I knew there would be many unusual things in my new remit as manager of Rupert’s guesthouse, but I hadn’t guessed seeing the guests naked would be one of them.
It was early morning, just a couple of days into my new life at La Cour des Roses. I’d made myself an espresso – first things first – and taken it outside. With my feet bare so I could feel the grass between my toes and the refreshing dew against my skin, I pottered down the lawn, past beds of ornamental grasses and begonias and daisies, weeping willows, stepping stones leading off to secret arbours and seating spots, until I reached the chicken run, surrounded by shrubs and trees.
Draining my coffee, I donned flip-flops – bare feet were all very well, but nature lost its appeal when you found yourself toe-deep in chicken poop – and let the half-dozen fussing birds out of their safe house, giving them breakfast and water.
Backing out, I said a polite ‘Good morning’ to Gladys, one of our guests, who had wandered down after me.
‘Morning, Emmy. I thought I’d come out for a little peace and quiet before breakfast.’
I nodded my understanding. Gladys was an elderly lady holidaying with her daughter – an overbearing, middle-aged woman with a brusque manner. She didn’t take after her mother, a gentle soul whose company I enjoyed very much.
‘Clare’s planning our day,’ she explained wearily. ‘I’m sure it will be lovely.’ She fingered the draping leaves of a weeping pear as we wended our way back up the garden, the skin across the back of her hands paper-thin. ‘I love this colour, don’t you? Almost silvery.’
‘Yes. Beautiful. Gladys, why don’t you tell Clare that you’re tired and you’d like to spend the day here? You could relax and enjoy the garden.’
Gladys gave a short laugh then put on an unconvincing smile. ‘Don’t worry. I like sightseeing, and I can’t complain with Clare doing all the hard work.’
Hearing a clatter of shutters, it was a natural reaction for both of us to glance up at the house. How could I have known we should’ve looked anywhere but there? If only I’d had a great big cappuccino instead of a tiny espresso, and lingered over it at the bottom of the garden. If only I’d taken my time admiring the silvery weeping pear leaves. If only I’d linked arms with Gladys to steady her as we walked.
Because there stood Geoffrey Turner in all his glory.
He’d pulled aside the voile curtains to open the shutters and unfortunately the bedroom windows were tall and low slung on the upper storey of the house… As was Geoffrey Turner. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d been young, fit and tanned – but mid-fifties, white and pot-bellied was not a sight I wanted to see on an empty stomach.
My mouth dropped open in shock. As did his. The voile curtains were hurriedly tugged shut – although since the whole point of voile is that it’s practically see-through, that didn’t help much. And by then, it was a tad too late.
I heard a gasp from Gladys. Unsurprisingly, she hadn’t been watching her feet. She tripped over the edge of a flowerbed, stumbled and fell. I caught one of her arms, but she landed with the other awkwardly underneath her.
Crouching, I waited for her to catch her breath. ‘Gladys, are you all right?’
She tried a wobbly smile. ‘I’ll be fine, Emmy. I just need to get myself back up.’ But as she used both hands to push, she yelped in pain.
I didn’t want to risk hurting her by tugging her around. ‘I’ll go and get Clare.’
Gladys managed a wan smile. ‘Didn’t think a naked man could have such a dramatic effect at my age!’
With an answering smile, I shot off to the house and up the stairs to their room.
Clare, her hair wet from the shower, expressed immediate alarm and came running out, helping me to lift her mother so we could walk her to the kitchen and sit her on a chair.
‘What hurts, Mother? Have you broken something?’ Clare’s voice was brittle with anxiety, her hands fluttering at her sides.
‘There’s no need to fuss,’ the old lady said, although she was still shaken. ‘Nothing hurts other than my pride and my wrist.’
I fetched her a glass of water and then took a bag of peas from the freezer, wrapping them in a clean tea towel and placing them on her arm.
‘What made you fall? Did you trip over something?’ Clare demanded.
I glanced at her in alarm. Surely she wasn’t going to complain about the dangers of flowerbeds in the garden? Although since she’d already commented on the stairs being too numerous for her mother, the shower too powerful and the shutters too heavy, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Gladys was obviously worried about the same thing. ‘No, I just wasn’t looking where I was going.’ In a misguided attempt to lighten the fraught atmosphere, she added, ‘One of the guests appeared naked at the window. It diverted my attention somewhat.’ She gave a little chuckle.
Her strategy backfired.
‘What? Who was naked at the window? You mean he was exposing himself to you?’
Gladys winced. ‘It was only Geoffrey, and he wasn’t exposing himself. He opened the shutters and…’
‘It’s the same thing!’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Clare, of course it isn’t! I’m sorry I mentioned it. It was an accident, and it’s not as if I haven’t seen it all before.’
‘How’s your wrist?’ I asked her, out of genuine concern but also in an attempt to change the subject. I lifted away the peas to look.
Another ill-chosen distraction.
‘It’s swollen! It could be broken! We need to call an ambulance,’ Clare decided.
That threw me for six. ‘An ambulance?’ I refrained from adding “What on earth for?” although I kept it in reserve.
‘My mother’s seventy-eight. She could have broken her arm and goodness knows what else. Cracked a hip or her collarbone. And how do we know she won’t go into shock?’
Conscious that the other guests would begin pottering down for a so far non-existent breakfast any minute, I glanced over at Gladys. The poor woman looked as though she wanted an ambulance called about as much as I did.
‘Your mum doesn’t think she’s done any more damage than hurting her wrist. I’m sure when Rupert gets back from walking the dog, he’ll be happy to sort out a doctor’s appointment or even run her to A&E, if you like. I don’t think there’s any need for an ambulance at this stage.’
Clare’s mouth set in a stubborn line. ‘Who’s the customer here? I want you to call an ambulance and I want you to do it now!’
I looked at Gladys, but she only gave me a pained look back.
‘Fine. No problem.’ Plastering on a smile, I reached for the phone… and a sense of déjà vu punched me right in the gut.
I didn’t know the number to dial. Again.
Memories of Rupert tumbling from his chair with a suspected heart attack flooded my brain – but I wasn’t a holidaymaker any more. This was my job now. Why hadn’t I thought to learn something like that as soon as I came back here?
Because you’ve spent the past few weeks handing in your notice, finishing up at work, packing up all your worldly goods and driving them to France – and you weren’t to know this would happen.
I took the phone into the hall, ostensibly for quiet, but in reality to rummage through Rupert’s ragged phone book. It was hopeless. Why would he write the number down? He already knew it. As should I. Pulling my mobile from my pocket, I resorted to the internet, but I was interrupted mid-search.
‘What’s taking so long?’ Clare stormed into the hall as Pippa and Angus started down the stairs. Rudely, she glanced over my shoulder. ‘You’re having to look the number up?’
‘Yes, well, I…’
‘I don’t believe it! You run this place and you don’t know the number to call for an ambulance?’
‘I’ve only been here a couple of days and I…’
‘That’s no excuse!’
She was right. ‘Well, I know it now, so…’
It was at this moment that Geoffrey Turner and his wife made an appearance. I was surprised he dared, but I supposed he could hardly sit in his room and starve.
‘And you!’ Clare jabbed a finger in his direction, her face pinched, an angry red flush across her cheekbones. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’
Geoffrey straightened his shoulders. ‘My apologies, but it was an accident. I was half asleep and I’d forgotten the sill was so low…’
‘Exposing yourself to an old lady like that! Disgusting!’
‘Exposing myself? How should I know anyone would be in the garden so bloody early in the morning?’
Geoffrey’s wife Mary shrank against the wall, looking from Geoffrey to Clare with undisguised horror at the turn the morning was taking.
Clare was undeterred. ‘My mother is on her way to the hospital because of you! Or she would be, if the so-called manager of this place knew how to phone for one.’
I took a deep breath. ‘I have the number now, so if everyone would be quiet for a moment…’
But Geoffrey’s eyes had narrowed dangerously. ‘You don’t know the number for an ambulance?’ No doubt he was happy to seize on my shortcomings to distract from his own.
‘I do know the number,’ I insisted. ‘It only took me a minute to look it up.’
‘A minute can make all the difference in an emergency.’
‘It’s a sprained wrist, not a stroke!’ I snapped, exasperated. Oops.
The final set of guests were tentatively heading down the stairs – whether for breakfast or free entertainment, I wasn’t sure.
‘What if it wasn’t?’ one of them piped up helpfully.
I had no answer to that… and I was painfully aware that Geoffrey was not the man to pick a fight with. A well-known travel blogger, I’d thought he was quite a coup for us. While I was winding things up at work, I’d come across his number and remembered dealing with him when I’d worked on an account for a hotel chain a couple of years before. Knowing there was a gap in Rupert’s bookings, I’d contacted him and offered him a free stay in return for an honest review, imagining how he would wax lyrical about the classy guesthouse, the delicious food, the beautiful garden…
I had left my home, job, friends and cheating ex-boyfriend in the UK for a glorious new existence in the Loire Valley, and Geoffrey Turner was supposed to be the beginning of making La Cour des Roses more successful, more profitable… And if word got around that I could do that for this place, who knew where that might lead?
Yet there I stood, just three days in, with a roomful of shrieking guests and Geoffrey Turner as red as one of Rupert’s beetroot chutneys.
When Rupert appeared in the doorway, dog in tow, his face relaxed after his morning constitutional, I could have kissed him.
Everyone started talking at once – Clare shouting about guests that exposed themselves to old ladies and his manager’s incompetence in medical emergencies, versus Geoffrey’s robust denial of the former but agreement with the latter, amidst my desperate attempts to placate and explain.
‘Right! Thank you all!’ Rupert held up his hands in a shushing gesture, while his canine companion wisely slunk off to her basket at the far end of the hall. ‘If you’d like to go into the kitchen for breakfast, Emmy will tend to you as always.’
He ushered them through and went over to Gladys, still stationed on the kitchen chair, looking pale. ‘Now then, Gladys, let’s take you into the lounge where it’s quieter and decide what we’re going to do, shall we?’
Clare wasn’t having this at all. ‘I’ve already told you I want an ambulance!’
Rupert’s chest expanded as he filled his lungs with a calming breath. ‘I understand your concern, Clare, but I think your mother would be far more comfortable in a car. It means we can set off immediately, and it’s less upsetting for her, don’t you think?’
I could see the desire to get her own way warring with Rupert’s common sense. All eyes were upon her.
‘Fine. If you insist.’ She wheeled around to glare at Geoffrey Turner. ‘But I expect him to leave! I don’t see why we should have to share our holiday accommodation with a pervert!’
Geoffrey reddened. ‘And I don’t see why I should have to share mine with a shrieking shrew!’
Rupert blanched. As did our audience. To add to the merriment, the phone rang. I glared at it with trepidation, still dreading potential conversations in French – I fared better in person, when I could lip-read and people could tell if I wasn’t following them and slow down.
I snatched it up as Rupert took Gladys and Clare through to the hall, and tried my best to capture it between one shoulder and ear while ferrying juice and milk from the fridge to the table in a vain effort to get breakfast underway.
‘Bonjour. La Cour des Roses.’
‘Hello, is that Gloria?’
Relieved to hear the very English voice, I said, ‘No. This is Emmy Jamieson. Can I help?’
‘Is Gloria available?’
‘She’s no longer here, I’m afraid. What can I do for you?’
‘Oh.’ A tut of dismay. ‘It’s Gloria I’ve been dealing with.’
‘I’m the manager here, and I’m happy to help. May I ask who’s calling?’
‘Julia Cooper. I’m ringing about the Thomson booking in September,’ she announced, as though I should know all about it.
From what I remembered when I’d glanced ahead at the reservations, September wasn’t exactly booked up, and I didn’t remember seeing a Thomson on it. Still, I didn’t want to play dumb at this stage. ‘Lovely to speak to you. How can I help?’
‘I wanted to let you know that there will be five airbeds altogether. As I said to Gloria, we’re happy to supply them. We’ll expect you to provide linen and duvets as agreed.’
The spoon I was using to transfer yogurt to a glass bowl remained suspended in mid-air. ‘Airbeds?’
‘Two in one of the rooms, one in one gîte and two in another gîte. As for travel cots, we only need one setting up in the one gîte without airbeds, as far as I know.’
‘Ah. Right. Okay.’ Dropping the spoon, I glanced around the kitchen for a notepad, but the granite worktops only held breakfast goods. I grabbed a lone pen from the windowsill and resorted to scribbling notes around the edge of the label on the yogurt carton.
‘You do know about the Thomson booking?’
‘I’m so sorry, but I’ve only been here a few days, Mrs… Ms? Cooper.’
‘Mrs, but Julia is fine. Might as well be on first-name terms. We’ll be speaking quite often, I’m sure.’
We will? I already had questions clamouring to be answered, but she sounded like she might be an irritable sort, and if we would be speaking often, there was no point in getting on the wrong side of her. Yet. And feeding our current guests might not go amiss right now.
‘I’m sorry to sound vague, Julia. I’ll make sure Rupert brings me up to speed on your booking. And I’ll let him know about the airbeds and travel cot. I’m sure we’ll have it, but would you give me your phone number, in case I have any questions for you?’
‘Better safe than sorry, I suppose.’ She told me her mobile and landline, adding, ‘I’m sorry to hear that Gloria’s no longer there. She was most helpful.’
She was? Crikey!
We said our goodbyes, and I stared at the phone. Airbeds? Really?
As I replaced it in the hall, Rupert was leading Clare and Gladys outside. Hardly a good time to ask about the Thomson booking, and besides, I had more pressing concerns.
I grabbed his arm. ‘What am I going to do about Geoffrey?’ I hissed, as Clare solicitously led her mother across to Rupert’s car.
‘I’ll try to talk some sense into Clare. She might calm down once we’ve got her mother sorted. But you’ll have to deal with Geoffrey.’
‘What about eggs?’
He gave me a blank look. ‘Eggs?’
‘What if anyone asks for eggs? Mine always turn out like rubber.’
Rupert huffed out an impatient sigh. ‘Tell them the hens didn’t lay. Tell them they saw Geoffrey Turner naked and it put them off.’
He went after Clare and Gladys while I reluctantly returned to the kitchen, its efficient but warm mix of wood, granite and gadgetry failing to comfort me now that I was solely in charge of it.
I chopped fruit into a large glass bowl, added orange juice to keep it fresh and took it across to the large pine table under the sloping roof, along with the yogurt and jars of local preserves. Finally, I placed croissants, brioche rolls, pains au chocolat and pains aux raisins (my personal favourite) in a basket and surveyed the result. One thing I was sure about – there was nothing I would change about breakfast.
When I had no further excuses, I enquired as to whether anyone would like anything cooked. Glancing across at Geoffrey, desperately trying to forget the fact that I’d seen his private parts dangling at the window half an hour earlier, I could only pray that nobody requested sausages.
As I cleared up afterwards, I mulled over whether to tackle Geoffrey about his… well, his tackle, but decided the subject was best left alone. Since I could hardly force a guest – let alone a prominent travel blogger – to leave over a genuine accident, I had to trust that Rupert’s persuasive charm and Gladys’s entreaties would win Clare over.
Geoffrey poked his head around the kitchen door. ‘Have you got a first aid kit? Mary’s scraped her elbow.’
‘Do you need me to come?’
‘Not at all,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Only a scratch. Just lend me your kit, would you?’
He had a keen gleam in his eye – one I hadn’t seen before – and I didn’t like it. When I fetched the kit and handed it to him, the surprise on his face was transparent, although he was quick to hide it. Was he testing me, to see if I knew where the kit was?
With the kitchen cleared, I fired up the laptop and brought up the September spreadsheet to see what Julia Cooper had been on about. There were bookings, but not as many as I’d like. This puzzled me, because Rupert had once told me that September was popular with those wanting to visit when places were quieter. Certainly, there was no mention of Julia Cooper or a Thomson anywhere.
No doubt Rupert would know all about it. Since I couldn’t ask him until he got back, I made myself a much-required coffee. I patted my thigh and the dog came dashing from the hall to follow me out to the garden, where I settled in a chair for five minutes’ peace. She placed her head on my knees so that I could stroke her velvet fur and play with her ears.
‘How am I going to get us out of this mess, then?’ I asked her.
Her only answer was to heave a sigh and gaze at me with those huge, sad eyes.
Gloria was my new love. Not, you understand, the Gloria who was Rupert’s estranged wife and who’d seduced and run off with my boyfriend, Nathan, earlier that summer, while we were holidaying at La Cour des Roses, but Rupert’s newly-acquired, black Labrador.
A local farmer had found her wandering his land, looking thin and unkempt, and when the vet could find no form of identification – either chip or tattoo – she’d ended up at the local animal shelter. For Rupert, hankering after a dog and no longer held back by his pet-hating estranged wife, it was love at first sight.
Nobody knew her name, and in his own twisted way, he’d named her Gloria. This, of course, was a name I couldn’t stomach, so I’d taken to using various doggy endearments, and she didn’t seem to mind. If she was a dog of discernment, she’d probably prefer it.
The vet estimated that she was about five years old, and she was loyal, affectionate and appealing – everything the original Gloria wasn’t. The only thing they had in common besides the name was that she was anybody’s for a belly rub.
‘I’m so glad you two get along,’ Rupert said fondly from behind us, making me jump.
I spun around. ‘You’re back early. You’ve only been gone a couple of hours.’
He plonked himself down on the grass next to the dog, making me smile. He couldn’t have done that a while back – the ligament he’d damaged falling off a bar stool during the angina attack meant he could barely walk at one point. With his angina under control now, and me here to limit his stress – in theory – he was looking a darned sight better than when I’d left him a few weeks ago. He was leaner, and I presumed walking the dog was good for him. Even his face was slimmer, and he’d begun to grow a short-cropped beard, silver-grey to match his hair, which he was wearing a little longer, allowing the natural wave to show. I wasn’t fully decided about the beard, but it hid his slightly sagging jowls, so I was reserving judgement until I could review the finished product.
‘How’s Gladys?’ I enquired.
‘As we thought. Lightly sprained wrist. That daughter of hers needs locking up. All that hysteria!’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t know the number for the ambulance.’
He plucked idly at the short-cropped lawn, playing with the blades of grass before letting them fall. ‘Don’t worry about it. We should probably have a notice up in the hall. In the rooms and gîtes, too.’
‘I’ll sort it. I might have it printed on my forehead for good measure. Oh, and by the way – Julia Cooper. Thomson booking. September. Airbeds. What’s going on?’
His face was a total blank. ‘Run that by me again.’
I did, but the result was the same. ‘No idea what you’re talking about.’
I relayed my conversation with Julia Cooper as near to verbatim as I could manage.
Rupert shook his head. ‘No. I’m none the wiser. Is it on the spreadsheet?’
‘I looked but I couldn’t see it. I’ll go get the laptop.’
‘Sun’s too bright. Easier to go in.’
In Rupert’s den, he lowered himself onto the captain’s chair at the desk, leaving me to enjoy the little leather sofa, and stared at the screen. ‘Did you ask her what date?’
‘No. She made it sound as though I should know all about it, and I didn’t want to come across as a total idiot. I assumed you’d know.’
He waved a finger at the laptop. ‘No, but there are a few gaps, so a booking would be good – if we knew when the hell it was.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll phone her back and explain as best I can.’
Rupert ineffectually shuffled a few sheets of loose paper around on the leather-topped desk. ‘There must be something here, somewhere. Even Gloria can’t have taken a booking and not written it down, surely?’
I gave him a look. ‘You’re not asking me to place money on that, are you?’ I frowned. ‘When we transferred all the crap from the diary weeks ago, you seemed fairly booked up, but now there are quite a lot of gaps. This month too. Why?’
Rupert sighed heavily. ‘The honest truth? I think Gloria was losing interest big time, Emmy. All that stuff we transferred? Not all of it made sense. I’ve had the odd complaint that we’d never got back to people about enquiries. And some of the bookings Gloria had in the diary as a done deal turned out to be only provisional. I had a couple of no-shows, and when I contacted them, they said they hadn’t had confirmation, so they’d booked elsewhere.’ He shrugged. ‘It isn’t all down to Gloria, though. We’ve had a few genuine cancellations – they’re par for the course in this business.’
‘Okay. Well, I’m here now and I intend to do something about that. We’ll see what we can rescue for this year, fill a few gaps if we can, and it definitely won’t be happening next year. As for this Thomson thing, I know bits of paper were Gloria’s method of choice, but I’ll search the e-mails just in case.’
He nodded, a resigned air about him that I didn’t like.
I decided to risk a little probing. ‘Have you heard from Gloria?’
He grunted. ‘Haven’t spoken to her. She e-mailed to say she was staying in the Kensington flat, which I already knew through you, when you told me Nathan had moved to London.’
‘Ten years of marriage, and she sent you an e-mail?’
‘I could remind you that you had a five-year relationship and only got a note, Emmy.’
‘True. But we’ve spoken since. Or had the odd slanging match anyway. We had to, what with renting out the flat in Birmingham.’
‘Hmmph.’ He moved the antique blotter around on the desk, then a brass paperweight. ‘I can’t believe the two of them are shacked up together in my flat. It makes me sick to my stomach. It’s bad enough, her running off with someone, but to use my own property… Although I don’t suppose it’s my flat any more, is it? Hasn’t been since we got married.’
‘Did she… Did she say anything about divorce in her e-mail?’
‘No.’ His tone was abrupt. ‘And neither did I.’
That puzzled me. ‘But a few weeks ago, you told me you wanted to know where you stood.’
‘I did. But I think several weeks’ absence and one short e-mail clarifies that on an emotional front from Gloria’s point of view, don’t you? As for the financial front, I’d rather not precipitate anything. If you hadn’t noticed, it’s peak season and I could do without inviting something I haven’t time to deal with. Gloria’s getting free use of the flat for now – as is your delightful ex-boyfriend – and she hasn’t cleared out the joint bank account. As for everything else, I moved it all pretty sharpish, so if she wants more, she’ll have to make it official. And I can put up with the trepidation of not knowing how and when, for now, compared with dealing with the actuality.’
I could understand that. No point in prodding a nest of vipers unless you had to. But I wasn’t sure that was the full story. He looked so much healthier, but he had been a bit quiet since I’d been back. ‘Do you miss her, Rupert?’
He thought about it, but then his face closed. He shrugged. ‘No use crying over spilt milk, as they say. Life goes on, and we have a business to run.’
Understanding this was his signal that he would say no more on the subject, I stood. ‘Right. Let me check the e-mails, and I’ll let you know if I find anything.’
‘Thanks, Emmy. But… airbeds?’ He shook his head. ‘Ah, well. At least you’ll have plenty to tell Alain this evening.’
I smiled. Alain was Rupert’s half-English, half-French, caramel-eyed accountant. A kiss we’d shared in the pouring rain had nothing whatsoever to do with my decision to move to France, of course, but that didn’t stop me being disappointed that he was currently catching up with relatives near Paris. ‘Not tonight. He has some family get-together.’
‘Everything going all right between you two?’
Subtle as a brick. Since Rupert had decided we were made for each other, he’d taken playing matchmaker to a whole new level.
‘Fine, thank you. Within its limitations.’
‘Must be awkward for him,’ Rupert muttered. ‘Playing nicey nicey with his brother when the bastard ran off with his wife.’
‘It was a long time ago. He’s over it, he says – as far as you can get over something like that. He once told me he’d had a lucky escape. I gather Sabine is on the bossy side.’
Rupert snorted. ‘Oh, and you’re not?’
‘Ah, well, he hasn’t had a proper chance to find that out yet, has he?’
A search of the e-mails revealed a small string of correspondence between Gloria and Julia Cooper – filed in Miscellaneous as opposed to Reservations, in Gloria’s usual, haphazard manner. There were a few tentative enquiries from Julia, one referring to phone calls that Gloria had clearly not deemed important enough to tell Rupert about, and a final one from Julia, long and involved, giving me both a fighting chance and a heart attack at th. . .
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