Page 65 of A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews
She was already talking to their backs.
‘I’m calling Sebastian,’ Sam shouted as he disappeared through the anterooms back to the main room.
‘I’m calling my nanna!’ Sophie shouted as she headed towards the tearooms. ‘She’ll know what to do!’
The tearooms were in anuproar.With both Sophie and Mattie missing in action, Cuthbert had been left to manage on his own and when the displaced shop customers had arrived, he’d been forced to call Meena down from the upstairs kitchen to lend a hand.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Mattie kept gasping, as she darted between tables with orders and empty plates, or replenished the baked goods, or took people’s money.
It was a good forty minutes before Mattie was able to head back to the shop with a strong, sweet tea for Posy who was still prostrate on the sofa, while Sebastian, his face pinched with worry, stood over her.
‘Honestly, Morland, Itoldyou to stay at home today, preferably horizontal, but I let myself be bamboozled, browbeaten, blackmailed …’ Sebastian ran out of words beginning with ‘b’ to describe how Posy had run roughshod over his attempts to take care of her.
It was all very troubling but Mattie only had eyes for a tall woman in her late sixties, who was as elegant as her husband.
Normally, it would have been thrilling to finally meet Cynthia, Cuthbert’s ‘queen’, because he had very strict ideas about not mixing business with pleasure. She’d been an A&E nurse before she retired and she’d come ten minutes after Sophie had called her.
She was now examining Posy with thorough but gentle hands and ignoring the garbled explanations that were coming at her from all sides.
‘Your pulse is very fast and I’m not happy with your blood pressure either,’ she said mildly.
‘She cries,’ Sam told Cynthia, who was still casting an expert and rather worried eye over Posy. ‘And we know that she’s not meant to get stressed because she has high blood pressure, so we end up letting her do things that end up stressing her even more.’
‘I’m pregnant, not an invalid,’ Posy protested, struggling to swing her legs round and sit up.
Sebastian dropped to his knees, with no thought for his expensive suit or how tight his trousers were, so he could bodily prevent her from getting to her feet. ‘Morland, I know in the past that I’ve been guilty of doing what I think is best for both of us without discussing it with you first, and I’m genuinely sorry for that—’
‘Finally! An apology,’ Posy panted as she tried to manoeuvre past the immovable block of Sebastian Thorndyke in her way.
‘—but you are staying put on that sofa even if I have to tie you to it.’
Mattie exchanged a horrified look with Tom who was hovering by the door, occasionally making shooing motions at any would-be customers trying to get in. Nobody wanted to witness yet another blazing domestic from Posy and Sebastian or hear about what they might get up to in the privacy of their own home.
‘How about some more tea, Posy?’ Mattie offered. ‘Cynthia, tea? Nina, tea? Anyone, tea?’
‘It’s been an hour, should we move Posy upstairs so we can open the shop again?’ Tom asked. They all looked over to the door, where there was a small, shivering group of shoppers waiting for admittance.
‘Ugh! Stop talking about me like I’m not even here,’ Posy complained.
‘I’d love a cup of tea, milk, two sugars,’ Cynthia said, standing over Posy with a determined expression, which made Posy, who’d clearly been about to start protesting again, close her mouth with an audible snap.
Cynthia picked up Posy’s hand so she could place her fingers around her wrist while looking at her own watch to check Posy’s blood pressure again.
‘I really am fine,’ Posy insisted. ‘Look! We have customers! They need me!’
‘Hmmm mmmm.’ Cynthia didn’t seem convinced and placed her other hand on Posy’s shoulder to hold her in place. ‘The only thing that needs you, young lady, is your bed. How many weeks until your due date?’
‘I’m only eight months pregnant …!’
‘Three weeks,’ Sebastian said as Posy cast him a furious look. Mattie decided it was time that she got on with making more tea and checking Cuthbert and Sophie were all right.
She was pleased to see that the tearooms still had a respectable amount of customers and that a fresh batch of pig-in-blanket rolls were out of the oven and attractively displayed on a wooden board on the counter.
She gave Cuthbert and Sophie a quick update on Posy, who was ‘being quite difficult’.
‘Cynthia’s very good with difficult patients,’ Cuthbert said fondly, as he made his wife her tea – apparently only he knew exactly the precise colour she preferred it. ‘She’ll have Posy minding her p’s and q’s in no time.’
And when Mattie returned with tea and mince pies, Cynthia was in mid-lecture, with a visibly chastened Posy prostrate once more on the sofa.
