‘Woah!’ Annie stopped dead on the threshold of the grand ballroom of Clove Lore Big House and every head in the room whipped round to face her. ‘Sorry,’ she said, shrinking a little and whispering to Harri, ‘I forgot, this is England. You’re not supposed to be impressed by a great big five-hundred-year-old manor house.’
Harri sniffed a laugh and led the way further inside.
A young blonde of about twenty-ish approached them with a drinks tray of wine and orange juice.
Annie was still looking all around her at the glowing candles burning in antique sconces along the wall. A great ball of mistletoe hung from the lofty ceiling. A grand piano stood under its cover beside a smoky fire in a very grand fireplace and in the centre of the room were chairs set out in a circle and a larger gathering of people than either of them had expected.
‘I didn’t know the meeting would be so fancy,’ Annie said in a confiding tone to the blonde girl as she lifted a glass of juice and Harri took a wine.
‘It’s always like this,’ the girl murmured back. ‘Minty likes everything done proper.’
‘Ah! There you are!’ cried an imperious voice, both shrill and booming in the English country-house way. The woman attached to the voice was making her way towards them. She was a gracious figure in winter tweeds, green wellies and a silken scarf knotted at her throat.
‘Camilla Parker Bowles,’ Annie coughed.
Harri only just managed to hold in his laughter and a mouthful of wine. The girl with the tray scooted out of the path of the advancing woman.
‘How nice of you to join us,’ the woman was saying. ‘I’m Araminta Clove-Congreve, proprietor of Clove Lore Big House Estate and Gardens. Friends call me Minty.’
This left Harri none the wiser as to whether she classed them as friends or not. She jabbed a hand out for the booksellers to shake.
Annie introduced herself and Harri knew she was fighting the urge to curtsey by the tiny smirk on her lips.
‘And I’m Harri,’ he said while the prim woman crushed his fingers.
‘Did Minty mention she’s also the manager of the Clove Lore Estate food pantry and community growers’ association?’ chimed an even more glamorous woman wearing an expensive-looking shimmery, belted kaftan and silvery ballet pumps.
‘Co-manager,’ Minty replied with an indulgent smile at the woman, who Harri noticed was alternately sipping from two glasses of white wine at the same time. She had no eyebrows to speak of and was extremely beautiful, in a slightly batty way.
‘These are the new Borrowers, Estée,’ the lady of the manor was telling her friend. ‘Annie Luna and Harri Griffiths.’
Harri thought how they hadn’t told Minty their surnames but she knew them anyway.Interesting. His mind flitted to Brenda Coxhead, the head of his and Paisley’s street’s residents’ association who had her finger in every pie and somehow caught wind of everything going on in their area. Brenda was a menace, and if he wasn’t mistaken there was something of the menace about Minty too.
His conjecture was interrupted by Annie exclaiming, ‘Iknowyou!’ and almost sloshing her juice over the rim of her glass in her haste to shake hands with the woman in silver. She quickly realised the woman hadn’t a hand free to shake and so gripped at her own elbow instead like she was trying to contain herself. ‘You’re Estée Gold! The TV star. I thought you lived in Hollywood?’
Estée smiled, delighted. ‘Oh honey, I did, but one glimpse of Clove Lore andpoof! I was transported! I never went back.’
That was her story and she was sticking to it, even though her very public divorce and bankruptcy had been splashed across every British tabloid a couple of years ago. Even Harri had a vague inkling of it somewhere at the very back of his brain.
‘Vacationing with celebrities and royalty!’ Annie continued, enjoying every second of this introduction to Big House life. ‘It’sjustlikeDownton Abbey.’
Minty raised a brow at being identified as royal, but didn’t correct her.
‘Oh, ’tis just like it!’ came another voice and the two glamazons parted to let a smaller, pink-cheeked, white-haired woman come between them.
‘This is Mrs Crocombe, one of the volunteers,’ said Minty in her clipped way.
‘I thought I heard another American accent! Just like yours, Estée,’ the elder woman said.
‘Except Annie’s accent isn’t put on!’ said a tall man as he slipped past trying to catch up to the girl with the drinks tray. Harri only just caught his wickedly purring Eastern European inflection.
‘Don’t be rude, Izaak!’ chided Estée Gold in her strongest Scarborough accent, which surprised the newcomers. ‘I’mTransatlantic!’ she added, before sipping from one of her glasses, signalling that was an end to the discussion.
‘And what do you two young’uns make of our bookshop, then?’ said Mrs Crocombe, ignoring all the Big House nonsense like she was immune to it.
‘We love it,’ Harri said, quite genuinely.
Something about this made Mrs Crocombe snap her eyes between the two Borrowers. ‘Weis it?’ she said, her jaw jutting forward interrogatively. ‘Jude said you was just friends?’
