Reader Extras · Pippa Marlowe · Book 1

Reader Bonus: The Wrong Garnish at the Marivelle Pass

Two original, spoiler-safe winter stories and five recipes from the world of the Grand Marivelle.

Explore the Secrets on the Marivelle Pass series  ·  Pippa Marlowe  ·  Reader Extras

Bonus Story 1

The Last Lantern on the Window

At half past nine, the Grand Marivelle’s Winter Garden had twelve paper lanterns, thirteen hooks, and a woman who was prepared to declare the morning a catastrophe.

“It is not a catastrophe,” Sophie Delacourt said.

Beatrice Norcott, who was organizing the Merehaven Little Lights Tea, looked from the empty hook to the rain beyond the glass roof. “We promised thirteen lanterns. There are twelve.”

“That is an accounting problem,” Sophie said. “A catastrophe usually requires considerably more shouting.”

“I’m shouting internally.”

“Tansy will appreciate the restraint.”

From the pantry, Tansy Pike called, “I appreciate nothing before coffee.”

The lanterns were not the sort sold in bright packs for garden parties. Each was a little house of folded translucent material, painted at a community workshop by someone in Merehaven. Their roofs were crooked in twelve distinct ways, and their windows were decorated with waves, gulls, boots, bicycles, fishing nets, stars, and one painstaking picture of a greyhound. Battery-operated lights sat inside them. At dusk, when the Winter Garden turned from a bright glasshouse into a room full of reflections, each house was supposed to glow.

The idea was new. Beatrice had proposed a single afternoon in which winter residents who rarely went out could meet younger volunteers, drink tea, and raise money for the town’s small community transport service. People with no access to a car were often the people least able to attend the events organized in their honor. That contradiction had offended Beatrice enough to put together drivers, a guest list, a display, and an alarmingly exact seating plan.

Sophie had agreed to provide savory tartlets because the hotel had the room and the staff knew how to use it. Tansy had offered the cakes. Finn Rook, who managed Winter Garden service, had accepted responsibility for tables, teapots, and whatever else might go wrong without involving the police.

Now Beatrice had arrived clutching a roll of blue ribbon and found an empty hook.

“Perhaps you miscounted,” Finn suggested.

Beatrice fixed him with an expression that could have removed varnish. “I counted them with my own eyes at six yesterday evening.”

“Eyes are notoriously unreliable after six,” Tansy said, appearing with a tray of lemon biscuits. “Mine refuse to acknowledge anything except dinner.”

Sophie looked at the row again. A thin red cottage with a painted lifebuoy hung near the ferns. Beside it, a green house had a crooked chimney. Two were bright yellow. Three were white, each differently decorated. A purple lighthouse stood at one end, complete with tiny black steps. They were cheerful, handmade, and inconsistent in precisely the way that made them worth displaying.

“What was number thirteen?” Sophie asked.

“Blue,” Beatrice said. “A blue cottage with silver windows. Made by Iona Weller.”

Tansy’s expression changed. “Ada Weller’s granddaughter?”

“Yes. Mrs Weller supervised the workshop. Iona did the cutting and assembly herself.”

“Then we find Iona,” Sophie said.

Beatrice glanced toward the entrance. “She’s sixteen. If she thinks we’ve lost her work, she’ll be mortified. Ada’s been telling everyone how beautiful it is.”

“That may be the problem,” Tansy said, though she did not explain.

The Winter Garden had its own morning weather. Rain marked the high panes with small quick lines while the ferns beneath them seemed to grow darker by the minute. Finn tested the lamps over the central tables. Leonie March, carrying a stack of clean saucers, paused to admire the red cottage. A breakfast guest in an expensive coat wandered through, asked whether the paper houses were for sale, and seemed almost wounded to hear they were not.

Sophie asked Finn to keep the empty hook in place.

“Why?”

“Because if it has been moved, someone may put it back. If it’s been taken home, an empty hook does less harm than accusing a volunteer of theft.”

Beatrice’s mouth tightened. “I didn’t say theft.”

“No. You said catastrophe.”

At ten, the first problem multiplied. The transport volunteer telephoned to say two of the cars intended to bring guests from the northern end of town had been delayed by a road closure. The drivers would use a longer route, which meant the first group could arrive forty minutes later than the second. Beatrice had carefully arranged the tea so that elderly guests and their younger companions would sit together from the beginning. Her seating plan was now going to produce three tables of strangers wondering what they had done wrong.

“I can move the sandwiches,” Finn said.

“You cannot move a sandwich into the future,” Tansy said.

“Watch me.”

Sophie took the pencil from Beatrice’s hand before the woman snapped it in half. “We’ll hold the warm items. Set out the tea on arrival, not before. Leave room at every table for somebody who may come late. We can tell the guests the lanterns are their invitation to walk around and meet each other.”

“They’re not a game,” Beatrice said.

“They’re not museum pieces either. You wanted people to speak.”

Beatrice studied the twelve paper houses. “Yes,” she said reluctantly. “I did.”

It occurred to Sophie that the most difficult thing about a beautifully organized event was not managing its practical failures. It was persuading the organizer that an altered plan could still be a good plan.

At quarter past ten, Iona Weller arrived beside her grandmother, both wearing raincoats too large for the narrow walkway. Ada Weller was small, straight-backed, and carried the kind of canvas bag that looked as though it had survived a siege. Iona had dark hair tucked inside a knitted cap and an expression of determined neutrality.

Beatrice went immediately to greet them. “Everything is wonderful except the blue lantern. We’re looking for it.”

Iona stopped.

Sophie had spent enough years observing cooks caught with mistakes they had not confessed to recognize the way the girl drew her shoulders inward. She stepped between the two groups with an offer of warmth.

“Tea first,” Sophie said. “Tansy has biscuits, and she becomes dangerous if nobody eats them.”

“It’s true,” Tansy confirmed. “I have witnesses.”

Ada accepted a cup. Iona did not. She took off her knitted cap and folded it twice, then twice again, although it was already small enough to put in her pocket.

“Iona,” Ada said, “you haven’t shown us your lantern yet.”

“I know.”

“The silver paint took three days to dry, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And you chose that lovely blue.”

“Yes, Gran.”

Her answers were neat and quiet. Sophie was aware of Beatrice listening, growing more alarmed with every word, but there was no useful reason to make an announcement. She showed Ada toward a table near the glass and left Iona free to walk among the hanging houses.

A minute later, Tansy came to Sophie’s side.

“She’s worried,” Tansy said.

“Obviously.”

“Not about the missing thing.”

Sophie looked again. Iona had stopped in front of a yellow house whose little window was no straighter than the picture painted around it. She touched nothing. She simply watched the house turn slowly on its thread.

“Then about what?”

“Being told it’s perfect,” Tansy said. “You do realize that can be almost as exhausting as being told it isn’t.”

Sophie considered the possibility with a lack of enthusiasm. Tansy noticed.

“You’re making the face.”

“I have several.”

“The one in which another human being is failing a standard they were never informed about.”

“That sounds like your morning voice.”

“It is my only voice.”

Before Sophie could answer, Leonie returned from the service station with a small cardboard box. The box was empty except for crumpled tissue paper and a short length of blue thread.

“I found this with the lantern packing,” she said. “I thought it might matter.”

Beatrice reached toward it.

Sophie moved the box aside gently. “It matters that we don’t jump to conclusions. Where was it?”

“On the windowsill behind the display table. Not hidden. Just set down.”

Tansy examined the thread. “That’s the same color as the hanging cord.”

“Proof,” Beatrice said.

“Of something being blue,” Sophie replied. “We already knew that.”

Ada, who had been sitting quietly with her tea, spoke for the first time. “Iona changed the cord yesterday. The first one didn’t sit right.”

Iona looked at her grandmother. “Gran.”

“You said the roof pulled when it hung.”

“It did.”

Ada put down her cup. “Have you broken it?”

The question was asked without anger. Iona nevertheless looked as though someone had opened a trapdoor beneath her chair. Her gaze moved to the ferns, the saucers, the window, anywhere except the adults.

“I didn’t mean to.”

Beatrice sat abruptly.

“No one has said there’s been any wrongdoing,” Sophie said. “Let’s start with what actually happened.”

Iona drew a breath. “One of the seams opened when I tied the new thread. It wasn’t a lot. You couldn’t see it when the lantern was on a table, but you could when it hung. It looked like the roof was giving up.”

“Paper does that,” Tansy said. “Pastry does too, only with a more expensive vocabulary.”

“I tried to glue it again last night. The corner went shiny and wrinkled. Gran had worked so hard to help me, and everyone was saying mine would be the best one, and I thought if anyone saw it like that they would know I wasn’t good at this.”

Ada opened her mouth. Then closed it. A rare sign of listening.

Sophie waited.

“I put it back in the box,” Iona continued. “Only the box was too small after I added the tissue, so I took it upstairs to the cloakroom. I was going to fix it here. I didn’t want anyone to find it first. Then the first guests were coming and I couldn’t go back without making it obvious.”

“Which cloakroom?” Finn asked.

“The small one beside the meeting rooms. I asked a porter if I could leave my coat there.”

“So it’s safe?” Beatrice said.

“I think so.”

Sophie looked at the girl. “Would you like us to retrieve it, or would you rather go yourself?”

Iona’s relief was so quick it was almost painful. “Could I go?”

“Of course. Finn will tell you which door opens. The hotel specializes in doors that don’t.”

Finn gave a long-suffering nod and accompanied her, leaving Ada staring at her tea.

“I told her everybody would admire it,” Ada said after a moment.

“I’m sure they would,” Beatrice replied.

“That wasn’t the difficulty,” Sophie said. “Sometimes admiration begins to sound like an instruction.”

Ada looked at her sharply. Sophie expected an argument. Instead, the older woman rubbed one thumb against the worn seam of her canvas bag.

“When I was young,” Ada said, “my mother wouldn’t put a piece of sewing on the table unless every stitch was straight. If I made a mistake, she unpicked it. Even if the mistake was at the far end, where nobody would look.”

“And did that make you a better sewer?” Tansy asked.

“Technically. It also made me quite certain everyone was waiting for me to fail.” She glanced toward the doorway. “I didn’t mean to hand that to Iona.”

“People rarely mean to,” Tansy said.

Sophie went to the pantry, partly because the conversation had become intimate and partly because Finn was going to need trays once his missing guests arrived. The ovens were doing their ordinary work. Savory onion tartlets sat in neat rows, their edges golden and fragile. Tansy’s biscuits cooled on wire racks. A pot of hot water for tea was close to the right temperature.

“Do you want the lantern fixed?” Sophie asked Tansy.

“I want the girl to stop looking as if the British Museum is grading her glue.”

“Those are different outcomes.”

“Not always.”

Tansy reached for a folded sheet of parchment and, with an economy that suggested practice, made a small paper support. She set it against the corner of an empty pastry box.

“You can brace paper from behind,” she said. “But you can’t hide a crack by pretending the weight isn’t there. If the paper’s fragile, the sensible thing is not to hang it from a hook at all.”

“That would break the sequence,” Sophie said.

“Only the sequence. Not the purpose.”

From the doorway came a voice Sophie knew too well.

“Should I be concerned that the kitchen is now responsible for structural engineering?”

Julian Ashcombe stood holding an umbrella and a pair of dry gloves. Rain had left one dark mark on the shoulder of his coat. The rest of him appeared to have negotiated personally with the weather.

“A community display,” Sophie said.

“Of course.”

“We have a fragile lantern.”

“An unusual ingredient.”

“Tansy has invented a support.”

“Then I withdraw my concern.”

He offered the gloves to Sophie. She looked at them.

“For Iona,” he said. “The cloakroom has been chilly. She left her own gloves in the volunteer car.”

Sophie took them. “Do you keep an inventory of everyone’s hands?”

“Only those likely to need assistance.”

“That must occupy your entire day.”

“Some days more than others.”

There was warmth beneath the exchange, familiar enough now to feel dangerous if she acknowledged it. She didn’t. She carried the gloves out to Iona instead.

The blue lantern came back intact in its box. Up close, the seam was visible: a narrow crease along one roof edge and a shiny patch where glue had dried unevenly. Its silver windows had been painted with tiny care, each one showing the outline of a different kind of room. There was a kitchen window with a saucepan, a bedroom with a lamp, a sitting room with a dog curled before a hearth, and a plain bright square that might have belonged to anyone.

Iona held it on her open palms.

“I can repair it,” she said. “If I had another hour.”

“We could give you an hour,” Beatrice said, trying very hard to be helpful.

The girl looked down. The promise of another hour sounded exactly like another hour of possible failure.

“What if you didn’t?” Sophie asked.

Iona frowned. “Didn’t repair it?”

“What if it stood on the table as it is? The light could sit beside it rather than inside it. No strain on the roof, no pretending. People could see your windows, and the roof could remain imperfect.”

Beatrice glanced at the thirteen hooks. “But the display—”

“We change it,” Finn said from the entrance. He had apparently been listening long enough to understand the danger in mentioning a perfect straight row. “Move the last four along and put a small table beneath the central pane. Guests will see it as they come in.”

“You’ll have a gap,” Beatrice said.

“Then it is fortunate we own more than thirteen plants.”

Leonie was already wheeling a low table toward the glass. It was the sort used for floral arrangements, pale wood, low enough that visitors could see inside without leaning. Finn shifted the purple lighthouse to the end of the row. Ada helped Iona place the blue cottage on a clean cloth. Tansy supplied a tiny folded support, hidden beneath the back edge.

They left the little light switched off. The silver paint on the windows caught enough daylight to make them shine.

Iona stepped away and stared.

“It’s different,” she said.

“Yes,” Sophie replied.

“Will people mind?”

“Probably some. People have extraordinary opinions about arrangements of objects they haven’t made.”

Iona laughed. It was brief, surprised and completely unplanned.

The first group of late guests arrived while the final saucer was being set out. Some came in pairs, others with the transport volunteers, all bringing wet coats and the complicated gratitude of people who were not accustomed to having an afternoon organized around their convenience. Beatrice greeted them without mentioning the original timetable. Finn guided them toward tables with spare chairs. Leonie poured tea. Tansy presented cakes as though no person in the world had ever had reason to worry about paper lanterns.

When the room was full enough to hum, Ada stood.

She did not deliver the speech Beatrice had prepared. Instead, she said the lanterns were made by local people with different hands and different amounts of practice, and that one little house had reminded her why a welcome should not depend upon perfect work.

She gestured toward the low table. Iona blushed deeply, but she did not disappear.

“Mine is the crooked blue one,” the girl said, standing unexpectedly. “The windows are all different because not every home looks the same. I thought I had spoiled it.”

A gentleman near the ferns studied the paper house for a long moment.

“My first flat looked like the one with the dog,” he said. “Except the dog was a cat.”

“Then it was a very inaccurate likeness,” Tansy murmured.

The man laughed. Others began comparing windows to homes they remembered. The room became a conversation rather than an exhibition. One visitor described a kitchen that had faced a railway line; another remembered a bright attic above a bakery. Beatrice listened, her blue ribbon forgotten in her lap. There was no visible moment at which the tea succeeded. It happened gradually, as people stopped waiting for someone else to tell them what to do.

By late afternoon, the rain had thinned and the glass panes were turning grey. Sophie carried a tray of fresh hot water to the pantry. Tansy followed her, looking tired in the honest way that comes after work worth doing.

“Did you notice,” Tansy said, “that nobody asked whether the lantern was fixed?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll claim you knew that would happen.”

“No. I hoped.”

Tansy stared at her. “An admission of uncertainty. Shall I fetch Niko? He’ll want a witness.”

Sophie set down the tray. “One shouldn’t waste important occasions.”

Near the window, Iona had sat with her grandmother. Ada was holding the blue cottage steady while the girl gently adjusted the little paper door. The seam remained visible. The lantern stayed on its table, among the others without being made identical to them.

Julian appeared beside Sophie with two cups of tea.

“Your display seems successful,” he said.

“It’s not mine.”

“An even stronger result.”

She accepted a cup and watched a late guest stop beside the blue cottage, smile, and then move to sit with someone she had not known an hour earlier.

“Thirteen lanterns,” Julian said. “Twelve hooks.”

“One table.”

“Efficient.”

“Don’t sound so pleased. We nearly had to redesign the whole room.”

“I hear you are good at redesigning things when they refuse to behave.”

Sophie looked at the lanterns, their thin walls glowing against the winter glass.

“Not everything needs to be made to behave,” she said.

Julian turned toward her. He seemed to be considering a reply, then chose not to offer one. The quiet was almost companionable, which was more alarming than a compliment.

In the pantry, Tansy announced that the remaining lemon biscuits would be counted as waste unless somebody ate them immediately. Finn objected on administrative grounds. Leonie took two before the argument could acquire a form.

Sophie went to help, leaving the blue cottage where it belonged: at the center of the room, with its imperfect roof and all its windows bright.

Companion Bonus

The Grand Marivelle Winter Kitchen Notebook

Five practical, original recipes inspired by the Grand Marivelle’s coastal winter atmosphere. These are reader-exclusive kitchen ideas, not reproductions of dishes described in the novel or official hotel recipes. Measurements and timings suit ordinary home kitchens. Check labels and adapt ingredients for your own dietary requirements; do not assume any preparation is free from allergens.

Ingredient and allergy note: The flatbreads contain wheat flour (gluten) and yogurt (milk); the soup and cabbage can contain milk if prepared with butter; and the oat squares contain wheat flour, butter (milk), and oats. Oats may have gluten cross-contact unless certified gluten-free. Seeds, syrups, and packaged ingredients should be checked for allergens and cross-contact, and cookware must be kept separate when cooking for someone with a food allergy. The recipes are not designed as allergen-free alternatives.

1. Skillet Flatbreads with Chives

Makes: 8 small flatbreads. Preparation: 15 minutes plus 10 minutes resting. Cooking: 12–16 minutes.

Ingredients: 300 g (about 2½ cups) plain/all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting; 2 tsp baking powder; ¾ tsp fine salt; 250 g (about 1 cup) plain unsweetened yogurt; 2 tbsp finely chopped chives; 1 tbsp olive oil, plus a little for the pan.

Method: Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add yogurt, chives and oil and stir into a soft dough. If dry, work in water one teaspoon at a time; if sticky, dust with a little more flour. Knead gently for one minute, cover and rest for ten minutes. Divide into eight pieces and roll into thin rounds about 14 cm/5½ inches wide. Heat a heavy frying pan over medium heat and oil lightly. Cook each round for roughly 1½–2 minutes per side until browned in spots and cooked through. Stack in a clean towel to keep warm. Serve with soup or roasted vegetables.

Kitchen note: A modest rest makes the dough easier to roll; excessive extra flour makes these breads tough.

2. Leek, White Bean and Potato Soup

Serves: 6. Preparation: 15 minutes. Cooking: 30 minutes.

Ingredients: 2 tbsp olive oil or butter; 2 medium leeks, thoroughly washed and sliced; 1 medium onion, diced; 2 medium floury potatoes (about 350 g), peeled and cubed; 2 garlic cloves, chopped; 1 litre (about 4¼ cups) low-salt vegetable stock; 1 × 400 g (14 oz) can white beans, drained and rinsed; 1 tsp dried thyme or 3 fresh sprigs; 1 tbsp lemon juice; salt and black pepper to taste.

Method: Warm oil in a saucepan. Cook leeks and onion gently for eight minutes without browning. Add garlic and potatoes and stir for one minute. Pour in stock, add thyme and simmer for about 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Add beans and simmer for another five minutes. Blend one-third of the soup and return it to the pot for a creamy texture without cream. Add lemon juice and season to taste. Serve hot with chive flatbreads.

Kitchen note: Leeks hide grit between their layers. Slice first, then rinse in plenty of cold water and lift out of the bowl rather than pouring the sand back over them.

3. Apple and Caraway Braised Red Cabbage

Serves: 6 as a side. Preparation: 15 minutes. Cooking: 45–55 minutes.

Ingredients: 1 small red cabbage (about 750 g), finely sliced; 1 eating apple, cored and diced; 1 red onion, sliced; 2 tbsp butter or olive oil; 3 tbsp cider vinegar; 2 tbsp soft brown sugar; 150 ml (⅔ cup) apple juice or water; ½ tsp caraway seeds (optional); ½ tsp fine salt.

Method: In a lidded heavy pan, soften onion in butter or oil for five minutes. Stir in the apple and cabbage. Add cider vinegar, brown sugar, apple juice, caraway and salt. Mix, cover and cook on low for 40–50 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding a splash of water if the bottom dries. The cabbage should become tender but retain a little texture. Taste and adjust the balance of sweet and sour before serving.

Kitchen note: This improves after a night in the refrigerator. Reheat thoroughly and use refrigerated leftovers within a few days.

4. Roasted Carrots with Parsley and Pumpkin-Seed Crumble

Serves: 4. Preparation: 10 minutes. Cooking: 25–30 minutes.

Ingredients: 650 g carrots, scrubbed and cut lengthwise into even pieces; 2 tbsp olive oil; ½ tsp ground coriander; ½ tsp fine salt; black pepper; 35 g (¼ cup) unsalted pumpkin seeds; 2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley; zest of ½ lemon; 1 tsp lemon juice.

Method: Heat the oven to 200°C/400°F (180°C fan). Toss carrots with olive oil, coriander, salt and pepper on a roasting tray. Roast for 25–30 minutes, turning once, until lightly browned and tender. Meanwhile, toast pumpkin seeds in a dry pan for two to three minutes, stirring, then cool and chop coarsely. Combine with parsley and lemon zest. Arrange carrots on a serving dish, add lemon juice and scatter the crumble over the top just before serving.

Kitchen note: Keep the topping separate until the table is ready so its fresh texture contrasts with the warm carrots.

5. Ginger and Oat Afternoon-Tea Squares

Makes: 16 squares. Preparation: 15 minutes. Baking: 22–26 minutes.

Ingredients: 150 g (about 1⅔ cups) rolled oats; 120 g (1 cup) plain/all-purpose flour; 100 g (½ cup packed) light brown sugar; ½ tsp baking powder; 1½ tsp ground ginger; a pinch of fine salt; 140 g (10 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted; 3 tbsp golden syrup or mild honey; 1 tbsp milk if needed.

Method: Heat the oven to 180°C/350°F (160°C fan). Line a 20 cm/8-inch square tin with baking parchment. Mix oats, flour, sugar, baking powder, ginger and salt. Stir together the melted butter and syrup, then mix into the dry ingredients. The mixture should hold together when pressed; add the milk if too crumbly. Press firmly into the tin. Bake for 22–26 minutes until golden at the edges. Cool in the tin for 15 minutes, score into squares, then cool completely before lifting and cutting.

Kitchen note: Do not wait for the center to become hard in the oven. The squares firm as they cool; overbaking makes them dry rather than pleasantly chewy.