Annie Darling - A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews

‘Though of course, you could have just summoned by text message,’ Mattie said, then she wished that she hadn’t because it sounded as if she was pouring cold water on Lady Agatha, when she wasn’t, she was just being practical. She also didn’t feel as if it were her place to give the butler’s bell a fond pat, so instead she dipped her head as she passed on her way to the kitchen.

‘It’s awfully small,’ Tom said, as they took in the old-fashioned kitchen cabinets painted a sunny primrose yellow with blue trim and grey Formica worktop. The kitchen wasn’t as small as the kitchen in the tearooms – there was even room for a small table, two chairs and a fridge-freezer – and Mattie wasn’t going to let Tom undermine her.

‘It’s a beautiful kitchen and anyway, size has absolutely nothing to do with it. I once made a triple-layer cake on a camping stove.’ So there, she wanted to add and stick her tongue out at Tom, but she resisted, though it took every ounce of strength that she had.

‘So, the room,’ Posy prompted, hands settling where her stomach used to be so she could rub soothing circles on her bump, which she did whenever she was agitated. ‘It used to be my room. It’s a nice size and the windows look out onto the mews.’

She squeezed past Mattie and Tom back the way she came, so she could open the door on a room. The room. The most perfect room. It was comfy and cosy but large enough for a double bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers and, of course, several bookcases. There were two picture windows and on this bright but chilly day, the weak winter sun streamed in.

‘It’s lovely,’ Mattie said in all sincerity.

‘I’ll take it,’ Tom said in a peremptory fashion, as if he dared Mattie to disagree, in which case he was doomed to disappointment. ‘I have worked in the shop longer than even Verity and Nina, yet they were still given first dibs on the rooms, which was very unfair, even though I never brought it up at the time.’ He tapped his chest. ‘That wounded me, Posy.’

‘Oh dear.’ Posy pulled a face. ‘It’s just that Verity is the manager and I just assumed that it would be less awkward to have Verity and Nina take the flat, on account of them being, like, ladies. Two ladies.’

‘When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me,’ Tom said gravely.

Mattie saw her chance and seized it with both hands. ‘Don’t call Posy an ass,’ she gasped in shocked tones. ‘And her pregnant, too! You know, it would be awkward, wouldn’t it, for Tom to share with Nina, Nina being a lady, but I’m a lady too, so that would be absolutely not awkward.’

‘Nina is my dear, dear friend,’ Tom said, his eyes flashing behind his glasses though his dear, dear friend Nina had once confided to Mattie that she suspected that Tom didn’t even need glasses and just wore them to make himself look even more like a tweedy nerd than he already did. ‘Also, it’s the twenty-first century, and if you won’t let me share a flat with a woman, then, I don’t want to, but I would have a very good case to take to a sexual discrimination trial.’

‘Yeah, nice try,’ Mattie blustered, because she could feel the flat slipping through her fingers.

Tom nodded. ‘Maybe even the European Court of Human Rights. It’s your decision, Posy.’

‘It’s not my decision,’ Posy said, backing out of the room. ‘I’m not making any decisions that are likely to cause my blood pressure to rise. I’m stressed out enough about all this Christmas stuff. You’ll have to decide between yourselves, like the sensible, grown-up, adult people that I know you both can be.’

Mattie hated to beg, but just because she hated something wasn’t a good enough reason not to.

‘No Posy, please, please, let me have the room. I have to be here by seven thirty, eight at the very latest. I get up at six every morning. Six o’clock! Then I have evening prep, which means I’m not home much before nine, so I have no social life and I’m living with my mother, and please, Tom. Come on, don’t be a dick about this.’

‘I’m not being a dick,’ Tom said, though he was totally being a dick as far as Mattie was concerned. ‘And my current living conditions are also far from ideal,’ he added stiffly, then pressed his lips together as Mattie and Posy waited expectantly.

‘Far from ideal, you say?’ Posy prodded, stepping back into the room, her eyes gleaming at the prospect of finally learning something, anything, about Tom’s private life.

‘Yes,’ Tom said evenly. ‘That’s what I said. You don’t need to know my personal business.’

‘Oh,’ Mattie said, making her eyes especially wide. ‘Oh. How odd!’

‘What’s odd?’ Posy asked, lowering herself onto Verity’s rather lovely blue velvet reading chair with some difficulty.

‘Well, it’s just that Tom doesn’t want everyone knowing his personal business and yet he wants to move into the flat above the shop.’ Mattie tried her best to look sorrowful, as if she’d just been told that her favourite French cooking chocolate was no longer available in the UK. ‘I’m sorry, Tom, but I don’t see how you’re going to maintain that work-life balance that’s so important to you if you take the room.’

‘I will, because unlike the rest of you, I’m perfectly capable of compartmentalising and also fixing a padlock to my bedroom door,’ Tom said in stern tones.

Posy snorted. ‘Yeah, right. I’ve asked you to perform several minor acts of household repair in the past, and you couldn’t do any of them.’

‘Couldn’t or wouldn’t,’ Tom said, and Posy looked furious, but then she remembered that she was being neutral and sank back in the chair.

‘You have to sort it out between you,’ she repeated, and it was clear that Tom wasn’t going to give an inch, and Mattie didn’t see why she should, so there was only one thing for it.

‘We’ll toss a coin,’ she said. ‘I don’t see any other way, do you?’

‘I don’t,’ Tom agreed, already pulling out a handful of loose change. ‘Heads or tails?’

‘Heads,’ Mattie said, her fingers crossed as Tom handed Posy a pound coin.

‘You’d better do the honours,’ he said with a Cheshire cat grin as if the flat was already his. ‘Being a neutral third party.’

Posy flipped the coin, failed to catch it so it fell to the floor and bounced off the skirting board, and Mattie and Tom were a whisker close to bumping heads as they rushed to see what side up it had landed.

‘Oh, tails,’ Tom said, not even bothering to hide his glee. ‘Bad luck, Mattie.’

‘Yes, sorry,’ Posy said with a weak flutter of her hands. Then she fluttered weakly again. ‘Sorry, can you give me a hand getting out of this chair? Or hire a hoist.’

Tom and Mattie took an arm each and tugged Posy out of the blue velvet depths. There was nothing for it now but to head back to the tearooms and maybe if Mattie worked like a dog all day, then she might be able to leave a whole fifteen minutes earlier than she normally did.

‘Are you all right, Mattie?’ Posy asked as they stepped back into the hall. ‘If past history is correct, Tom will soon be hooking up with someone and want to move in with them. Who would have thought that in the space of a year, Nina, Verity and I would all be in committed long-term relationships? I think Lavinia must have cast a spell on the shop before she died. Mattie! Mattie, I know you’re upset but can you start moving? Work to be done and all that.’

Mattie was rooted to the spot and staring at a closed door behind which there could be … ‘Is that a broom cupboard?’ she asked, because if it was a large broom cupboard, then maybe …

‘Oh, you don’t want to see in there. It’s nothing,’ Posy said quickly, a hand on Mattie’s back to push her along. ‘Absolutely nothing.’