Page 3 of The Battle of the Bookshops
“Now who’s the drama queen?” muttered Jules, and then, louder: “I wouldn’t worry, I paid my share. And anyhow, he clearly didn’t have a clue who I was.”
Well, well, well,thought Roman.Of all the railway stations in all the world...
He smiled at the memory of her, as he slipped past the grand facade of the main family house, which rose up, full of elegant Georgian consequence, at the head of the circular gravel drive. His destination was not the heavy oak door between the pillars of the colonnaded porch, but a small, freestanding stone building just a few yards farther on. Once the family’s private chapel but now long deconsecrated, he was grateful to have returned from the frenetic pace of New York City to the serenity of his own space.Also, he found it easier to love his family when he saw less of them. He had not wanted to come home. It was not his father’s demands but his mother’s tears that had persuaded him. He could withstand anything but that. Anyhow, he reminded himself, his father had been right, much as it pained him to admit it. His mother and his loyal friendsweremissing him, and he them, if he was honest. Plus, it was time to accept the responsibility of taking up the business reins and preparing to become head of the family one day. Not just “the family” but the Montbeaus. The name behind generations of power and influence in this little corner of Devon. So... no pressure.
The layout of the chapel was simple: a large, vaulted flagstone space downstairs, with the kitchen up two steps at one end and a long wooden dining table hammered together from scaffolding planks across the middle of the room. There was a seating area at the far end, with a thick Persian rug, glowing lamps, and fat feather cushions on a matching pair of sofas placed on either side of a woodburning stove. This part of the space was made more intimate by its low timber ceiling, created by the sleeping platform above. Reached by a cast-iron spiral staircase, this space—once the organ loft—was now furnished with little other than a vast bed up on a dais and overlooked the living room below. A walk-in wardrobe and a spacious shower room tucked away behind a false wall completed the accommodation—perfect for one person, or perhaps even a love nest for two.
Roman had supervised the last details of the refurbishment himself, and now his sole focus was using business skills, honed in the States, to turn around his family’s diminishing fortunes. And work was a welcome distraction too. It helped him forget just how much he had left behind in New York, just how much freedom he had lost by being compelled to return.
But business was the last thing on his mind this evening as he lounged in front of the wood burner, eyes gazing through and beyond the flames. Nursing half an inch of smoky scotch whisky in his hand, he let his mind wander, and it knew exactly where it wanted to go... to that evening—what?—twelve years ago? More? There he was, messing around with his mates, taking the mickey out of the provincial dance in the village hall, drinking beer, watching the girls parading by, eager for his attention... And then he had seen her, walking past, aloof and angelic—ignoring him and his idiot friends—with her fox-red hair piled high and creamy-white shoulders spilling out of that shiny green dress with its tight bodice and its full, swirly skirt. She had looked at odds with the rest of the girls in their figure-hugging jeans and false eyelashes—andsomuch more beautiful, even with that toilet roll trailing from her foot. No, she had been different. And he had been enthralled.
Of course, she was a Capelthorne, so it was a hard no. Obviously.
Strange how memories of that night were still so vivid, though. He had had wild thoughts, then, about going over to her, striking up a conversation, and he had wondered over the years what might have happened if he had. But, by the time he had mustered the resolve, she had disappeared. He left for university in the States the following week, and now, all these years later, he was back, and so, it seemed, was she.
What were the chances?
But then he sighed. It might seem to an outsider—to a sappy romantic—that their stars were aligned... but he knew better. No, the sight of her again this evening may have been beguiling, may even have seemed like fate, but business was his priority now. Business—and family—came first. Liaisons with members of the Capelthorne family, however tempting, were contrary to his objectives.
He drank deep, the peaty spirit warming him.
And, in any case, when she realized what he had done, when he revealed his latest project, the enmity would intensify beyond anything yet seen in the history of the two sparring families over the last two hundred years...
It would be war.
Chapter 2
“I’ve called us a taxi. It’s coming in an hour,” announced Flo as Jules shuffled into the kitchen for breakfast, rubbing her eyes sleepily. She had slept badly and, without supper the night before, was in the market for several rounds of toast and marmalade and a pot of strong tea before being forced to make anything approaching a sensible plan for the day.
“You eat like a little old lady,” Flo went on, watching Jules assemble her breakfast.
Jules shot her a look. “You’d know,” she observed mildly.
Despite the trickiness of the situation and the fatigue from the journey, she found being back in her beloved Middlemass calming, as if, after just a few hours back at home, she was slightly less tightly wound. Her London life was so frenetic and stressful, even her mother and her great-aunt in a state of chaos was relaxing by comparison. Having a good couple of hundred miles between herself and her tyrant boss was relaxing too, even if the Monday morning make-or-break deadline was already inducing low-level panic. She literally had a weekend to resolve this almighty muddle, she thought, sighing as she poured another cup from the familiar brown stoneware teapot.
“I’m so sorry, darling,” said Flo softly, reading Jules’s thoughts. “I’ve got myself into quite a pickle, haven’t I?”
Jules mustered an upside-down smile. “We’ll sort it,” she said firmly, although she was struggling to convinceherself, never mind anyone else.
Flo and Maggie together were a disaster—that was obvious—which was funny when you think of it. Her mother had so much to be grateful to Aunt Flo for. It wasn’t as if she were even Jules’s proper grandmother. There was no obligation on her to have stepped into the parental role when Jules’s real grandmother had died, leaving her mother, Maggie—just a child at that point—without either of her parents. In truth, Flo, having raised Maggie as her own, then took up the role of stand-in grandmother for Jules when Maggie got pregnant in her late teens. Nobody had thought twice about it or wondered whether Flo, perennially single, had minded being lumbered with a child to raise. By the time it became clear that Maggie was too selfish, immature, and petulant to raise her own child as a single mother, it had seemed natural that Flo would be there for little Jules too.
Yes, Flo was the lynchpin of the little family. They were a trio of strong, opinionated women, the standard-bearers for three generations of Capelthornes. And they were the last of the family too, excluding a couple of distant cousins—the remaining upholders of the family feud between themselves and the Montbeaus for reasons that Jules could barely remember and perhaps never really knew. But that was a side issue now, Jules told herself, swallowing a last mouthful of toast and bracing herself to get up and clear the table. The priority was sorting out Aunt Flo. This time the older woman neededher, and it was about time the tables were turned.
“Let me go and see what I can do at the shop,” Jules said. “I don’t think there’s much point in you coming as well...”
“I’m coming,” said Flo firmly.
And that was that.
Feeling more cheerful after her substantial breakfast, Jules manhandled Flo into the car, with Terry’s help. He seemed remarkably chipper for a man who had been driving drunk people around until the early hours of the morning.
They bowled along toward Portneath, with the watery late winter sunshine making the daffodils in the hedgerow glow golden, the sea a thin ribbon of aquamarine sparkling in the distance.
“That Roman’s quite a catch, isn’t he?” Terry remarked over his shoulder to the two women in the back.
“Can’t see it myself,” said Jules repressively, but Terry was not easily daunted.
“What a family the Montbeaus are, though, eh?” he continued. “Real gentry... You can always tell good breeding, can’t you?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “The house in Middlemass is grand enough in itself, but they own half of Portneath going back hundreds of years too, I’ve been told.”
