Amber. I quite fancied being a writer of historical fiction. After all, it didn’t need specialist equipment, formal training, or a particular level of physical fitness; the only thing it did require was aptitude.
Unfortunately, I was rubbish at it but for some reason I just couldn’t give up. I’ve been trying for eleven years. An eleven-year apprenticeship for God’s sake! I could have got a PhD. I could have learned how to rewire a house or renovate a canal boat in the same amount of time. Or at least had something to show for it other than a dead laptop and an unhealthy interest in stationery shops. I was always looking for that magic notebook that would make all the difference.
So, there I was at twenty-nine, living in the front bit of Windrush Cottage, Lower Bidford, while I waited for a miracle that would allow me to afford the renovations of the back part. The only increase in my net wealth was locked up in the value of the cottage. I still hadn’t got a proper career path mapped out. I was working part time in my uncle’s bookshop, and doing some occasional catering and cake decorating.
I suppose I still assumed I would one day magically produce a saleable book to make my fortune. Meanwhile, I had joined forces with my genuinely talented best friend Helena to run occasional writing retreats. And that’s what I was trying to do when Oliver Forest turned up at the last minute with his seafood allergy, his aversion to perfectly good chocolates, and his dark blue eyes, hell-bent on wrecking everything.
OK, the dark blue eyes bit shouldn’t matter; I don’t know why I mentioned them.
*
After he had rudely slammed the door in my face, Oliver Forest and Pippa stayed closeted in his bedroom for the next half-hour.
‘Perhaps they’re having sex?’ Helena whispered at one point, when it had all gone a bit quiet and we couldn’t hear him barking out instructions to the poor woman.
She edged closer to his door, crouched down, and angled her ear towards the keyhole. ‘Perhaps they’re doing it really quietly.’
‘I doubt it!’ I said. ‘I don’t think people like him do anything quietly.’
At that moment Pippa opened the door and stuck her head out. She looked down at Helena and seemed rather startled for a moment.
‘Could we have coffee?’ she said. ‘And I’d love one of those cookies.’
‘Of course,’ Helena said sweetly, pretending she had been about to re-tie her shoelaces, which was the wrong thing to do as she had slippers on. She recovered quickly by picking up a bit of fluff on the floor. I saw her checking to see if Pippa was in any way dishevelled. ‘Just come out when you’re ready.’
‘We’ll have it in here,’ Oliver said loudly.
Pippa gave a weak smile. ‘I’ll pop out in a minute for a tray shall I?’
‘Yes, yes of course,’ Helena said.
The door closed and we exchanged a look.
‘This is going to be a very long week,’ I said.
Helena, as is her way, tried to make the best of the situation. ‘Well let’s try and make sure he has nothing to complain about.’
She went and found a tray and wiped it over before she put out two matching mugs, a sugar bowl, a milk jug, and two polished teaspoons. Then we scrabbled around looking for the cafetière and some real coffee. I selected a pretty plate and put out some cookies before Helena found a nice little wicker basket and tipped them into that instead. Then, we took them all out again and this time lined the basket with a paper napkin. At last, after a bit of artful arranging – because there is only so much one can do with six choc-chip cookies – we took the tray up to the closed door and I knocked.
Pippa came to open it and took the tray from Helena. We both peered round her, trying to see what was going on.
‘Everything OK?’ I said cheerily, craning a little.
I could see Oliver Forest sitting in the armchair next to the window with a large notebook on his knee. He was writing, his dark hair tousled as he ran one hand through it. Almost as though he could feel my gaze on him, he looked up. His eyes really were beautiful, and he stared at me for a moment in that funny way writers do when they are deep in a plot and they aren’t actually seeing you.
Bloody hell.
#Rathergorgeous.
He was beyond handsome. How had I not noticed this before? He could have been a prototype for any dark and brooding hero. His long legs, one of them in the plastic boot, were stretched out on a footstool. He looked to be in his late thirties, had a clean jawline, strong straight nose, and rather kissable mouth.
He blinked a couple of times and came back into the real world with the rest of us. ‘What now for heaven’s sake? Is there a problem?’
‘No, no, no, absolutely not,’ I said, covered in confusion.
I backed away and trod on Helena’s foot, making her yelp. She started hopping around – her knee held very high – and I hopped after her, apologizing. We must have looked a right pair of clowns.
Luckily there was a knock on the back door and we scurried off to welcome the first of our other guests.
Happily it was a couple of old friends from our first retreat: Nancy and Vivienne, both retired teachers who had travelled down together from Shropshire.
‘Well the roads were really clear,’ Vivienne said, shedding her soft silk scarf and folding it neatly into her coat pocket. ‘We made excellent time. Have we missed anything?’
‘No, you’re the first to arrive. Apart from our unexpected extra,’ Helena said. She lowered her voice to a theatrical whisper. ‘He’s in his room. His name’s Oliver Forest.’
Nancy frowned. ‘Oliver Forest – that name’s familiar. Has he been before?’
‘No, believe me you would remember him,’ I said with feeling.
‘Did we ever teach a boy called Oliver Forest?’ Vivienne asked Nancy who had spotted the coffee and was already halfway through a cookie.
‘Maybe,’ she said through a mouthful of crumbs. ‘Short boy? Ginger?’
‘No, he’s dark-haired and’– ridiculously good-looking – ‘quite tall,’ I said.
‘Nope, doesn’t ring a bell. Come on, Nancy, let’s go and get settled in. It’s always the exciting bit, finding out what our rooms are like. Are we next door to each other again?’
We took them upstairs and along the corridor that divided the house in half. The floorboards – centuries old and polished by time to a wonderful patina – were warped and uneven. The house was scented with wax polish and wood smoke and bowls of potpourri in odd little nooks. I began to calm down again. Oliver Forest was only one person. There was no reason why he should monopolize the week. It would be OK.
I trundled Vivienne’s suitcase into the front bedroom where a high four-poster bed was waiting, piled high with snowy bed linen and pillows. There was a built-in wardrobe whose doors lurched unevenly to one side, wedged shut with a scrap of cardboard, a huge
