Chapter 20 #2
“She’s parking the car,” said Aiden, just as Jess walked in through the back door, her face lighting up when she saw Jules.
Jules muttered something idiotic at the sight of her, and her hand rose halfway to give a little wave, but Jess was having
none of those half-hearted greetings and came over to give Jules a tight hug.
Within a few minutes, Jules had to admit to herself again how easy and friendly it had become with this crowd, now that she
was there with Roman.
“Here,” said Jess, handing Jules a glass filled with ice, luminous red liquid, and a fat orange slice. “It’s one of Gabriel’s Negronis. Lethal, but just one will get you in the party mood.”
Jules wasn’t sure she wanted to be in the “party mood.”
Touchingly, Gabriel was clearly besotted with Imogen and the baby, dropping a kiss onto both of their heads as he passed another
two Negronis to his guests.
“That’s all of us here now,” remarked Imogen, swaying from side to side to lull Ruth, who was grizzling gently. “Freya couldn’t
spare the night off, and Finn’s got a bit of a cold, so he didn’t want to share his germs. To be honest, it looks like Ruth
has already got it. I’m more worried about her passing bugs to you lot than the other way around.”
“Bless her,” said Jules, smiling at the little creature. She wasn’t sure if she was really into babies, not having seen many
close up, but Ruth was majorly cute, with her pink cheeks and huge blue eyes, even if her tiny, snub nose was a bit crusty
and pink that evening. “She’s got your eyes,” Jules remarked, to make conversation.
Imogen laughed. “Gabriel always says that.”
Jules glanced at Gabriel, searching for her next snippet of small talk. His hair was dark too, but definitely wavy, and it
was a blessing the poor child didn’t inherit his glowering brow and dark eyes.
Imogen, instantly understanding, laughed again. “I know! She looks nothing like Gabe, but actually, that’s because she’s not
his.”
“Oh?” said Jules. Typical foot-in-mouth comment, clearly.
“I was married before, but sadly my husband died,” explained Imogen. “Gabriel very gallantly stepped up,” she went on. “He’s
a great dad.”
“Shall I take her up?” Gabriel asked Imogen, coming over to the little group and demonstrating the truth of Imogen’s last
statement. Ruth’s eyelids were heavy now, her eyes already glazing with sleepiness.
“Not sure,” said Imogen anxiously. “We’ve got the intercom down here, haven’t we?”
“On the dresser,” Gabriel confirmed. “And Simon’s checked her over. He says it’s just a little bug she’s picked up at nursery.
She’ll be fine.”
“We can give it a go,” said Imogen, handing Ruth over, heavy and limp, to Gabriel. “She’s been struggling to settle because
she’s so snotty, poor lamb,” she explained to Jules, gratefully taking the Negroni Simon passed her with a clink of ice cubes.
“It’s lucky we were planning to eat here tonight,” said Genny. “We would never have persuaded Imo to leave Ruth with a babysitter
when she’s under the weather.” She smiled understandingly at the other woman.
“What about you and Simon, do you have children?” Jules asked.
“We, um... no, but maybe one day. Hopefully,” Genny replied.
Jules caught the ineffably sad look in the woman’s eyes. Oh God, what had she said now? Even by her own standards this seemed
to be turning into a serial faux pas night.
Genny, banishing gloom, smiled brightly and added, “But we borrow Ruth quite a bit, don’t we, darling?” She waggled the little
girl’s hand as Gabriel went past.
Simon slipped his arm around Genny’s waist and gave her a squeeze. “We do,” he said, with a gentle, intimate smile, just for
his wife.
Ouch, thought Jules. Me and my big mouth. She looked around the room, wondering how else she could put her foot in it.
It was still a little alienating, seeing the bevy of men who had been so “other,” when she was a teenager, with their in-jokes, their boarding school veneer of easy confidence, their cool clothes and floppy hair, now all grown up.
It was Gabriel and Roman in particular, Jules remembered, who had been altogether more sophisticated than the average spotty Portneath youth.
She felt the two men had known about their superiority instinctively too, in that brutal, teenage, survival-of-the-fittest world.
And now, here they all were, settled down with their partners in this totally domestic setting—and it was interesting that
both Imogen and Jess were blow-ins, Jules noted. Perhaps only women from elsewhere were ever going to be good enough for these
men. Humble local girls need not apply. Girls like her. Of course she was bound to make a tit of herself tonight. That was
a given. Thankfully they were all sitting now, so the one thing she wouldn’t do again is nearly pass out.
Around the table, the crowd was now tucking into divine homemade pizza, with lashings of olives, red onion, and goat cheese.
There was sourdough garlic bread too, for anyone craving more carbohydrates, and a huge salad filled with marigolds, pea shoots,
and arugula from Imogen’s greenhouse. As they ate, the conversational ball bounced easily along. By unspoken consent, the
women ganged up on the men just a little. Imogen and Jess were quick to tease Roman, inviting Jules to join in, which she
absolutely did, making them laugh with stories of the combat between the two shops and, to her mind, the obvious superiority
of Capelthorne’s endeavors over anything that Portneath Books might attempt.
“May the best shop win,” declared Jess, raising her glass in a toast.
“Hear, hear,” said the rest of them as they raised their glasses in reply.
“Thank you,” jumped in Jules, shooting a cheeky look at Roman, but he avoided her gaze, and her heart skipped a beat at the
dead-eyed, utterly bleak expression on his face.
Clearly, the others had seen it too, and the conversation stuttered to a halt. Jules, dragging her eyes away from Roman’s
obvious utter despair, looked down into her glass, her heart pounding.
“Jules has got me doing an artist-in-residence stint in the shop later this year,” said Imogen, in an obvious attempt to fill the awkward silence.
“Fabulous,” said Aiden with entirely confected enthusiasm. “So, Roman, do you have an artist in residence by any chance?” he teased.
Roman started visibly at hearing his name, but it appeared to break the spell. “I don’t,” he replied in a fake jocular tone.
“You got me,” he told Jules, not quite meeting her eye. “That was a smooth move, I wish I’d thought of it.”
“Go Capelthorne’s!” cheered Genny, and then, to the obvious relief of all present, the conversation moved on to the difficulty
of obtaining good childcare—Imogen—and the impossibility of getting special needs funding from the local education authority—Jess.
“So, you don’t live in Middlemass Hall anymore?” Jules asked Gabriel. That was probably as tactless as asking Genny and Simon
about babies, she thought immediately after she had said it. “But Storybook Cottage is so beautiful,” she hurried on, before
he had a chance to answer. “I know where I’d prefer to live.”
“Yeah,” he said. “The Hall’s really not family friendly. We much prefer it here.”
“Such an unusual name,” Jules went on, “Storybook Cottage...?”
“That was me, actually,” Gabriel admitted. “My grandmother lived here when I was a child. I was living at the Hall, and this
was called the Dower House then, but I loved coming here to see her, and there would always be lots of brilliant bedtime stories,
so ‘Storybook Cottage’ was my name for the house. I was always asking to come here—and then the name kind of stuck.”
“That’s so sweet,” said Jules, utterly charmed. “I bet you were a lovely little boy.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” Gabriel answered, but his cheeks went a little pink.
“Guys, guys!” Jess announced, tapping her glass with her fork. “I have exciting news. Gabe and Imo are hosting a ball this autumn to raise funds for my literacy foundation.”
“Excellent! I love a ball,” Genny jumped in. “How about you, Jules, are black-tie dinners your thing?”
Jules tried to arrange her face into one of enthusiasm but then stopped. Who was she kidding? Posh dos in fancy clothes were
her personal worst nightmare. Her Room 101. She shook her head. “I’m all for literacy fundraising, but I honestly don’t know
why people have balls,” she admitted.
“Lots of us do, though,” deadpanned Roman, still looking bleak. “I’m rather attached to mine.”
“Har, har,” said Jess. “Well, I need everyone to come. With us lot, plus Finn and Freya, we’ve got our table of ten, then
there’s just fourteen further tables to sell at two thousand pounds each.”
“Yikes,” said Jules, but Jess was upbeat.
“I know, I know... it sounds like a lot,” she admitted, “but Gabe’s got lots of rich clients from his artisan blacksmith
business, and we reckon to persuade at least ten of the biggest local companies to commit to buying a table each. They get
to bring along their work contacts, clients—whoever they want to impress. We hope they’re going to use it as a corporate hospitality
event—there’s so much money in it, if you can tap into all that,” said Jess, her eyes shining with zeal.
“And there are sponsorship deals to sell too,” Gabriel went on. “We secure separate sponsors for all the elements of costs:
the champagne reception, the dinner—course by course if necessary. Everyone gets their logo and a write-up in the program.”
“Portneath Books will cover the wine for the reception,” piped up Roman, looking shrewd.
One hundred and fifty guests at half a bottle each? Jules, stifling a scoff, felt a tug of irritation. Or was it envy? There
was no way Capelthorne’s could match that.
“Including canapés?” asked Jess. “We were hoping we can get Freya’s team in to do those. She’s not cheap.”
“Go on, then,” said Roman. “The family has a trust for exactly this kind of thing.”
Of course it does, thought Jules, trying not to scowl.
“If we get all our overheads sponsored, then fundraising on the night is pure profit,” Jess went on.
“What kind of fundraising were you thinking about?” asked Genny.
“Oh, I don’t know... a raffle, an auction—we could do an auction of promises, maybe,” said Jess.
“What about a book raffle,” piped up Jules. Now this was something she could get behind. “So, you could charge maybe ten or
twenty pounds a go,” she explained, as Jess’s face lit up, “and we make it so every ticket is a winning ticket? Capelthorne’s
could definitely provide a hundred and fifty books.” Shrewdly, Jules was thinking of the dead stock they couldn’t return.
Waste not, want not. There were all the signed copies of Raymond Perry’s books for one thing. “How would that work for you?”
she asked Jess.
“One prize per guest? Brilliant,” said Jess. “With a guaranteed prize, we could definitely sting them for twenty-five pounds
a go, I reckon. That’s...” She stared at the light fixture above them while she calculated. “Well, that’s 3,750 pounds
worth of fundraising right there. And there’s basically no cost involved. Thank you, Jules!”
Jules nodded, chuffed that Capelthorne’s could be seen to make a contribution. Get that, she thought, shooting another look at Roman, who was more animated now. He met her eye steadily and gave her a little, reassuring
smile, but she wasn’t convinced. She knew him too well. There was something serious amiss.