Page 109 of Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
The girl in the bed with him attempts to cover her body as best she can. ‘I told you this wasn’t a good idea, Stu!’ she hisses. ‘You and your bloody dares.’
‘I think you’d both better get out of there and get dressed as quickly as you can,’ I tell them in the same stern voice. ‘I assume those are your clothes over there on the chair?’
Stu nods. ‘We’re really sorry,’ he says, trying to stand up, but he takes the blue eiderdown with him, and his girlfriend squeals.
‘Oh sorry, Jen.’ He drops the cover back over her, but then realises that he is now the naked one. He grabs a cushion to hide his modesty. ‘Will you tell the owner?’ he asks in a ‘please don’t’ sort of voice.
‘I am the owner,’ I tell him, trying now I’m over the initial shock to keep a straight face. ‘So I’ve already been told.’
‘It was just a dare,’ Stu pleads. ‘There’s a rumour that this bedroom is haunted, and my mate dared me I couldn’t do it in a haunted bed.’ He grimaces as he hears himself.
‘Please, miss,’ Jen says now. ‘If you’re the new owner I’ve heard really good things about you. How you’re turning this place around, modernising it and stuff, and how liked you are in the village. My mum is always talking about you and her job here.’ She slaps her hand over her mouth.
‘Your mother works here?’ I ask. ‘No,’ I shake my hand at her, ‘don’t tell me who she is; I don’t want to know or I won’t be able to look her in the face.’
‘Come on, miss, you must have been young once,’ Stu tries now. ‘I bet you got up to loads of stuff like this.’
I look at them both and realise how young they are. When had I got so old and sensible? It didn’t seem five minutes since I was young and carefree too.
‘I may well have got up to some things,’ I tell Stu, ‘but I can assure you I never did anything quite like this. Now, I’m going to go downstairs and make myself a cup of coffee. When I come back up here, you’d both better be gone, that bed had better be made up just like you found it, and this room had better be absolutely spotless, do you hear?’
Two heads nod hurriedly.
‘Right, you have five minutes max!’
I turn and leave them in their compromising positions, and then I wait until I’m a long way down the corridor and halfway down the stairs before I burst into uncontrollable laughter.
Oh to be young, carefree and . . . wait . . . am I already in love?
Forty-one
‘Tom, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble,’ I tell him as I enter the Great Hall, and see a long table that looks at first glance as if it’s been laid out for a magnificent banquet. Three silver candelabras have been set at intervals along the table, and in between those sit small flower posies made up of buds I recognise from the castle gardens. The table is covered in a long white cotton cloth, and there are various silver serving dishes and jugs distributed along it. But the reason I know the table isn’t expecting many guests to dine at it this evening is because at one end there are just two place settings. Matching white china plates sit next to each other, with sets of silver cutlery on either side of them, above those various sizes of glass wait hopefully for wine or even champagne to be poured into them.
All that’s missing are the two diners to fill the empty seats.
‘I wanted to make this special,’ Tom says, ‘even if it is secret. Besides, I did have a little bit of help from the others.’
‘Which others?’ I ask, as I wander along the side of the table, admiring the elegance and sophistication of it all.
‘To begin with, Joey and I had to get this huge table in here – which was no mean feat, I can tell you; it’s pretty heavy and incredibly awkward to get around corners. Joey also cut the flowers for me from the castle gardens, and Tiffany helped me to arrange them. Arthur then gave meverydetailed instructions on how to set the table correctly, Benji helped me do it, and of course Dorothy was pretty involved in the cooking. Although I did help with that, too.’
‘Wow, you have been busy.’ I look up from the table and smile shyly at him. ‘I’m touched, really I am.’
Tom hurries around to one side of the table and holds a chair out for me.
‘Madam?’ he says.
‘This is where the formalities stop,’ I say, waggling my finger at him. ‘No titles. You know how much I hate them.’
I sit down and Tom pulls out his own chair and sits down next to me. We’re not seated opposite each other, but instead we sit on two sides of the end of the table at right angles to each other. It’s much cosier, and I’m glad he’s set it like this.
‘So why do you hate titles so much?’ Tom asks after enquiring which wine I’d like. He begins to pour me a glass. ‘You look gorgeous, by the way; that dress really suits you.’
I’m wearing a beautiful, floaty, scarlet-red dress lent to me from the wardrobe of Tiffany. When she found out that Tom and I were going on our first official date, she insisted on dressing ‘Cinders for the ball’.
‘Thank you, it’s Tiffany’s. I didn’t really have anything glamorous enough – it’s been a long time since I had to dress up for anything. You look very smart too.’
‘Thanks – this is actually my own, though.’ Tom gestures to his smart trousers and white shirt. ‘Tiffany is one thing, but I wouldn’t want to have borrowed anything from Arthur!’
