Page 62 of A Scottish Highland Surprise

Cass had done a sterling job of shifting a couple of our extravagant Kate Spade sets to an indecisive customer, as well as a shedload of our funky, more reasonably priced sets to a group of student friends preparing to move away to university. I was so grateful to her for all her hard work, but I found myself trudging back into my flat, changing and eating my stir-fry like a robot.

Jake’s comments about Xander had really got to me. I felt cheated somehow, and deceived. And the fact I was feeling like this annoyed me.

After devouring a bowl of peanut butter ice-cream I hadn’t wanted, I sat cross-legged on my sofa and fired up my laptop. I logged onto The Cup That Cheers’ website first, in all its white and purple glory, and posted two of the best photographs I’d taken of the peacock tea set on there, as well as on the shop’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts. I also included the following message to accompany the photos;

Does anyone have any knowledge of the peacock tea set featured in these two photographs, please?

All responses will be treated in the strictest confidence. Please email me, Sophie Harkness, at the shop website address.

Any information, however insignificant you think it may be, would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

I licked my dessert spoon, which was dripping with the remnants of my ice-cream, and clattered it back into the bowl. In my appeal for information, I decided not to mention the well-dressed lady who had chosen to abandon the tea set with me in the first place. I figured that if I didn’t refer to her and she read my plea, she might have a change of heart, realise she could trust me and decide to make contact. If I mentioned her, it might make her reconsider and cause her embarrassment.

I wandered into my bedroom and fetched the tea set from the bottom of my wardrobe. I set the now familiar discoloured white leather case on top of my bed and opened it.

I gave the crockery a brief smile, as though greeting an old friend, before reaching into the pouch stitched into the lid and pulling free the letter. It was odd. At the beginning, I had considered the peacock design and the mix of blues and greens rather garish, but the more I looked at it, the more I found myself appreciating the sweeps of colour and the extravagant detail in the peacock’s fanned tail.

I opened up the letter again, my eyes sweeping across its contents. Briar Forsyth and I had something in common, I concluded to myself as I folded the letter up and slid it back inside the case lid. We had both trusted someone who had not been the person we believed them to be.

Jake phoned the next morning, as I was leaving for work, and we made a date for Saturday. As I drove past the flower-strewn gardens and sweet little cottages of Briar Glen, I knew I should have been looking forward to going out to dinner with Jake. Excited even. He was a successful artist, talented and Viking-handsome.

Except I wasn’t. It wasn’t that I wasn’t looking forward to going out to dinner with him. I was sure it was going to be very nice. I just wasn’t frothing over with anticipation about it either.

Then why did you say you would go out with him? hissed a voice inside my ear. Do you find him attractive?

I blinked as I indicated right, past a line of heavy-headed oak trees. Of course, Jake was attractive. He was intelligent. He was flirtatious. It was just … just…

I ordered the muttering voice to bugger off. I refused to examine why my stomach wasn’t performing cartwheels whenever I thought about him. I was preoccupied with The Cup That Cheers, I decided.

No, Saturday would be fun, I persuaded myself with a mental shake. Jake was fun, charming and loved tapas. What was there not to like? Far better to be going out to dinner with someone like him than with a grumpy pottery lover.

Another day of brisk business unfolded, including three more requests for the commemorative Briar Glen tea set.

Noah, Ewan’s student friend and talented ceramic artist, was delighted when I emailed over the three additional commissions after lunch.

I received a “Whoop! Whoop!” in reply, followed by three celebratory emojis.

Mid-afternoon swung around and I was showing Cass an Alice in Wonderland-inspired tea set that had caught my eye in a supplier’s catalogue when the shop phone rang. Cass hurried behind the counter to answer it. She waggled her eyebrows at me as she spoke to the person at the other end of the line. “Do you mind me asking your name, Madam?”

She gestured to me. “That’s fine, Mrs Dunsmuir. I’ll pass you over to Sophie now.”

Cass cupped one hand over the receiver, her hazel eyes sparkling with optimism. “It’s a Mrs Ivy Dunsmuir on the line. She says she thinks she may have some information for you about the peacock tea set.”

“Ivy?” I sprinted away from the counter. “Oh, that’s great. Thanks, Cass.” I eagerly accepted the receiver. We didn’t have any customers in the shop at that moment, so Cass pottered around, dusting the shelves and the crockery, while I took the call.

“Hi, Ivy. How are you? This is a pleasant surprise.”

“It certainly is,” she replied. “I hope you’re doing well. You’re much missed up at Castle Marrian, you know.” She hesitated. “I’m actually ringing you about something else, pet. It’s that tea set you posted pictures of on Facebook.”

My heart begun to thud faster. “What about it, Ivy? Do you recognise it?”

“Anything interesting?” asked Cass when I finished talking to Ivy and put the phone down.

“It might be. I used to work with Ivy up at Castle Marrian and she says she recognised the tea set from my photographs on Facebook.”

Cass lowered her duster. “That’s great. But she’s not the lady that left the tea set here in the first place?”