‘I can’t tell you how disappointed I am, Fiona,’ snapped Rose. Did Rose believe Kim’s story? Fiona felt her body shaking. What was Kim doing here and why weren’t Josh and Ru in the kitchen clearing up? Rose pointed at the bottle in Fiona’s hands. ‘Going somewhere with that, were you?’ she sneered.
Fiona held the bottle out towards Ru with a pleading look in her eyes. There was a stunned expression on Ru’s face, and limply, Fiona put the Krug on the table. If this wasn’t a gift from Ru, what was it doing in her coat pocket?
Rose snapped around to face the audience. ‘Please, leave us.’
Fiona’s heart started pounding. She took a deep breath. Just as the door closed, she saw Kim stroking Ru’s arm and gasped.
Ru’s eyes narrowed to slits, and she shut her own, listening to his spiteful words as he spoke, ‘How could you? That is pure evil.’
Feeling her insides shrivel, Fiona backed herself against the wall, clutching at the sides of her lavender coat for comfort. The door slammed shut and she gulped down her tears. An army of insects was crawling over her skin and she let out a soft sob; she wished Ru hadn’t witnessed her being accused of theft and that she hadn’t seen Kim comforting him. Was he congratulating himself on narrowly escaping marrying a thief?
When she opened her eyes, there was a grim expression on her boss’s face. ‘I’m going to give you a chance. Repay the money and I won’t report you.’
Fiona’s voice sounded whiny and desperate, ‘But I haven’t taken anything.’ She put her hands up as if surrendering, ‘I’ve no idea how the Champagne got in my pocket, I certainly didn’t put it there.’
‘I’ve made you my offer. Please leave that bottle where it is and go.’
Fiona’s cheeks burned. She wasn’t even being allowed to defend herself.
Someone had planted that wine, and everyone, including Ru, now thought she was guilty.
Twenty-six
Fiona slunk to the door, took a breath, wanting to turn and protest her innocence, but Rose’s sharp words had shattered her confidence irreparably, like a ship’s mast struck down in a powerful storm. She let herself out of the staffroom and crossed the silent reception area, thankful it was empty. Outside, an icy drizzle hit her cheeks. A thick layer of mist hung over the harbour. Fiona stood reeling from Rose’s accusation, her world spinning. Each wispy tendril of fog seemed to shroud her in uncertainty and despair. She drew her coat around her and plodded down the steps. The lights were on in the kitchen, a brightness that seemed both to ooze comfort and emphasize her loneliness. She imagined the rest of the team gathered around the serving counter, gossiping about what they’d just witnessed. Passing by the window, she heard laughter. That stung. It would be Fiona they were laughing at.
Dragging her way back up the hill, tonight the silence seemed eerie.And then she remembered where she was going tomorrow. She told herself to forget about the Smuggler’s Inn. She’d outgrown it.
Back at the cottage, she let herself in. There were no lights on, so she crept upstairs. Outside her aunt’s bedroom door, she raised a hand to knock, then stopped and lowered it again. Why burden Ivy? She would slip away in the morning and return as a qualified Master Sommelier. Fiona crept back downstairs and scrawled a note for her aunt, reminding her she was taking a fewdays off to sort her things out at the London flat.
Brushing her teeth, she refused to allow the evening’s events to dog her mind. She dodged her demons by conjuring up difficult flavours and challenging herself for pairing suggestions. It was good practice for the next few days: Szechuan duck with its bold chilli heat called for a Gewürztraminer – an aromatic wine whose floral sweetness and subtle spice notes created perfect harmony with the dish. Alternatively, a semi-sweet Riesling would work brilliantly, its natural acidity and delicate sweetness providing the ideal counterbalance to tame the fiery chilli while complementing the duck’s rich flavour.
She clambered into bed, switched off the light and snuggled down, adding a third possibility to her pairing list: a rosé Champagne, but that sent her mind sprinting back to the half bottle of Krug. Who’d put it there? It had to be Kim. She didn’t think Kim was the wine thief, but Fiona suspected her rival had set her up to convince Rose to fire her and clear the pitch for Kim to get together with Ruben. As if that was necessary after their row this morning! Ten minutes later, she sat up, turned on the light and picked up a wine book. If she couldn’t sleep, she should study.
When Fiona woke up, the night was deep and thick, the sort of rural darkness that seemed to erase everything, as if someone had stolen the moon and stars. She sat up. Something hard and uncomfortable jabbed her thigh. She felt around. It was her wine book. She chucked it onto the bedside table and crawled across the bedclothes on her knees to the window. A chill wind was seeping through, and she shivered as she peered outside, seeing nothing, her mind filling with the memory of the scene in the staffroom: Rose’s harsh accusation; Ru’s spiteful words.
The wind, just a whisper against the window, rose suddenly and carried with it an unexpected groan from the old wood of the house, a sound that seemed to come from the depths of theearth. An uneasy feeling crept over her, as though eyes were watching from the dense darkness beyond the window, eyes that accused her of theft. She flopped back onto the bed. She needed sleep.
Her fitness tracker flashed – six minutes past four. Fiona groaned, pulled the duvet up to her neck and tried to clear her mind. She flipped onto her side, then star fished onto her stomach, before trying her back once again, but her brain felt wired – it was like trying to nap in the middle of the day.
At 4.30 a.m. Fiona got up. A taxi would arrive within the hour.
It was still dark when the train left Barnstaple station for Exeter shortly before 6.30 a.m. Fiona switched off her phone, folded her coat inside out and rested it against the window, pulling one sleeve over her eyes to block out the stark train lights, then snuggled her cheek against the soft silky fabric lining. Soon, the gentle hum from the engine and the swaying of the carriage lulled her to sleep.
She woke an hour later as the train was pulling into Exeter, where she would catch a fast connection to London. She yawned, stretching her arms above her head. She felt refreshed. A flutter of nerves stirred in her stomach as she glanced out of the window, watching the outskirts of the city blur by. This was it – the trip she’d been preparing for. She checked her watch, mentally running through the route from the flat to the London club that was hosting the exam. Excitement and worry mingled, sharpening her focus. One step at a time. First task, catch that connecting train.
A faint scent of garlic hit Fiona the moment she stepped inside the flat. Their flat. The space she’d called home for two years. She picked up weeks of mail from the rug, then closed the door softly, as if worried Ru might hear. Even after months away, it seemed as if the air still remembered her. She could almost hearRu’s voice from the kitchen, calling her to taste some new recipe he was experimenting with.
But he was in Devon. Fiona let out a long, silent breath and moved towards the lounge, eyes searching. She half-expected her shoes, that ancient pair of trainers he always teased her about, to be gone. But there they were, under the side table. Her heart skidded.
In the sitting room she tossed the mail onto the coffee table then took her overnight bag into the bedroom. Her gaze subconsciously gravitated to the chest of drawers. Her eyes narrowed. There should have been a gap, where the perfume bottle she took to Devon usually sat. But there wasn’t. There was a full bottle in exactly the right spot, the faint, amber tinted liquid glinting against the glass like a drop of sunlight. She thought about the nearly empty one in Devon. Had Ru intended the perfume as a commiseration present to cheer her up after she failed her exam? If only he’d left it at the bottle of perfume and had never produced that beautiful engagement ring. That’s when everything had started to unravel. Before then, it might have been possible to talk through why he’d approached the investors behind her back – she now believed his actions were a well-intentioned but misguided attempt to protect her.
Fiona swallowed. Unable to resist she reached out, picking it up, turning it over in her hand. She could still picture him watching her in the mirror as she sprayed it behind her ears, a half-smile tugging at his lips, the way he would so often lean over and inhale the scent. But why had he removed it from the packaging? Why hadn’t he returned it and claimed a refund after she rejected his proposal?
And why were all her things still where she’d left them? She had expected everything to be gone, packed up into a box, waiting for her to collect. She thought he would have erased her presence. Her gaze flickered to her collection of wine booksstacked precisely on her bedside table. She thought of their nightly ritual of winding down after a hectic service by reading next to each other, her murmuring wine notes into the silence while he scribbled ideas for new recipes. She pressed a hand against her mouth, as though it might silence the ache rising in her throat.
In the kitchen, Ru’s presence seemed to hover like a ghost, filling the room with fragments of half-remembered laughter. She caught the faint, lingering smell of cinnamon and sighed. Randomly opening a cupboard, she saw spices neatly arranged, labelled in his precise handwriting. Her fingers hovered, hesitant, before moving on. She checked the freezer, discovering containers stacked meticulously, meals he’d prepped with care, all portioned for two. She pulled one out, noticing the date – a week before he’d shown up at the Smuggler’s Inn. Had he been so confident of changing her mind that he’d kept on cooking for her? Or was the second portion intended for some other lucky woman?
She closed the freezer door softly, almost apologetically. Hunger gnawed at her, but a stronger sensation rose – she felt as if she was trespassing on a sacred space. Fiona leaned against the counter, the smell of herbs and spices clinging to it, a reminder that this was Ru’s territory. Fiona didn’t belong here anymore and that feeling lodged in her throat, making her almost queasy. She’d go for a stroll in Holland Park, then return to study.
