The Chocolate Collection. Trisha Ashley

       Chapter Thirteen: Ashes of Roses

      Jake and I had dinner with Grumps and Zillah and she came right out and told them I was going to see David again!

      Grumps looked up from his plate of seafood risotto (Zillah likes to try out new recipes from magazines, though she spices them up with peculiar little additions of her own), and said that if my former fiancé crossed the Old Smithy threshold he would ill-wish him, and that went for any of the other men who had let me down in the past.

      Then Jake said, ‘Good idea, Grumps – I’ll help!’ so clearly that news didn’t go down too well.

      ‘What does Felix think?’ Jake added, removing a clove from between his teeth and laying it on the side of his plate beside two more. I’d wondered what the hard black bits were until I’d tried to bite into one – but then, I think cloves are good for the teeth, aren’t they?

      ‘Why should it matter what Felix thinks? And anyway, David won’t be trying to cross your threshold, Grumps. We’re just having a friendly drink to catch up on what we’ve been doing the last few years, not rekindle the romance.’

      ‘That may be what you intend, but he may have other ideas,’ Grumps said. ‘You’re a fool. Felix is much the better man.’

      ‘I’m sure he is, but I’m not romantically interested in either of them. Nor do I expect an orderly line of all my previous boyfriends to start forming up outside the door any time soon, so this is all much ado about nothing.’

      I shot Zillah a dirty look, but she just gave me a glinting, minted smile and carried on eating.

      The following day was pretty busy. For a start, Grumps had surpassed himself and written three whole chapters of Satan’s Child in the early hours, plus several very long letters, so that it was mid-morning before I got round to printing off a whole sheaf of new Chocolate Wishes orders. I was usually on my way back from the post office by then, via Marked Pages for a cup of coffee, but I was still labelling the last boxes at lunchtime when Poppy burst through the door, looking even pinker and more dishevelled than usual.

      ‘Hello, what are you doing here?’ I asked, surprised, but with my hands automatically continuing to slap address labels onto the parcels and adding them to the pile, like a one-person production line (which is what I am, I suppose). ‘Weren’t you having lunch with your Desperate Date today?’

      ‘I did! I was!’ she cried, flinging herself into the nearest chair. ‘Honestly, Chloe, you’re never going to believe this!’

      ‘Did he make a pass at you? Well, I did warn you, Poppy – and wasn’t Felix supposed to be calling your mobile in case you needed rescuing? You had a secret codeword and everything.’

      ‘Yes, and thank goodness he did call, because I pretended he was my mother telling me that Honeybun was taken ill and I had to go straight home.’

      I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. ‘Did he fall for that one?’

      ‘He didn’t look entirely convinced,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t think I’m a very good liar. But he said he’d phone me and we’d have to do it again.’

      ‘Do what?’

      ‘Have lunch in the garden.’

      ‘That doesn’t sound too dreadful, Poppy, though February is hardly ideal picnic-in-the-garden weather, is it, unless he has one of those patio heaters?’

      She shook her head. ‘There was no heater and he’d laid lunch out on a table in a sort of summerhouse with three open sides. I wished I hadn’t left my padded jacket in the Land Rover – and that was your fault,’ she added reproachfully, ‘because you said I looked the same shape as a dumpling in that or my warm down gilet.’

      ‘You do and I didn’t think you’d need them because I hardly expected you to be eating outside at this time of year! But that can’t be what made you leave so quickly, so come clean, Poppy – what else did he suggest you do in the garden?’

      Poppy’s naturally rosy face turned to a shade of dark carnation. ‘Not in the garden, but in the summerhouse, actually. There was one of those wide, wooden-framed loungers at the back, practically like a bed, and that should have given me a clue because you can’t leave cotton-covered cushions out in all weathers, can you? If I wasn’t so stupid, I’d have realised they must have been there for a purpose.’

      ‘That was a bit of a giveaway,’ I agreed, keeping my face straight with an effort.

      ‘But it didn’t occur to me straight away and everything was fine at first: we started lunch and were getting on really well, just like we did in the pub. Then suddenly he said that there was a good reason why our first real date was taking place in the garden: it was because his wife was always there and he wanted her to meet me and continue to feel part of his life.’

      While she was talking I had been stacking the parcels of Wishes into the huge and entirely unstylish shopping trolley I used to transport them to the post office, but I looked up at this and said incredulously: ‘His wife’s the gardener? I thought you said he was a widower?’

      ‘Yes, that’s what I said to him. So then he said, yes, he was a widower, but he felt his wife’s presence everywhere in the garden because she loved it so much. And what’s more, Chloe, he said her ashes were sprinkled all around the roses next to the summerhouse where we were sitting!’

      ‘That’s pretty bizarre, to say the least, Pops. I bet the roses are healthy, though?’

      ‘It’s a bit hard to tell at this time of year,’ Poppy said, starting to get her sense of humour back. ‘I was gobsmacked; but then I said, if he felt that his wife was sort of hanging about watching, didn’t he find it off-putting bringing new girlfriends back, and he said no, he was sure she approved.’

      ‘I’m not surprised you made an excuse and left!’

      ‘Oh, but there’s more! He said the reason he’s sure she approves is because they had an open marriage – and open in more ways than one, because they both liked having sex in the open air, even if not always with each other.’

      ‘He didn’t!’

      ‘He certainly did – he came right out with it, as if it was really everyday. That’s why they had the summerhouse built: to screen their activities. The back of it is towards the road. And then, Chloe, I was so startled I blurted out that I remembered his lonely hearts advert saying he liked outdoor pursuits and now I could see exactly where he was coming from! And unfortunately that seemed to encourage him, because he pulled his chair round to my side of the table and said he thought a riding mistress sounded fun and he was always open to new ideas. Then luckily Felix rang, and that’s when I said I had to go. I’m sure I left with more speed than manners.’

      ‘Serves him right – and he looked so nice too,’ I commiserated.

      Having got it all off her chest, Poppy was beginning to find it funny. ‘It’s a pity he didn’t have a date with Mum instead of me. She’d have given him a run for his money,’ she said, with one of her sudden giggles.

      ‘You never know with Janey,’ I agreed. ‘He could have been thrown, hogtied and branded before he knew where he was.’

      ‘Still, it’s taught me a lesson. I’m starting to think you and Felix are right, and I’ll never find a man this way. They’ll all be weird.’

      ‘Maybe that’s because all men are weird and most women simply settle for the least weird one they can find,’ I suggested