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Chocolate Wishes
Trisha Ashley
Featuring an EXCLUSIVE FREE SAMPLE of Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues by Trisha AshleyLife is sweet for chocolate maker Chloe Lyon…In the picture-perfect Lancashire village of Sticklepond, Confectioner Chloe dispenses inspirational sweet treats containing a prediction for each customer. If only her own life was as easy to forecast – perhaps Chloe could have foreseen being jilted at the altar…But when a new Vicar arrives in the village, the rumour mill goes into overdrive. Not only is Raffy Sinclair the charismatic ex-front man of rock band 'Mortal Ruin', he's also the Chloe's first love and the man who broke her heart.Try as she might, Chloe can't ignore this blast from her past. Could now be the time for her to make a wish – and dare to believe it can come true?A charming novel for chocoholics everywhere, perfect for fans of Katie Fforde, Jill Mansell and Carole Matthews.
Chocolate Wishes
Trisha Ashley
Copyright (#ulink_11f943fb-7bf9-54de-a230-3577955d9909)
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Copyright © Trisha Ashley 2010
Trisha Ashley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9781847561145
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2010 ISBN: 9780007365722
Version: 2018-06-20
I think it is time my wonderful agent had a dedication all to herself, so this one is for Judith Murdoch, with love and thanks.
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u747553e6-02f4-52fe-95cc-197f73516280)
Title Page (#ue3864b93-6729-5997-b9c3-7dc6830c70fa)
Copyright (#u64432181-2eb3-51d5-9def-189431798376)
Dedication (#ubdbac5f3-f6ef-5bc1-a9bf-ceeb46218610)
Prologue Mortal Ruin (#ud3d38d90-f2cf-54a6-8316-a4a4d44ee31b)
Chapter One There Must Be an Angel (#u6f2c4bcc-057c-5153-b597-76806b6c4b86)
Chapter Two Satan’s Child (#u33af0e46-a15c-58ac-8836-0662bf192dae)
Chapter Three Chocolate Wishes (#u0b9bfaae-df55-511b-ae39-86a9fb3cea33)
Chapter Four Falling Star (#u6701ac0e-e0f3-5214-b638-025a62ca7cc4)
Chapter Five Pay Dirt (#uea32b2e8-e2ad-5a1d-b449-1373ba59c665)
Chapter Six Stupid Cupid (#u679eb8b4-16bf-5944-947e-0a40d3522dff)
Chapter Seven Brief Encounters (#u5093d3e5-bd71-5b15-9a6e-2f9b6023d32a)
Chapter Eight Good Libations (#uec20f541-1890-53e7-bddf-2f76bb46af0b)
Chapter Nine Drawing the Lines (#u41d34cf6-e990-5878-a671-dc0dc91d095b)
Chapter Ten Comparative Evils (#u26b58a5c-0d6f-5810-88bd-abb074e5c11a)
Chapter Eleven Birthday Wishes (#u39c4d7da-9e36-5d26-9a46-93ea73b3bfb6)
Chapter Twelve Desperate Dates (#uf06fbd4f-f9fa-5eb4-a93c-0af4cab454e1)
Chapter Thirteen Ashes of Roses (#u948937c0-bca2-598a-884b-ce617bffaf24)
Chapter Fourteen Fairy Dust (#u516790e6-ae78-54c3-a379-f4e3d9395e1f)
Chapter Fifteen Welcome Gifts (#u94c5f0f1-e20c-5cb9-b4fb-12cafb863fc1)
Chapter Sixteen Dead as My Love (#u2f24066b-13bb-5182-ad3f-145663751eaa)
Chapter Seventeen Written on the Cards (#u5724f687-600d-5ba5-b20b-f94d01172319)
Chapter Eighteen Charm (#u48fa409a-df05-5561-84bb-b3d8ad9f7a3c)
Chapter Nineteen In the Mix (#u2017f0a3-3b6d-5ea2-82e9-58703af933a6)
Chapter Twenty Fallen Angels (#u8ce5b153-30db-5be9-a767-b33e4a740680)
Chapter Twenty-one Garnish (#uc48a955c-afef-57d3-b2d6-f7b1bb9fa490)
Chapter Twenty-two Darker Past Midnight (#u40620bf3-248d-50b5-9cf0-eaa1b37051e3)
Chapter Twenty-three Pax (#u079d04c1-50e5-5749-b290-8bc60873dcf2)
Chapter Twenty-four Gift Bag (#u8391f014-ab95-5e79-9942-44fc4a49776e)
Chapter Twenty-five Mixed Bag (#u66fe89e4-ee7c-5f79-84dc-de7e25653460)
Chapter Twenty-six High Maintenance (#u1288b08c-9fc6-59b8-aa5c-9d6a4a07630b)
Chapter Twenty-seven Pure Criollo (#u997cdf53-bf2a-5d30-8fb5-8f019738dc8d)
Chapter Twenty-eight Home Alone (#u9fd9dee2-6e9f-53ba-9937-52966977191f)
Chapter Twenty-nine Rites (#u8dbc8ef8-e689-5187-95d8-d3c7092a93db)
Chapter Thirty Grave Concerns (#u7966fe35-8d45-5d01-ae32-63c28e80c821)
Chapter Thirty-one Party Animals (#u51292f71-24f9-5213-a393-b35658bf932c)
Chapter Thirty-two Delivering Angels (#ueb290a8d-06b5-5638-9d52-c2a096a12a5a)
Chapter Thirty-three Candy-Coated (#u4d75e88c-40b8-5be1-993b-d055548df3ce)
Chapter Thirty-four Melting Moments (#ue40e6718-3d60-5b6e-b315-81c8dcda3c2d)
Chapter Thirty-five Proposals (#u3b12bc52-44e0-5185-b6e8-f39d75b5d634)
Chapter Thirty-six Behind the Scenes at the Museum (#u4519074c-d07c-572d-a310-ec549af63fe7)
Chapter Thirty-seven Gran Couva! (#uc3751fe0-ad96-583c-9aec-dd74188444c3)
Acknowledgements (#u108d7dfa-dccd-57f7-8b04-3723b92b7455)
Excerpt from Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues (#u0707ee86-0116-556b-a897-b0d209aa452c)
Chapter 1: Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues (#u7bddd7ce-f789-52f5-bda4-15912229afac)
Chapter 2:Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues (#uf68915d9-d708-5354-8a90-ce87f47318f1)
About the Author (#u3fb739ef-3d0e-58c6-bc0d-a5f9cb3ef0a8)
By the same author: (#u14934745-497a-55bf-b973-2c32d78e88b9)
About the Publisher (#uac3dde14-5477-51d8-971c-ca0623d757dd)
Prologue Mortal Ruin (#ulink_58319863-405b-58a1-bfec-ba0d56db00ee)
When the normally innocuous radio station she always listened to while she was working suddenly started pumping out Mortal Ruin’s first big hit, ‘Dead as My Love’, Chloe Lyon was in the kitchen area of her small flat, carefully brushing a thick coating of richly scented dark criollo couverture chocolate into moulds, to make the last batch of hollow angels before Christmas.
That seemed pretty appropriate, because a hollow angel was what Raffy Sinclair had proved himself to be, but it meant that it was a couple of minutes before she had a hand free to reach across and snap down the off button. By then they’d moved on to Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears in Heaven’, so it was becoming obvious that the guest on Desert Island Discs (she’d missed the start) had much happier memories of 1992 than Chloe did. In fact, she’d take a bet on the next song being Whitney Houston and ‘I Will Always Love You’, and that really would finish her off.
But the music carried on playing in her head even after the radio was silenced and it was already too late to suppress the memories. The dark, viciously searing tide of anger and pain at Raffy’s betrayal was rushing in as sharply as if it had all happened yesterday and she was once again that love-struck nineteen-year-old, thinking she’d found a kind of magic more potent than any of her grandfather’s chants, charms and incantations.
She’d loved that Clapton song, though Raffy’d teased her that it was mawkish. But then, as well as being keen on Nirvana, he’d had a worrying penchant for Megadeath and older bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, all of which influenced the lyrics he wrote for his own band, Mortal Ruin. This obsession with the dark side was part of the reason why she’d never mentioned her grandfather to him – he might have been too interested had he known about her connection with Gregory Warlock.
But actually, there had simply not been enough time to explore their family and backgrounds, since they’d met and fallen in love at the start of her first university term and those few weeks spent intently engrossed in each other encompassed the whole span of their relationship.
It wasn’t surprising that she’d loved him at first sight – he was tall and handsome, with long black curling hair, a pale, translucent skin and eyes the greeny-blue of the Caribbean Sea in a holiday brochure – but he’d seemed as transfixed as she was…And anyway, the Tarot cards, when she consulted them, had told her that change was coming and she would meet her soul mate, so she’d naturally assumed he was the one.
Big mistake.
She hadn’t believed it was the end, even after that final argument on the last night of term, when he’d told her he and the other three Mortal Ruin band members had decided to gamble their futures on a recording contract and he’d asked her to go with him, rather than head home for the holidays as she’d intended. She hadn’t explained why she absolutely had to go home either, though she might have done if she hadn’t been so angry – or if he had been capable of talking about anything other than Mortal Ruin by that point.
If only she’d known she wouldn’t be going back for the next term…If only they hadn’t had that final, bitter argument, so she never even gave him her home address…There was a whole series of ifs, but they probably wouldn’t have made any difference in the end, because he turned out to be so not the man she’d thought he was.
A hollow angel: dark and handsome on the outside, an emotional void within. A Lucifer echoing with false promises.
Of course, she hadn’t known that then. Looking after Jake, her baby half-brother, while waiting for her mother to come back from her latest fling, she’d had plenty of time to worry about what would happen when Raffy finally got her letter. She’d sent it via her former roommate, Rachel, to hand to him when he came to his senses and went back to look for her. Because, despite their last argument, she’d been quite sure of his love and that somehow they would find a way of being together, of working things out. He’d told her he loved her often enough…
Even in her darkest moments she’d believed that, right up to the day she received the note from Rachel, telling her that Raffy had returned briefly at the start of the new term and she had given him the letter, but after reading it he’d simply crumpled it up and shoved it in his pocket without comment.
She hadn’t needed the tear-stained confession on the next page to know how easily and quickly he had replaced her, or how little she meant to him. Out of sight, out of mind.
It was not so easy for her to forget him, when his music seemed to be out there everywhere, assailing her at unexpected moments, but eventually her searing anger had cauterised the wounds and given her a certain measure of immunity.
So why now was she sitting at the kitchen table weeping hot, scalding tears?
Saltwater and chocolate are never a good combination.
Chapter One There Must Be an Angel (#ulink_0becf75e-498e-50a6-b8cc-3571a6144768)
You know those routines most people have, the ones they fall into automatically when they wake up? Well, until a few years ago, my morning rota had ‘read Tarot cards’ neatly sandwiched between ‘brush teeth’ and ‘breakfast’.
It was just the way I was brought up, and nothing to do with magic – or not the sort my grandfather practises, where the effects of his rites are so hit-and-miss that most positive results are probably sheer coincidence, like the way the sales of my Chocolate Wishes went stratospheric right after he gave me part of an ancient Mayan charm to say over the melting pot. Fluke…I thought. I have to confess that I’ve never been entirely sure.
But really, apart from the novelty value of the concept, my success was probably more the result of my having finally perfected both my technique and the quality of my moulded chocolate, mostly by trial, error and experimentation – and the really good thing about working with chocolate is that you can eat your mistakes.
What originally sparked the whole thing off was coming across a two-part metal Easter egg mould at a jumble sale when my half-brother, Jake, was a small boy. I made lots of little chocolate eggs and put messages inside them from the Easter Bunny, then hid them all over the flat and courtyard for him and his friends to find.
And while I was making them I started thinking about fortune cookies, which are fun, but not really that good to eat. And from there it was just a short bunny hop to creating a line of hollow chocolate shapes containing ‘Wishes’ as an after-dinner novelty and selling them in boxes of six or twelve.
The ‘Wishes’ are encouraging thoughts or suggestions, inspired by the Angel card readings that have replaced my earlier devotion to the Tarot, and I’m positive that each person will automatically pick the appropriate Chocolate Wish from the box – their own guardian angel will see to that!
It was all very amateur at first, but now the Wishes come in printed sheets and the boxes are also specially made to hold and protect the chocolates in transit, because most of my orders come through the internet, via my website, or by word of mouth.
Nowadays I favour mainly criollo couverture chocolate, the best and most expensive kind, which not only tastes delicious but has a superior gloss and good ‘snap’. I temper it in the machine Jake christened the Bath and then, with an outsize pastry brush, coat specially made polycarbon moulds in the shape of angels or winged hearts until I have a thick enough shell. When they’re cold, I ‘glue’ the two halves together with a little more chocolate – but before I do that, I put in the ‘Wish’.
And I am so much happier since I began to read the Angel cards instead of the Tarot! They never seemed to come out right when I read them for myself and I often wonder if my future would have been different if I hadn’t always looked for signs and portents before I did anything. Do we make our own futures, or do our futures make us?
Granny, who was of gypsy descent and taught me how to read the cards in the first place, said they only showed what might be the future, should the present course be held to; but I’m not so sure. She would have approved of the Angel cards, though, which is more than my grandfather (whom Jake and I call Grumps, for obvious reasons) and Zillah, who is Granny’s cousin, do.
But I truly believe in angels and have done from being a small child when Granny, who despite her Tarot reading was deeply religious, assured me that the winged figure I glimpsed one night really was a celestial visitor, rather than a figment of my imagination. (And my friend Poppy saw it too, I do have a witness!)
Why an angel should appear to an unbaptised and ungodly child of sin is anyone’s guess, unless it was my own personal guardian angel making an early appearance in my life, to counter Grumps’ influence and set my feet on the right path. But if so, she hasn’t visited me since in that form, though sometimes I can hear the soft susurration of wings and feel a comforting presence that is almost, but not quite, visible. And the Angel cards…maybe she guided me to those too?
Granny died when I was twelve, but she too did her best to counter Grumps’ influence, flatly forbidding any kind of baptismal ceremony involving his coven, or involvement in its rites until I had reached the age where I could make a considered decision for myself – a resounding ‘No way!’ She had already done the same for my mother, though unfortunately without instilling in her any alternative moral code.
That February morning, when I shuffled the pack of silky smooth Angel cards and laid them out on the kitchen table, they predicted change, but at least they also assured me that everything would work out all right in the end, which was a great improvement on coming face to face with the Hanging Man or Death over the breakfast cereal and trying to interpret the reading as something a little less doom-laden than the initial impression.
