Anything but Vanilla

chapter NINE



A little ice cream is like a love affair—a sweet pleasure that lifts the spirit.

—from Rosie’s ‘Little Book of Ice Cream’

Sorrel transferred the ices to the chest freezer in the garage, shooed the dogs who rushed to meet her out into the garden and stepped into a kitchen filled with the smell of pastry burning.

‘Hello, darling? Busy day?’ Grandma asked as she turned from laying the kitchen table. ‘Where’s your friend?’

‘Friend?’ She checked the oven, turned down the temperature before the pie was incinerated and made a mental note to make an appointment to have her grandmother’s eyes tested. ‘Oh, you mean Alexander,’ she said. ‘He couldn’t make it, Gran. He sends his apologies.’

‘Alexander? Who’s Alexander?’

‘Graeme...’ She jumped at the sound of his voice, turning guiltily as he appeared from the hall. Which was ridiculous. She had nothing to feel guilty about. She hadn’t betrayed him. Only herself... ‘I didn’t see your car.’

‘It was such a pleasant evening I decided to walk over from the rectory.’

‘Really? It must be catching.’ He frowned and she quickly shook her head. ‘Nothing. Sorry...I didn’t expect to see you this evening. How is it going over there?’

‘Slowly. Perfection can’t be rushed.’

‘I suppose not.’ Was that why he was taking his time with her? Because she wasn’t yet perfect?

‘When I saw Basil in the village shop last week he asked if I’d take a look at his tax return so I thought I’d drop in and do it this evening. Kill two birds with one stone.’

‘Oh? Who’s the other bird?’

He frowned. ‘You seem a little edgy, Sorrel.’

‘Do I? It’s been a difficult day.’ Although not as difficult as it might have been thanks to Alexander. She forced a smile. ‘It’s very kind of you to help Basil.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s no trouble and I thought it would save you the bother of phoning me.’

‘Oh, yes. Of course.’ She’d put the opera so far in the back of her mind that she’d forgotten. ‘I haven’t had a chance to check the dates, yet.’

‘Well, you can do that now. And you wanted to talk about the ice-cream parlour?’

‘Isn’t that three birds?’ she said. And two of them appeared to be her. ‘Bang, bang, bang.’

He should have laughed. Alexander would have laughed. Graeme merely looked confused.

She shook her head. ‘Sorry. You’re right. I do, Graeme. I’m going to ask Ria if she’d be prepared to go into partnership with me. I’ve had this absolutely brilliant idea—’

‘Partnership? Are you mad?’ he said, cutting her off before she could elaborate.

‘Possibly. It’s been a long day...’

‘You’re tired?’

Actually she wasn’t tired, she was stimulated, elated, excited and didn’t want to have cold water thrown over her idea.

‘...and it’s going to be a long day tomorrow. To be honest all I want to do right now is have a long soak and an early night.’

‘Really? That’s not like you,’ he said, disapprovingly. Definitely not perfect... Clearly women who wanted to be world-class businesswomen didn’t indulge themselves in a long soak in the bath when there were decisions to be made, ice-cream empires to conquer. But then most of them wouldn’t have been on their feet all day producing the goods. And she did her best thinking in the bath. ‘Very well. We’ll have dinner tomorrow night. We can talk about it then.’

Uh-oh. She recognised that tone of voice. It was the ‘must do better’ voice. Talking about it meant talking her out of whatever silly idea she’d come up with.

‘I’d prefer to leave it until the beginning of next week, Graeme. I’ll have a better idea of the situation by then.’

‘The situation seems clear enough...’ He stepped back as the latest canine addition to the menagerie that had crept back into the kitchen began sniffing around his shoes.

‘Midge! Out!’ she said sharply and Midge, affronted, shook herself thoroughly, sending a cloud of white hair floating up to cling to Graeme’s immaculate charcoal suit before she retreated to the step where she flopped down, blocking the door.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ he exclaimed, irritably brushing at his legs. ‘Your sister needs to grow up, Sorrel. This is your home, not an animal sanctuary.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said—she’d been apologising for Geli’s waifs and strays for so long that it had become an automatic response—but honestly, any man with a particle of common sense would have changed into something casual before coming to call on a household with a large floating dog and cat population.

Alexander, in soft jeans and an old T-shirt, wouldn’t have been twitchy about a few dog hairs. The thought crept, unbidden, into her head and she slapped it away. She was not going to compare them. Not to Graeme’s disadvantage.

He might not be prepared to come and mix ice cream with her but he’d been there when she’d needed someone with experience to hold her hand as she’d launched Scoop! out of the shallow little pond of Rosie-based parties and into the deeper, more dangerous waters of major events.

While Elle and Geli had been happy to carry on as they were, he had understood her drive, her need to become a market leader, and encouraged her.

He’d been a guest lecturer on start-up finance during the final year of her degree, and she’d known, the minute he’d stepped up to the lectern, that he fulfilled everything she sought in a man.

Tall, slim, his hair cut by a famed London barber, his shirts and shoes handmade, his bespoke suits cut in classic English style, he passed the ‘well groomed’ and ‘well dressed’ test with a starred A.

His reputation as a financial wizard was already established, so that was his career sorted, and his property portfolio included a riverside apartment in London, a cottage in Cornwall to which he’d added the Georgian vicarage in Longbourne, when it came on the market.

‘I’ll find you a clothes brush,’ she said, in an attempt to make up for her momentary irritation.

‘Don’t bother, it’ll have to be cleaned.’ And not looking up, said, ‘Who’s Alexander?’

‘Alexander...?’ Could he read her thoughts? For a woman who never blushed, her cheeks felt decidedly warm, but she had been bending over the oven. ‘No one,’ she said. ‘Just a friend of Ria’s.’

‘One of those hippie types, no doubt.’

‘Is Alexander a hippie? Does he wear beads?’ Her grandmother smiled at some long-ago recollection. Then, with a little shake of her head, she said, ‘I need some parsley.’

‘I’ll go and cut you some.’ Welcoming the chance to step back from a loaded atmosphere, Sorrel took the scissors from the hook, stepped over Midge and cut some from the pot near the back door.

‘Well?’ Graeme asked, staying safely on the other side of the dog. ‘Is he?’

‘A hippie?’ She made herself smile, less pleased with his slightly possessive tone than she should have been. Less pleased to see him than she should have been. She needed time to distance herself from Alexander, from the feelings he’d aroused, from some tantalising vision of what she was missing... ‘Having only seen them in old news clips, Graeme, I have no idea,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you mean New Age?’

‘You know what I mean.’

Yes, she was rather afraid she did. ‘Well, he wasn’t wearing flares, or flowers in his hair.’ Edgy? She was balancing on the blade of the scissors slicing through the herbs... ‘He’s giving Ria a hand sorting out the Knickerbocker paperwork.’

‘Typical. I can imagine how that’s going.’

Why was he so annoyed? Did she have a big sign stamped on her forehead saying ‘Kissed’...?

‘Maybe, if you were nicer to her, she’d have called you,’ she said, unable to resist winding him up a little.

He made a noise that in a less dignified man she would have described as a snort, but, instead of ignoring a business so small that it was beneath his notice, he seemed to take Ria’s laissez-faire attitude to business, her lifestyle, as a personal affront.

‘I’m sure he knows what he’s doing,’ she said, rinsing the parsley under the tap, giving it a shake and handing it to her grandmother. She didn’t bother to tell Graeme that Alexander was a West. She didn’t want to talk about him. At all. ‘Not that it’s any of our business.’

Something she’d been telling herself, without any noticeable effect, all day.

‘If you’re planning on getting involved, it’s very much your business,’ he pointed out. ‘And if he’s helping her, shouldn’t Ria be the one feeding this man?’

‘She’s away.’

‘Away? Where?’

‘Dealing with a family emergency,’ she said, without a blush. ‘Without Alexander’s co-operation tomorrow’s event would have been a disaster, Graeme. Offering him a meal was the least I could do.’

‘You shouldn’t get involved.’

She didn’t bother to point out that he was contradicting himself, merely said, ‘I am involved. I need Ria. Scoop! needs Ria.’

‘Why? Anyone can make ice cream. You did it yourself, today.’ Something warned her not to tell him that Alexander had pitched in and helped with that, too. ‘Don’t even think of a partnership with that woman,’ he warned. ‘All you need is the equipment and you’ll get that at a knock-down price in a creditor sale.’

Shocked, for a moment she couldn’t think of a thing to say. But it was clear now why he’d been interested when she’d broached the idea of taking over the ice-cream parlour. He hadn’t considered Ria’s distress or Nancy and her little girl without an income. All he’d seen was a business opportunity. Simple economics. And clearly he expected her to feel the same way.

‘I was using Ria’s recipes,’ she reminded him. ‘They are her intellectual property.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Sorrel, it’s not rocket science.’

‘No...’ It was magic.

‘It’s a little ahead of schedule but you have to seize opportunities when they come your way,’ he continued.

‘Carpe diem?’ she suggested. The dangerous edge in her voice passed him by but her grandmother lifted her head and met her eye. ‘The fish thing seems all the rage today.’

‘You can take on one of the students who work for you,’ he continued, ignoring her interjection. ‘They’ll all be looking for jobs when the school year finishes in a few weeks. You’ll be able to pick and choose and they won’t cost you more than the minimum wage.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I know Ria is your friend but there’s no room for sentiment in business, Sorrel. I can’t tell you how much I disliked seeing you involved with someone who treated her business as little more than a game. She’s run close to the brink of collapse a couple of times in the past. To be honest, I’ve been waiting for this.’

Clearly with some justification, but did he have to sound so satisfied that he had been proved right? So completely immune to the human cost?

‘This is your moment to take control. You can pick up her local trade and expand it. You’re building a strong brand image. You can capitalise on that.’

Apparently, while she’d been dealing with the practicalities, he’d been working out how to take advantage of the situation.

For her benefit, she reminded herself. He had no stake in this other than as her mentor. This was what she had always wanted. But not like this.

‘I’m sure what you say makes perfect sense,’ she said, ‘and we’ll talk about it when I can think straight, but right now if you don’t mind I’m going to take the dogs for a run across the common before dinner.’

‘I thought you were tired.’

‘I am...’ and she had a headache that was thumping in time to the whack of the knife through the herbs on the chopping block ‘...but I’ve been cooped up indoors most of the day and if I don’t get some fresh air I won’t sleep. I’d ask you to come with me,’ she added, ‘but you’d ruin your shoes.’

‘Yes...’ He appeared momentarily nonplussed at her dismissal, not because he wanted to come with her, but because he made the decisions. ‘What about the twenty-fourth?’ he asked.

She found her phone, ran through her calendar. ‘I’ve got a wedding on the twenty-fifth...’ A ready-made excuse.

‘Oh, well, if it’s going to be difficult—’

‘No!’ She’d invested years in this relationship. It was this, rather than some crazy fling with a man who would be gone in days, that she wanted. She wasn’t going to fall out with Graeme over an ice-cream parlour. She’d produce a business plan. Maybe talk to someone else. Get another point of view from someone else who’d done this. ‘I can manage.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll organise a car to bring you home.’

She knew he was conscious of being older than her, but there was taking things slowly and then there was the madness of kissing a man within moments of meeting him. She was not about to allow the fizzing heat that had erupted between her and Alexander West to derail her plans and sabotage the future she had mapped out so carefully.

‘Is that necessary? I’ll have to be in London the day after anyway.’ She waited.

Say it...

Ask me to stay...

‘Have you gone to brew that beer, Graeme?’

‘Basil...’ Graeme turned as her uncle came to see what was keeping him. ‘Sorry...I was just having a word with Sorrel.’

‘Oh, I didn’t see you there, sweetheart. Take your time. I’ll get the beers.’

‘No, we’re done here,’ Graeme said. ‘Call me when you’ve got time for a chat over the weekend, Sorrel. We’ll sort things out then.’

* * *

Alexander had arranged an early meeting with Ria’s accountant. The senior partner dealing with Knickerbocker Gloria had indeed been taken ill and his junior, overburdened and incapable of keeping Ria on a short rein, was more than happy to be relieved of the responsibility.

A line of credit to deal with any further bills had settled things at the bank. The ice-cream parlour was back in business, if only for a month. His next task was to put the accounts into some sort of order for Sorrel.

His assistant had emailed from Pantabalik to tell him that the rains had set in early and they were unable to travel any further upriver so it wasn’t the worst time in the world to be away. He could follow up the research in the laboratory. Finish a paper he’d been working on for Nature. There were a dozen things to keep him busy while he was in England.

He arrived at Knickerbocker Gloria to find the door open and everything ready for what looked as if it was going to be a good day for the ice-cream business. A customer was already discussing her requirements with a distinguished-looking man in a straw boater, who was taking her through the flavours on offer, offering a taste of anything that caught her fancy, making suggestions, full of information about the quality of the ingredients.

He waited until she’d left with her purchase before introducing himself. ‘Basil Amery? I’m Alexander West. This is very good of you.’

‘No, dear boy. I’m enjoying myself, but what are you doing here? You should be at Cranbrook Park.’

‘Should I?’ Sorrel was expecting him? Last night, when she’d said goodbye, he’d been sure she understood. That he’d made it clear... So why did the day suddenly feel brighter? ‘She was vague about the details.’

‘Was she? That’s not like her.’

‘Probably my fault. Jet lag...’ He left the explanation hanging as Basil turned and called back into the rear.

‘Lally, my dear, what exactly did Sorrel say about Mr West?’

‘Not much. I asked her if he was a hippie, but Graeme was there...’ An elegant woman, probably in her sixties, but with the kind of bone structure that defied age, appeared from the rear. ‘Are you Alexander?’ she asked, with a smile he recognised.

‘Alexander West,’ he said, offering his hand over the counter. ‘You must be Sorrel’s grandmother. I can see the likeness.’

‘No, it’s Elle who features me. Sorrel is more like her mother, although where she gets that hair...’ She shrugged as if to say that was anyone’s guess.

‘Maybe, but the smile is unmistakable.’

‘Is it?’ Rather than flattered, she looked bothered. ‘Oh dear. It used to make my husband so cross...’

‘You missed a jolly good pie last night,’ Basil said, rescuing him.

‘I’m sure,’ he said, grabbing the lifeline. ‘Unfortunately, I wouldn’t have made very good company.’

‘Better than Graeme. Such a fuss about a few dog hairs,’ Lally said.

Graeme?

‘It’s a shame about the beads,’ she continued, ‘although they wouldn’t do at Cranbrook Park. The boys are wearing white tennis shorts and polo shirts.’ She eyed him up and down, then shook her head. ‘Have you got a pair? Basil’s won’t fit you. Your waist is too narrow.’

‘Only by an inch or two,’ Basil protested.

‘An inch is all it takes, darling,’ she said. ‘You can’t hold a tray when you’re hanging on to your trousers.’ She turned that lambent smile on him and he could well see why a husband might get edgy... ‘It’s not a problem, Alexander. Jefferson’s are supplying the clothes for the boys. Just pop in and tell them that you’re part of the Scoop! team. They’ll fix you up.’

Fortunately a customer arrived at that moment and, seizing the opportunity to escape, he said, ‘I’ll just pick up the books.’

* * *

Alexander hadn’t come. Sorrel hadn’t expected him. She didn’t want him to come. He was a disrupting influence on her life.

He’d been quite clear that ‘goodbye’ had meant just that last night. Which was fine. It had been unreasonable of her to expect him to help out someone he didn’t know. He’d done more than enough yesterday.

Her hand went to her lips and she snatched it away.

Everything was fine. She’d come prepared to fill the gap left by Basil herself. She’d even remembered to bring her camera to take photographs for the blog and, before the guests began to arrive, she lined up her well-drilled team of catering students from the local college in front of a mini Roman temple.

They were standing up close, girl, boy, girl, boy, half turned towards the camera, the girls’ ice-cream coloured, full-skirted frocks billowing out to hide the rather pale legs of a couple of the young men who hadn’t exposed them to the sun that year. Unfortunately, by the time she’d seen the problem it had been too late to send them to the local tanning salon for a quick spray, but once the lawn was filled with celebrities no one would be looking at their legs.

‘Big smile, everyone,’ she said, checking the screen to make sure she hadn’t cut off any heads or feet.

She took half a dozen shots, but as she was about to tell them to relax a voice behind her said, ‘Hold it. I’ll have one of those.’ She glanced round as one of the press photographers, prowling the grounds for atmosphere shots, came up behind her. ‘You’ve got a good eye for a picture. Who are you?’

‘Sorrel Amery from Scoop!’ she said, checking his identity tag. ‘We’ll be serving the champagne tea. Who are you with, Tony?’ she asked.

‘Celebrity. Do you mind if I help myself to your pose?’

‘Not if you promise to use the picture,’ she said, slipping out one of the cards she had tucked at the back of her own identity badge and handing it to him, so that he would remember who they were.

‘That’s up to the picture editor, but a row of pretty girls always goes down well.’ He glanced at the card. ‘Ice cream?’ He looked her up and down with a knowing grin. ‘What flavour are you? Pistachio or mint?’

‘Neither, she’s cucumber.’

Her entire body leapt as a hand came to rest possessively on her shoulder.

‘Alexander...’ Calm, calm, calm... ‘You’re late. You very nearly missed your photo call.’

‘I don’t believe you actually mentioned a time.’

‘Didn’t I?’ she asked, lifting her head to turn and look up at him, conscious only of the warmth from his fingers spiralling deep down inside her, spreading through her veins with a champagne tingle. ‘You had my number. You could have called.’

‘You could have called to remind me,’ he replied.

‘I assumed you’d slept through the alarm,’ she said dismissively, making an effort to gather herself, step away from his drugging touch, ‘and took pity on you.’ Her brain responded. Her legs didn’t. ‘You must have been exhausted. It can take days to recover from jet lag.’

And finally he smiled. ‘The beauty sleep didn’t work, then?’

She looked at him. He was dressed for the part in a pair of immaculate and expensively cut tennis shorts and with a white polo shirt, every stitch firmly in place, clinging to his wide shoulders, but while the shadows, like bruises, that had lain beneath his eyes were gone, no one could call him beautiful. The underlying structure was good, high cheekbones, a firm jaw, but the nose had taken some knocks and in the bright sunlight she could see a series of fine raised scars on the side of his face, suggesting the lash of sharp, toxic leaves, that marred his cheek.

She wanted to run her fingers over them, smooth them away...

‘I’m sure the photographer will give you a Photoshop glow if you ask him nicely,’ she said, curling her fingers tightly into her palms as he turned to watch the girls giggling and putting on a show for the photographer.

‘Thanks, but it would take a lot more than that to get me into your chorus line.’

‘How much more?’ The words were out of her mouth before she had the sense to close it.

He didn’t look at her, but one corner of his mouth lifted in a lazy smile. ‘I’ll give it some thought,’ he said, and her heart bounced like a tennis ball being tested by a champion about to serve for the match.

‘Don’t worry about it....’ The ‘don’t’ got stuck in her throat and the rest of the sentence never quite made it. She cleared her throat. ‘An insect,’ she said, flapping her hand as if to waft it away. His smile deepened. ‘The thing about a chorus line is uniformity,’ she struggled on. Everything about Alexander West was bigger, more dangerous than the students who hadn’t quite made the leap from youth to manhood. ‘You’d just make it look untidy.’

Worse, his maturity, his broad shoulders and muscular thighs, calves developed from walking miles in difficult terrain, would make them look ordinary. Not that she had seen how great his legs were when her heart had leapt. All it had taken to send it leaping about was the sound of his voice.

‘I was going to get my hair cut, but I thought this was more urgent.’

He’d remembered what she’d said? Without thinking she put her hand on his arm. ‘You’ll do.’

‘Will I?’ And finally, he turned those hot blue eyes on her and she snatched back her hand as if burned before, not knowing what to do with it, she self-consciously tucked back the untameable curl. What was it about this man that made her act like a teenager? She hadn’t done that since she was seventeen...

‘Just this once. Hair above the collar next time,’ she said, going for teasing, but not quite making it. ‘I’m guessing, since you’ve come dressed for the part,’ she said, giving him a casual once-over, just for the pleasure of looking at his legs, ‘that you’ve been to the ice-cream parlour.’

‘I called in for the books. I was going to put together the accounts.’

‘And you got sandbagged by Basil and Lally?’ So he was here out of guilt. But he was here... ‘How are they doing?’

‘Fine, although your grandmother seemed disappointed that I wasn’t wearing beads.’

She smothered a groan, wondering what exactly her grandmother had said to him, thinking how good it would feel to hide her face in his chest, breathe him in, let his hand slide from her shoulder to her back. Well aware just how bad a move that would be.

‘I’m sorry about that. She tends to say the first thing that comes into her head.’

‘Someone must have put the thought there.’ Thank you, Graeme... ‘You have her smile.’

‘Yes.’ It used to get her grandmother into trouble, too... ‘I mentioned that you were a friend of Ria’s. It’s that New Age thing.’

Floaty, hand-dyed clothes, lots of exotic jewellery.

‘It’s okay. I got it. Have you heard from her?’

‘Ria?’ She shook her head. Why on earth would Ria call her when she could call him? ‘I did find a postcard she sent me from Wales. It had a story on it. The legend of Myddfai.’

He grinned.

‘I’m not pronouncing that right, am I?’

‘Not even close. It’s muth as in mother, vi as in violet.’

‘Oka-a-ay...’ Like she could ever have guessed. ‘Would she go there, do you think?’

‘Why? Are you planning to go and look for her?’ he asked, not answering her question.

‘I don’t have much choice. She was going to develop a special chocolate and chilli ice cream for me.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘It’s a special request for a local company who import tea, coffee, chocolate, spices. Adam Wavell? You might know him?’

‘I might,’ he admitted.

‘He didn’t insist on a tasting. We’ve worked for him before and he trusted me to deliver.’

‘Did he know that Ria was involved?’

‘It doesn’t matter, does it? His contract was with me. Graeme is absolutely right. This is no way to run a business.’