Page 18 of Christmas Is All Around
However: the Christmas party scene—culminating with the rival love interests having a fistfight in the snow outside the posh flat where the party took place—was iconic, and so here Charlotte was.
In a few minutes, they found themselves outside the building in question; it was around three, so it would be dark in less than an hour, and the windows glowed invitingly. She surveyed the scene before her and pulled out her phone, where she’d saved a screenshot from the scene in the movie. She, obviously, could probably have done all the sketches for this project based on screenshots, but there was something to be said for seeing a location in person—and, more important, there was something to be said for not spendingevery waking hour of the next month trapped in family Christmas hell. (This afternoon’s outing coincided with a day trip to a Christmas event at the LEGOLAND in Windsor that sounded a) like a completely wasted effort for ababyand b) objectively terrible.)
“You don’t want me to actually include the characters, right?” she asked Graham, glancing up from her phone to find him watching her with an inscrutable expression on his face.
“Right,” he confirmed, leaning back against the wrought-iron fence that encircled the garden behind them. “Eloise likes the idea of it just being the architecture—people who recognize it will know what it is, but it will just look like a nice painting of a historic property to anyone who doesn’t know.”
“Got it.” She glanced down at her phone screen again, clocking the angle of the shot in the movie, then slid it back into her pocket. She was wearing one of her favorite coats—green wool, with shiny brass buttons and a decorative bow at the neck—and had given her blonde bob a careful blowout. Where Ava swanned around in caftans with her hair in a messy bun, Charlotte wore lots of simple dresses in solid colors, her hair carefully styled. She sometimes felt like the artistic whimsy that gripped the rest of her family seemed to have run out of its supply by the time she was born. She pulled her sketchbook from her bag and, leaning against the fence next to Graham, began to sketch.
It was a rough sketch, just enough to get her initial impressions of the facade down; she’d refine it later, at home, based on photos she’d take before they left, but a photo couldn’t compare to in-person impressions, which was why she didn’t want to base her final piece on the photos alone. She was quiet as she worked, her eyes trained on the colorful Italianate terraced house before her, taking in the intricate corbels and overhanging eaves. It was a weekday, but not yet rush hour, so the streets around them were relatively quiet—or, rather, asquiet as streets in London could be—and she could hear the scrape of her pencil against paper.
When Charlotte had pulled out her sketchbook, Graham had pulled out his phone and proceeded to frown down at it, and she couldn’t help wondering what caused the frown that the contents of his phone seemed to often provoke. Perhaps he had an extremely demanding girlfriend who bombarded him with messages at all hours of the day.
Her next pencil stroke was particularly vicious.
“So you’re not working right now?” she asked, keeping her gaze firmly fixed on her work.
“Not at the moment,” he confirmed. “Lots to do at the house, so I decided to focus on that full-time for a year.”
There was a barely concealed note of strain underlying the words, and Charlotte frowned down at her sketch. Given what he’d said about the expenses of maintaining Eden Priory, she wondered how bad things were, if he’d felt the need to take a break from work to focus on this. She got the impression that this was a man who would go to great lengths to convince everyone around him that there was nothing wrong, which was why she was not expecting much in the way of a candid answer when she asked, “What happened with your roof?”
There was a pause, and she glanced up in time to see him lock his phone screen and slide the phone back in his pocket in a smooth motion that didn’t distract her from the slight tightening of his mouth. “The house needs a new roof, because of course it does.” There was barely leashed frustration in his voice.
“And I’m guessing that’s expensive?”
He snorted. “Think how much a normal roof costs to replace, then triple the size of the roof, and add in the fact that the house is listed, so there are all sorts of historical requirements for any repairs we do—it’s a goddamn mess.”
“Have you considered making a pinup calendar of you dressed as various reindeer?” she asked, still sketching busily. “You can sell copies as a fundraiser.”
“If I’d known my stripping out of that reindeer suit would have this effect on you, I’d have been more careful not to inflame your lust.”
This time, it was Charlotte’s turn to suppress a smile. And then, belatedly, something occurred to her—something that she might have realized earlier, if she’d thought about it for half a second, or done a bit more research. “This house isn’t open to the public.” She nodded at the building she was drawing.
“No,” Graham agreed, sounding slightly startled.
“It’s just a private home,” she clarified. “No tours—so they’re not doing anything to capitalize on their connection toNinety Days of Bessie Black.”
“Right,” he agreed, more slowly this time, clearly beginning to understand her meaning.
“And,” Charlotte persisted, “I didn’t need a ride to get here.”
There was a slight pause. “No,” he said.
“Meaning,” she finished, “that you don’t need to be here with me at all.” She kept her eyes on her work as she spoke; she didn’t know what, precisely, she was afraid that she would—or wouldn’t—see on his face, if she looked at him, but it felt safer, somehow, to look at the page before her instead.
“No,” he said, after another, longer pause. “I guess I didn’t.” There was nothing sheepish or embarrassed in his tone; it was clear to her that she was not pointing out anything that he didn’t already know. She did glance up now, unable to resist, and found him looking at her, that arrogant eyebrow slightly raised. “Shall I leave you to it, then?”
She felt suddenly off-balance, like this was some sort of test—like her answer would reveal more than she wanted it to.
“You’re already here,” she said, as lightly as possible. “You may as well stay, I suppose.”
“I suppose,” he echoed, and she saw the hint of a dimple again, and returned her attention to her sketchbook.
Silence fell once more as she continued to work, finishing a series of thumbnails, then a couple of full-page rough sketches, before flipping to a fresh page to draw some of the architectural features in greater detail. After a while, she sensed that his eyes were on her.
“This isn’t a spectator sport, you know,” she murmured, not removing her eyes from her sketchpad as she shaded a bit of the lamp blazing next to the door.
“I promise you don’t want my assistance,” came his reply. “I’m rubbish at art.”
