Page 113 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas
Kate stared at Adam for a long moment. And then attached a large red jelly sweet to the icing blob on the wall. Adam looked from the sweet to Kate and back again.
“I’m blowing your mind, aren’t I?” said Kate.
She grabbed the tube of icing, drizzled a line along the roof edge—avoiding the window and solar panels—and sprinkled a handful of multicolored sugar glitter onto it. Adam stood up; his chair made an ugly grinding noise. Kate wondered what he was going to do.
Adam’s mouth opened and closed as he tried to form words. Kate took the tube and squirted icing in up and down zigzags around the base of the wall and stuck green chewing sweets to it.
“That,” she said, pointing at the sweets, “is grass and ivy.”
She whirled the icing around the door frame and pressed pink and red candy into it.
“Rambling roses,” she said. “Every cottage needs a rambling rose.”
Adam looked on with revulsion. He held a small clear Perspex box in his hand, which he’d told Kate matter-of-factly was the observatory tower, which would sit on the roof instead of the chimney.
Kate smiled sweetly at him and continued to haphazardly squirt icing at the house and stick gaudy mismatched sweets to it.
Ordinarily Kate would take her gingerbread house decorating rather more seriously; she liked to have rows of sweets in complementary shades and shapes. She would, as Adam would say, havea visionof how she wanted it to look. But Adam’s attitude had pressed a devilish button in her and she found herself unable to stop throwing every glittery, sugary, jellified, luminously colored confection at his grand design.
The hanging of green-and-white-striped candy canes along the balcony proved to be a step too far. Adam gripped the observatory until his knuckles turned white and then used it to smash the gingerbread house to pieces.
The entire room stopped to stare. The reps stared. Custodians and tour guides, hearing the racket, came into the room and stared. Everyone stared at the grown man smashing a gingerbread house to smithereens with his bare hands.
Kate covered her mouth to stifle her laughter. When the house was nothing but a pile of soft rubble and tiny solar panels, Adam stood back. Kate picked up a piece of decking and popped it in her mouth.
“Mmmm,”she said.
Adam looked around the stunned, silent dining hall. He flicked his hair back and stalked out of the room with his nose in the air. Kate grinned. The other couples grinned back.
“Do you think I’m still in with a chance?” she asked.
The hall exploded into laughter. Kate found herself the recipient of a round of applause.
With her date showing no sign of returning, Kate left the dining hall and went in search of Laura.
She found her organizing a smaller, luxuriant dining room. Thelong table was laid with a heavy white damask cloth. Ornate silver bowls on filigree stands overflowed with fresh foliage: blood-red roses and poinsettias, ivy, holly laden with berries, bronze chrysanthemums, and white freesias, which cascaded down the stems of the bowls and spilled out across the table center. These were interspersed with candelabras as tall as four-year-olds and frosted fruits clustered together in pyramid triangles.
Each table setting had four sets of cutlery laid to attention beside gold-flute-edged dinner plates topped with matching miniature soup tureens.
“Wow!” said Kate. “This looks amazing.”
Laura wiped her brow and stood back, her hands on her hips. She fired off a couple of instructions to her staff and came to stand with Kate. She was surprised that the gingerbread house challenge was over so soon. Kate explained that it was only over for her; the rest of the dates were still bonding over edible walls.
Laura looked stressed. Lady Blexford had long seen the value of Kate’s friend and relied on her to organize things personally when they had guests. Laura often joked that she could run an entire manor house and one hundred twenty-five staff but couldn’t handle two small children.
“Lord and Lady Blexford are spending Christmas at the manor,” said Laura. “With their family and friends. We’ve got formal dinners every night till the twenty-seventh.”
“Crikey!” said Kate.
“Yeah,” said Laura. “The chef’s gone crazy. He’s drawn up a ‘Christmas Dinner through the Ages’ menu. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve had to order in for him: pheasant, partridge, grouse, woodcock! I couldn’t even order that, I’ve got some guy shooting them for me on the estate! Wild boar, venison...”
“They’re going to leave here with gout,” said Kate.
“And diabetes,” said Laura. “You should see the sweets menu. And don’t get me started on the alcohol.”
“What do I have to do to get invited to this shindig?” asked Kate.
“Sleep with Lord Blexford,” said Laura.
