‘Yes. I mean no. Nooo, it’s none of my business.’ The laughter I was fighting back burst out. ‘You are a bad influence on me. I need to keep it professional. It was a mistake going on that date with Stephen.’
‘Definitely. Because you—’ she pressed the tips of her thumbs and index fingers together in the shape of a heart ‘—Nick.’
‘No. Because they’re guests here. I’m not ready to date anyone. And they’ll be leaving soon.’
‘Okay, I hear you… Although, you do realise you moved from talking about why you shouldn’t have gone on a date withStephento why you shouldn’t dateeitherof them. My only question is, why shouldn’t you?’
‘I’m not sure if I can trust myself,’ I admitted. ‘My judgement was way off with my ex – right from the beginning. He was very charming and sexy, and I let myself be completely seduced.’
Noelle gave me a grim, understanding smile. ‘Been there. Still, there’s nothing wrong with having a bit of fun is there?’
‘Isn’t that how it always starts though? Right before all the lies.’ I brought my other elbow up to the table and hid behind both my hands briefly. It was warm and dark in there. I took a deep breath and when I dropped my hands and pushed back my shoulders, there was even more sympathy in her gaze.
‘Right. I’ll shut up about them now. But if you change your mind, I’ve got notes. So, how about those other guests?’
‘I can’t give you their names. Data protection et cetera.’
‘Oh. I guess I’ll just have to do some more spying.’ She shrugged, not particularly put out by the prospect.
‘Well, there’s the perfect opportunity tonight. We’re having a mince pie and mulled wine evening in the bar. With the weather like this, I expect it’ll be a full house.’
‘Oh fantastic.’ She flipped her notebook shut and hooked her pen into the cover. ‘That’s classic Agatha Christie territory. A house party. Everyone snowed in. I’ll have this blogger ferreted out by the end of tonight, I’ll bet.’
‘Thank you, Noelle. I do appreciate your help.’
‘No problem.’ She stood up and winked at me. ‘I’m going to find my cocktail dress and my Dictaphone.’
Chapter Eight
As soon as the last diner left, I finished collecting the dirty cutlery and plates and leftover platters, folded the tablecloths, took them to the laundry, collected fresh ones and reset the room for lunch. I could hear the guests in the lounge and the library, clumping about upstairs and going in and out from the gardens but not a single soul crossed my path and it was bliss. I’m not an unsociable creature generally but living in a hotel made me appreciate the moments of peace. I even left my phone in my pocket.
I could have answered the texts from Lisa once I had finished up and lingered for five minutes in the quiet, drinking leftover lukewarm coffee poured from Stephen’s half-full cafetière, but I was flummoxed as to how to answer her.
Who was I dancing with?
Nick is a guest; Nick is a gorgeous pilot; Nick is a grumpy man-child who struggles to be civil when he’s tired, eats kids cereal and looks like he shops for his clothes at a jumble sale; Nick is a man who seems to have no idea he is smoking hot and when he blushes I want to kiss the living daylights out of him.
I almost choked on my cold coffee at the thought and put down my cup.
No. It was bad enough that Noelle had realised I was crushing hard. I didn’t need Lisa texting me every couple of hours trying to convince me to ask him out.Lovely to see you happy again, Lisa had said. And I appreciated the sentiment. I had been happy. We had talked and laughed and danced but now we were back to staff and guest and that was how it needed to stay. Like Noelle said, he was a very likely candidate for the Hotel Hopper and free kisses under the mistletoe were not something my mum probably wanted her hotel to be renowned for. That was straying into Amsterdam territory again.
I left the dining room and went up to help Elise, the one cleaner who had thankfully made it in again. All the guest suites were large enough to provide – in addition to their beds and bathrooms – a small seating area with a television, tea- and coffee-making facilities and the larger ones also had a desk and bookcase too, so plenty of room for the guests to hang around when they couldn’t get out because of the weather. As a consequence, some of the rooms would have to be visited again once their occupants had buzzed off.
When I reached Julius Mundey’s room – identifiable by the neat row of moccasins and collection of allergy medication on the bathroom counter – I remembered him moaning about the lunch menu not being on the door to the dining room yesterday. I decided to give myself a break from the tedium of toilet brushes and go visit Henry in the kitchen to get the lunch selection typed up.
The normal heat of the kitchen was emptying out the back door and the sides were only half cleared after breakfast. Slacker. There were muffled voices from the side of the hotel, which made me assume Henry was dealing with a delivery, even though it usually came a lot earlier than that. It’d probably been delayed because of the snow.
I popped into the utility room to unload the linen from the washing machine and transfer it to the tumble dryer. So far so good. Despite the utter lack of staff, I was managing. Maybe I could just about hold things together until my mum made it back.
I’d made it up a couple of the stairs when the thud of Henry’s big boots in the kitchen carried out to me. I swiftly retraced my steps and just made it around the door into the kitchen to see him disappearing out of the back door again, with a massive shoulder of pork cradled in his arms.
Okay. Weird. I may not have been the smartest cookie in the packet, but I was pretty sure when food was delivered, it cameintothe kitchen, notoutof it. Unless he’d decided to build one of those trash-can bins to smoke a ham or whatever it was people did, I couldn’t really understand why he’d be taking it out there.
So, I followed him.
If I’d thought the kitchen was cold, it was nothing to stepping outside. The air was a flurry of flakes, making anything more than a couple of metres away a blur. Cursing, I wrapped my arms around my body and stepped down into the thick covering of snow hiding the concrete. My court shoes sank and my feet were instantly soaked but I ploughed after the smudge of Henry’s retreating figure.
At the corner of the building was a large estate car and I was only halfway there when I saw Henry dump the pork into its open boot and turn back towards me. The sight of me made him stop.
