The Little Cottage on the Hill: A gorgeous feel-good romance to escape with

by Emma Davies

  Half an hour later, with her expertly cut and highlighted hair curling gently onto her shoulders, she made her way back downstairs. It wasn’t even six o’clock yet, so she entered the kitchen as quietly as she could, suddenly remembering the state she had left the kitchen in last night. Not only would the bean-covered saucepan and plates from last night’s meal still be piled up next to the sink, but she had covered the table and a good part of the floor with tiny pieces of paper. She had no idea what time Seth had returned home last night, but with any luck he hadn’t ventured into the kitchen, or if he had, then she could clear away the mess quickly now and neither of them would have to refer to it again.

  The kitchen however, was spotless. Not only that, but the most heavenly smell of freshly baked bread was wafting over from a fresh loaf that stood cooling on a wooden chopping board beside the toaster. She leaned closer to inhale its aroma, gently touching one side with the back of her hand. It was still warm.

  She checked her watch against the wooden clock on the wall, but she was not mistaken. Who on earth gets up early enough to make bread which is ready this time of the morning? She picked up the notepad which lay beside the bread and read the brief message. Then, with a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, she picked up the bread knife and cut two thick slices. Thank you very much, she thought, I will most definitely help myself.

  Even after she had eaten, or rather, devoured the bread slathered in butter and jam, done the washing-up and wiped away her crumbs, there was still an hour and a half before her eight o’clock meeting with Seth. Yesterday had not gone at all well, and she had realised, somewhere in between her ranting last night and waking this morning, that she had been very insensitive in her approach to Seth and the work that was required at Joy’s Acre.

  Today, she would listen. She would ask Seth for his direction and give him the opportunity to explain his own vision before she tried to persuade him of her own ideas. Seth might own this place, but under the arrangement he had with Agatha he was not the one paying her salary and, as such, her loyalties had to lie elsewhere. There were, however, perhaps more tactful ways to play this out.

  To kill the time before their meeting, she wandered over to the cottages again, to make a few more notes and take some photos on her phone. Whichever way she looked at it, yesterday’s analysis stood firm. She really could see no other way to transform these cottages and get them turning a profit. They had to go large. Large and expensive admittedly, but it was the only way to attract big money in return. Her excitement mounted as the time neared eight o’clock and she returned to the kitchen to meet Seth.

  By quarter past nine, Madeline’s jaw was aching from gritting her teeth in rage as the minutes had passed. Seth had stood her up.

  Her report from yesterday might have been turned to confetti, but it was still safely saved on her laptop and now she had even more to add to it. If Seth couldn’t be bothered to show up to their meeting then she would simply email the whole lot to Agatha instead and, while she was at it, perhaps Agatha might also be interested to learn of Seth’s shortcomings. She fired up her laptop and waited for the available Wi-Fi connections to show. She’d probably need a password to connect, but until Seth returned and she could ask him for it she could always use her phone as a hotspot.

  She frowned at the screen in front of her. More specifically, at the small pop-up window which showed a total of zero available routers. This was getting to be a joke. She stood up, ready to search the house, but instead her eyes settled on her car keys which Seth had hung on one of a series of hooks by the pantry door. Getting out of this godforsaken place was a much better idea, even if it was for only a couple of hours.

  * * *

  Second time around, it wasn’t as difficult to find her way around. If you turned left after leaving the narrow lane from the house (Madeline refused to call it a driveway), the road took you to the small market town which had been the last vestige of civilisation on her way down here. Or, if you turned right, the road took you to the same small market town, except that the journey seemed to take about ten minutes longer as the road climbed right to the top of the hill the estate sat on, before dropping down the other side and swinging back around. Having navigated carefully along both routes, Madeline gave up trying to get anywhere else and settled on turning the car in to a small car park by the war memorial.

  An hour later, having trudged up and down a succession of streets and browsed a few shops, she pushed open the door of the Frog and Wicket and plonked herself on a bar stool. A spiky-pink-haired barmaid was at the far end of the bar, deep in conversation with the only other customer in the place. With a sideways glance at Madeline, she laid a hand on the arm of the man she was chatting to and walked over.

  ‘Please tell me I can have a coffee or I might die,’ Madeline said, not entirely sure she was joking.

  The young girl looked her up and down. ‘Let me guess… I reckon you’re a skinny caramel macchiato?’

  Madeline looked up in surprise.

  ‘You know what one of those is?’ she said incredulously.

  A pierced eyebrow arched skyward. ‘You’re looking at Coffee Club’s barista of the month, six months in a row. I know my way around.’

  ‘What happened to month seven?’

  The girl pulled a face. ‘Swanky cow from the Salford branch came down, didn’t she? Right know-it-all she was. Fat ankles as well.’

  A laugh escaped before Madeline could stop it. ‘So, did you get your own back?’

  ‘Nah. Wasn’t worth it. I mean, it’s only bloody coffee, right?… So, do you want one or not?’

  Madeline nodded vigorously. ‘Oh, please.’

  ‘I can do a flat white, filter or a cappuccino. Best I can do. You realise we’re a pub, right…’

  ‘So how come the macchiato then, how did you know?’

  The girl gave her another appraising glance. ‘Well, skinny… that’s obvious, and the macchiato… well, dressed like that, I reckon you like something a bit smooth and sophisticated.’

  ‘Which leaves the caramel?’

  She pulled a face. ‘Yeah well, no offence, but you should have seen your face when you walked in here. I haven’t seen anything that sour-looking since my little nephew accidently sucked on a lemon wedge. Thought maybe you could do with a little sweetening up.’

  Madeline burst out laughing, taking an instant liking to the straight-talking barmaid. She held out her hand.

  ‘I’m Madeline.’

  The girl rolled her eyes.

  ‘Jeez, I can’t call you that,’ she said grimacing. She tipped her head on one side. ‘So, Maddie, what’ll it be, filter or cappuccino? I can do chocolate sprinkles as well.’

  Madeline let the name play around in her head. She’d never, ever, let anyone call her Maddie in London. But then, she wasn’t in London, was she? Perhaps it was time for a change.

  She smiled. ‘Maddie’s fine,’ she said. ‘And I’ll have a cappuccino please, if that’s okay.’ She glanced around the room. ‘I don’t suppose you have Wi-Fi here?’

  There was a swift flicking of her eyes to one side. ‘No, sorry. I’ll just get your drink.’

  Maddie sighed. Why was she not surprised? She pulled her phone out of her bag to check the signal while she waited for her coffee. She was stumped now; without an internet connection, she couldn’t get any further with the Joy’s Acre project. She might as well just go back to the farm. How on earth did anyone get anything done around here? She watched as her phone buffered endlessly trying to load her emails and then clicked it off with a tut just as her drink arrived. It slid across the counter towards her.

  ‘I’m Trixie,’ the barmaid said, ‘and I didn’t give you that,’ she added, her voice dropping to a whisper.

  Maddie looked down at the mug in front of her and the small slip of paper lying by its side. On it was written two words; ‘Red’ and ‘Rum’. She stared at Trixie.

  ‘Is that what I think it is?’ she asked.
<
br />   ‘I expect so.’ Trixie winked. ‘The landlord has a gambling problem, hence the password. Once you’ve logged on, you’d better destroy that, otherwise I’ll be forced to kill you.’

  Maddie looked back at the pub, indicating the tables behind her with a nod of her head. ‘Is it okay if I sit and do some work for a bit?’

  Trixie waved an airy hand. ‘No skin off my nose,’ she said. ‘Though I expect you’ll be wanting some food now, won’t you?’

  ‘Oh I see…’ said Maddie, suddenly understanding. It was the least she could do. ‘Well, yes, that would be lovely. What can I have?’

  Trixie regarded her solemnly as if weighing her up. ‘Do you like mushrooms?’

  Maddie nodded.

  ‘Okay, then. Leave it with me.’ She waved a hand at the table. ‘Go on, sit. I’ll bring it when it’s ready.’

  She couldn’t have protested even if she wanted to; Trixie had vanished through a door at one end of the bar. Alone once more, Maddie carried her bags over to the table, coffee and the slip of paper in her other hand. Settling down, she pulled out her laptop and logged on.

  For a few minutes it was just like being back in London. Not only did the Wi-Fi password work, but the connection was super-fast. Maddie was in her element, calling up all her favourite websites she visited whenever she was working on a new project, and suddenly all her excitement came rushing back. This was what she was good at, she reminded herself as she began tapping away on the keyboard at a furious pace.

  She was so engrossed in her work she didn’t even see Trixie approaching the table.

  ‘There you go,’ she said, laying down a wide shallow dish and some cutlery wrapped in a napkin. ‘Come on, put that away,’ she added, nodding towards Maddie’s laptop, ‘it’ll go cold quickly.’

  Maddie looked up from her screen at the food in front of her with a startled expression on her face. Nestled in the centre of the bowl sat three thick rounds of bruschetta toast, tumbling with at least four different types of mushroom and covered in a buttery sauce. Flaked across the top were shards of parmesan, or pecorino perhaps, a sprinkling of parsley providing the finishing touch. The smell made Maddie’s nostrils quiver.

  She took up the cutlery. ‘This looks amazing,’ she said.

  Trixie jutted out her chin a little defensively.

  ‘It’s only mushrooms on toast,’ she replied. ‘But it’s good mushrooms on toast.’

  ‘And I’m suddenly ravenous,’ Maddie said. ‘I’m sure I’ll do it justice.’

  She speared a fat mushroom and popped it into her mouth as if to prove her point. She nodded approvingly as a burst of garlicky juice filled her mouth as she bit into it.

  Trixie left her to it, returning to the man at the bar and leaning across to chat to him as Maddie ate steadily. She hadn’t had high hopes for the Frog and Wicket when she’d walked through the door, but it was proving to be a little oasis of civility in an otherwise frustratingly ill-equipped town.

  By the time Trixie came to remove her empty dish some while later, Maddie had already filled two mood boards with ideas and several potential schemes, all of which she could expand on if required. She rolled her shoulders, easing the tension in her neck.

  ‘That really was lovely, thank you,’ she said. ‘I was beginning to despair of ever finding anywhere I could work from. And if you carry on serving food like I’ve just eaten I may have to keep finding an excuse to come back.’

  Trixie shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, don’t broadcast it, you’ll get me the sack.’

  ’What do you mean?’ Maddie asked, suddenly noticing Trixie was clutching Maddie’s empty dish a little anxiously.

  ‘Well, this isn’t exactly on the menu… It’s just a thing I do, okay. No big deal.’

  Maddie looked around her. ‘Does this pub even sell food?’

  ‘Yeah, it does. But I don’t broadcast the real menu. It’s full of unhealthy over-processed cack that the idiot landlord thinks the punters will eat by the ton.’ She paused momentarily, waiting for Maddie’s raised eyebrows to descend. ‘Sausage and chips, burgers and chips, scampi and chips, and pie and chips. Oh, and not forgetting, egg and chips and chips and chips.’ Her voice was scathing.

  ‘Oh, I see…’ agreed Maddie. ‘It’s not exactly awe-inspiring, is it? Perhaps you should point out that the menu could do with a little… updating.’

  ‘Well I did when I first came here, but after the eighth or ninth time I gave up. Not least because I was told very firmly to put up or shut up or he’d find a barmaid who was able to keep her opinions to herself.’

  ‘He doesn’t sound like a very enlightened man, your boss.’

  Trixie leaned in towards Maddie. ‘He’s a total arse actually. But don’t tell anyone I said that either.’

  Maddie grinned, picturing in her head a beer-swilling, overweight, slack-jawed stereotype. He was probably nothing like that in real life, but the image made her chuckle.

  ‘He does have really fast Wi-Fi though.’

  ‘Yeah, so that he can stream porn and play on his gambling sites all day. Now there’s enlightenment for you. The broadband is rubbish around here – as you’ve probably discovered – so he gets his beamed in via a radio signal. I mean, how sad is that?’

  A tiny seed of an idea took root in Maddie’s head. ‘Very. But I didn’t even know such a thing existed. How does it work?’

  Trixie shrugged again. ‘Beats me. Only thing I know is that we have a little receiver thing on the side of the pub instead of getting the broadband through the phone line.’ She juggled the crockery in her hands. ‘Anyway, do you want another coffee?’

  Maddie looked down at her laptop; she was nearly done.

  ‘Why not?’ she replied. ‘One for the road, as they say.’

  Trixie grinned and turned away and Maddie watched her go, her head thrumming with even more new ideas. The barmaid’s talents were clearly being wasted here, and even though she seemed resigned to her fate, Maddie suspected it wouldn’t take much to fire up her old enthusiasms once more. She hoped so. Because if she could, Maddie would be the first in line to give her a job.

  Chapter 4

  It was late afternoon by the time Maddie returned to the farm. She had deliberately chosen to return to Joy’s Acre from the opposite direction to when she first arrived. The journey took slightly longer but even though this gave her more time to review the thoughts in her head, it was not her only reason for taking this route. The approach to the farm from this direction was far more open – the road wider, and bordered by fields rather than the slightly oppressive avenue of trees, and as Maddie pulled into a passing place at the side of the road, her suspicions were confirmed. There was a perfect view of the farm from here. She got out of the car and gazed across the fields in front of her.

  She could see the thatched cottage clearly, its walls glowing golden in the afternoon sun, and behind, the full extent of the gardens, dotted with colour. At the rear sat the farmhouse, looking handsome with an air of comforting permanence about it. She stood for a few more minutes letting the spring sunshine warm her back before climbing back into her car and returning to Joy’s Acre.

  Even here, the slanting sun had turned the courtyard golden so that the mud looked slightly more appealing than it had the day before. There was no sign of the dogs, which meant that Seth was elsewhere too. She gave the chickens a wide berth and let herself into the house.

  Dumping her collection of carrier bags down onto the kitchen table, she suddenly remembered what one of them contained and she snatched it up again. It was bad luck to put new shoes on the table and she needed all the help she could get at the moment!

  The room looked as she had left it. It seemed an age since she had stood there this morning, raging at Seth’s non-appearance. She reminded herself that the day had turned into rather a good one after all, and she certainly didn’t need to go looking for reasons to tarnish her mood, so she nipped upstairs with her bags to get changed.

  When she had trie
d her new clothes on in the shop they had looked perfectly fine. Perhaps it was the lighting, or the fact that she was surrounded by mannequins and staff who were all dressed the same way, but back in the comfort of her own room her reflection told a different story. All she needed was a rosette and a horse to complete her ridiculous new countryside look.

  She took off the padded gilet and leather boots, but even her socks looked horrifyingly jolly. What on earth had possessed her? The jeans were reasonably okay, but the polo shirt with the giant emblem was stiff and the collar scratched her neck. She grimaced at her reflection, feeling about twenty years older than she was, and yanked the top back off again, throwing it onto the bed behind her. The trouble was, between these clothes and the ones she had brought with her, she really didn’t have a choice.

  She reached for the shirt she had been wearing earlier, still hung neatly on the back of a chair where she had left it, and shrugged it back on. This time, biting her teeth against the horror she was wreaking on the fine cotton, she rolled up the sleeves and tied the unbuttoned ends loosely at the bottom. As she pushed her feet back into the new boots she knew they would doubtless give her blisters, but they were better than the court shoes she had been wearing this morning. Pulling the legs of her jeans down over the top of the boots, she did her best to hide the vast expanse of pristine leather. With one last look in the mirror, she undid one more button on her shirt, took a deep breath and headed back down to the kitchen.

  Maddie had no idea what time the evening meal was eaten but she was determined that today would not turn out to be a repeat of the day before. If Seth had been out all day, then he would be starving. What better way to soften him up than by cooking him a hearty meal? Once she’d got him on side, then he’d be far more amenable to what she had to say. But what did men eat when they needed something substantial? She hadn’t a clue.

  Ten minutes later she had gathered an array of possible ingredients from the fridge and cupboards on the table. All she needed now was a recipe that included some of them and was easy enough for a novice like her to produce. Normally she would head straight to the internet for ideas, but that was off the cards here. She supposed she could root through the house for a cookbook, but as a visitor that seemed far too intimate an activity just now. She picked up a carrot and stared at it, waiting for inspiration to strike.