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A small sigh of relief escaped Grace once she knew Russell and his dad, Archie, were okay. His elder brother, Griff, she couldn’t care less about, nor his step mum, Bianca – although she wouldn’t wish harm on either of them, of course.
She poured herself coffee from the pot sitting on the kitchen table into the Christmas-themed mug that had been waiting there for her return, and adding milk from the equally Christmassy jug, asked, ‘Oh? Why’s that?’
Anything about the Betancourts intrigued her. Mainly because she had been in love with Russell Betancourt for as long as she could remember.
Her parents had hoped she would out-grow her infatuation and over the years they had frequently told her that it wasn’t wise to believe one’s self in love with someone since the age of eight. Grace believed it was Destiny. Hope told her it was plain stupidity. Granny Joy told her it would lead to trouble and probably end in tears. But Grace was undeterred.
And still in love with Russell Betancourt, at the age of thirty-four.
She had dated other men, just as Russell had dated other women, but no man could match up to Russell in Grace’s eyes, and thankfully, he had remained unmarried. So far.
Hope grinned. ‘That posh events company from London that Bianca has used to organise the Mistletoe Dance for the last god-knows-how-many-years has done the unthinkable and made the biggest blunder in the history of blunders by failing to book this year’s event into its planning schedule. They were meant to arrive yesterday to get things started but they didn’t turn up. When Bianca called to find out where they were, they told her they had no record of her booking, and used the ‘new staff’ excuse, apparently. She gave them a right earful, obviously, and reminded them they’ve organised the event for years, in response to which they told her, “not this year”, and then hung up.’
‘They hung up on Bianca Betancourt!’ Grace couldn’t believe her ears. ‘Who told you all that?’
Hope laughed, Simon scowled, and Pat rolled her eyes.
‘Bianca,’ Pat said, followed by yet another sigh.
‘Biancatoldyou that?’ Grace cast a glance around the table, unable to take this news in.
‘Yep,’ Hope said. ‘We had literally just got off the phone with her a few seconds before you returned. She was outraged, as you can imagine. I suggested Mum should do the same, but obviously our darling mother is far too kind-hearted to hang up on someone. Even Bianca Betancourt.’
‘It would have been rude,’ Pat said, looking as though she were wishing she had done precisely that.
‘Bianca phoned here?’ That was a first. ‘So … so what does that mean? Is she calling everyone to cancel?’ Grace squeaked, like a mouse discovering the world had run out of cheese. ‘Are you saying there’s not going to be a Mistletoe Dance?’
The Mistletoe Dance was the annual event of the year on the Betancourt Bay calendar and everyone was invited. Everyone who lived in the clifftop village of Betancourt Bay, that is. It was one of those age-old traditions that had been passed down from generation to generation and none of the Betancourts had either wanted, or dared, to be the one to put a stop to it. One did try once apparently, and almost had a revolution on his hands when the entire population of the village turned up at the ornate iron gates of Betancourt with pitchforks and torches, or so the story went.
‘And I don’t mean the type of torches you find on your mobile phone,’ Granny Joy had said when she regaled Grace and Hope with the story. ‘I mean the burning kind, with oil and flames.’
Grace wasn’t entirely sure she believed her grandmother, but as the population of the village only consisted of around forty people, give or take a few, and was probably even fewer in those days, the mob was hardly likely to have been terrifying.
It wasn’t only the village residents who attended the event, of course. Invitations went out months in advance to several prominent people from the surrounding towns and villages, together with all of the Betancourts’ friends.
People said that recipients of the much-coveted invitation often placed the stylish, gold edged and gold embossed, white and green card on their mantlepieces, office desks, or somewhere equally visible, in the knowledge that others would be envious.
The Betancourts might not be as powerful as they once were, nor as wealthy as their ancestors had been, and they were no longer aristocracy thanks to the last Baron Betancourt having picked the wrong side, centuries earlier, and been fortunate that it was only his title and most of his land that had been taken and not his ancestral home, nor his head, but everyone in Kent and far beyond, wanted to attend at least one of their events. Preferably, the one on Christmas Eve.
The suggestion of there not being a Mistletoe Dance was unthinkable.
Hope grinned at Grace. ‘Not unless Bianca can find another events company to step in at the last minute.’
‘At this time of year and with only a little over two weeks until Christmas! She’ll need a small miracle to do … wait a minute!’ Grace’s eyes lit up as brightly as the myriad rows of fairy lights around the kitchen when the penny finally dropped. ‘Did Bianca call and askusto step in?’ Grace could hardly contain her surprise. Or her excitement.
Eversley Events had existed for the last fifteen years, but not once had the Betancourts asked the Eversleys to as much as quote for an event they were holding at Betancourt, let alone for the Mistletoe Dance. Neither Hope nor Grace knew why the Betancourts ignored Eversley Events when it came to business, but they always had, and Pat and Simon had told their daughters years ago that the Eversleys would never work for the Betancourts even if that family ever did want to employ them.
‘Let’s just say … we had a difference of opinion a long time ago,’ Simon once told Grace and Hope, ‘and leave it at that. They will never ask, so we’ll never have to say no.’
Grace hadn’t really understood, because although Bianca Betancourt looked down her nose at them, the woman did that to everyone, so Grace knew that her family wasn’t singled out for Bianca’s distain. But the Betancourts did hire other local businesses in and around Betancourt Bay to do various jobs for them – yet never Eversley Events, despite holding several grand parties at Betancourt throughout the year, not just the Mistletoe Dance.
In a way, that only added to the crush Grace had on Russell Betancourt. She fancied the pair of them as a sort of Romeo and Juliet who were always destined to fall in love despite their families feuding.
Not that the Eversleys and the Betancourts had ever feuded, to her knowledge. In fact, when the first Mrs Betancourt was alive, long before Pat and Simon set up their own events business, both families got on fairly well.
Grace and Hope, together with the other children in the village, had often spent time with the Betancourt brothers, Griff and Russell in those days. They all swam in the sea during the long, hot, summers, or played cricket on the common near Lookout Point, or croquet on the manicured lawn at Betancourt during the annual Summer Fayre.
Grace had fallen in love with Russell the moment she believed she was old enough to know what romantic love was, which for her, was around the age of eight. Coincidently, that was also when Granny Joy had told her the tales of Camelot: of King Arthur, Guinevere, and Sir Lancelot, and of Ivanhoe, Rebecca and Rowena, and of Robin Hood and Maid Marian, which may have had something to do with Grace’s sudden interest in heroic men – and love.
