Page 92 of Meet Me Under the Mistletoe
“Make up a scrub of brown sugar, coconut oil, and lemon juice. Rub it all over, then shower off. Then cover her in coconutoil again, let it soak in for a bit, and then stick her in a bath and leave her there for a while.”
“Thank you,” said Nory.
“Does this mean I’m not getting paid?” the woman asked grudgingly.
“At this point I wouldn’t push your luck.”
Twenty minutes later, having raided the chef’s larder, Nory was slathering homemade body scrub all over her friend. Pippa sat on the edge of the bath pointing out the bits Nory had missed, in between texting and taking calls from people who were doing her bidding in varying parts of the castle.
“Do you think it’ll work?” Jenna was looking down at Nory with pleading eyes. She was standing in the bath in nothing but a black thong. The bath looked as if it had been pebble-dashed, and Jenna smelled like a lemon drizzle cake. The encroaching bridezilla of the last few days was gone, and Nory’s old friend was back.
“I really hope so. I don’t want to have spent the last forty minutes rubbing coconut oil all over your tits for you to still be the color of a baked bean.”
Jenna gave a small giggle. Nory had stripped off her jeans and socks and was kneeling in the bath scrubbing at Jenna’s orange knees, in just her knickers and a T-shirt.
“Guy would literally come in his pants if he could see this,” said Pippa dryly.
“Guy must never know of this,” Nory stressed. “Okay, turn around and bend over, I need another go on the backs of your thighs. I don’t know what that woman puts in her tanning solution, but parts of you are striped like a tiger.”
Jenna groaned.
“Where did you even find her?” Pippa asked.
“On the internet. I just wanted a last-minute top-up.”
“You got that, all right, you should have let me sort it.” Her phone buzzed, and Pippa answered it straight away. “Yes. No. Put it in the fridge. I don’t care, I’ve paid you to make me a croquembouche tower to feed a hundred, and that is what I expect to find when I come down there. Don’t disappoint me.” She hung up, and Nory was glad she didn’t work for Pippa. “The left shoulder blade needs more work.”
“I’m on thigh duty,” said Nory. “You get the shoulder blade.”
Pippa huffed, but after tapping out another lightning-fast message, she placed her phone on the side of the sink and scooped up a handful of scrub. All three of them were scrubbing and laughing—the atmosphere becoming less fraught with each glob of orange scrub flicked into the bath—when the bathroom door opened. Charles stood in the doorway with an expression on his face that was halfway between confusion and delight.
“I was t-told there was a p-problem,” he stammered.
“All under control,” said Pippa, as though finding two women massaging your naked fiancée in the bath was completely normal.
“Close your mouth, darling,” added Jenna.
“But. What is happening?” he asked.
“You may have noticed that your wife-to-be is currently the color of Fanta,” said Nory.
“Although, I’d say we’ve already faded her to a ripe apricot,” added Pippa.
“It’s not so easy to see at the moment because I’m covered in brown sugar,” said Jenna. Even her face was caked in the brown lemony-scented crust. “But I was spray-tanned by a woman whothought being the color of marmalade was the height of sophistication. I was very sad earlier, but now I feel much better.”
“She’s had three-quarters of a bottle of wine,” said Nory.
“And two old-fashioneds,” added Pippa.
“She’s more relaxed now.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to join you on the school tour, darling. Once I’ve showered this off, I’ve got to smother myself in coconut oil, leave it for an hour to soak in, and then wallow in the bath until I prune.”
“But the end result should be that you don’t marry Garfield,” said Nory.
“Or Donald Trump,” put in Pippa.
“Is my cleavage still luminous?”
