Mistletoe Marriage. Jessica Hart

make it sound like the obvious solution.

      ‘It’s only half past six,’ Sophie protested, following her mother into the kitchen as she tried to shake the whole thought of that strange proposal from her mind.

      The kitchen at Glebe Farm could not have been more different from the one at Haw Gill. In place of comfortable, shabby chairs and cluttered dressers there were gleaming steel surfaces, installed when Harriet’s catering business had begun to take off. That had now been expanded into a specially designed outbuilding, where Sophie’s mother controlled the five women from the village who helped there with the ruthless efficiency of a Harvard MBA graduate. Talk about the iron fist in the oven glove.

      ‘How is Bram getting on, anyway?’ her mother asked as she went back to rolling pastry. When Sophie tried to make pastry she got flour everywhere, but Harriet’s apron was pristine. ‘It must be difficult for him now Molly’s gone.’

      Sophie clambered awkwardly onto one of the modern stools at the breakfast bar. ‘He’s managing.’

      ‘He needs to find himself a wife.’ Intent on her pastry, Harriet didn’t notice Sophie’s instinctive start. What was this? A conspiracy? ‘I heard that Rachel took herself off to York,’ she went on, before Sophie had a chance to reply. ‘I didn’t think she’d last long.’

      ‘Mum, you hardly knew her!’

      ‘You didn’t need to know her. You just needed to look at her.’ Harriet clicked her tongue against her teeth. ‘I could have told Bram that he was wasting his time a long time ago. A city girl like that is no good to him. He needs someone who can help him make a go of that farm. There’s good land up there. He could do so much more with it.’

      Harriet was a great believer in diversification. ‘You can’t get by on farming alone nowadays,’ she would tell anyone who would listen. ‘You’ve got to try something different.’ She herself had an excellent business brain, and Sophie had often suspected that she had been bored as a farmer’s wife until yet another agricultural crisis had prompted her to set up her own catering company.

      It had been such a success that Harriet was always encouraging farmers like Bram to follow her example and branch out. She thought he should convert his steadings into holiday cottages, offer shooting weekends, or turn his lower fields into a par three golf course. She seemed frustrated that Bram was apparently content to stick with farming sheep and cattle at Haw Gill, as generations of Thoresbys had done before him.

      ‘I’m very fond of Bram,’ Harriet often said, tutting, ‘but he’s got no ambition. He’s not going anywhere.’

      But it seemed to Sophie that Bram was already exactly where he wanted to be. He had no need to go anywhere at all.

      ‘It’s just as well Melissa didn’t marry Bram,’ Harriet said now. ‘He wouldn’t have been able to offer her the kind of life she’s used to. Look at Haw Gill. That farmhouse has hardly changed in fifty years!’

      No, and as a result it was so much more comfortable than Glebe Farm, Sophie thought to herself.

      ‘Anyway, she’s much better off with Nick,’ her mother said with satisfaction. ‘His company’s doing very well, you know. He can look after her.’

      Spoil her, you mean, Sophie corrected her mother, but only mentally. She wouldn’t waste her breath saying it out loud.

      ‘Melissa and Bram were far too young to get engaged.’ Harriet continued her train of thought. ‘Your father said so at the time, and he was right. It would never have worked. But it was a shame for Bram. I do wonder sometimes if he’s still got a soft spot for Melissa. He never seems to have got close to settling down with anyone else. It does seem a waste. He’s a nice young man.’

      Bram was more than nice, thought Sophie, vaguely aggrieved but not quite sure why. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t always known that Bram was in love with Melissa.

      ‘Did he tell you about Vicky Manning?’ her mother was asking, laying the circle of pastry over a pie dish. She cut off the excess with a few swift, clean movements and began knocking up the edges with the back of the knife.

      ‘No.’ Sophie was surprised at the apparent non sequitur. Vicky had been in the year below her at school. She was a plump, pretty girl, nice enough, but a bit wishy-washy in Sophie’s opinion. ‘What about her?’

      ‘She was supposed to be getting married in less than a month,’ Harriet told her. ‘They’d booked that hotel over Whitby way. Her dress was made and the invitations had gone out and everything, and then her fiancé Keith lost his nerve and called the whole thing off! He’s gone off to Manchester to get a job, and Vicky’s been left to pick up all the pieces. She devastated, apparently.’

      ‘Oh, poor thing!’ Vicky might not be the most interesting person in the world, but no one deserved to be treated like that. Sophie knew how Vicky must feel. She might not have got as far as sending out invitations or choosing a dress herself, but that didn’t make the rejection and humiliation any easier to bear. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said sincerely.

      ‘It’s hard on her,’ Harriet agreed, ‘but I dare say it’s all for the best. According to Maggie, Keith was always going on about how boring it was up here, and hankering after the bright lights, but Vicky wouldn’t have wanted to move. She’s a real country girl.’

      She checked the temperature on the oven, put in the pie and closed the door, wiping her hands on a teatowel. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if she ended up with Bram,’ she said.

      ‘Bram?’ Sophie sat up straight on her stool, outraged. ‘Vicky’s not the right girl for Bram!’

      ‘Well, I don’t know…’ Harriet considered the matter as she wiped down the work surface. ‘She could do with losing a bit of weight, but she’s got a sweet little face and she’s a hard worker. She’s grown up on the moors, too. I think she would make a good farmer’s wife.’

      ‘Maybe, but not Bram’s,’ said Sophie stubbornly.

      ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ said Harriet. ‘There aren’t that many suitable girls around here. Bram will need to settle down soon, if he wants to have children. He’s certainly not getting any younger.’

      And neither are you. Sophie didn’t know why her mother didn’t say it out loud.

      ‘Bram’s only thirty-two, Mother. He’s not exactly decrepit!’

      ‘He’ll need to be getting on with it,’ said Harriet firmly. ‘I don’t know why you’re all so picky nowadays. If you wait too long for someone perfect, you’ll have lost your chance. Look at you and that Rob,’ she went on in an aggrieved tone. ‘He sounded so nice, and all you can say is that it didn’t feel right.’

      Sophie sighed. She didn’t want to start this argument again. ‘It didn’t feel right, Mum. You can’t marry someone just because they’re available and you’re not sure if you’ll find anyone better! And now I’ve met someone else. I told you that.’

      Her mind flashed to Bram, and she thought about what he’d said. What would it be like to be able to say, Look, it’s Bram, Mum. We’re in love and we’re going to get married! What would her mother say? Would she believe it?