The Cosy Teashop in the Castle: The bestselling feel-good rom com of the year. Caroline Roberts

wasn’t what she’d been rehearsing in her head all night. Some last-ditch chance at getting hired, probably. A final fling at her dream or else it was back home. Home wasn’t so bad, to be fair. Her mum and dad were great, but it was a narrow life, living in a brick-built semi in Heaton, and working in an office block in the suburbs of Newcastle. She couldn’t afford her own place. Well, not now anyway. That particular dream had been ransacked by Gavin-bloody-tosser-Mason. She needed this so badly, this new start. And a castle, surely, wasn’t a bad place to begin.

      They were staring at her, an awkward silence forming around them. Then Lord Henry stood up, indicating that it was time for her departure. ‘Well, thank you for taking the time and effort to come all this way, Miss Hall.’

      There was no ‘We’ll be in touch very soon’ like good old Cynthia had. Though Joe did add, ‘We’ll let you know something in the next week or so. We do have several candidates to see and there may be second interviews.’ He stood up, his hand outstretched. His fingers clasped warmly around her own.

      ‘Yes, we’ll be in touch.’ Lord Henry gave an inscrutable smile.

      Out in the cool corridor, Deana caught up with her. ‘Do you want to have a quick look around the kitchens, the tearooms? Get an idea of what you’re in for?’

      ‘Okay, yep, that’d be good.’ Go on, just dangle that carrot, show her everything she was about to lose.

      They wound down the stone stairwell. She could almost imagine an old witch up at the top with a spinning wheel; all ready to prick the girl’s finger, send her to sleep for a hundred years, and then there’d be her knight in shining armour galloping in to kiss her awake again. It happened like that in fairytales, you see, oh yes, those heroic men would hack down a forest just to get to you. Where were all the heroes nowadays? She sighed – she’d obviously been fed too many Disney movies as a child. Back out to the courtyard again and in through a heavy wooden side door that opened with a creak into the kitchen. It was big, very big, with rather drab mushroom-grey-painted walls; you could cater for a function easily from here. Weddings and parties were flitting through her mind. It had obviously been designed for bigger things than a tearoom. She wondered if it had been the original castle kitchen, but there were no signs of anything pre-seventies, really, no old ranges or copper kettles, no Victorian bells lined up on the walls for the staff (Downton was still flitting around her head), just practical stainless-steel work surfaces, a two-sided sink, huge oven, modern microwave, fridge, chest freezer and dishwasher.

      Deana waltzed through, pointing out the various equipment, apologising for the general state of the place, explaining that Mrs Charlton, the previous lease-owner, had left in a hurry at the end of last season, only recently announcing that she wasn’t coming back – some family crisis, apparently.

      On closer inspection the walls were a bit greasy-looking, and the convection fan had a layer of tar-like grime; it needed taking down, scrubbing and bleaching. But Ellie didn’t mind a spot of cleaning.

      There was a narrow passageway leading from the kitchen. Deana set off, Ellie following her through to the tearooms themselves. Now this was back in time, a real contrast to the kitchens. History smacked you in the face – high stone walls, leaded windows, a massive fireplace; they’d need whole tree trunks, not logs, on that grate. A huge pair of antlers was fixed high above the hearth; that would have been one hell of a scary deer, like something out of the ice age. Deana was chattering on about how different it was when the visitors were there.

      ‘Are they real?’ Ellie asked, looking up at the antlers.

      ‘Replicas, I believe, but the originals were from a real animal, fossilised. Can’t tell you when they were dated, but, yeah, that would have been a brute of a beast, wouldn’t it?’

      ‘You’re telling me!’ It was like Bambi on steroids.

      The corridor had taken them from twentieth-century kitchen – it hadn’t quite reached the twenty-first yet, back to some sixteenth-century vault. Well, the tearooms certainly had character: reams of it. There were about ten dark-wood tables with chairs, their floral-patterned seat pads frayed. It was an amazing place, but it all looked rather unloved.

      Even so, she could picture it there with the fire on, posies on the tables, the smell of home baking, friendly waitresses in black skirts, white blouses and frilly aprons, and herself cooking away in the kitchen, doing plenty of Nigella spoon-licking, having to test all the cakes personally, of course – Ellie’s Teashop.

      Back in the car a few minutes later, she realised she was trembling. Maybe it was just the Northumberland March chill. Or perhaps it was the fear that this was the last she might see of this place. She wanted this so much.

       2

       Ellie

      She pulled up, finding a parking space four houses down from her family home in Heaton. Rows and rows of brick terraces crowded around her. It wasn’t a bad place to live; the neighbours were friendly, there were coffee shops and takeaways around the corner, a park near by and a ten-minute metro ride and you were in the lively city centre of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. But today she’d had a taste of something different; a castle brimming with history in the middle of the most stunning countryside, big Northumbrian skies, open space, a taste of freedom. And she wanted to taste just a little more of it, to live it, breathe it, cook in it.

      Today had given Ellie a sense of her future. Made her want the job all the more. Yet she wasn’t at all sure how the interview with Lord Henry and Joe had gone. Her inner interview-ometer was registering pretty low.

      She got out of the car, walked down to number five, and wandered in for what might have been the thousandth time. Smells of polish and vegetables filled the air. She found her mum, Sarah, in the kitchen, peeling carrots. Onions, parsnips and a hunk of marble-fatted beef sat on a chopping board ready for cubing.

      ‘Hello, pet … So, how did it go?’ She turned to her daughter with a cautious smile.

      ‘Umn, I don’t know, to be honest … It was an amazing place … proper castle … big grounds. The people seemed nice.’ Well, Lord Henry seemed quietly intimidating, but he was the sort of person it might take a while to get to know. Deana, she was just lovely. And Joe, hmn, gorgeous Joe, something about him made her feel uneasy, yet he seemed okay, a bit aloof, maybe, but then it had been a formal interview. His questions had definitely been more searching than Lord Henry’s. She’d need to be far more prepared, do some full costings, a business plan and book her health and hygiene course, if there was to be a second interview or anything. If … a small word, massive implications. She plastered on a hopeful smile as her mother looked across at her.

      ‘Well,’ her mother’s tone dipped into school-marmish, ‘It is a bit out of the way up there. I’m still not sure why you’re looking that far out? Just think of all the fuel. How long did it take you to get there?’

      ‘About an hour.’ Due north up the A1, then a maze of winding lanes. She wasn’t thinking about travelling every day, she wanted to live there – the ad said there might be accommodation with the lease. But she hadn’t mentioned that yet. No point getting her mum all wound up if it wasn’t going to happen.

      ‘Are you sure about all this, Ellie? It does seem a bit of a whim. I still can’t grasp why you’re thinking about giving up a good office job with a reasonable salary. What if it all goes wrong? You won’t be able to waltz back into the insurance job again, you know – what with the recession and everything.’ Sarah looked up from chopping carrots, her blue-grey eyes shadowed with concern.

      ‘Well, thanks for the vote of confidence.’

      ‘Oh, pet. It’s not that I don’t want you to do well. I just don’t want you to fall down with this. Get caught up in some dream and then realise it’s not all it’s supposed to be. I’d hate for you to end up with no job at all.’ She wiped her hands on