The Cosy Teashop in the Castle: The bestselling feel-good rom com of the year. Caroline Roberts
have a mind of its own. There is the coal fire. I’ll get James to fetch you up some more coal and logs if you’d like.’
He must have spotted the blank look on her face. She hadn’t a clue how to keep a fire going, she was worried she might end up setting the room alight – they had an electric flame-effect affair in the lounge at home in Heaton, and toasty hot radiators throughout.
‘Actually, I’ll bring you down the electric heater from my office – that’ll take any chill off.’
‘Oh no, it’s fine. You might need it.’
‘It’s okay. I’m hardened to the cold by now. No, I’ll bring it across, honestly by the morning you’ll be glad of it.’
‘Okay, then, thank you.’
‘Well, we’ll have a proper meeting tomorrow, talk about the tearooms, any questions you might have, information you might need, all that kind of stuff. For now, I’ll let you settle in. Oh, and if you want to cook for yourself just go ahead and use the kitchen in the tearooms. And if you think of anything else, or you need anything, my rooms are on the floor above you, this wing. Just go one more flight up the staircase and knock on my door. It’s got a sign saying Keep Out on it.’
She laughed, ‘That sounds very welcoming!’
‘Oh yes,’ he grinned. (He had a lovely smile, which made his eyes sparkle, she mused.) ‘Well, that’s just for the tourist season, they tend to wander off the recommended route in the guide book and get everywhere, and think they can barge in wherever they like just because they’ve paid a fiver to get in! You might think about getting a sign for your door before the weekend, and don’t forget to keep it locked once we’re open. Other times it’s fine, you can trust the staff here with your life, they’re a great bunch, but the tourists …’ He shook his head, but was still smiling.
He seemed much more friendly now they were out of interview mode, Ellie noted. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ She smiled back.
He stood up, as though he were about to leave.
‘Oh, Joe, is there a TV point or anything?’
‘There is an aerial socket in the corner here.’ He pointed behind the small table, where Deana had left the kettle and cups. ‘Good luck with reception, though. It’s a bit hitty-missy.’
Sounds like the bloody radiators, she thought. ‘Okay, well, I’ll give it a go and see how I get on.’ What the hell would there be to do here of an evening if there was no telly? Well, at least she had her iPod and laptop. There was always iPlayer. And then another thought dawned on her, ‘Any wi-fi?’ Please, please.
‘Now, there you are in luck. But only because you’re in this wing, Lord Henry doesn’t have a computer his side of the castle, but I’m pretty sure the wi-fi router from my room will connect through down to here. Try it now and we’ll see.’
She took up her laptop case and started the computer up. As she tried to get into the internet there, to her delight, was the wi-fi symbol, and a message asking her for a password. Joe spotted it and then his cheeks seemed to colour. He said nothing for a second or two, just gave her a funny look.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘You need a password.’
‘Okay, and?’
He pulled a face, ‘Okay … it’s Batman.’
She stifled a giggle.
His brown eyes crinkled with an embarrassed smile. ‘Well, don’t you like Batman? Those films are great.’
In fact, she had liked the films, when she was about twelve. But she just hadn’t expected a superhero crush from him and not at thirty, or whatever age he was. But it made her smile widen, shifting her view of him from the nice, slightly scary and far-too-intelligent boss as per the interviews, to someone far more human. As she shrugged her shoulders with a grin, he ducked for the door. ‘Okay, well, I’ll fetch that heater for you.’
Later that evening, she lay in bed, with her zebra-print onesie on and thick socks. It was bloody freezing in that room – the radiators must go off at night. If she got out of bed, she could put on the electric heater that Joe had brought down for her. But she didn’t fancy getting out at all, the cold air would blast her the minute she lifted that duvet, so she just snuck further down under the quilt, listening to the lonely sound of an owl hooting. There had been a weird cry outside earlier, too, probably a fox or something. It was high-pitched like a baby’s wail. Ooh, she hoped the castle wasn’t haunted – don’t be daft, she chided herself, what a load of old nonsense. Get to sleep, Ells-bells. Jason’s nickname for her floated around in her head. You’ve got a big day ahead.
She lay there thinking, finding it hard to settle. It was nice that Joe had given up his heater for her. She liked him. He actually seemed quite down to earth and approachable, was probably very clever and had a nice smile. She remembered the Batman thing and grinned in the dark. As she thought of him, a warm glow flooded her. It surprised her. It was the first time she had felt that in an absolute age. Oh well, there’d be nothing in it, of course: a) there was no way she was going anywhere near men or relationships for the foreseeable future, and b) he was her landlord and they’d be working together – and getting involved in the workplace was never a good idea, a total no-no in her book. Gemma at work had done the boss thing at her previous workplace – big mistake – ended up having to give up her job in the end, all got far too messy. And the ‘man’ thing, well, she didn’t want to dwell on that. Onwards and upwards, or as bloody far away from all that relationship stuff as possible. Still, a little glow in Joe’s presence might be allowable. Just in terms of eye candy, that was all. But what she really had to concentrate on was getting the teashop venture up and running and making a success of it.
There was just so much to organise: clean the kitchen from top to bottom – main priority tomorrow – then meet up with Joe and go through everything. She’d need to order food in and ingredients, find the local suppliers, check if there was crockery and cutlery to use, buy those oil-cloths she fancied and find some posy vases and a florist to supply flowers, something cheap to cheer up the tearooms, bake like a mad thing, menus – bloody hell, yes, she’d need menus – she’d have to draft something on her laptop, meet the waitressing staff, the list droned on in her fractious mind. And she only had four days in which to do it! Tomorrow was Monday. They opened to the public on Friday at ten o’clock, Good Friday. It’d be Easter weekend and Go, Go, Go! Aaagh! Had she bitten off so much more than she could chew?
She finally got off to sleep in the early hours, to the sounds of the owl hooting away like her night watchman, rain tapping on the glass and the drumming of her heart.
Ellie
She was up a ladder, yellow rubber gloves on, washing down the tiled walls that were grimed with a layer of cooking grease. She’d found an old-fashioned portable radio that had been left on a shelf and had tuned in to Radio 1, and set herself up with a large bucket of steaming water and disinfectant, some all-purpose cloths, a mop, and currently Ellie Goulding as background music.
The check list of to dos was still running through her mind. She needed to plan her menu ASAP. She’d keep it simple for now – test the waters, see what sold, make homemade soups, jacket potatoes, paninis and sandwiches, a selection of her yummiest cakes, scones, yes, and maybe some cookies. Exactly when she was going to actually bake all these before Friday she wasn’t quite sure, but as her baking needed to be fresh she could envisage a very long day and night on Thursday.
She scrubbed away, humming, taking a scourer to the particularly gungey bits. Her mind was back on the food order. What quantities would she need? Bloody hell, she didn’t have a clue. Twenty jacket potatoes, thirty, fifty? Paninis – twelve, thirty-six, seventy-two? She may as well put the numbers in