A Winter's Tale (The Shakespeare Sisters 2)

Everything had changed, but how to explain that to Juliet?

‘I’m fine, honestly. I’m going to miss being home for the big day, but it’s OK. Maybe we’ll all be able to be together next year.’ Kitty tried to keep her voice light.

‘Maybe…’

‘Are you OK?’ Kitty asked. ‘You sound a little weird.’

Another sigh from Juliet, this one longer and deeper than the first. Kitty found herself starting to worry about her older sister. ‘Thomas and I have been having some… problems.’

Kitty knew how hard it was for her sister to admit that. In her perfect world Juliet didn’t allow problems to get in the way. To acknowledge them was a defeat in itself. If she was actually saying the words out loud, then things really were bad.

‘What kind of problems?’

Juliet sighed. ‘He’s not happy with me,’ she told her. ‘Thinks I’m neglecting things at home because of setting up the flower shop. It seems like he spends more time at his parents’ place than he does with us. As you can imagine, they’re delighted. Their house must be full of I-told-you-sos and talk of my unsuitability. They never liked me.’

That was an understatement. Kitty recalled the wedding – a hastily planned occasion, as Juliet was almost six months pregnant by that point. Joan Marshall – Thomas’s mother – had looked as though she was sucking a lemon throughout the whole church service.

‘That sounds horrible,’ Kitty commiserated. ‘Especially so close to Christmas. How’s Poppy holding out?’

‘She’s confused, she’s sad, but then she’s all excited about Christmas. I wish I could make it all better for her, you know. I wanted her to have the perfect childhood, and I can’t make it happen.’

They all wanted that for Poppy. Strange how you hoped to give the younger generation a better life than you had.

‘She’s a good kid, she’ll be OK. Maybe there’s more to it than that. Is everything OK at Thomas’s work?’

‘The amount of time he spends there, I’d hope so. Do you know he told me I should always be a stay-at-home mom for the sake of his career? As you can imagine I told him where to shove his career.’

Kitty burst out laughing. In spite of the seriousness of the situation, she couldn’t help but feel proud of her sister.

‘Honestly, Kitty, never fall in love. It ruins everything.’

It was a little too late for that. ‘I’ll take that into consideration,’ she said lightly, knowing she wouldn’t listen at all.

‘Talking of annoying men, how’s it going with that shit who pissed in your cornflakes?’ Juliet asked, reminding Kitty that the last time they spoke she’d been at loggerheads with Adam.

‘Oh that? It was all a bit of a misunderstanding. We sorted it out, and everything’s just fine now.’

‘He sounded like a real piece of work,’ Juliet said. ‘What is it with guys thinking they know everything? Seriously, you should tell that wanker where to get off.’

‘He’s not like that,’ Kitty protested. ‘I got it all wrong.’

Juliet paused for a moment. Kitty could hear her soft breathing on the other end of the phone line. ‘He isn’t? So what is he like?’

Beautiful, wonderful, charming? They didn’t seem the right words to sum him up. She wondered if there were any words that could perform that job. If the Eskimos had a hundred words for snow, Kitty could have a thousand and she still couldn’t describe Adam.

‘He’s everything.’

‘Kitty! What’s going on? Oh my God…’ Juliet trailed off, no doubt shaking her head at Kitty’s sudden confession. ‘You need to fill me in right now.’

For the next ten minutes, Kitty filled her sister in on everything tha

t had happened between her and the stubborn, funny, beautiful man who lived in a cabin by the lake. And even then, the words didn’t do him justice.

‘Are you certain?’ Jonas screwed up his nose. ‘Uncle Adam definitely told me they were washing their socks.’

The mention of Adam’s name was enough to make her heart skip a beat. Stop it, she chastised herself. When she was being a nanny, Adam was the one person who shouldn’t be on her mind. She was here to look after Jonas, and she was determined to do just that. Starting with practising Christmas carols with him so he’d be ready to sing them to his grandmother on Christmas Eve.

‘No, they definitely weren’t washing their socks. They were watching their flocks. As in flocks of sheep. They were shepherds, you see.’