Caroline Roberts - The Cosy Teashop in the Castle - The bestselling feel-good rom com of the year

‘Right then, Ellie, what do you know of the health and safety and good hygiene requirements for running a catering outlet?’ Joe. ‘And do you have the relevant certification to show for this?’

Gulp! Hold your nerve, girl.

‘What experience do you have of dealing with and managing staff?’ Lord Henry.

‘How will you keep an eye on the accounts side of the business?’ Joe.

‘Have you taken any business advice?’ Joe.

Questions were fired like bullets. She tried her best to answer honestly yet positively. It was like an interrogation, far more searching than last time, and Ellie’s initial confidence surge from the high of the cake-tasting was plummeting fast. But she did have some kind of answer for every question: the nights spent fretting had meant she’d already gone over much of this in her mind, and she’d done a lot of research in her breaks at work. Yesterday, she had also got in touch with the small business advisor at her local bank for advice. Google had helped no end, too, and what she didn’t yet have in the way of certification she’d already got her name down to take as soon as possible – her only white lie of the interview.

By the end of all the questions her head was spinning, she felt drained and was wondering once again how the hell she ever thought she could run a teashop? Having a dabble on Google, getting some advice and making a decent choffee cake didn’t amount to a lot.

The interview drew to a close after she’d had the chance to ask some questions herself. She’d remembered to ask about the terms of the lease and how that worked. How long it would be for? (One season, initially, as a trial, from Easter through to the end of October.) And she asked if there were any tearoom staff expecting to return to their jobs from last year? She’d need help with waitressing at least. There were two apparently: Doris and Nicola. Ellie thought she saw Joe’s face look a little strained as he mentioned Doris.

As they stood to shake hands, the interview drawing to a close, Ellie felt utterly exhausted.

‘Thank you for taking the time to come along today,’ Lord Henry’s words and thin smile were unreadable – Ellie reckoned he’d make a great poker player.

Joe’s dark eyes held a flicker of warmth as their hands connected in a farewell grasp. ‘The cake was delicious,’ he said encouragingly. She managed a hopeful smile back. She stared a second too long, lost to the green flecks amongst the intense deep-brown of his irises, then stood back as his grip released.

Cool, Calm, Collected – her mantra back in place. ‘Thank you very much for asking to see me again,’ she managed, ‘I look forward to hearing from you.’

Joe

Well, he hoped Lord Henry wasn’t going to be a stick-in-the-mud about this one … That cake was bloody delicious. She could cook, she seemed organised, had good ideas for the future of the business, she was intelligent, hardworking … and, she was pretty. Yes, she was attractive, wasn’t she – lovely green eyes and that honey-blonde hair piled on top of her head. He wondered what it would look like loose, how long it would be? Christ, what was the matter with him, thinking about her looks? Anyway, that was all beside the point, though being attractive would certainly help draw in the clients. Definitely be more damned appealing than that Cynthia-bloody-Bosworth woman, with her hips that stuck out at right angles to her body: she could probably use them as trays. And, it wasn’t as though they’d had a queue of applicants for the job.

Oh, but Henry could be so bloody-minded and set in his ways, insisting on carrying on with the ‘same old’ just because it had always worked alright. Alright? Didn’t he want anything to work better? Joe felt that for the past four years he’d been trying to drag his boss kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century, when in fact Henry was only just getting used to the twentieth century. He’d only just managed to persuade him to get Deana a computer three years ago. There had been paper ledgers and everything was being handwritten, which wouldn’t have been quite so bad if Lord Henry’s handwriting had been legible in the first place. Deana had done her best to get the administration in order, but Joe had realised that much of the paperwork had been left to flounder when Lady Hogarth had passed away.

One of the earliest tasks that Joe had set himself was to set up a website and get the castle some internet presence – other than the tourist information centres and the occasional drive-by, no one really knew they existed – which was probably how Lord Henry preferred it. But the castle needed income, and quickly, if it was going to survive. A chap called Michael, from a marketing company in the nearby town of Alnwick, had helped set up the website and designed some new brochures and adverts to attract the tourists. Trying to get Lord Henry to realise that most businesses these days had a web presence, and to commit some funds to that, was like drawing blood from a stone, but he and Michael got there in the end.

Everything seemed a battle, but over time Joe had learned how to handle Henry – introduce the idea and the reasons why it would be beneficial, for example, why they should take Ellie on, and then leave Henry to it, so in time he began to think it was his own idea after all. The ‘gently, gently’ approach seemed to work, and ‘slowly, slowly’ … but they didn’t have a lot of time with this one, Easter was less than three weeks away. The tearooms would need a freshen up before opening, staff would need to be in place, deliveries supplied … There was a massive amount of work to do in a short time.

‘So what do you think?’ Joe put the question out there as the two of them sat in the study after the interview.

‘Hmn, I might just have another slice of that cake. It was rather good, I must say. But I do still have one or two reservations. She seems very young and there is a real lack of experience there.’

‘But the cake’s pretty damn good, isn’t it, and the scones? She’s proved she can cook. I can always advise if there are any management issues. At the end of the day we need good food, good service and a clean venue. And if the food is right, then people will come along, recommend us and come back. That’s what we need.’ He was sticking his neck out. But he really didn’t want to be dealing with Cynthia, her grumpy attitude and her tasteless lumpy cakes. She’d covered a couple of weeks last year when Mrs Charlton had taken a fortnight off for a bunion operation. And in that short time she’d managed to upset the waitresses, Doris and Nicola – though upsetting Doris was an easy enough thing to do – not to mention a couple of their regular customers.

‘Ellie is pleasant, she seems well organised, a hard worker, ambitious, with some good ideas too,’ he continued.

Lord Henry gave him a sour look. Dammit, he realised he’d overstepped the mark. New ideas were always suspicious to Henry. They were not tried and tested.

‘And how will a young girl like that manage the staff?’

‘She’s worked in a team for a long while, and seems to have managed well when she had responsibility for her friend’s café. And anyway, it didn’t take Cynthia very long to upset Doris and Nicola, did it?’

‘Hmmn,’ was the answer he got. Then Lord Henry started with, ‘Cynthia doesn’t need to give notice.’

‘Well, that’s only because she’s unemployed at the moment. So that’s the best reason to take her on, then, is it?’ He couldn’t hide the hint of sarcasm in his tone. ‘Look, I think Ellie will be good. I like her,’ were Joe’s final words on the matter.

Lord Henry merely pressed his lips together.