enjoying himself, but at least he felt useful – more useful than he had in days, when he was just driving around aimlessly or brooding alone at Belthorn.

  He tried not to think about what the guys at the base would say if they could see him cut and stick crepe paper to make paper flowers or exotic fruit under the direction of a woman with tousled blonde hair tied with a bright red bandana scarf and dressed in dungarees far too big for her, but whose smile lit up the room and the grey winter day.

  ‘We have made great progress today,’ she said, surveying the room at the end of the first day. ‘You are the best assistant I’ve ever had – not that I have had any. Thank you!’ She stepped towards him until she was within touching distance, and for a second he thought she was going to kiss him, like she had kissed Patrick the day before. His body tensed, his mouth dried up, his breath hitched in his throat. Time stood still…