The Runaway Bridesmaid (13 page)

Cherry Scones for Aching Bones

I hope you love this twist on the traditional English scone, Rosie. I’ve added cherries because I know how much you loved sitting under the cherry tree last year whilst we doodled on the sketch pads and put your heart back together again. Scones are a staple of afternoon teas across not only Devon but the rest of the country. They are best eaten fresh from the oven and slightly warm. Always serve with a fine blend of tea with milk, preferably from a teapot, in a bone china cup with saucer. Especially enjoyable after a day’s hard toil in the garden with lashings of fresh butter or clotted cream whilst you relax with your feet up to survey the results of your horticultural labour.

As a splat of raindrops toppled from the sky and splashed the bedroom window, Rosie dressed quickly. She donned her aunt’s trusty navy Barbour, green Hunter Wellington boots and an old straw gardening hat she’d found on a peg by the back door and set off to the village store to replenish the larder with the ingredients she had wasted the previous day.

‘My God, Rosie. You gave me such a fright. What with Bernice’s old straw hat and Barbour jacket!’ Susan clutched at her chest theatrically. ‘I’m pleased to see you’re joining in with the community spirit and taking part in the village fair. Bernice would have approved. So, scones, you say. Will you be using your aunt’s old family recipe?’

‘Yes, I think so.’ Would her
Bake Yourself Better
recipe be the same? She had no idea.

‘Bernice made the best Devonshire scones in the whole of North Devon. Fresh batch every day for the tearoom, she baked. Every summer from May until September when we closed up for winter. Regularly won best in show in the baking tent, did our Bernice. Why not carry on the Marshall tradition, Rosie? Enter yours?’

‘Good grief, no way, Susan! I’m just making a polite contribution.’ Rosie was amused to encounter the flash of horror Susan’s suggestion had engendered. After all, it was just a baking competition at a Devon county village fair. What was she worried about when she regularly swam with the sharks in corporate Manhattan’s choppy waters?

‘Here, dear. These are the ingredients you’ll need. Off you go. Make your aunt proud.’ And she waved Rosie out of the door, already greeting her next customer with a smile and an enquiry after her husband.

Once back at the cottage, Rosie scrutinised the recipe journal. ‘
Cherry Scones for Aching Bones’
– the perfect antidote to a day spent toiling in the garden. Around the recipe was the most beautiful sketch of the cherry tree in full bloom that presided over the bottom of the garden, each illustrated blossom a perfect depiction of the pale pink flowers that adorned the branches in spring. It was exquisite, a true work of art worthy of a gilt frame, and testament to her aunt’s skill as an artist.

She memorised the ingredients then emptied out the carrier bag to inspect what Susan had supplied. Everything was there. Enough for two batches, in fact. So that was what she would do. She just hoped she made a better job of them than the strawberry tarts fiasco. Clearly her heart wasn’t ready to mend just yet but she could certainly do with some relief to her aching bones!

The kitchen exuded a mouth-watering aroma once she had tamed the Aga into submission, but the resulting produce was more akin to cookies than scones; flat and wide. If only she could bottle the aroma, rather than display the source.

When Emily arrived she took one glimpse at the Wedgwood plate of offerings and burst into laughter. Ethan and Lorcan shot forward and, being connoisseurs of taste rather than fine cuisine, grabbed one each and crammed them into their drooling mouths.

‘Hi, Aunt Rosie, these cookies are yummy, thanks,’ and they shot off into the jungle of a garden, its chaos so enticing to young buccaneers in search of a horticultural adventure.

‘Nick’s had to go into the office today, so it’s just me, you and the boys. Ready to go? I’m loving the beat-up old Barbour jacket look – very countryside chic. But I’m not sure it works with those stilettos, Rosie. The fair is being held in a farmer’s field, for heaven’s sake, the one next to St Peter’s Parish Church! Five-inch heels and muddy meadows don’t mix, in my experience.’

‘Well, it’s either these or the matching old Hunter wellies that belonged to Bernice.’ Rosie screwed up her nose at the thought of appearing in public in the boots.

‘Better wear them, then. Chop, chop!’

Rosie leapt up into the passenger seat of Nick’s silver Range Rover for the short trip to the field that Billy Thompson, the local farmer, had lent to the village organising committee, which was situated on the other side of the elegant grounds of Brampton Manor Country Hotel and Spa. As they drove past the commanding wrought-iron entrance gates – sandwiched between pillars of sandstone, each crowned with a winged boar – they gazed up the ribbon of tarmac snaking its way between the gnarled oak trees edging its route. The slope of magnificent lawns swept down to a pristine croquet pitch abutting the road, bordered by a drystone wall which meandered all the way round to the back of Thornleigh Lodge’s garden. Peaceful and serene against its Turner-esque backdrop, Brampton Manor was the epitome of rural utopia.

‘Gorgeous, isn’t it?’

The mansion’s sandstone façade was flanked by two elegant wings presented in perfect symmetry. Steep stone steps fringed with balustrades led from the lawns up to the front terrace and to the towering oak front door. The Manor’s bay windows, with their ochre-varnished frames, hugged each side of the vast entrance like the bulging cheekbones of a charming debutante, creating a majestic outlook to the viewer.

‘It’s the only five-star hotel and spa in this part of Devon and, sadly, only accepts adult guests. I would love to take Ethan and Lorcan there to use the swimming pool and Jacuzzis. The Campbell-Wright family still live there, sixth generation now apparently, and the building dates back more than three hundred years.

‘They’ve been opening their home to guests for the last five years between May and September and that’s just enough to pay for the building’s upkeep. Must be astronomical to maintain and run such a large house. There are six gardeners employed full-time, so Ollie told Bernice. Nick and I dined there for our anniversary last summer and the food was heavenly.’

Grateful for the four-wheel drive capacity of the Range Rover, they drew into the designated parking area of the farmer’s field. Immediately, Rosie was grateful for Emily’s suggestion to grab the boots. When she saw the churning mud and straw, she realised her precious Louboutins would never have coped and the avoided damage sent shivers down her spine. Anyway, who would she know here to sneer at her lack of sartorial elegance in the footwear department?

Half a dozen huge white marquees crouched in an adjacent field, each bedecked with polka dot and gingham bunting dancing in the breeze, all six milling with local residents and curious tourists. Large hand-made signs swung from the entrance flaps of each tent – Refreshments; Flower Arrangements; Produce; Arts and Crafts; Beer, Wine and Champagne. The last and grandest was entitled ‘The Devonshire Baking Bazaar’ and was the venue attracting the most attention.

‘It’s the
Great British Bake Off
ripple effect,’ explained Emily, as she hooked her wicker basket crammed with baked goodies over her arm, grabbed a boy’s hand in each of hers and trudged across the muddy field making a beeline for the popular tent. ‘Come on, boys! We’ll just pop our offerings on the table and scarper. It’s the taking part that matters.’ Emily screwed up her nose in doubt.

As they drew nearer the tent it became apparent why so many visitors had chosen to dawdle there. The snaking coils of thick black cables were giveaway evidence of the presence of TV cameras.

‘What’s going on, Mrs Hartley? Why are the TV cameras here?’ Emily asked the vicar’s wife who was loitering nervously at the entrance flap.

‘Well, it’s that TV chef, isn’t it, Mrs Davenport? I forget his name now but he’s agreed to present the prize for “Best in Show” in the baking competition. A real coup, I’ve been assured, but you can’t move in there for young girls angling for a glimpse and an autograph. Do you know, Mrs Barton even had the cheek to elbow me out of the way for a place nearer the front?’

Emily, Ethan and Lorcan pushed forward to place their chocolate crispies offerings on the white linen-covered ‘Children’s Treats’ table, but Rosie grabbed the opportunity to lurch behind the marquee and ditch her bullet-like baking attempt to the hovering birds’ delight. Unfortunately, the guy ropes securing the marquee hampered her expedition and, in the unfamiliar boots, she tripped over headfirst, the scones shooting from the plate like Frisbees and scattering in the long grass.

Raising her gaze from the dispersed culinary failures, she encountered the chocolate brown eyes of a fellow escapee. She paused, her eyes sliding back to where the scones had landed and couldn’t suppress a giggle. The stranger smirked, too.

‘Lurking around the back of a tent like a naughty schoolgirl, eh?’

‘Getting rid of these – have you
seen
the competition? I’ve seen less zeal in a Wall Street trader desperate to make that month’s bonus! And they’ve even booked some TV personality to present the “Best in Show” prize!’

‘Mm, good decision. They do look more like rock cakes than scones,’ agreed the guy, his dimples deepening as his amusement increased.

‘In my defence, they were my first attempt
and
I had to master a ridiculous beast of an oven last seen on the Ark.’

‘Practice makes perfect.’

‘Anyway,’ Rosie narrowed her eyes as they met his mischievous glint, ‘why are
you
hovering behind the show tent? Ditching your own offerings, too?’

A muffled announcement sprung from inside the tent and she watched the stranger flick a glance to the back exit behind him, eager to make his escape. His riot of espresso curls skimmed his dark eyes and curled at the nape at his neck. With his Mediterranean olive skin, confidently-drawn brows and thick lashes the envy of any catwalk model, he looked like he could have danced the Flamenco without much persuasion. His eyes lingered on hers for a second longer than necessary, sending an unexpected frisson of interest through Rosie’s hitherto assumed-frozen veins. But it was his hands Rosie’s gaze dawdled upon – elegant, slender fingers and beautifully manicured nails – as he offered his palm to her.

‘I’m Charlie, by the way.’

‘Rosie Hamilton.’

It seemed an incongruous introduction, shaking the hand of a handsome stranger in the long grass behind a marquee in the middle of a muddy field, but as his fingers encircled her own, she experienced such a jolt of desire her knees threatened to give way.

He brushed away the spirals of hair from his eyes but they flopped back to their station, tickling the tips of those liquorice eyelashes, his jawline sporting a fashionable shadow. He was hunched into a scruffy Barbour jacket like her own – his olive green – and he looked a little crumpled around the edges. His ski-slope nose rendered him quirkily attractive, but he was the diametric opposite of Rosie’s ‘type’ – the sleek, clean-cut, fair-haired corporate image of Giles and Austin.

But as she drank in his sultry good looks and smouldering expression, she noticed the mischievous smirk playing around Charlie’s lips as he dropped his own eyes to take in her mud-splattered Hunter Wellingtons, her bushy golden tresses which she had decided against taming that morning – a French chignon for a rural village fair seemed to be taking things a little too far – and realised she must look like a bullion-haired Medusa on speed.

‘Well, I’d better get...’ He tipped his head towards the back entrance of the tent.

‘Oh, yes, me too.’

‘See you around, Rosie Hamilton. Do you live around here? Your accent is…?’

‘Oh, yes. I’m staying in Brampton for a couple of months. A sort of sabbatical from work.’

‘Great decision. Oh, how I’d love to take a sabbatical from the mania of everyday life!’ Charlie shot a rueful, almost nervous glance to the tent, as though in fear of a pursuer. ‘I usually work in the food trade in London but over the summer I help out in the kitchen up at the hotel.’ He flung his thumb towards the architectural splendour of Brampton Manor brooding in the distance. ‘Know it?’

Rosie nodded. ‘Beautiful building. I’d adore to stay there as a guest. It’s so elegant. I’d love to know the family’s history. Is it true that it is an adults-only hotel?’

‘Yes. Only the east wing of the Manor is used as a hotel, and then only for five months of the year. The family still live in the west wing but they are really hands-on with the running of the show. Had to diversify in these difficult economic times. The upkeep of the place would be prohibitive without the additional stream of income the hotel and conference business offers. We do the occasional wedding, too.’

‘Well, it sure is a handsome property.’ Rosie felt her face flood with warmth as Charlie’s eyes lingered on hers.

Charlie jumped as another muffled announcement emanated from within the confines of the marquee, breaking their connection. From the anxious look in Charlie’s eyes, it was obvious someone was waiting for him, Rosie thought. Girlfriend? Wife? Boss?

‘You’d better go, Charlie.’

‘Bye, Rosie. It was interesting to meet you.’

Charlie leaned forward, his lips level with hers, and for a split second she thought he was going to kiss her. But, as the lemony tang of his aftershave tickled her senses, she felt his thumb on her cheek as he brushed away a smudge of mud, his eyes filled with amusement as he wiped it away on his jacket. A surge of heat rushed up her neck and into her face at the intimacy of the moment. It was as though they were the only people in that field, lovers even, not two strangers meeting for the first time in the middle of a village fair.

As he strode towards the rear of the marquee, Rosie took full advantage of the opportunity to study his rear view, which didn’t disappoint, as a repeat ripple of desire flashed its fire around her body. She scolded herself at such blatant drooling. But a girl could window shop, couldn’t she?