Christmas at the Castle (6 page)

Today, as the ice and frost fought for supremacy on the tips of the rocks which stuck out above the play of the water, Charlie's brain replayed all the years she'd hidden in Alice's shadow. While there was a certain safety in hiding behind a brighter, more confident, prettier friend, the time to extract herself from that shadow had long passed, and somehow Charlie had missed it. This current situation was her own fault.

The cold had forced the fish to the bottom of the water, and as she stared, straining to locate any sign of life, Charlie was surprised that it wasn't Cameron's face reflecting back at her in the ever-changing shape of the river as usual, but that of the new owner of the bookshop.

‘Should I be going out with him tonight?'

Charlie whispered the words into the water, aiming them, as she always did, at the highest point on the river's horizon. She could imagine them tumbling through the granite assault course until her troubles and emotions were washed away by the occasionally tranquil, but frequent ferocity of the river, leaving her lighter somehow.

As her latest question bobbled beneath her feet, the image of Gervase, his grey-speckled brown hair, his blue check shirt rolled to the elbows, revealing arms which weren't thick with muscles like Cameron's, but were pleasantly shaped. His six-foot frame, tall, slim, and yet broad, towered over her five feet four. The overall impression Charlie had got from Gervase was genuine interest. Not just in ‘Erin' and her books, but the
real
her.

The river echoed into Charlie's head as she stared downwards. ‘He knew about your first book. That's a man worth talking to if nothing more.'

Charlie inclined her head at the bubbles on the rivers surface, ‘But he could be pretending to be nice to get a better deal for the bookshop during the festival.'

This time the reply tumbled faster over the rocky course.
‘He isn't Alice.'

The thought was abrupt and echoed around her head as Charlie concentrated on the depths. ‘Alice is my friend. We've had so much fun together over the years. I'm just hurt that she didn't believe me about how Cameron blanked me, that's all.'

‘Ambition has dulled her generosity of spirit. It's your turn now.'

‘My turn?' The idea seemed so fresh, that Charlie found herself holding the side of the bridge tighter as the water offered one final instruction.

‘Help Alice. She's become lost.'

‘Relax, woman!' Charlie told herself as she wrapped a dark red cashmere scarf around her shoulders instead of her usual tatty blue one.

Brushing her hands down her jeans, she pulled on some knee-high boots. The necessity of having sensibly soled boots for the frosty pavements meant they had to be flatties. The lack of high heels added to the ‘this is not a date' angle she was aiming for; an aim which was at odds with the excitement Charlie couldn't deny was rising inside her as she walked towards the pub. Telling herself firmly to stop acting like a teenager, she plunged her gloved hands deep into the pockets of her duffel coat.

The night sky was so black and clear that the stars shone like suspended snowflakes. The beauty of it instilled Charlie with a flicker of hope. Perhaps it was a good omen that her first ‘not really a date' in six years would go well. In fact, it had been seven years since she'd had any sort of proper date.

‘Cameron's fault,' she muttered up to the constellations, but even as she said it, Charlie knew that wasn't true.

It was her fault. She'd been hurt, but rather than deal with it like a normal person, she'd put it all in a book.
Which would have been fine if that book hadn't then been published and read by strangers – a lot.

The Love-Blind Boy
had secured Charlie an agent, a good publisher, and an income which meant she could write for a living without having to have a job as well. However, it also meant that what had started out as a means of therapy to recover from her heartbreak had become a constant reminder of her humiliation. The story had touched a lot of people; after all, everyone has had their heart shattered at some time.

Charlie had written three novels, but no one seemed to remember the other two.
Except for Gervase.
She smiled. The river had been right, that had to be a good sign.

Reaching the outside of Scott Skinner's, it dawned on Charlie that she hadn't told Alice she had a date. It hadn't even crossed her mind to. An odd sense of isolation crept over Charlie. They used to share everything; that seemed impossible now after Alice's deception.
Unless the river was right
. Perhaps Alice wasn't being deliberately mean; perhaps she'd simply forgotten how to be nice in the race to succeed.

Sighing inwardly, Charlie tried not to feel bad about keeping secrets. She was only talking to Gervase for Kit's, and therefore Alice's, sake anyway. If she and the bookshop man got on well, then that was a bonus. If not, she'd have appeased her conscience by still trying to help out the festival.

Chapter Nine

Tuesday November 24
^th

‘Go on, get it over with. Pitch this festival idea to me,' Gervase took a sip from his pint of Macbeth beer, ‘tell me why I should spend a fortune in return for very little financial gain so close to Christmas?'

Charlie found herself put on the spot before she'd had the chance to decide if she should order a starter with her meal and be sophisticated, or go for a pudding later, making it appear that she didn't care about her weight or appearance – which she didn't, but she didn't want Gervase to know that.

‘OK then. This is how I think the bookstall at the castle should work. The stall should be within the Horsemill, where the refreshments will be. A drink is included in the ticket price, so all the guests will go there. They'll be a constant captive audience, and more likely to buy a book from the authors present.

‘The authors for each session will bring their own books. You can sell them on the stall on their behalf, and take ten per cent of the sale price for providing the selling service.'

‘Me? I haven't agreed yet.' Gervase raised his eyebrows playfully, but Charlie wasn't sure if he was joking or not.

‘OK, so the
bookseller
, whoever they might be, should also be able to take any of their own stock to sell at the correct retail price. That way, the retailer in question isn't in the position of trying to arrange loads of books on sale or return at such short notice, or having to buy outright a lot of books which we can't guarantee to sell.'

Having finished her speech, Charlie took a mouthful of wine before hiding in the safety of her faux leather menu while nervously waiting for Gervase's response. To her surprise, it mattered to her that he agreed, even if she wasn't going to be there to help. She could picture him clearly against the backdrop of stone walls and Victorian-style Christmas trees.
Honestly, woman, you're letting your suppressed romantic gene get the better of you. Stop it at once.

Gervase was looking at Charlie with more shrewdness than she'd ever been regarded before. His examination only lasted a few seconds, but it seemed far longer, and she couldn't stop herself from blushing like a ripe strawberry as the bookshop man's face broke into a grin.

Charlie tried not to giggle as another thought sneaked into the back of her head.
Why ever did I fancy Cameron?

‘I'm impressed.'

Charlie risked peeping out from the safety of the food list. ‘Really?'

‘I will think it over further during dinner.'

Returning the intensity of the look in his deep chestnut eyes, Charlie couldn't help but laugh. ‘You've already decided, haven't you?'

‘Maybe.' Gervase winked, ‘Now, what would you like to eat? I'm famished.'

They'd discussed books at length, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, Charlie felt she wasn't boring the person listening. She'd discovered that Gervase had originally been born in Cardiff, but his family had lived in Aberdeen since he was six, and although he'd worked in IT for most of his life, it had always been understood that he was doing a job he didn't like so he could save up enough money to buy out his Uncle John once he retired.

By the time they came to pudding, something called ‘Crathes Crunch', which they ordered out of sheer curiosity, Charlie had laughed, talked, and smiled more in one evening than she had in years.

When the waitress laid their desserts before them, Gervase tapped his spoon over the hard, crunchy surface of the turret-shaped pudding which stood proudly in the middle of his plate, a raspberry sauce moat all around it. ‘How cool is that. It's even harled like Crathes.'

‘Harled?' Charlie sliced a spoon through her mini-tower, enjoying the crack of the thick biscuit and brown sugar outer layer that hid gooey chocolate and vanilla ice cream within.

‘Harl is the name for that textured coating that covers many of the castles in Scotland, and lots of the houses as well. I love running my hands over it, and seeing the sun shine off the granite flecks. Harl makes the castle look as if it's projecting the rays of the sun itself.'

Charlie, who always made time to run her hands over the walls of any castle she visited, hoping to touch history through her fingertips, said, ‘I had no idea it was called that. How's it made?'

‘It's a mix of slurry, small pebbles, and stone chips which are stirred and plastered over the building. It sets so hard that it's totally storm proof.'

Charlie's imagination had gone into overdrive, ‘Can't you just see them? All those sixteenth-century workers stirring vast vats of the mixture, like treacle. Crathes is huge. It must have taken forever to smear the harl over it. The mess, the smell, and all those ladders and trowels! I can almost hear them shouting “You've missed a bit” at each other.'

Gervase laughed. ‘You are something else, Charlie, or Erin, or whoever you're being when you start talking in stories. Tell me, why Erin Spence?'

Running a finger around her plate, Charlie mopped up the remains of the ice cream, sucking off the melted liquid before saying, ‘There's no deep-seated reason. I like the name Erin. I wished my name was short and simple when I was at school, so I deliberately went for a nice short one.'

‘And Spence?'

‘Shops line up books in alphabetical order; the S's are usually in the middle of the shelf at eye level, and the name Spence seemed to fit well with Erin.'

Gervase burst out laughing. ‘You marketing whizz, you!'

‘Hardly! It's more that I was naïve, and assumed that if you wrote a book it got into bookshops.'

‘But you are in bookshops.'

‘Only by luck.'

‘And that stroke of luck was?'

‘I sent
The Love-Blind Boy
to an agent who'd just been left by the man she loved. The book hit every one of her raw emotions, and she took it
and
my previous novel. If she'd been having a good day the situation may have been very different.'

‘You sell yourself short.'

Charlie shook her head. ‘No, I don't. Yes, I can write, but that isn't enough. You have to be lucky as well. You ask Kit when you meet her. She'll tell you the same.'

‘Kit Lambert? Is she coming? Excellent, I have a few of her books in the shop, so she won't have to bring too many of her own for me to sell on.'

Tilting her head to one side, meeting Gervase's eye, and enjoying the pleasurable tingling feeling rising in her chest, Charlie said, ‘You are going to run the bookstall then?'

‘On one condition.'

‘Which is?'

‘You have to run it with me.'

‘But I can't.' Charlie swallowed uncomfortably, ‘I've made it very clear to Alice that I will not be helping.'

‘Can I ask why?'

Charlie saw the waitress heading towards them to clear their plates away, relieved that she was being given the chance to change the subject. ‘I'd love to order a coffee, do you want one?'

‘I always want one.' Gervase smiled, ‘By the way, I have a second condition to doing the festival.'

‘Ohhh, that's cheating!'

‘True.'

‘Go on then, what's the extra condition?'

‘You come out with me again. Soon.'

Charlie flushed with a heat her cashmere scarf could never produce. She couldn't believe it. The man ran a bookshop. How perfect was that? Promising herself she would text Kit as soon as she'd got home, to thank her friend for making her walk into the bookshop, Charlie said, ‘Alright, but only if you do the bookstand at Crathes, with or without me.'

‘You drive a hard bargain, Ms Charlie Erin Lottie Charlotte Spence Davies.'

Charlie laughed, ‘Indeed I do.'

‘Well, if that's the price I have to pay for maybe being able to – hopefully one day soonish – discover what it's like to take hold of those incredible curls and see if they spring back if I pull them gently, then I'll do it.'

Gervase's kind chocolate-brown eyes suddenly glazed with a desire that made Charlie's throat go dry. Somehow she managed to squeak out, ‘Good. Umm. Yes. Thank you.'

Then, not quite sure why she did it, Charlie, her gaze still captivated by his, let her right hand take a single red ringlet, and pulled it downwards to its full length. Holding it straight for a few seconds, she then let it go. The flash in Gervase's eyes as the ringlet rebounded upwards told Charlie everything he was thinking at that precise moment.

Neither of them spoke until the arrival of the waitress with their coffee broke the spell sixty seconds later.

Gervase cleared his throat, shuffling on his red tapestry covered seat. ‘You were going to tell me why you aren't taking part in the literary festival anymore. Which is insane, as you're the local writer. Shouldn't you be hosting it or something?'

Charlie, not sure she wanted to tell him something that would extinguish the first spark of attraction she'd felt or received in years by telling him about Cameron, said, ‘It'll sound really feeble.'