‘Oh, nothing. Sorry.’ Tania threw him a distracted smile.
‘You OK?’ Rose said.
‘Where’s Gull?’ Madeleine said. Might as well cut to the chase, she thought. Plus, she was disappointed. Disappointed that he hadn’t come back into the lodge with Tania. Disappointed that, after everything, it looked as if her matchmaking had failed.
‘He had to go. His brother’s getting engaged. They’ve got some fancy dinner planned in Près du Ciel,’ Tania said. She glanced at the plate Tom slid in front of her, frowning at it. ‘I’m not really hungry,’ she said.
‘Try it,’ Clara said. ‘It’s delicious.’
After forking up a couple of mouthfuls, she set the plate aside. ‘It’s very good,’ she said. ‘Thanks, Tom. But I’m really not hungry.’
Tom cleared the plates without further comment and started to cook pancakes for pudding. Madeleine watched him with fascination as he ladled the mixture into a frying pan and swirled it around before he lobbed them into the air with a precision which saw them not only landing back into the frying pan, but with the cooked side up. Something Madeleine had tried, in the privacy of her kitchen, but never managed to achieve. Peeling pancake from the wall, the floor and once the light fitting, was more her style. As was levering burned mixture from the frying pan with the same ferocity that she’d needed to remove wallpaper when she redecorated her flat.
‘So, Gull’s busy tonight,’ she said to Tania. ‘What about tomorrow?’
Tania glanced around the table. ‘Do any of you mind if he skis with us tomorrow afternoon?’
‘Why would we mind?’ Madeleine said. Inside her head she gave herself a high-five, and did a couple of fist pumps for good measure. ‘That sounds fun. Although, thinking about it, you might have to count me out, if that’s OK? I thought I might take the bus to see what Près du Ciel has to offer. Kind of traditional for me to have a high-pressured Christmas Eve last-minute dash around the shops.’ She grinned. ‘Can’t help myself. I thought I might avoid it this year, but even in the mountains I’m woefully unprepared for the big day.’
Tania smiled and nodded, albeit in a rather distracted way. Her attention had wandered across to the picture window, even though all that was visible in the darkness were a few lights from the piste bashers, crawling up the highest slopes.
‘Has anyone checked the weather?’ Clara said. ‘That storm is supposed to be getting here soon, too. Isn’t that right, Tom?’
‘What’s that?’ he said, spinning the last pancake onto the stack and bringing them to the table.
‘The storm. It’ll be here soon, didn’t you say?’ Clara asked.
Tom collected a tray on which stood bowls of sugar, segmented lemon, and a glass pourer with maple syrup, putting that beside the pancakes. ‘I’m not totally sure when it’s due,’ he said. ‘It depends how quickly it tracks across the mountains.’ He turned away from the table.
‘Will you sit with us?’ Clara said, patting the back bar of the chair beside her. ‘You’ve done nothing but work since we arrived.’
Smiling broadly at Clara, he took a seat beside her. ‘Thank you. I’d love to.’
As Tom passed the plate of pancakes, he said, ‘I think you’ll be fine to ski tomorrow. But when it does arrive, we’ll be in for a rough couple of days.’
‘Ooh,’ Madeleine said, adding a layer of dramatic emphasis to her voice. ‘We might all get stuck here, cut off from the rest of civilisation with the storm raging outside. That’ll make it a Christmas to remember, won’t it?’
Tom nodded. ‘It’s forecast to be pretty ferocious. Looks like Christmas Day could be wild and woolly this year.’ He studied Tania for a moment and said, ‘Will I be cooking for one extra tomorrow evening?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tania said. ‘Let’s see how intense this storm turns out to be, shall we? And I’ll let you know.’
Chapter 22
Madeleine pulled the duvet up until it covered her shoulders and scrunched herself down into the pillows. She adjusted the waistband on her pyjamas. It was conceivable that they were tighter tonight than they had felt at the beginning of the week, although that hardly seemed possible, with all the exercise she’d taken. Or fair.
All that skiing must have negated at least some of the cake she’d eaten, surely? She crossed her arms under the covers. But then, the exercise had a bigger mountain to climb than cake, didn’t it? Three extremely square meals a day since she’d arrived in France. Alcohol. Hot chocolate on tap. The cake was nothing more than the foothills.
It would have been good to have been able to smile at the analogy. Instead, she sighed in annoyance, mixed with more than a little frustration. At herself, for being so weak-willed where food was concerned. At food itself, for being so appealing. At Tom, for being such a good cook. At the Cocoon, for making lunch so accessible. And yes, she might as well spread the blame as far as it would go, so she levelled some at the fresh mountain air, too. Guilty of making her feel so desperately hungry. All the time.
Tomorrow she wouldn’t have bacon for breakfast. Nor would she succumb to the delights of a freshly baked croissant. Or any of the baguette, which she enjoyed topping with that awesome yellow butter. She’d been right when she thought there would be cereals and muesli available, she just hadn’t appreciated that would be in addition to all the freshly prepared food. But tomorrow morning, she would have a small bowl of muesli. And nothing else.
With a promise made to herself, she felt a little better about the waistband situation. A little. It didn’t stop her mind from wandering, though, and she couldn’t stop herself teetering dangerously close to the edge of the pit of jealousy.
How was it that Rose, who also enjoyed a healthy appetite, had curves in all the right places, whereas her own curvy bits seemed determined to form in places that made her blocky, rather than bountiful? She couldn’t even claim to be Rubenesque, that would be far too lofty a reach. Whereas the memory of Rose, wearing that red costume in the hot tub, would be seared into her brain for the rest of her life.
And after seeing the micro-bikini Tania was able to get away with? No, not get away with, that was the wrong phrase. Tania didn’t ‘get away’ with anything. She wore that bikini as if it would owe her for the rest of its existence, just for having been allowed to grace the gentle curves of her milky skin. Madeleine would place money on Tania never having to worry about the tightness of her clothes. That woman was like a tall puff of fresh air. Mind you, to be fair, she hadn’t seen Tania indulging in any cake, or the stray pieces of baguette laced with the bright yellow mountain butter Madeleine had discovered she loved, so perhaps it wasn’t surprising.
‘Willpower,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Or rather, a lack of it in my case.’
