Scones Away!

Scones Away!
Cressida McLaughlin

Part Three of the charming new series from the author of The Canal Boat Cafe. Perfect for cake lovers and old-fashioned romantics!‘Captivating’ Heat Magazine‘Beautiful… heartwarming’ Zara Stoneley‘A wonderful ray of reading sunshine’ Heidi SwainCharlie’s toughest technical challenge yet…Now that Charlie’s Cornish Cream Tea bus has taken off, everything should be going swimmingly – the locals love her baking, Marmite adores getting his paws wet in the crystal-clear sea at Porthgolow beach, but Charlie has manged to get on the wrong side of the mercurial owner of The Porthgolow Hotel, Daniel Harper. He wants her to pack up her doillies and pastry cutters and take her bus elsewhere, but can Charlie convince him that they have just got off on the wrong foot and that her bus could be the start of something wonderful for the little village?

Copyright (#u8084d6d7-482f-5512-8259-8b08a1e57268)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain in ebook format in 2019 by HarperCollinsPublishers

Copyright © Cressida McLaughlin 2019

Cover design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2019.

Cover illustration © May Van Millingen

Cressida McLaughlin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

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.

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 e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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.

Ebook Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008332167

Version: 2019-06-03

Table of Contents

Cover (#u95a3d79c-29b2-5683-9baf-b7ac39fbf5ad)

Title Page (#ubcc9d205-7628-5350-a889-46e9d0142499)

Copyright (#u94f146dd-4a8e-56b9-a23e-2372d76c6a56)

Part 3: Scones Away (#u85370cca-9659-5941-ad4a-f33a760cd6d7)

Chapter One (#u6246c872-7399-5d6f-b449-05881b5e6575)

Chapter Two (#ua930d693-9109-5441-af8d-fc145f001509)

Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading.… (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Cressida McLaughlin (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Part 3 (#u8084d6d7-482f-5512-8259-8b08a1e57268)

Scones Away (#u8084d6d7-482f-5512-8259-8b08a1e57268)

(#u8084d6d7-482f-5512-8259-8b08a1e57268)

Chapter One (#u8084d6d7-482f-5512-8259-8b08a1e57268)

From Charlie’s spot on Penzance Harbour, St Michael’s Mount was a regal, impressive structure. It sat above the sparkling blue water like a beacon while, around it, a summer mist gave everything a hazy, dreamlike quality. But inside The Cornish Cream Tea Bus, it was anything but dreamlike.

The tables were full, upstairs and down, and Charlie had spent a frantic morning putting scones in the oven, arranging mini Danish pastries – pains au chocolat, almond croissants and pecan plaits – on her cake stands to go with cups of strong black coffee or frothy cappuccinos. Penzance was much bigger than the quaint seaside village of Porthgolow, but she hadn’t anticipated quite how much attention her bus would get in the town.

There were people taking photos and peering in through the cab window and she’d had to start a waiting list for customers who, when she’d told them the bus was full, said they were happy to sit in the sunshine until a table became available.

Charlie had decided that, in order to promote her bus, and the weekly food markets she had started in Porthgolow, she was going to take Gertie to every town in Cornwall. If the others were even half as busy as this, then it would be worth it. She just wished she’d brought Juliette with her so she wasn’t running the bus by herself, but her best friend was at home, working on a marketing project, and had offered to look after Charlie’s Yorkipoo, Marmite, so he wasn’t stuck on board. It was the right decision, but Charlie missed having her little terror with her.

‘Oh my God, The Cornish Cream Tea Bus!’ squealed a voice. Charlie followed it to where a young couple was standing outside, the woman gazing up adoringly at the double-decker. ‘This is the one I was telling you about Matt, in Porthgolow? We have to go to their food market. Liz and Phil were there last weekend and said it was epic. Just swam and sunbathed and went back for more food whenever they felt like it.’

Charlie smiled to herself as she put her finger sandwiches on a tray and took them to a family sitting upstairs. They had asked for two traditional cream teas and two half-sized ones for their young children. Charlie hadn’t thought of doing a children’s cream tea until now, but she was going to add it to her repertoire.

‘If you need anything else,’ she said as she stood back from their table with a flourish, ‘just ring the bell.’ She pointed at the cord that ran around the edge of the bus. It was one of Gertie’s most popular features.

Running The Cornish Cream Tea Bus was a constant learning curve. There were always new possibilities to explore, certain elements needed to be changed or adapted, and ideas popped into her head on a daily basis. It was exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. When she went back downstairs, she added children’s cream teas to her ever-expanding to-do list.

She closed the bus once the sun had begun its descent, and made the long, winding journey back to Porthgolow, cutting over the lower half of the county, the glistening sea falling out of sight behind rolling green hills, the statuesque towers of wind farms like alien armies on the horizon. As she went, she got honks and waves.

She was getting used to it now, the number of people who noticed her on the roads, and every time she felt a surge of pride, sitting high up in the cab while drivers or cyclists gave her a cheery thumbs-up or sounded their horns. She thought about her uncle Hal, how wide his smile would be if he could see what she’d achieved. Maybe things weren’t perfect, but she was going in the right direction. No regrets, Charlie, he used to say. Keep moving forward.

For the most part, that was what she was doing. She knew that she had to learn from her mistakes to make any kind of progress, but what had happened last weekend, after the market had finished, had been playing on her mind ever since.