A Brambleberry Manor Christmas - Rosie Green Page 0,6

not Marjery.

If only my first meeting with my most exacting client had gone a little more smoothly…

*****

The night I ran into Marjery for the first time, emotions had flared between Tavie and me once again.

Feeling bad after our argument, I’d nipped out, while Tavie sulked in her room, to buy her a double cheeseburger, chicken nuggets, and her all-time favourite caramel and choc chip ice-cream. I was feeling upset after the confrontation, which happened because I wasn’t keen on her going to her friend’s Christmas party in the next village. I just needed to know that she’d be safe, but she took my enquiries about who’d be there as the beginnings of a refusal to let her go, and suddenly, she was venting all her frustration at me.

As I drew up in the car park, I told myself it was no wonder my step-daughter was so prickly and angry with me at times; any fifteen-year-old who’d lost the dad they worshipped just twelve short months ago would probably be the same…

My arms full of fast food, a large coke balanced on top, I was dashing out of the restaurant, checking in the bag to make sure they’d included Tavie’s favourite sauce, when I literally bumped right into Fen. The coke fell to the ground, splashing its contents all over the neat black loafers of the woman Fen was with. I stared at her in horror. She had short, snowy white hair and there was a surprised look in her sharp, intelligent grey eyes.

Marjery?

Panicking, I stooped to rescue the cup, but in doing so, the open brown bag managed to disgorge some of its contents onto the pavement.

‘Sorry! So sorry!’ Covered in confusion, I started scooping the food back into the bag and fumbling for a paper napkin to wipe Marjery’s shoes.

Fen laughed. ‘Jenny! Hi. I think that might have been my fault. We were just on our way to collect our Christmas wreath for the front door and I always get a bit over-excited when it comes to festive decorations. I probably wasn’t looking where I was going.’

‘No, it was me.’ I dabbed at Marjery’s left shoe with the napkin, looking up apologetically at the owner.

Marjery eyed her shoes then me with an astonished look – not surprisingly, since I was at that moment quite literally grovelling at her feet! Then she said in a fairly jolly tone, ‘It’s fine. Shoes can be cleaned. It’s certainly not the end of the world.’

I stood up, my face flushed pink from bending down, hair escaping from my ponytail, smelling of chicken and fries, and Fen said, ‘Mum, this is Jenny, who’ll be providing all the wonderful food for your house party next week.’

Marjery’s eyebrows rose. She glanced in vague alarm at the fast-food packages I was clutching and then at me. Then she held out her hand. ‘Very nice to meet you at last, Jenny.’

‘Er, yes. Nice to meet you, too.’ I quickly stuffed everything under one arm so I could shake her hand, and a single chicken nugget escaped from its bag, bounced down and came to a stop by Marjery’s left foot.

We all stared down at it.

Then Marjery looked me straight in the eye and said in a rather chilly tone, ‘Well, Jenny, I look forward to sampling your…fine dining. Fen assures me it’s first class.’

‘Er, yes. Thank you,’ I muttered, my face on fire. ‘I’m really looking forward to cooking for you.’ Was it my imagination or did she put quotation marks around the words, ‘fine dining’?

She started walking away. ‘Come on, Fen. We’d better get to the florist’s or she’ll be closed.’

‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ Fen called.

‘All right. See you in there. Goodbye, Jenny. Bon appétit!’

This time, there was no mistaking the irony in Marjery’s tone, and I wanted to shout, ‘It’s for my teenage step-daughter, not me! I don’t usually eat this sort of stuff!’ But she probably wouldn’t have believed me. And anyway, it would have been a lie. I’d been known to enjoy a burger and chips from this fine establishment myself on many an occasion…

Fen grinned. ‘Don’t be put off by Mum’s rather stern manner. She’s got a good heart underneath it all.’

I smiled. ‘Of course. And I’m so grateful to you for putting my name forward. I promise I’ll do my best to justify your faith in me.’

‘I know you will, Jenny. Just do what you always do and it’ll be brilliant! Honestly, Mum’s her own worst enemy at times. She