The Chocolate Collection. Trisha Ashley

a round in.

      When I got back, Poppy suddenly announced, ‘I’ve got a date for tomorrow night!’

      ‘Where from? I thought you’d given up on internet dating sites and decided the private marriage bureaus were too expensive.’

      ‘Who with?’ Felix demanded, in bossy big-brother mode.

      ‘Just a man I met through The Times lonely hearts ads,’ she said casually. ‘We’ve talked for hours on the phone and now we’re meeting up.’

      ‘Where?’ I asked, distracted from my own problems. ‘I hope you’re being sensible and it’s somewhere very public, with other people about?’

      ‘Yes, you have no idea what kind of man he really is,’ agreed Felix. ‘People can say anything.’

      ‘I do know. I told you, we’ve talked for hours and we have so much in common. And it’s OK, because we’re meeting in Sticklepond, at the Green Man.’

      ‘Do you know what he looks like?’ I asked.

      ‘Yes, he’s medium height and a bit like Tom Cruise.’

      ‘If he looked like Tom Cruise he wouldn’t need to meet women through the lonely hearts ads,’ Felix said suspiciously.

      ‘He’s probably exaggerating a bit, but I expect he’s very nice really,’ I said quickly, seeing Poppy’s face fall. ‘Did you tell him what you look like?’

      ‘I said I was fair and blue-eyed and an outdoors type and he thought that sounded perfect, because he was very energetic and loved outdoor pursuits.’

      ‘That does it,’ Felix announced. ‘I’m coming too!’

      ‘No, you’re not. Three’s a crowd and I don’t need a chaperone!’

      ‘I didn’t mean exactly with you, Poppy, just in the pub to see how it goes. But don’t go off anywhere with him. I’ll have my car, but I might lose you.’

      ‘Oh, honestly, Felix!’ she said, but actually I was glad to see him focusing on Poppy instead of me. I can take care of myself, but Poppy is distinctly soft-centred.

      Then suddenly, quite out of nowhere, I had a blinding flash of illumination – Felix had all the characteristics Poppy had recently listed to me as being what she wanted in a man! He was single, kind, honest, not a sex maniac or a weird obsessive, and attractive.

      And if Felix really yearns to settle down to a comfortable family life before it’s too late, then he’s barking up the wrong tree as far as I am concerned, but he and Poppy would be perfect for each other. Except that she only sees him in a brotherly light, of course, and Felix thinks of Poppy as a mate, only the wrong kind.

      We’ve all three of us been unlucky in love and, by some strange coincidence, we had our worst moments at more or less the same time, though in different ways. While I was having my heart torn to shreds by Raffy at university, Poppy was away getting her riding instructor’s certificates and falling heavily (in an unrequited, Villette kind of way) for one of the married staff and Felix’s marriage was thrashing about in its death throes.

      I suppose in our separate ways, we’d all got an education, just not the kind we’d hoped for.

      By the time we’d got together again we were ready to slip back into our old, comfortable companionship without any need for extensive emotional post mortems, mainly, I suspect, because all three of us were harbouring one or two secrets we didn’t, for once, want to share.

      I certainly was. And the longer I went without telling anyone, the harder it became to confide even in Poppy, to whom the whole of my life, up to the point I left for university, had been an open book.

       Chapter Seven: Brief Encounters

      Although my discoveries about my mother had upset me deeply, there wasn’t really any time to sit about brooding or to work out what, if anything, to do about it.

      I still had lots of packing to do, including bubble-wrapping my extensive collection of ornamental angels, many of them given to me as gifts. I was also trying to make a large enough stock of Chocolate Wishes to tide me over until I could start up production again in the cottage, so the Bath was chugging away pretty well non-stop as it heated and stirred the couverture, and trays of chocolate-coated angel and heart moulds covered every surface, hardening before I could put in the Wish and seal them up.

      It would be wonderful when I had a separate workshop, because chocolate making had taken over the flat!

      Meanwhile, not even imminent house-moving could stop Grumps’ steady output of one or two chapters of novel per day, or his incessant correspondence: cranks of the world, unite! I told him again this morning that email would be easier and quicker, and I could show him how to do it in no time, but he said the devil was in the machine and it could stay there.

      Then he added that that had given him an idea, and started scribbling away, my presence forgotten, so I tiptoed off and left him to it, though I don’t suppose he would have noticed if I’d blown a trumpet in his ear and then slammed the door.

      ‘So, how did it go?’ I asked Poppy when she called round on the morning after her date. ‘Did he turn up?’

      ‘Yes, but I didn’t realise it was him for ages. We were both sitting separately in the pub for half an hour, each thinking the other one wasn’t coming. Felix was in another corner, hiding behind a newspaper like a spy. He kept peering over the top of it.’ She gave her irrepressible giggle. ‘In fact, it was like a singles night for the severely shy!’

      ‘I thought your date told you he looked like Tom Cruise? He should have been easy to spot.’

      ‘Actually, he looked more like a spinning top. He had a small head but a huge stomach and little legs.’

      ‘I don’t think Tom Cruise is very tall, is he?’

      ‘No, but at least he’s good-looking! This one had a face that could stop clocks.’

      ‘That bad?’ I said sympathetically.

      ‘Worse! I mean, I’ve no objection to homely, but Cruise Missile was gargoyle ugly! But eventually, when no one else turned up, the penny dropped that it must be him, because he was constantly watching the door as if he was waiting for someone.’

      ‘Cruise Missile? Is that what he called himself in the ad?’ I asked incredulously. ‘You didn’t tell us that bit!’

      ‘It didn’t seem important,’ she said simply. ‘Just a name to grab the attention.’

      ‘It seems to have hooked you, all right. What did you call yourself?’

      ‘Riding Mistress.’

      ‘Riding Mistress?’ I looked at her and she gazed innocently back at me. Considering what her mother is like, I can’t believe how naïve she can be sometimes, but she has a very literal mind, which must account for it.

      ‘Well, that’s what I am, isn’t it?’

      ‘Ye-es…’ I said slowly, ‘but – well, never mind. What did you do next, sneak out of the back door under some pretext and leg it?’

      ‘No, I went over and asked him if he was waiting for Riding Mistress, and he was, only I could see he was really disappointed in me too.’

      ‘I don’t see why,’ I said loyally, though it’s true that Poppy’s idea of making an effort to dude herself up a bit was usually confined to applying rose-tinted lip salve and running a comb through her slightly frizzy, damp-sand-coloured hair, usually the comb she has just used on Honeybun’s tail.

      ‘He told me straight out why he was disappointed: it was because he’d