Christmas at Snowdrop Cottage

Helen Rolfe

Description

Full of sparkling festive magic, Little Woodville is all set for Christmas…

Belle Nightingale hasn’t celebrated Christmas properly since she lost touch with her Gran and left the tiny village in the Cotswolds behind two decades ago.

Back in Little Woodville to sell the cottage she inherited, Belle finds herself wondering whether her own dreams have been pushed aside in her quest to please everyone else.

The cosy cottage, nostalgia and her tenant Sebastian’s ties to her own family, bring a lot of emotions to the surface. When the snow blankets the tiny village, will Belle decide it’s time to confront the past in a last attempt to bring her family back together?

Grab a hot chocolate and escape to the quaint Cotswolds village of Little Woodville.

*Please note this is a re-release of Christmas at Snowdrop Cottage, previously published by Helen J Rolfe*

Sujets

• Vie de famille
• Relations familiales
• Mashups
• Conflict Resolution
• Feminist
• Holidays
• Siblings
• Women
• Coming of Age
• Sudoeste de Inglaterra
• Inglaterra
• Friendship
• Dating
• Sibling
• South West England
• Woman
• Feminism
• The Women
• Family Life
• Romance
• England
• Christmas
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 12 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9781804156698
• Langue: English

Extrait

CHRISTMAS AT SNOWDROP COTTAGE


HELEN ROLFE
For my husband who never stops believing in me and supporting me along the way.
CONTENTS



Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Epilogue


More from Helen Rolfe

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Helen Rolfe

Love Notes

About Boldwood Books
1

Belle Nightingale had no problem going away for Christmas. With her family it had never been a big event, at least not since she was little when her gran had run the show.
But that was then, and things in Belle’s life had changed. She found herself wondering if her gran’s life had changed too since the last time she’d seen her, more than twenty years ago.
‘What time are you leaving?’ Belle’s boyfriend, Anthony, emerged from the bathroom, his lower half wrapped in one of her fluffy, navy-blue towels. They’d been to his work Christmas party last night and even though Belle hadn’t let a single drop of alcohol pass her lips, she had the type of hangover induced by too much Christmas music, an enormous turkey dinner, and an overdose of mince pies.
Belle plonked herself down on top of her suitcase in an effort to squash the contents and make another attempt at shutting the thing. ‘Just as soon as I get this to close,’ she said through gritted teeth as she tugged the zip all the way around to the front to meet the other zip, already in place. ‘There.’ She exhaled hard. ‘Done. I think eating too many mince pies last night probably helped me weigh enough to flatten all my belongings.’
‘I ate way too much as well, although the food wasn’t as good as yours.’ He winked and rubbed some product through his hair.
‘I aim to please.’
Anthony played with his hair in the mirror for a second and then patted his stomach. ‘Gym for me tonight – if my head can take it.’
‘Bad hangover?’
‘Put it this way, it’s going to be a long day. But I don’t think I’ll be the only one suffering in the office.’ The aroma of his clean, crisp aftershave filled the bedroom as he pulled on his suit trousers and a sky-blue shirt, adjusting each cuff so it was perfectly straight. He turned up his collar, looped a tie around it, and fastened it at the front using the mirror to get it exactly right.
‘Drink plenty of water; you’ll be fine.’
‘I’m thinking coffee might be the order of the day. I wonder if this place you’re going to has any coffee shops. It’s a bit in the middle of nowhere, isn’t it?’
‘Who knows what changes they’ve made since I was last in Little Woodville.’ She returned his smile tentatively.
‘You won’t take long to get it all sorted,’ he said. He’d picked up that she was hesitant to talk about the village she hadn’t been to in more than two decades, but she could tell he thought she was stressing about selling the cottage, when in reality it was so much more than that. ‘Give notice to the tenant, clear out some of the old junk, and come New Year it’ll sell fast. I’m still dying to find out if this man is your gran’s bit on the side.’
Belle shook her head. ‘I’ve got no idea who he is, I just hope he isn’t a stubborn old goat who refuses to go quietly.’ The last thing she wanted was a sitting tenant on her hands.
Both she and Anthony were in the estate agency business, so they knew a winner when they saw one. Even though Anthony had yet to set eyes on Snowdrop Cottage, situated in Little Woodville in the centre of the Cotswolds, he’d seen enough photos and profiles of it to know its value. He also knew Belle’s feelings about the cottage that had been put in her name ten years ago by a grandmother she had nothing to do with any more. She felt the same way about the cottage as she did about Christmas: the whole thing would only end up being one huge let-down, so best to avoid it. And in the case of the cottage, that meant getting rid of it.
But the cottage had a tenant, a man called Sebastian who had been living at the address since her gran signed it over to Belle and went into a care home. The only stipulation had been that Belle should allow the current tenant to stay on until she decided to sell up or move into the cottage herself. Belle already knew the latter was something that would never happen. Little Woodville was a far cry from life in the hub of Cambridge, with everything on Belle’s doorstep including work and her boyfriend. Up until now the rental arrangement had been easy. The man always paid his rent on time and it was a nice little bonus for her every month. But now Belle and Anthony had started making bigger plans and the time to sell up had come.
‘Did you get a message back from the tenant?’ Anthony looped his laptop bag over his shoulder and picked up his suit jacket.
‘He knows I need to get in and have a look at the place, perhaps clear out some of the junk Gran left behind if there is any.’ She chewed the side of her lip. ‘I don’t know how he’ll react when I give him notice.’
‘Come on, Belle, you’re not going to back out, are you?’ He paused, car keys already in hand.
Belle hated to let people down, even a tenant she had never met before, but it was unfair of Anthony to ask. Of course she wasn’t going to back out – wasn’t loyalty one of her strengths? She was loyal to Anthony, her boyfriend of three years. She was loyal to Sam, her best friend ever since, at the age of thirteen, they’d pulled one another’s hair in the playground over a boy and subsequently decided friendship was more important than the opposite sex. And she was loyal to her neighbour Mrs Frobishire, who lived in the flat on the same floor as hers in the converted Edwardian house in Cambridge and who had become a bit of a confidante, a surrogate grandmother in the absence of a real one in her life. But her fiercest loyalty was to her mum, so when her mum had cut contact with Gran, so had Belle.
And that’s what made Gran’s move to put the cottage in Belle’s name so surprising. Ever since she’d received the call from the solicitor, Belle had been baffled by the reasons for such a momentous decision. She wondered if it was Gran’s way of offering some kind of olive branch, or if it was because she felt guilty about something that had happened in the past. Or was she hoping it would bring the family back together again? Belle had no idea. She knew her mum, Delia, wouldn’t provide any answers either, the long-standing feud with her own mother being something she never talked about. And since Belle’s parents had moved to Ireland a few years ago, resolving what had gone on before was even less likely to happen.
She hadn’t admitted it to Anthony, but Belle had a nagging feeling that perhaps selling wasn’t the right thing to do. After all, if Gran had wanted the cottage to go to anyone outside of the family, she would’ve sold it years ago. If she’d only wanted to convince Belle of her part in her granddaughter’s life, she could’ve easily given her a lump sum instead of going through all the rigmarole involved in handing over a property. And what if selling the cottage finally broke all ties between Gran and her only daughter? It had been years since the two women had spoken or been in touch, but Belle had always harboured a secret fantasy that one day they could sort out their differences and they’d all be together again. Anthony would call it sentimental and there was no room for that in business, and maybe he was right, but Belle sometimes wanted to believe it could happen.
The last time Belle had been to Little Woodville and Snowdrop Cottage was the Christmas after she turned ten. She remembered the front door of the cottage was much smaller than the doorways to newer houses and as a little girl she’d hovered beneath the pointed-roof of the porch wondering whether she’d ever grow tall enough to reach the top or if, once inside, she would be one of those grown-ups that needed to stoop when passing under the big beams that ran down the centre of some of the rooms. Anthony thought Belle was going to Snowdrop Cottage today to hand the tenant his notice and get things really moving, but Belle had another agenda she knew she needed to address before she could do anything so final. She felt she needed to say goodbye. She wanted to return to the place she’d spent so much time in when she was little, the village that had almost been a part of her until she was wrenched away from it, the cottage, and her grandmother. She wanted to remember her family together, take herself back to the really good times.
Belle put her arms around Anthony. ‘I’m not backing out. I’m going to Little Woodville to see what’s what, that’s all. I’m a professional, remember. And I’ve been working long hours, so I could do with an extended break.’
He pulled her close. ‘You’re very good at your job.’
‘As are you.’
‘And that’s why we’re going to take the real-estate world by storm, you and I, one day in the not-too-distant future.’
‘We most certainly will.’
‘Prices have gone up a lot in ten years. The cottage should be worth a fair bit by now.’
Belle smiled, although if Anthony had looked more closely and not been so distracted with getting ready for work, he’d have seen it was a smile that didn’t quite reach up to the corners of her hazel eyes.
Belle and Anthony had gone through comparable properties that had sold nearby recently, not that there was a single one in Little Woodville itself. Tourist brochures described the village as a jewel in the Cotswolds, idyllic, an area that hadn’t lost an ounce of its charm, as one website put it. It seemed to be one of those villages where people bought property and never left, which was great for the people residing there but not so good for anyone who wanted to move to Little Woodville.
‘I can’t believe the cottage has been in my family for more than sixty y