Christmas at the Island Hotel - Jenny Colgan Page 0,35

right now. Instead she knelt down and opened her hand to the dog. “Come here, sweetie.” She spoke in the soft voice that worked incredibly well with Bramble, Douglas, and, as it happened, Joel.

She held her hand out steadily as Bjårk paused in his bounding for a second.

“There we are, come and try this,” she said softly and soothingly. The dog paused and she didn’t move, so he stealthily made his way toward her.

Just as he opened his mouth to take the meat, Konstantin pounced on him from behind with a makeshift lead made from two tea towels hastily tied together and managed to restrain him for long enough to pick him up, whereupon Bjårk immediately wrestled his way out of Konstantin’s arms and knocked over another table. As if as a final word, the table hit the wall, hard, and the huge stag head that was hanging on a nail fell off, striking the ground with a clang. Bjårk, confronted with what he thought was a stag, instantly went absolutely berserk and started growling and advancing on the stag in a menacing fashion, belly to the floor. Konstantin clapped his hand over his eyes, then threw himself on the floor behind Bjårk and dragged himself along on his own belly until he got close enough to grab the dog’s back legs. Front paws struggling mercilessly, Bjårk complained vociferously all the way backward through the swinging kitchen doors as they slammed behind them.

Iona put her phone down. She might, she thought, finally have her Instagram story.

There was a moment’s stunned silence. Then Hector McLinn, who ran the large, unrewarding farm that covered the western side of the hill range, grinned with his big ruddy face and started clapping. Flabbergasted, Flora turned toward him, already wishing the floor would swallow her up. But the whole thing had been such a disaster, so very awful, that there was really, in the end, nothing to do but laugh about it. Pam looked like she was about to go ballistic, but just as she did so, the waiters quietly opened the kitchen doors again and started beavering away, serving people food, and Flora ordered free wine from the cellar, which put everyone in an absolutely tremendous mood, and by the time everyone was seated again, there was the sense—particularly as it had been so very dreadful, as Fintan carefully picked up the stag head, and Hector, who was six foot four in his stockinged feet, went over to help him rehang it—that actually it had been quite the adventure.

INSIDE THE KITCHEN, however, it was a different matter. Bjårk had been sent outside the kitchen door—“He can jump in the sea, I do not care”—and was trying to keep out of the cold and howling wind and whining and yipping loudly, occasionally scratching dolefully at the door, adding a strange punctuation to the righteous bollocking they were getting from Gaspard, who was managing to simultaneously scream his head off at Konstantin—and Isla for not helping, which Isla felt was extremely unfair—while also finishing off the dishes that were now going out like clockwork from the kitchen and, very shortly afterward, coming back scraped clean, so delicious was the food. Every time the kitchen doors swung open, they could hear the noise of happy diners rising, the conversation and laughter becoming more pronounced, even as Gaspard continued to hector them with how utterly useless they all were.

Finally, furious, spent, he turned round to finish the preparations on the marmalade tart pudding—being French, Gaspard thought marmalade was an incredibly exotic and rare ingredient and used it in everything—and Isla and Konstantin were left together alone in the middle of the kitchen. Isla risked a glance at Konstantin, who was staring at the floor.

A second later, Konstantin risked a glance at her. This time, she was looking up and caught his eye. And the oddest thing happened. They both smiled; they couldn’t help it.

“Get on! Clean!” spat Gaspard from the other side of the kitchen, and they hurried back to their roles immediately. But neither of them felt quite so bad.

Chapter 25

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the more freely flowing the booze at a charity dinner, the more money stands to be raised, and even though it involved the sacrifice of some of Colton’s wine collection, it turned out to be quite an incredibly lucrative night for Pam and Charlie’s charity, and Pam, who had been rather looking forward to dispensing “What a shame they can’t