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But did anyone care what he wanted? Did he want a cream cake at two o-clock in the afternoon? Or was he a pastry kind of man? Would an apple turnover be more likely?
No.
The Duke of Worcester struck me as a man who snuck cream cakes into bed and got crumbs everywhere.
I tucked my laptop into my bag and fetched a light jacket. It was warm but still a little windy, and there were enough clouds in the sky that rain was a real possibility.
If that didn’t sum up the British summertime, I wasn’t sure what else would.
I got into my car and started the engine to make my trip into the village. The roads were, predictably, quiet, and the only traffic I encountered was that of a rogue pair of ewes who’d jumped over both the fence and the hedgerow and were happily chewing on some sort of greenery at the side of the road.
Unfortunately, sheep weren’t exactly known for their manners. They didn’t have the best reputation for co-operation—unless you were a sheepdog, and I was not.
At least the last time I checked.
It was a good few minutes of me beeping my horn and edging my car forwards traitorously slowly before they moved.
Bloody sheep.
Always in the way.
The rest of my drive was as uneventful as it could be, and I followed the signs down to the car park nearest to the river. It was behind the village hall, and there were only a few spaces left when I pulled in, and I got the feeling I was quite lucky to find even that many.
After paying for parking and leaving the display ticket on my dashboard, I slipped the strap of my messenger bag over my shoulder and headed towards the riverfront.
It was much chillier down here despite the sun being out, and I was so glad I’d thought to grab a jacket. A breeze wafted off the river and blew my hair over my face and into my mouth.
Yum. I loved the taste of hair in the morning.
Not.
It also wasn’t morning, but I digress.
Whitborough was truly a beautiful village. I hadn’t seen the waterfront area until now, and I wasn’t entirely sure the river was wide enough to be considered a river. Perhaps a disused canal was more apt, but it was apparently classified as a river, so…
Whatever.
Gorgeous stone bridges provided both pathways and a single-track road over the river, and two older gentlemen leaned over the side of one of the bridges, and I paused for a moment to watch as one of them reeled a fish in from the water. They caught me watching and raised hands in a wave, and I returned the gesture, albeit a little shyly.
Oops.
I ducked my head down and scurried along the wall until I reached a small row of buildings. They were all painted in different colours, reminiscent of the seaside, which was quite ridiculous considering we were nowhere near it here.
Still, the pastel shades were beautiful all the same.
Map Room Café was painted a pretty shade of pastel blue, and I paused for a moment outside. The café’s name was printed black, on a standout white sign with bevelled edges. Gorgeous metal tables similar to bistro sets sat outside the windows, under the awnings, and each one had a small glass vase with fresh flowers in.
The name did not fit the setting at all, and I was more than a little confused by it.
I pushed open the white, wooden doors, and stepped inside, carefully closing the doors behind me.
And froze.
On the wall to my right was a map of the world.
Not England.
Not the United Kingdom.
Not even Europe.
The. Entire. World.
At least the name made some form of sense now.
Small Polaroid photos were pinned to various places on the map, and I could just about make out the Eiffel tower roughly where Paris should be, and there was something that appeared to resemble the Grand Canyon hovering in the general southwestern area of the United States. Most of the others were too blurry for me to make out from this distance, with the notable exception of the Statue of Liberty pinned to New York.
“Are you eating in or taking away, dear?”
I turned at the jolly voice with a gentle Welsh lilt and found myself face to face with a woman I wanted to pin as someone in her late sixties. Her hair was the most gorgeous auburn colour, and the loose strands that fell around her face, escaping her bun, gave away the fact it was curly.
“Oh, um, I’d like to eat in, if you have a table, please,” I said after a moment.
She chuckled and looked around. “Just you?”
“Just me.”
“There’s one over there in the back corner—just by the spider plant there, you see it?”
I followed the direction she was pointing in. “Yes.”
