Page 28 of Meet Me Under the Mistletoe
“Five thousand pounds a day! They reckon they’ll need three or four days.”
“Mum, you’ve got to get Dad to agree. Offers like this don’tcome along every day. Think what you could do with that money. When was the last time you went on a holiday? You could get a new kitchen. A new sofa, you could get new carpets.”
Trust her dad to put hismoralsbefore business sense. It annoyed her to no end that her dad was so stubborn. As if running a business wasn’t hard enough, he had to be permanently on some kind of righteous crusade.
“Oh, don’t you worry about Dad.” Her mum chuckled. “I’ll make him see things my way. We’ll be having a murder in the nursery one way or another!” She winked at Nory.
“What does Thomas think?”
“He had his reservations, but now he thinks it’s a good idea. Shelley is very sensible; he listens to her. To be honest I’d have theMidsomerpeople here for free just for the fun of it, but of course I won’t; we need the cash. So you’ve still got a crush on our Isaac after all these years.”
“I’ve notstillgot a crush on Isaac. I haven’t thought about him since I was about fifteen.” This was a small lie.
“But you’re thinking about him now.” Her mum smiled knowingly.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Only to me.”
“How can you even tell? You literally saw us together for like two minutes.”
“It’s written all over your face. You used to get the same look when he’d call round for Thomas when you were a kid.”
“Mum!”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to do any matchmaking. Where is your father? I’ve got to get back to work; I can’t be waiting around for him to choose what time elevenses is.”
“I’ll go and find him,” said Nory, draining her mug of tea.
“You could do a lot worse than Isaac, Nory.”
“I only just met him again last night, Mum. I think it’s a little early to be marrying me off.”
But her mum only raised her eyebrows and smiled. Nory grabbed her coat from the back of the chair.
“Tell your dad he’s got ten minutes, and then I’m off; he’ll have to toast his own crumpets. I’ve got a hundred hellebores being picked up by the Scotney Castle groundskeepers and I’ve got to make sure they’re ready for travel.”
Nory laughed as she stepped out of the warm kitchen and into the cold. Some things never changed; her dad would always think he was too busy to pay attention to time, and her mum would work to within a second of her carefully constructed schedule and woe betide anyone who didn’t fall in.
She found her dad in a greenhouse full of ruby-red poinsettias, their striking petals and verdant leaves the epitome of Christmas, a vibrant splash of color against the gray weather outside.
“Hello, Nory, love,” said her dad, pulling her into one of his bear hugs. “How’s it going up at the castle with the high society?”
Wow, record time for shoehorning in the politics.
“My friends are fine, thank you, Dad. They’re up there now formulating an elitism think tank to see how best they can monopolize the world’s wealth. I’ve been tasked with coming down here to distract the working classes while they plan their evil scheme.”
Her dad chuckled.
“Mum says elevenses are ready.”
“Ooh, smashing. Crumpets or muffins?”
“Crumpets.”
Dad licked his lips. Her parents were early risers, it was the nature of their business; you had to make the most of the daylight hours. Come rain or shine, they’d be out with the plants by 6:30 a.m., then back in at 8:30 a.m. for a quick cup of tea and some breakfast, back out again, and then home for elevenses. They had worked this way for Nory’s whole life, so that her own body clock ran to the family business schedule. Nory had implemented elevenses at Serendipitous Seconds, and she secretly thought it was one of the reasons Andrew had remained with her so long.
“It’s good to see you, love.”
