Boz could bake like a dream.
Always ready with a smile or a cheeky comment, he loved a good gossip and never minded lending an ear to listen to his customers’ troubles.
“How are you, then?” he asked Emma now, pausing to flick her a glance as he arranged the squares of cake onto a doily-lined platter. “We’ve not seen you in here since before Miss Elizabeth’s wedding.”
“Oh, I’ve been busy. Lots to do. You know how it is.” She looked down and studied the tempting arrangement of baked goods, wondering how she’d ever be able to choose one or two items from among so many artfully decorated treasures.
“Bored already, are you?” He eyed her knowingly and turned away to ring up a purchase, returning a few minutes later. “I’m sure you miss your sister now that she’s gone. How’s she doing, by the way? All loved up in Cornwall?”
Emma blushed. “I’ve no doubt she and Mr Darcy are oblivious to anything – or anyone – but each other at the moment.”
“Well, that’s as it should be.”
“Yes, it is. Of course it is. I’m very happy for Lizzy. Boz,” she said, wishing to change the subject to one that made her feel a little less out of her depth, “I saw your sign in the window. You’re hiring?”
He rested his arms atop the counter. “That I am. You interested, Miss Em?”
“Who? Me?” She let out a small laugh. “No! Heavens, what do I know about baking? Absolutely nothing.”
He shrugged. “Don’t need to. I only want someone to wait on customers and man the till on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The pay isn’t much, but you’d get a discount…and you can help yourself to a fairy cake or a Chelsea bun whenever you take a fancy.”
“How could anyone resist an offer like that? The problem is, I’d gain a stone in two weeks.” Emma pointed to the cream horns. “Four of those, please.”
He took up one of the white bakery boxes and reached for a square of tissue, expertly arranging six of the requested pastries in the box and tying it up in string with a flourish.
“There you are. An even half-dozen, as I know Mr Bennet loves his cream horns.” He placed the box on the countertop between them and added, “On the house.”
“Oh, no,” Emma protested, already reaching for her handbag and withdrawing her wallet. She pulled out several pounds and held them out. “I can’t let you do that.”
But he refused to take them. “Your money’s no good here, Miss Emma. Leastways, not today.” He lifted his brow. “Tomorrow’s another matter.”
“Thank you.” She smiled at him with equal parts gratitude and embarrassment. While it was true that money at Litchfield Manor was a bit tight at the moment, she hoped it wasn’t common knowledge, or so obvious that Boz had guessed at their straitened circumstances. “I’ll let you know what I decide about the job.”
“Just don’t take too long to make up your mind,” he warned as she took the box and walked to the door. “An offer like mine, workin’ here alongside the incomparably sexy, bake-tastic Boz Weston? It won’t last long.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She opened the door and, with a smile on her lips and the bakery box dangling from her free hand, left the shop.
Crossley Hall sat atop a hill overlooking the village of Litchfield. A drive wound up to the house, closed to visitors by a pair of iron, padlocked gates, bounded on either side by high grass and thickly overgrown hedgerows. A ‘sold’ sign was thrust into the narrow strip of grass edging the pavement.
Emma peered through the iron palings of the gate with curiosity. The house was Neoclassical, its three storeys fashioned of stone and all but consumed by ivy. A parapet and multiple chimneys were visible against the late afternoon sky.
While she imagined it had once been very grand, now the Hall was but a ghost of its former self. Neglect hung over it like a shadow. Greengage trees, their limbs heavy and in desperate need of pruning, all but obscured the south wall. Whoever the new owner was, he faced a serious challenge just to get the grounds restored to rights.
“Emma Bennet! I thought that was you.”
She turned sharply around. Mrs Cusack, St Mark’s church secretary and an inveterate gossip, stood on the pavement behind her with her purse clutched to her ample stomach and a quizzical expression on her face.
“Hello, Mrs Cusack.” Emma gave the older woman a polite nod. “I was just thinking what a shame it is that Crossley Hall’s fallen into such disrepair.” She turned back to peer through the padlocked gate. “When I was a girl it used to be quite something.”
“Indeed it was,” she agreed. “And will be again soon, if the rumours I’ve been hearing are true.” She eyed Emma. “You no doubt know that the Hall’s been sold to a gentleman from London.”
“Yes, I heard. Do you know who he is?”
“I’m sorry to say I don’t. I know only that he must be possessed of a good deal of money – because how else could he afford to buy this old place and fix it up?” She looked in disapproval on the ivy-choked walls and gardens running rampant with weeds. “I did hear that he’s unmarried, though. Not,” she added firmly, “that I’m one to gossip.”
Although Emma half expected a lightning strike to smite Mrs Cusack for this particular lie, when everyone knew that gossip was the one thing the woman did best, nothing happened.
“What he ought to do – the new owner, that is,” Mrs Cusack went on as she joined Emma at the gate, “is to try and get on that telly programme, Mind Your Manors.”
“I’m not familiar with it. I seldom watch television.”
“Oh, it’s marvelous. The presenters – Simon Fox and Jacquetta Winspear – go to a country manor house in need of help and suggest ways to spruce it up and make it viable.”
“Viable?” Emma frowned. “In what way?”
“Self-sustaining, I suppose you’d say. They take an old country house and turn it from a money pit into a bed-and-breakfast, or a posh day spa, or they convince the owners to host festivals on the grounds to draw in the crowds. It costs a lot of money, you know,” she added self-importantly, as if speaking from experience, “to pay for all of those leaking roofs and rotting floorboards and clapped-out boilers.”
“I’m sure. And who pays for the renovations?” Emma, always practical, asked her. “Aren’t they very costly?”
“Oh, that’s the best part! If your house is chosen, you get an allotment of £10,000 pounds, a discount on all associated restoration costs, and free labour.”
Ten thousand pounds, Emma thought, dazzled, and free labour. She allowed herself, just for a moment, to imagine what she could accomplish with that much money at Litchfield Manor. True, it wasn’t a huge sum; but with it, they could repair the leaking roof and fix the squeaky treads in the stairway; they could strip the wallpaper and paint the house, inside and out, and perhaps spruce up the lawn and garden…
“I see you’ve been to the bakery,” Mrs Cusack observed as she eyed the white box dangling from Emma’s hand. “Quite a…colourful character that Mr Boz is.”
“He is indeed.” Emma, knowing the woman wanted to gossip about the flamboyant baker but not wishing to accommodate her, switched the box to