Christmas Whodunnit Special!

 

 

 

(Paperback edition will follow shortly and the audiobook is currently in production.

 

 

A boy, his face hidden by a hood, pushed past me and began to run away with Cassie’s present.

“Hey!” I cried, shocked and angry. “Stop! That’s mine!”

I started to run after him but a man who had just come out of the hotel entrance was faster. He also had much longer legs and, in a couple of strides, he had grabbed the thief by the back of his hoodie. The boy dropped the gift bag and wriggled free, disappearing around the corner. I rushed up to the man just as he stooped to retrieve the gift bag.

“Thank you,” I panted, taking the bag from him. “That was so—” I broke off as he turned around and I saw who it was. “You!”

The handsome man from the train station grinned at me. “So… we meet again. Fate certainly seems to be throwing us together, eh?”

“Er… yes,” I said awkwardly, torn between dismay at running into him again and gratitude for his retrieval of the stolen present. “Thanks so much for rescuing this.” I indicated the gift bag. “It would have cost a fortune to replace.”

He gave a suggestive smile. “Well… you could thank me properly by having a drink with me.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. The man just didn’t give up! “I’m sorry, I’m actually meeting someone for tea—”

“So you said, but have they arrived yet?”

“N-no…”

“Well then, you can have a drink with me in the meantime,” he said smoothly, putting a proprietary hand under my elbow and steering me back towards the hotel entrance. He added quickly, as I started to protest, “Surely it’s not too much to ask, after I’ve come to your aid… twice?”

I bit my lip. There was no way to refuse without sounding rude and ungracious. I declined a drink in the Morse Bar, however, which seemed more intimate, and instead suggested that we go into the Lancaster Room for tea. That way, my mother’s arrival would hopefully cut our tête-à-tête short.

As luck would have it, a family was leaving just as we entered and we were shown to their vacated table by the window.

“I’m Ned, by the way,” said the man as we settled into deep armchairs facing each other across the table. He quirked an eyebrow at me. “I hope you’re not going to make me sit here drinking tea with a nameless lady?”

“Gemma,” I said reluctantly.

Something about his overly confident, flirtatious manner made me unwilling to give any more information about myself than was necessary. It was as if the more he pushed, the more I wanted to resist. When a waitress came to take our order, I was quick to forestall him ordering the standard full afternoon tea, which would give him an excuse to linger.

“Just a pot of tea, please,” I said firmly.

“Darjeeling? English Breakfast? We have a full menu of varieties to choose from,” said the waitress.

I glanced at Ned. He looked amused, as if he knew what I was doing, and said blandly, “Whatever the lady prefers.”

I asked for Earl Grey, my favourite, and then settled back in my armchair, looking around the room admiringly. There was probably no place as grand as The Randolph Hotel to have afternoon tea in Oxford. One of the city’s iconic landmarks, the nineteenth-century institution, with its neo-Gothic architecture and lavishly elegant interiors, oozed Olde Worlde glamour and sophistication. Countless presidents and prime ministers have enjoyed its beautiful suites, and the famous Lancaster Room has been serving fine teas, homemade scones, delectable pastries, and finger sandwiches since it opened its doors in 1866.

I watched with keen interest as a waitress served a full afternoon tea to a nearby table, delivering a three-tiered cake stand bulging with delicious treats with great ceremony. Dainty cakes and glossy fruit tarts were nestled alongside colourful macaroons and rich trifles on the top, followed by freshly baked scones in the middle, and crustless finger sandwiches on the bottom. My companion raised an eyebrow and said:

“You seem to be eyeing that cake stand very intently. Are you regretting just ordering a pot of tea? We can ask for the menu again—”

“Oh no,” I said quickly, flushing. “I… it was more of a professional interest, really.”

“Professional interest?”

I hesitated, then gave a rueful smile. “I own a tearoom, so it’s sort of an occupational hazard. I can’t help observing and making notes whenever I’m out somewhere having afternoon tea. I suppose I’m always comparing and trying to improve or get inspiration—”

“Ah, you own a place like this?” He gestured around the room.

I laughed as I looked at the snowy white tablecloths and gleaming silver cutlery, the oil paintings on the walls, the baby grand piano in the corner. “No, no, not like this at all! Nothing this posh. It’s a much more homely place—a small, old-fashioned, country English tearoom, in a building that used to be a Tudor inn.”

“Sounds delightful! Where is it?”

“In Meadowford-on-Smythe. That’s a village just outside Oxford—”

“Yes, I know Meadowford. Lovely high street. So… you own a tearoom there, eh? Well, well…” He smiled, looking like the cat who had got the proverbial cream.

His expression made me uncomfortable and I wished that I hadn’t let him know about my tearoom. Now there was no way to stop him coming to find me! Looking over his shoulder, I was relieved to see a stout middle-aged woman in a waitress’s uniform heading towards us, carrying a tea service on a tray. Good. Perhaps once he had drunk his tea, he would leave. Groping for some conversation to fill the silence, I said politely:

“So… are you visiting family for Christmas?”

He leaned back in his chair as the waitress came around the table to pour his tea. The knowing smile was still hovering at the corners of his mouth. “Yes, I suppose you could say that. I’m actually—”

He twitched and cursed as the waitress fumbled suddenly with the teapot and hot liquid sloshed out of the cup, splashing his hands.

“Hey! Watch what you’re doing, you ham-fisted cow!” he snarled at the woman.

“I’m… I’m so sorry, sir!” she cried, flushing and bending to mop the table frantically. “I’m terribly sorry…”

I looked at the man next to me with a frown. My father always said that you could tell the character of a man by the way he treated the staff, and it seemed that my companion was showing his true colours. Having run a tearoom for over a year now, I knew that accidents happened, no matter how careful you tried to be, and his reaction seemed unnecessarily aggressive. I tried to catch the eye of the waitress to give her a sympathetic smile but she kept her face averted, hunched over with embarrassment, as she cleaned up the spill and hurried away.

“Really, you’d think the service would be better in a place like this,” grumbled Ned. Then he turned back to me, his face smoothed into a pleasant expression once again, and said: “Anyway… where was I? Oh yes, the family Christmas. Well, it’ll probably be a dead bore, to tell you the truth. You could help to liven things up, though, by agreeing to have dinner with me?”

I stared at him incredulously. Aside from the fact that he had to be at least fifteen years older than me, hadn’t I made it obvious that I wasn’t interested in him romantically? I’d never met anyone so thick-skinned or so persistent.

“I’m sorry… I… er… I’m very busy,” I said stiffly. I wished I could simply tell him that I wouldn’t have dinner with him, even if I had all the time in the world. But somehow, the strictures of politeness that I’d been brought up with kept me tongue-tied.

“Aww, come on! Your boyfriend isn’t around, so why not? How about tonight? We could—” He was interrupted by his phone ringing. He answered it and I saw his face change.

“I told you not to call me on this number,” he hissed. He glanced at me, then turned slightly away, saying in an undertone, “No, I don’t have it yet. These things take time and I can’t—what? London? Don’t be ridiculous, I just arrived in Oxford… No! No, don’t do that… All right. I’ll come down. Where? Fine. I’ll see you later.”

He hung up and met my eyes with a bland smile. “Well, it looks like I will have to postpone the pleasure of taking you out for dinner. In fact, I’m going to have to leave now…” He glanced at the expensive Tag Heuer watch on his wrist, then rose from his chair. “But perhaps when I get back from London—”

I took a deep breath. Being polite was getting me nowhere. It was time to be blunt. I said coolly, “No. I don’t think so. I’m sorry.”

He raised his eyebrows, then he grinned, not remotely bothered by my rebuff. “Ah… the boyfriend is a lucky man. Well, perhaps I’ll pop into your tearoom, then, if I’m still here in the new year. Surely you can’t refuse me a scone and a cup of tea?”

I watched him leave and hoped fervently that he would be returning to the States by the time the new year rolled around.