The Seafront Tearoom Read online

  Praise for

  THE VINTAGE TEACUP CLUB

  “This heartwarming story of finding new friends is a lovely debut.”

  —Carole Matthews, bestselling author of The Christmas Party

  “A delicious brew of love and friendship.”

  —Trisha Ashley, bestselling author of Every Woman for Herself

  “As charming and cozy as the English village of its setting, The Vintage Teacup Club celebrates the transformative power of female friendship. Readers who enjoy a blend of drama, romance and humor will be smitten!”

  —Andrea Lochen, author of The Repeat Year

  “A heartwarming, quintessentially British tale.”

  —Stylist

  “A stylish, upmarket bit of chick lit.”

  —The Bookseller

  “Greene crafts an endearing tale of three women who form a friendship after finding a vintage tea set that they then agree to share . . . The perfect book to escape everyday reality and enjoy curled up, sipping a cup of tea.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  ALSO BY VANESSA GREENE

  The Vintage Teacup Club

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2014 by Vanessa Greene.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY® and the “B” design are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-19579-0

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Greene, Vanessa.

  The seafront tearoom / Vanessa Greene.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-0-425-28126-0 (paperback)

  1. Female friendship—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6107.R4443S43 2015

  823'.92—dc23

  2015025758

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Sphere paperback edition / October 2014

  Berkley trade paperback edition / December 2015

  Cover photo by Sanja Kulusic/Trevillion Images.

  Cover design by Lesley Worrell.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Susan

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Manpreet Grewal, my brilliant editor, for her ideas, inspiration and attention to detail at every stage. Also to my agents, Caroline Hardman and Joanna Swainson, for their invaluable advice and support.

  I’m grateful to the team at Sphere for working with such determination and creativity to get this book out to readers. In particular, Thalia Proctor, Sian Wilson, Sarah Shea, Stephie Melrose and all the folk in Sales. Thanks also to all the staff at Berkley Books across the pond, who publish my books so beautifully.

  I couldn’t have written this without my mum, Sheelagh, who gave me space to write by looking after my son, and gave me useful feedback on the first draft. Thanks also to Susan, his other grandmother, for her friendship, and her kindness in sharing my novels in Chestnut Avenue and beyond.

  To Caroline and Emma, fellow friends of books—and to Katharine, Lisa and all the girls. Thanks also to Miki, Elaine, Paula and Bee—for the laughter, no-holds-barred conversation and plentiful cake while we all got used to being mums.

  Thanks to James for always being by my side. And finally to Finn, who, as I finished writing this book, learned how to turn a page. I’m sorry this one doesn’t have flaps or squeakers.

  Contents

  Praise for The Vintage Teacup Club

  Also by Vanessa Greene

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Menu

  PART ONE Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  PART TWO Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  PART THREE Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Epilogue

  Letter to the Reader

  Letty’s Classic English Scones

  Séraphine’s Magnificent Madeleines

  Charlie’s Deliciously Indulgent Florentines

  Kat’s Perfect Afternoon Tea

  Readers Guide

  In a tranquil location overlooking the sandy cove, this tearoom is a place caught in time. Once inside, with a cup of expertly selected tea warming your hands, you’ll rediscover something that, in the hurry of life, is too easily forgotten. A hidden gem, a place you’ll want to whisper about to only the closest of friends.

  —INDULGE MAGAZINE FEATURE ON “BRITAIN’S SECRET TEAROOMS”

  The Seafront Tearoom, est. 1913

  LETTY’S CLASSIC AFTERNOON TEA

  Served on a tiered cake stand.

  SAVORY:

  A selection of finger sandwiches—cucumber, smoked salmon and egg mayonnaise

  SWEET:

  Raisin and apple scones warm from the oven, with clotted cream

  Victoria sponge

  Rose and pistachio cake

  Profiteroles

  Strawberries dipped in chocolate

  A SELECTION OF LOOSE-LEAF TEAS:

  English Breakfast, Assam, Darjeeling, Earl Grey, Jasmine, Spiced Orange

  PART ONE

  Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.

  —HENRY FIELDING

  1

  Thursday, August 14

  Scarborough

  Kat Murray and
her three-year-old son, Leo, walked together along the beach in flip-flops, his small hand in hers. The rock shops and arcades of the South Bay were busy with holidaymakers and weekenders, making the most of the rare burst of warm sunshine on the British coast. As the two of them neared the harbor, the familiar smell of fresh-caught fish from the pier reminded Kat that they were almost home.

  Leo dropped his mother’s hand and ran toward the shop underneath their flat, with its neon-pink sign and a doughnut model that was bigger than him. She ran after him, laughing. “I’m the winner!” he called out, touching the doughnut.

  “Not again,” Kat said, sighing in defeat, then smiling at him. “One day. One day I’ll beat you.” She got her keys out of her bag.

  She unlocked the front door and Leo climbed the hallway stairs ahead of her. She and Jake had moved into the flat four years before, when she was twenty-two, in love and carefree. A lot had changed while they’d been living there.

  “What’s for tea today, Mummy?” Leo called over his shoulder.

  Kat tried to recall what was left in the kitchen cupboards and fridge.

  “Dinosaurs,” she replied. “On the menu tonight, sir, are Tyrannosaurus rexes and diplodocuses. I hope you’re not vegetarian.”

  “No way,” Leo said joyfully. “I love eating T. rexes.”

  Upstairs, Kat took a slice of rye bread and a sharp knife and cut carefully around the paper template she’d made—a dinosaur’s body shape. She cooked some long-stemmed broccoli and placed it around the dinosaur to make trees, then formed the earth with a homemade vegetable chili.

  She’d decided to stay on in the flat after she and Jake broke up in order to keep a constant in Leo’s life. Anyway, there was something about the place—the sea view, the cheap rent, even the bent-clawed seagull that tapped with its beak at their window each day—that she thought she would miss.

  She took the food through to Leo in the living room, and he smiled when he saw it.

  “I like him,” he said, looking at the plate. “I’m going to bite his head off first.”

  “You go for it,” Kat laughed. “Before he does it to you.”

  Leo chuckled, picking up his fork.

  “Can you bring my stegosaurus to watch?”

  “Sure.” Kat went into Leo’s room and found the stuffed toy on top of his red chest of drawers. Above the chest, on the wall, was the Gruffalo mural Jake had painted. She paused for a moment to look at it. Things had been good, when they were good.

  She put Leo’s stegosaurus down on the table, so that he could see it while he ate.

  “Mummy, you know where I’d like to go soon?” he said, chewing on a piece of broccoli.

  “Where’s that?”

  “The Sealife Centre!” he pronounced, slamming his fork down in glee.

  Kat nodded, smiling. He had been asking almost daily through the summer. But it wasn’t cheap, and each time she set money aside, a bill would come. Hopefully, tomorrow things would change—her friend Cally, receptionist at the South Cliff Hotel, had put her forward for a job there. Apparently the manager had all but confirmed that it was Kat’s if she wanted it. A few hours a week would mean enough money for the extra things Leo needed, plus the occasional treat, and with the hotel within walking distance of his nursery, she’d still be able to pick him up easily.

  “Billy says it’s fun. There are jellyfish. And sharks.”

  “I’m sure it is. We’ll go soon,” she said, kissing her son’s head. “I promise.”

  Leo looked up at her. When she saw his dark brown eyes it was impossible not to think of Jake.

  She’d get the money together.

  The next day, Mr. Peterson, the hotel manager, ticked Kat’s name off on the list of interviewees. She turned her silver and turquoise ring around on her finger, waiting for him to say something.

  Kat must have passed the South Cliff Hotel a hundred times, on days when she’d taken the funicular up from the beach—but today was the first time she’d been inside the grand white building. She’d arrived at the same time as a coachload of Italian tourists, and from the back room she could still hear them talking out in reception.

  For the interview, she’d concealed the tattoo on her wrist—a bold circle, identical to Jake’s—underneath the long sleeves of a black blazer, and blow-dried her dark cropped hair so that it lay smooth. It was warm in the room though, and she longed to take the blazer off. It wasn’t the kind of thing she’d normally wear.

  “So, Kathryn. What is it that attracts you to the South Cliff?” Mr. Peterson asked.

  She tried to remember what she’d practiced in front of the mirror the night before, and took a breath.

  “I’m very interested in working in hospitality, and the South Cliff is internationally renowned. I’d be proud to be part of the team and I feel I could contribute a lot in terms of . . .”

  Mr. Peterson looked down at her résumé, then took off his glasses and laid them down on the table. His expression seemed to soften.

  “This is primarily a cleaning job, you know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Cally told me,” Kat said, feeling a little flat.

  “Right . . .” Mr. Peterson nodded slowly. “Well, Cally is quite insistent you would be perfect.”

  “I work hard,” she said. “Whatever I do, I work hard.”

  “Yes,” the manager said, putting one hand on her résumé. “It certainly looks like it.”

  The tension in Kat’s shoulders eased a little.

  Mr. Peterson sat back in his chair. “I hope you’ll take this the right way. A degree in Hospitality and Culinary Arts, courses in tea-tasting, patisserie . . .”

  “I know what you’re going to say, but I’m happy to do—”

  “You’re overqualified.”

  The words rang out and Kat tried to think of a reply to counter them.

  “I should have looked through your details more carefully, but you know Cally. She can be very persuasive. Look, Kathryn—you’re young. You’re only, what . . .” He glanced back at her details. “. . . twenty-six? You’ve still got time to build a career for yourself. I don’t think I’d be doing the right thing employing you as a cleaner, not for either of us.”

  “Is it that you think I’d leave? Because I wouldn’t. I need something steady.”

  Mr. Peterson shook his head. “I’m sorry if I’ve wasted your time.”

  “OK,” Kat said numbly. She got to her feet. “Well, thanks for seeing me all the same,” she said. “Could you—”

  “Of course. We’ll keep your résumé on file.”

  Outside, Kat took off her jacket, the sea breeze cool against her skin. She crossed the road to the rose garden on the cliffside, sat down on a bench and texted Cally a quick message to update her. Putting it down in writing made it more real. She felt as if she’d let Leo down.

  At times like these, she wondered if things would have been easier if she and Jake had stayed together, if they could somehow have worked things out. Now he was back home in Scotland, his work was no longer steady, and it was Leo who would have to go without.

  She walked down through the park, until the view opened up to reveal the full expanse of the sea. In front of her a little farther down the hill was the place she was heading to: the Seafront Tearoom.

  A couple of people were sitting at tables outside, but inside the café looked quiet. She pushed the stained-glass front door, a bell signaling her arrival. As she stepped inside, she breathed in the unmistakable aroma of freshly baked scones. It enveloped her, as comforting as a duvet on a chilly winter’s day. The interior of the Seafront was reassuringly familiar—the wooden tables neatly laid with pressed white tablecloths, the delicate china teacups lining the shelves, and the 1920s table lamps.

  “Kat.” Letty, the owner, smiled and tucked a strand of her silver-gray bob back behind her ear.
“Come in. I was hoping we might see you today.”

  Kat closed the door behind her. “Hi there,” she said, leaning in to kiss her hello. Letty was in her usual pressed black slacks, and an apron with a dusting of flour on it. Her son, Euan, was sitting up at the bar, dressed in a suit, looking at something on his iPad.

  “Thought I’d pop by and say hello.”

  “Everything OK?” Letty asked, her pale blue eyes inquiring gently.

  “Yes,” Kat said as lightheartedly as she could, sitting down at her usual chair by the window. “I had a job interview. It didn’t work out.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” She put an arm around Kat sympathetically. “Well, it’s their loss.”

  “It probably wasn’t right for me anyway.” Kat shrugged.

  “That’s the spirit. There’ll be something better out there for you, I’m sure.”

  “I could seriously do with the money, though.”

  Letty’s brow furrowed. “Are you OK to cover the basics? I can always help you out, you know.”

  “Don’t worry,” Kat said. “We’ll be fine. Leo can really eat, though . . . and he’s outgrowing his clothes so quickly.”

  “Oh yes,” Letty said. “I remember how it was. Euan was the same,” she said, nodding over at her son, who was devouring one of her scones. “Thirty and he’s still over here eating my profits on his tea breaks.”

  “I can hear you talking about me, you know,” he called over, a glint in his blue eyes.

  Letty rolled her eyes indulgently. “Cheeky monkey!” She turned back to Kat. “Can you have a word with Jake?”

  “He’s still getting the business set up in Scotland and it’s taking time.”

  “Right. I suppose that’s not something that happens overnight. He’ll get there. Until then, what can I get you? An Earl Grey? I’ve got a Victoria sponge fresh out the oven. Cake’s on me today.”

  Kat looked over at the counter. She could see the scones that were scenting the air so irresistibly, a Victoria sponge cake and a tray of brownies.

  “Oh, go on then,” Kat said, a smile creeping back onto her face. “Thank you.”