CHAPTER EIGHT – SYLVIE
“Are you going to the light switch on tonight?” Gramps asked, joining me in the living room.
“I was hoping to go. What time is it?” I replied, flipping through the tabs on my Internet browser until I found the one I was looking for.
“Seven-thirty.”
“I should be able to.” I turned my attention to the stack of papers on the sofa next to me, and my binder slipped off onto the floor, scattering paper everywhere. “Oh, balls!”
He frowned. “That’s an awfully inefficient way of working, Sylvie. Do you usually work like that at home?”
I sighed, putting my laptop on the coffee table. “No. I live with two other women about the same age as me, but I pay extra for the spare bedroom to be an office. I’m the only one who works from home, so they don’t mind.”
He grunted. “You can’t keep working here if you’re here for the next month. You’re making a mess of my living room.”
“Sorry, sorry.” I scooped up the papers that had scattered on the floor and filing them back in order. I put them in a clear plastic sleeve inside the binder to make sure they didn’t go everywhere again.
“Maybe we need to set you up somewhere. Should I clear the dining room table for you?”
I looked up at him. I had considered asking, but now it seemed wrong. “No, it’s fine, I can manage.”
“Birdie, this is your house. You should have a space to work while you’re here.”
“It’s not. It’s your house. I just… own it,” I said lamely.
Gramps laughed. “I understand, but there are still two empty bedrooms, a dining room, and a junk room. If we can’t find you a space to work safely in all of those…”
I smiled. “I just don’t want to mess up your house.”
He shook his head, but he was still laughing. “I’ll see what I can do. Consider it your Christmas present.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Anytime.” He grinned. “Your grandmother wants you to see the lights be switched on. Beatrix is the bloody mascot.”
“The pig is the mascot for the light switch-on?”
“Yep. She knitted her a new jumper and everything.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ. Isn’t that going a bit far?”
“Everything is a bit far as far as that pig is concerned. I had to share my cheese sandwich with it earlier.” He huffed, sitting down on the other end of the sofa. “I’m going to switch to ham. She won’t make me share that with the pig.”
I pressed my lips together to stifle a laugh. “Are you sure she’ll even allow pork in the house? I know she eats it, but I think she pretends she’s not eating it.”
“That’s why I need to get you an office. I’ll put a mini fridge in there for my bacon. I miss bacon.”
“Ah, I see. There’s the ulterior motive I was looking for.”
“We all have to work together here, you know.”
“That is how you got the outdoor lights up. Working together with Julian,” I pointed out. “From the safety of the ground.”
Gramps sniffed. “I’m too old for those ladders.”
I wasn’t going to disagree there. “What about the tree? I’m surprised Nana hasn’t had a fit about the baubles not being on yet.”
“I don’t see her getting them out of the attic,” he replied.
“They’re in the dining room,” I replied. “Julian got them out two days ago.”
Gramps grimaced. “I was hoping nobody would notice that.”
“I’ll do it tomorrow when she’s at lunch with Veronica and Audrey.” I rolled my eyes, then slid my gaze towards him. “If you make dinner.”
Gramps inclined his head in interest. “What do you want?”
“Your beef stew.”
“Are you buying the ingredients?”
“I’m decorating the tree for you,” I retorted. “You can buy them when you drop her off.”
He eyed the seven-foot-tall tree for a moment before turning back to me. “All right. Deal.”
I reached over and held out my hand, which he shook, and the deal was done. “I’m glad you don’t spit on your palm these days.”
“You should count yourself lucky spit was all you had to shake. Your cousin had a habit of shoving his hand down his pants before making a deal.”
I shuddered. “That’s why I never made a deal with Simon. I was smarter than that.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s why your sister didn’t invite him to the wedding.”
“I can’t lie and say I wasn’t happy when I didn’t see his name.”
“Your aunt was furious.”
“Aunt Shelly is always furious. You should have heard her on the phone when she received the invitation. When I stopped answering her calls, she emailed me no less than eight times demanding to know why my heathen of a sister was sullying the birthday of Christ with her impure wedding.”
Gramps stared at me for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “I knew I shouldn’t have let her go out with that bloke who thinks he’s a priest. He’s no priest. He’s just a nutjob.”
“Yeah. Someone should have Mum check the wedding gifts before Hazel gets at them. There’s probably a voucher for their so-called spiritual retreat to cleanse her and Julian of their sins,” I warned him. “Aunt Shelly made it very clear she wasn’t buying off the registry.”
“Now do you understand why I insisted you and your sister get this house? God knows what she’d have done with my money. She’d have set up a cult.”
“Gramps, you still have plenty of money. She’s going to get it anyway.”
He grinned. “That’s what she thinks.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not funding that ruddy pyramid scheme of a religion that charlatan is running, and that’s all you need to know about it.” He stood up with a little, “oof,” and headed in the direction of the dining room. “Right. I’ll get you those Christmas balls.”
I stared after him for a moment, then shook my head as I turned my attention back to my work.
The man was a mystery.
***
It was freezing.
It had snowed just enough this afternoon that the paths in the village square were no longer a grey slushy mush, but rather a grey slushy mush with a fresh inch or so of snow on top.
I wasn’t sure which was better—being able to see the slush and know where to step or being allowed to be wilfully ignorant of where the danger spots were.
From someone who had to walk on it, I wanted to know.
On the other hand, as someone who would also see other people walking on it, I kind of didn’t want to know.
I wasn’t so grown up that I couldn’t laugh at people falling over. Especially when those people were tourists.
I didn’t understand the appeal of driving into the middle of nowhere and getting lost on country lanes just to experience a bit of Christmas spirit. Castleton surely wasn’t the only village that had some Christmas vibes going on, but you wouldn’t believe that tonight.
I also didn’t know why they were switching on the lights on a Tuesday evening, but here we were.
On a Tuesday.
In the cold.
With three times the normal number of people here.
I was having the time of my life. Not.
Like I hadn’t had a long enough day already. Aside from having to spend an hour of my precious time with Thomas at the tree farm and having an afternoon of crises from my future brides—some real, some exaggerated, as brides tended to do—I was just really tired.
And the pig had pooped in my bed.
I was not happy about that.
I glanced around, thinking about what Gramps had told me earlier. Emily, the Duchess of Castleton, also known as Thomas’s mother, would be turning on the lights.
Hm.
Was she still the duchess? Or was it dowager duchess? If Thomas was single, did the dowager part matter?
I’d have to Google that when I got home.
Either way, I’d promised to meet Beth here and had resigned myself to seeing Thomas again. Beth had told me earlier that he’d gone into some weird protective role over her, and the idea of him overcompensating for being an obtuse twat was more than a little amusing to me.
I just hoped he’d let her breathe tonight.
I mean, I could smell the Belgian waffle stand from where I was standing, and I wanted to eat my weight in them without being judged.
Given that I’d make a snide comment to Thomas if he were to eat that many waffles, it was fair to assume he’d do the same to me.
I was just really tired of being cold.
“Oh, what if Beatrix is cold?” Nana asked, holding the tiny pig against her chest.
“She’s wearing a jumper,” Hazel said, eyeing the pig. “And antlers. Also, she’s a pig. She’s fine.”
“But she’s so tiny.”
“The pig is not cold!”
I couldn’t believe I was a part of this conversation.
I couldn’t believe this was actually a conversation that was happening anywhere between any adult humans.
Kids? Sure. Adults? No.
“A pig in a jumper! Look, Mumma!”
I turned at the little voice and saw Danny running towards us. Beth was hot on his heels, but it was Thomas who got there first and grabbed his hand.
“Danny, I told you not to run off. You’ll get lost,” he said, bending down.
Beth sighed, catching my gaze. “That’s the third time he’s said that.”
“Good to see he’s listening to him,” I replied, smiling at her.
“But there’s a pig. In a jumper,” Danny finished on a whisper.
Nana beamed at him. “This is Beatrix Trotter. Would you like to stroke her head?”
No.
On my way to Castleton, I had to have driven through a portal into an alternate universe, because this was insane.
Danny was completely enraptured by the pig, and I had a feeling Beth might have just gotten herself a new babysitter. The pig… And by extension, my grandmother.
Danny’s face lit up, and he reached forwards to smooth Beatrix’s head. The pig did a weird little oinking noise that I took to be a sound of happiness because, you know, she didn’t try to bite off any of Danny’s fingers.
It was fine.
All fine.
If you ignored the pig dressed in a hand-knitted festive jumper, of course.
Beth startled and reached into her coat pocket, pulling out her phone. “Ah, crap. Thomas, Zara’s calling. Can you watch Danny while I talk to her?”
“Of course,” he replied, smiling at her. “Do you want some waffles?”
“About ten thousand of them,” she said, swiping on her phone before she turned away and held it to her ear, covering her other one with her hand.