Christmas Nights (36 page)

‘Oh, yes, it’s perfect,’ Tiffany was assuring her now happily. ‘especially the pudding. Harold adores sweet things.’

The menu Heaven had suggested was simple enough: a thick home-made winter soup followed by a fish course, a sorbet to clear the palate and then the main course, for which she had suggested a rich casserole of red meat with accompanying vegetables, filling but not so filling that Harold’s guests wouldn’t have room for her piÈce de résistance—the figgy pudding on which as Mrs Tiggywinkle she had based her small new mail-order business.

‘And you’ll have everything ready here in the kitchen for me to carry through to the dining room?’ Tiffany checked anxiously.

‘Yes, everything will be ready,’ Heaven told her, adding
reassuringly, ‘Don’t worry, no one will ever know that you haven’t cooked everything yourself.’

Quickly she stifled her own uncomfortable qualm at the thought of Harold blaming Tiffany for her wrongdoing—but of course Harold would know that Tiffany hadn’t actually done the cooking. He simply didn’t want to admit as much to his guests—he would, of course, try to discover who had cooked the meal but she would be safely hidden behind the anonymity of Mrs Tiggywinkle.

Tiffany blushed.

‘I wouldn’t normally be so… so deceitful, but Harold says it’s vitally important that we make a good impression on these Americans and apparently there’s nothing they like more than home-cooked food.’

‘You said there’d be eight of you to cater for,’ Heaven reminded her.

‘Yes, that’s right. Harold and me, the three businessmen who are coming back with him, his accountant and his wife and a friend of Harold’s who’s a business consultant.’

A business consultant and his accountant. Heaven might not know the former but she certainly knew Harold’s accountant and his wife, an avaricious, acid-tongued woman whom Heaven had overheard on more than one occasion running Louisa and the children down to Harold. She had even tried to tell Heaven herself how to do her job and had, Heaven knew, been instrumental in spreading the completely untrue rumours about her supposed affair with Harold. She was a thoroughly unpleasant woman whom Heaven had no qualms about allowing to share Harold’s fate. Harold obviously wasn’t taking any chance on letting the big fish he had
landed slip away from him, Heaven decided sardonically as she gave Tiffany a small smile and stood up. She found herself liking Tiffany. Somehow she would have to find some way of ensuring that Tiffany herself didn’t eat any of the figgy pudding.

Not that there was anything wrong with her figgy pudding—far from it—at least not when she made it without the addition of the certain extra ingredients she planned to put in the one for this dinner party!

N
ERVOUSLY
Heaven smoothed her hands down over the crisp white apron she was wearing over the simple short-sleeved black dress she had picked up at a bargain price because of its small size.

It wasn’t any worries about her cooking that were making her feel so jittery, her stomach muscles clenching every time she heard a noise on the other side of the very firmly closed kitchen door. Despite her stalwart assurances to Janet that she knew exactly what she was doing and that her plan was completely fireproof, it was still a fact, as Janet had pithily pointed out to her, that all it would take for her to be run out of the house in very short order would be for Harold to walk into the kitchen and see her.

‘Harold won’t walk into the kitchen,’ Heaven had asserted. ‘Harold is the kind of man who boasts about barely knowing how to find the fridge door—he wouldn’t dream of visiting any kitchen but most especially not his own.’

But despite the fact that Tiffany had already inadvertently confirmed that view by explaining apologetically to Heaven that although Harold would actually
be paying her fee for the evening Tiffany doubted that Heaven would actually see him she still felt nervous.

‘This business deal is so very, very important to him, that I doubt he’s even going to have time for me. He rang me three times yesterday just to check on how things were going. He says it’s vitally important that he gets the Americans to sign the purchase contract for his business before the end of the year. Something to do with some patent he’s taking out on this new software he’s designed,’ she had told Heaven vaguely.

Tiffany had in fact told Heaven rather a lot over the past couple of days, and Heaven couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, quickly coming to realise how lonely and bereft of any real friends the other girl was and how, in many ways, she was much more naive and unworldly than one would have expected a young woman of twenty-one to be. Heaven herself at only two years older felt so much more mature.

The sound of the kitchen door being opened had her tensing and automatically turning her back towards it, but it was only Tiffany who came in.

‘Harold has just rung from the airport,’ she announced breathlessly. ‘They will be here within the hour; he wants dinner to be served promptly at eight-thirty…’

‘That will be fine,’ Heaven assured her.

‘It’s eight o’clock now,’ Tiffany jittered. ‘I’d better go just in case anyone arrives early. Thank goodness all the bedrooms are finished at least…’

Heaven gave her an understanding smile. It would be interesting to say the least to discover Harold’s reaction when he found out that the elegant en suite bathrooms which complemented every bedroom might look fully
fitted and finished, with their impressive reproduction Victorian sanitary ware, but that look at them was all one could do because the owner of the firm who had supplied and installed them had been so incensed by Harold’s refusal to pay him a single penny until after he had inspected everything that none of it had actually been connected up to the mains.

‘You do know he’s got guests staying, don’t you?’ Heaven had pointed out to the contractor who had poured out his grievances to her over a cup of coffee and a generous bowl of her delicious soup in the kitchen.

‘Yup… they’ll have to make do with the downstairs cloakroom; that’s all in order,’ he had told Heaven with a wink.

Perhaps she ought to have warned Tiffany about what the contractor had told her, Heaven acknowledged, but why add to the poor girl’s problems?

A sharp thrill of fear-cum-excitement drilled through her as she heard the front doorbell ring.

Well it was too late for second thoughts now. Everything was ready. Everything… everything, just as she had planned.

She swallowed hard as she looked across at the hob where the pudding was still steaming gently.

Figgy pudding…

She glanced down at the handwritten recipe she had used, all of the ingredients delicious and sinfully rich, especially the almonds, cherries and mixed peel.

That was the basic recipe but because these puddings were going to be extra-special she had added three extra ingredients, ingredients which never in a lifetime would she actually commit to paper, and those ingredients were a generous pouring of liquid paraffin, an equally
generous measure of cascara and, just to make sure no one could detect the suspicious taste of such strong laxatives, a large glass of very rich, full-bodied sherry.

A naughty smile curled her mouth as she contemplated the results of her inventive additions to the pudding.

Harold and his guests were going to find it a serious inconvenience that the contractor had omitted to connect all the plumbing. Oh, she hadn’t added enough cascara or liquid paraffin to cause any real health risk, but there was certainly enough to cause anyone who had a generous portion of the pudding to be seriously embarrassed by its effect on their digestive system… very seriously embarrassed.

Harold would of course be furious and guess that her cooking was to blame but by then she would be long gone and anyway he would only know her as Mrs Tiggywinkle, whom he would never connect with her, Heaven! It would be well worth the fact that she had used some of her carefully hoarded income from the recent sales of her puddings in order to buy the ingredients for tonight’s meal to know that Harold was finally having a taste of his own medicine.

She had to admit, though, that she had been extremely relieved when Tiffany had informed her that she would probably pass on the pudding.

‘Harold doesn’t want me to put on weight,’ she had confided to Heaven. ‘And this pudding sounds sinfully rich to me.’

Smiling reassuringly at Tiffany, Jon introduced himself. She reminded him of a timid fawn, all gauche movements and nervous eyes. There was no way she
was any match for Harold and Jon couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. In many ways she was almost more child than woman and so far as he was concerned, despite her obvious prettiness, not really his type at all.

‘Am I the first to arrive?’ he asked her as she dutifully took his coat.

‘Yes. Harold should be here soon. The Concorde flight from New York was delayed by the weather,’ she told him nervously.

‘Mm… they’ve had heavy snowfalls in New York, and according to the forecasters, we’re due for some soon. If they’re right, we could have the first white Christmas for a long time.

‘Harold’s bringing some business colleagues back with him, I understand…’

‘Yes… he is… They’re the people he’s hoping will buy the company. Oh…’ Tiffany blushed. ‘I’m not supposed to talk to anyone about business things, but since you’re his friend I’m sure it will be all right…’

‘Of course it will,’ Jon soothed her.

So Harold was intending to sell the business—a business which, according to the accounts he had produced at the time of the divorce, was heavily in debt and not making any money. It would be interesting to see just who would want to buy that kind of company—and why, he decided as Tiffany bustled away with his coat and then returned to ask him what he would like to drink as she invited him into the drawing room.

As he walked past the half-open dining-room door, Jon paused and then stiffened as he recognised the dining-room set which his parents had given Louisa.

Harold had refused to return the furniture to Louisa, claiming that it had been a joint gift to both of them
and that she had forfeited her right to it when she had walked out of the house.

In desperation Louisa had actually gone to the expense of hiring a furniture van and going round to the house to reclaim her furniture when she knew that Harold would be away, but Harold had of course had all the locks changed and even though Louisa had eventually managed to gain admittance by persistently hammering on the door until the housekeeper had let her in, as she had told Jon afterwards, the furniture was no longer there and in its place had been a cheap ugly fifties table and chairs.

Through the kitchen door, which Tiffany had left open, Heaven could hear people arriving. She went to close the door and then stiffened as she just caught the sound of a warm deep male voice that sent a sharp volley of shocked emotion surging through her veins.

She must be hearing things, imagining things, her memory distorted by time and thrown into confusion by the fact that she was in some ways resurrecting the past.

It was inconceivable that the male voice she had so tantalisingly heard could possibly belong to Jon. He was, after all, Louisa’s brother. Even so, she found that she was lingering by the still half-open door, her ears stretched, her stomach churning even more than it had already been doing.

It was just her own memory playing tricks on her, she told herself as she made herself walk away from the door, but beneath the buoyant determination which had made her so keen to see Harold get his just deserts, in both senses of the word, she was warily aware of a sudden sharp sense of nostalgia and loss, a foolish yearning for what might have been.

Stop daydreaming, she warned herself sternly. Remember why you’re here.

Whilst Tiffany hovered uncertainly, obviously wondering why Jon was staring so intently into the dining room, the front doorbell pealed again.

The new arrivals were Harold’s accountant and his wife, neither of whom Jon particularly liked although he always made a point of concealing the fact from them.

‘Harold not here yet?’ Jeremy Parton asked, rubbing his hands together as he went to stand in front of the fake log fir in the equally fake Regency fireplace.

‘No, but he should arrive soon. I hope he does… He told me he wanted dinner served at eight-thirty and—’ Tiffany fluttered.

‘Who have you got in to do the catering?’ Freda Parton interrupted Tiffany sharply. ‘Some of the caterers are dreadfully over-priced and as for the food they serve…’

‘Er—’

‘Whoever it is, it won’t be a certain deliciously sexy and mouthwateringly tasty little brown-haired nymphet of a cook,’ Jeremy interrupted with what Jon privately considered to be totally inappropriate licentiousness.

What was it about the man’s face that made him want to punch it—extremely hard? Jon wondered angrily. He certainly wasn’t normally so easily provoked and physical expressions of anger just weren’t his style at all.

‘Jeremy,’ Freda Parton warned her husband curtly.

‘Oh, come on; it’s no secret that old Harold had the hots for the girl, and who could blame him? I wouldn’t have minded a little taste of what she had on offer myself.’

‘Jeremy!’ Freda Parton warned a second time even
more curtly, turning to explain to Tiffany, who looked both embarrassed and confused.

‘Jeremy is just joking, my dear. He’s referring to the young woman who was the cause of the break-up of Harold’s first marriage. A most tenacious type of girl. She deliberately set out to trap Harold into having an affair with her…’

‘He—he’s never mentioned anything about that to me,’ Tiffany stammered.

Freda Parton gave her husband another dire look and soothed, ‘No, well, of course not. Although Harold had nothing to blame himself with, men being what they are, I’m sure quite naturally the whole subject is something he wants to put behind him, but then, of course, if Louisa had had her wits about her she would have realised what was going on sooner and—How is Louisa, Jon?’ she asked Jon pointedly.

‘She’s fine,’ Jon responded calmly. ‘She and the children are spending Christmas with our parents.’

Still smiling, he turned to Tiffany and explained, ‘Louisa, Harold’s first wife, is my sister…’

Tiffany blushed hotly. ‘Oh, I—I didn’t know…’ she started to stammer, but Jeremy ignored her discomfiture to challenge Jon.

‘Some people might find it rather odd that you should have chosen to remain so close to Harold; after all, the divorce was pretty aggressive.’

‘I’m a businessman,’ Jon returned with a casual shrug. ‘I don’t allow my emotions to get in the way of my judgement. Harold has put some very good business my way…’

‘And you’re hoping for some more? Well, you could be in luck; I expect the reason he’s asked you here
tonight is to make sure this sale he’s planning for the business is all sound and watertight.’

For some reason the smile Jeremy was giving him made the tiny hairs at the back of Jon’s neck lift atavistically but he had too much self-control to allow his feelings to show as he responded calmly, ‘Well, I would certainly be pleased to advise Harold on whatever aspect of the proposed sale he chose to consult me on. I take it he’s planning to sell off the company in its entirety…?’

‘Lock, stock and barrel,’ Jeremy agreed cheerfully, breaking off as they saw the lights of the taxi that was drawing up outside the house through the window.

‘Oh here’s Harold now,’ Tiffany announced in relief. ‘I’d better go and let them in.’

Twenty past eight. Heaven had heard Harold arriving, recognising the familiar loud aggressiveness of his voice; another ten minutes and Tiffany should arrive to collect the soup plates and the soup.

Whilst Tiffany was serving it to their guests, Heaven intended to finish off the second course—a fish dish of which she was particularly proud.

‘They loved the soup.’

‘Good, then they’ll love the fish even more,’ Heaven promised as she and Tiffany exchanged conspiratorial smiles some time later.

‘Freda Parton keeps on asking who the caterers are… I fibbed a little bit and said I’d just had some help from a friend… Well, it isn’t entirely untrue… I do feel that we have become friends these last few days.’

It amazed Heaven just how protective she was beginning
to feel towards the other girl. How could she have become involved with Harold? Louisa, too, must have loved him once, but Heaven had sensed that Jon had never really liked his brother-in-law. Jon—what on earth was she doing thinking about Jon when she ought to be concentrating on what she was doing, not daydreaming over a man who was past history?

Only the sorbet and the main course to go before they had their pudding. Heaven could feel the nervous tension beginning to build up inside her stomach.

To keep herself occupied and out of habit she started to clear away the used crockery and cutlery Tiffany had returned to the kitchen.