Page 119 of One More Christmas at the Castle
‘Little stinker,’ he said amiably, heading for the downstairs cloakroom with his bundle of bay.
Something I’d overheard Mrs Powys say to Nancy at breakfast had made me decide to change tomorrow’s dinner menu to steak and kidney pie. She’d recalled her old cook making it and now she was missing it.
Fortunately, I had steak and kidney in the freezer and thought I’d make the pies with puff pastry, rather than the heavier, if more traditional, suet.
I was still contemplating my menu planner when Xan came in with Plum and insisted I go out for a walk with them.
‘Come on, we both need some air and exercise, and I know you well enough now to realize that you can whip up a sumptuous afternoon tea in ten minutes!’
‘Henry often does most of that, though. But it’ll be easy today – more smoked salmon sandwiches, for a start,’ I agreed, ‘thanks to Nigel. OK, you’re right, I do need a bit of air.’
Outside, the snow seemed to have receded from the middle of the paths, but now the temperature was dropping again and the slightly melted edges refreezing.
‘The last guests should get here all right tomorrow, because there’s no more snow forecast,’ Xan said.
‘This lot wasn’t forecast in the first place,’ I pointed out. ‘But I hope the roads stay clear tomorrow, because Lucy’s so looking forward to the Christmas fair in the village hall, and Nigel would probably be gutted if he’d brought his Santa suit for nothing.’
‘I expect it’ll be OK, Dido. And if this covering stays, we’ll have a white Christmas.’
‘There are still three more days to go, though, so it might all have thawed. But I don’t really care even if we get snowed in, once all the guests are safely here, because I’ve got enough food for a month.’
‘But it would matter to Sabine, because she’s counting oneveryone leaving on the day after Boxing Day.’ He grinned, and added, ‘She said that visitors were like fish, and stank after three days.’
‘She said that to me, too. They’d be pretty ripe by next Friday, then!’
‘And probably ripe to murder each other – or Sabine,’ he said. ‘All these mysterious hints about gathering the last of her family together, and inheritance, are bound to wind them all up, especially since she’s invited her solicitor to stay, too! It’s getting more like the start of a vintage country house murder mystery every minute.’
‘Well, we do have our own little Professor Plum here. He doesn’t look very murderous, though.’
Plum, who was trotting just ahead, turned and looked back at the sound of his name.
‘I suspect Nigel will try and be the life and soul of the party, in which case we’ll probably all join together in strangling him with a length of tinsel,’ Xan said darkly.
I slid on a patch of icy path and he grabbed me just in time and held me upright. My feet seemed to want to go in opposite directions, like when I tried ice skating.
‘Dido,’ he said, in such a changed voice that I looked up at him, startled to find him looking very seriously at me. ‘There’s so much I want to say to you, but whenever I think the moment’s right, we get interrupted. But I’ve fallen in love with you and I think you feel the same way about me.’ Then he looked at me uncertainly and added, ‘At least, Ihopeyou do!’
‘Of course I do!’ I said unguardedly, then held him off as his arms tightened around me.
‘But we mustn’t, Xan! It would make everything too complicated, now I know why Mrs Powys dislikes me so much.’
‘She won’t dislike you when she really knows you,’ he said, which I thought was optimistic.
‘Well, right now, I’m certain she’d hate it if she thought there was anything between us, and it would spoil her Christmas!’
‘What about spoiling mine?’ he demanded.
‘But we could just stay as friends till after everyone’s gone,’ I said persuasively. ‘We can get to know each other better, without rushing into things and see where it takes us.’
‘I know where I’dlikeit to take us,’ he muttered and then kissed me … and despite everything I’d said, I couldn’t help responding.
We lost track of time and it was Plum who eventually brought us back down to earth.
He seemed to think Xan was attacking me and pranced around us, barking, till we drew apart.
‘Oh, Mr Darcy, this is so sudden!’ I said shakily.
‘Look on that as something to be going on with,’ said Xan.
