Chapter 35
Jules woke to a feeling of elation, but it took a couple of seconds to remember the reason. And then, stretching sleepily,
she smiled.
The door swung open and in came dear Aunt Flo with a mug of tea. She sat on the side of the bed and slipped an arm around
Jules’s shoulders, pulling her in for a hug.
“How are you, my darling?” she asked, smiling.
“Ready to buy you a house,” Jules replied. “We get up, dressed and out the door, straight to the estate agent before she sells
Hollyhock Cottage to someone else.”
“How are we going to do that, exactly? We’ve not got the money yet.”
“Um, I think she’ll know you’re good for it,” said Jules with masterly understatement. Even if she hadn’t picked up on the
blanket media coverage—a story the whole country had taken to its heart—Jules, frustrated that they had arrived back in Portneath
too late to catch the estate agent in her office, had dashed off an email to her stating Flo’s intentions and offering the
full market price. With any luck, she would be reading it right now.
“And you’ve got your marvelous ball this evening,” Flo reminded her. “I can’t wait to see you in that dress of yours.”
Charlie came in to provide cover in the shop while Flo and Jules went to have an extremely satisfying conversation with the estate agent, who professed herself delighted to take the cottage off the market with immediate effect and phoned her client to tell them they had a cash buyer while Flo and Jules sat listening.
They got back to the shop to discover a small welcoming committee of locals who were flooding in to pass on their congratulations,
most of them buying a book or two while they were at it. The upper floor of the shop was largely stripped bare now, and even
the ground-floor stock was starting to look a little thin on the ground.
Obviously, the plan to close the shop still needed to go ahead. The grimoire sale was never going to raise enough to halt
that particular disaster, but Jules was newly sad—even on this exciting day—to be getting ever closer to closing the doors
of Capelthorne’s once and for all.
At Flo’s insistence, Jules gave herself plenty of time to get ready, having a heavenly long, hot bath with some of Flo’s precious
Aesop bath oil, which smelled amazing and left her skin as soft and silky as she had ever known it. She took extra care drying
her hair, having decided to leave it loose. She was pleased she had taken the time to get it trimmed and shaped the week before.
Sliding into the dress with a whisper of silk against silk, she stood back and judged the effect in the mirror. Her makeup
was simple: just mascara and a wing of black eyeliner, along with the scarlet lipstick she had worn that hen night when Freya
got drunk and Roman had to come to the rescue.
And now he was coming to take her to the ball.
A Montbeau escorting a Capelthorne. The two families uniting at last—and if that was a heavy weight of responsibility for her and Roman to carry, it didn’t feel like it.
Not anymore. Their union, their partner ship, felt like the most natural thing in the world.
It was exciting—scary even—but also deeply, deeply calm, like a boat coming into safe harbor after a tumultuous voyage.
Jules smiled at her reflection and then carefully wiped away a single, happy tear.
“The green silk dress!” Roman exclaimed when he came to collect her, looking impossibly handsome in his black dinner jacket.
“What?” Jules was incredulous. “Don’t tell me you remember...?” That sultry summer evening, all those years ago, with
Roman and his posh mates leaning against the wall, hands in pockets, laughing together and watching the girls parade by.
“You were the prettiest girl in the room,” Roman said. “How could I forget?”