Page 55 of A Recipe for Romance

Someone – most definitely not me – had picked up yesterday’s clothes and folded them carefully over a chair, and I wondered just how long Raffy had been awake. Going by his expression, long enough to get himself back into his vicar T-shirt and his coat of many scruples, at least.

Sipping strong coffee between the hammer blows of my headache, I realised that the pain I was feeling wasn’t entirely physical.

Last night had shown me that I still loved him – I suppose I always had, and always would.

But even if he felt the same way about me, which I was pretty sure he didn’t, it was never going to work out.

‘Last night…’ he began, while I winced at the sound the toast made when I crunched it, like a whole platoon of soldiers marching over gravel.

‘I know – you were just comforting me. It’s all right. I was too full of brandy to think straight.’

‘But I feel I took advantage of you when you were upset,’ he said guiltily.

‘No,’ I said, feeling a rosy blush spreading upwards from the duvet, ‘I think actually it was the other way round. Don’t give it another thought. We’ll pretend it never happened.’

‘But, Chloe—’

I managed a smile, probably not a terribly convincing one, but a smile.

‘No, really, I’m fine. I just grabbed at you for comfort…

though maybe I should take one of those morning-after pills?

’ I added, suddenly remembering that unscheduled actions can sometimes have unexpected outcomes.

You’d think I would have learned that lesson the hard way.

Raffy went white, which was interesting, since he’s naturally pale anyway. ‘Oh my God!’

‘Tut, tut, aren’t you taking the name of the Lord in vain?’ I said, dipping my toast into the coffee to see if it was quieter to eat that way.

He ran both hands through his hair distractedly. ‘Yes, but…I never even gave it a thought, Chloe – and I was the sober and presumably sensible one!’

‘Don’t worry,’ I said, giving up on the rest of my breakfast and lying back with my eyes closed. ‘I don’t take after my mother.’

‘You wouldn’t have to blackmail me into anything. I’d marry you tomorrow!’

‘That’s kind of you, but I couldn’t even if I wanted to,’ I said firmly, still feeling like grim death and in no mood to deal tactfully with fits of gallantry and guilty conscience.

I pushed the tray away and leaned back, closing my eyes again.

‘Have you forgotten? You’re a vicar and I’m the daughter of Gregory Warlock, author of sensational occult fiction and the proprietor of a museum dedicated to paganism and witchcraft: does jumping the broomstick with me really sound like something your bishop would favour? ’

That was a pretty unanswerable question, because even if he had loved me back, it was clearly impossible: it would be a marriage if not made in hell, still destined to descend there pretty quickly – so I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t reply.

When I opened my eyes, he had quietly vanished with the tray, presumably back to the kitchen and his own breakfast.

We had a fairly silent journey back. Raffy was remote and tight-lipped at the wheel whereas I was just tight, the effects of the brandy not having quite worn off. My headache had now reached aspirin-defying proportions.

He dropped me off at home at about midday and I crawled straight into bed, instead of checking for urgent Chocolate Wishes orders among the avalanche that awaited me on the computer: poor business technique. Poor anything technique.

Zillah must have come in at some point while I slept, because when I woke up a couple of hours later, there was a note on the kitchen table and a hotpot with a pastry crust sitting in the fridge.

By then, I was suddenly ravenous, and by the time I’d eaten that and a good wedge of crumbly Lancashire cheese, I felt like a new woman. Not a particularly good one, but definitely new.

This was just as well, because Poppy called in.

‘I can’t stay long – we switched the Parish Council meeting to today, because of Maundy Thursday being busy for Raffy,’ she said.

‘I only hope he’s remembered it! I’ll have to go straight home afterwards – the vet’s coming out – so I thought I’d look in on you now to see how things went in London…

and actually,’ she added, taking stock of the way I looked, which was probably worse than I felt now I was on the mend, ‘clearly it didn’t go well! ’

‘ Parts of it went with a bang,’ I said wryly, and told her all about the meeting with Carr Blackstock.

‘So that’s that: I didn’t feel a thing for him or he for me. All he could think about was himself, and how it would affect him if the news got out. But his coldness did upset me quite a bit…In fact, so much that afterwards I took advantage of Raffy.’

Her blue eyes went round. ‘You what ?’

‘Oh, he thinks he took advantage of me , so he’s all full of honour and scruples now and even offered to marry me! But he hadn’t thought it through: I mean, he’s a man of God and I’m Gregory Warlock’s daughter – I ask you!’

‘Perhaps he loves you, that’s why he asked you?’ she suggested, the incurable romantic.

‘No, he was just comforting me and it got a bit out of hand. I got a bit out of hand, to be truthful. The marriage bit was just an impulse when I said I ought to take a morning-after pill.’

‘Oh gosh, so you should!’

‘I was going to, but I’m well past the age where you get pregnant at the drop of a condom,’ I said, trying to be flippant, ‘so I’ll spare my body the chemicals – I’ve already nearly poisoned it with brandy.’

‘But it is still a risk, and you keep saying you don’t want children. What if you are pregnant?’

‘I don’t know…I was sure up to this morning that I didn’t want a baby, but now…I find I do want Raffy’s, just like I did the first time. So I’d keep it, but I think I’d have to move somewhere else, for his sake.’

Poppy was looking at me with dawning realisation. ‘You still love him, don’t you? Despite everything?’

I sighed. ‘Yes, but even if he loved me back it wouldn’t work out, so I’ll just have to try and put last night’s mistake out of my head and settle for friendship: Onward Christian Bloody Soldiers.’

‘I suppose you aren’t exactly ideal vicar’s wife material,’ she admitted. ‘Gosh, I won’t know how to look him in the face, now I know what you’ve been up to! You don’t think of your vicar as a man , somehow.’

‘I think you’ll find that most of the other women around here don’t have a problem with that,’ I told her drily. ‘And what about you and Felix?’

She went scarlet. ‘What about me and Felix?’

‘Ever since my birthday you seem to be constantly together, and I suspect your feelings towards him have changed.’

‘Yes, I suppose they have: I suddenly seemed to see him entirely differently – not like a brother at all. It was really odd.’

‘But he obviously feels the same way about you too, Poppy – it’s love, love, love! Why aren’t either of you doing anything about it?’

‘Because you’re wrong and I’m sure he doesn’t love me that way, we’ve just become even better friends than before.’

Actually, that sounded like a description of the best kind of love to me, but who am I to judge? And maybe pushing them together was now best left to the gods, or the magical Mayan chocolate, or Hebe Winter’s love potion, or whichever was in charge of that department.