#excerpt All Change at the Beach Hotel by Francesca Capaldi
All Change at the Beach Hotel
Can she choose between her duty and her heart?
While World War One changes the country beyond measure, with food becoming scarce and Britain’s young men being called up to foreign battlefields, it is harder than ever to keep the grand Beach Hotel in Littlehampton running smoothly.
Waitress Lili Probert, a young woman who escaped her demanding family in Wales in search of a new life in Sussex, has seen her hard work rewarded at the Beach Hotel, but hides heartbreak behind her sunny personality. Her sweetheart, Norman, is missing in action and has been presumed dead, but she cannot give up hope that he may be found.
But when she meets injured soldier Rhodri, a fellow Welshman now living near Littlehampton, she fights hard to ignore her growing attraction for him, torn between her feelings for him and her loyalty to the man she thought she’d spend her life with.
But her emotions run ever higher when she suddenly receives a call from home; her mother is gravely ill and Lili is needed for her care. Returning to Wales, Lili must make a difficult choice. Follow her dreams and make her own life, or return to the place she tried so hard to escape?
Torn between her duty and her heart, Lili faces her own battle far from the conflicts in Europe…
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Extract from All Change at the Beach Hotel by Francesca Capaldi
Waitress Lili Probert is petrified about a singing performance she’s agreed to do for charity. She meets the handsome Corporal Morgan for the second time and feels conflicted about it.
Lili and the other women left by the staff door and were soon at the venue, between the hotel and the promenade. They headed for the side of the makeshift stage, where Mr Janus was standing.
‘Ladies.’ He stepped forward, holding out his hands in welcome. ‘I’m so grateful to you for coming to help. Especially Miss Probert here, who showed me what a fine voice she has when she came to see me yesterday. I’m sure she’ll prove popular.’
Lili felt herself redden, but experienced pleasure at the compliment, nonetheless.
They were handed a metal bucket each and, with five minutes to go before the entertainments began, headed to their allotted areas.
Lili went to stand near the fountain. Part of the audience had gathered here as all the seats were full. She was concentrating on breathing slowly, reminding herself she was a good singer and had never let herself down yet. Except as a ten-year-old, at the singing festival in the chapel. Oh, why had she remembered that? But she’d only been a child. She’d croaked her way through the first verse of a song and had been mortified. Especially when a boy at the front of the audience had laughed.
‘Miss Probert. How delightful to see you here.’
Lili came to, confused at first. ‘Corporal Morgan. Fancy seeing you here.’ She had difficulty keeping her voice level. He was a welcome sight.
But that meant he’d be here when she sang. Her confidence dropped a little more.
‘They’re collecting money…’ He noticed her bucket. ‘You’re collecting money, for our fellow soldiers. It only seemed right to support them.’
‘Of course.’
Fanny approached, a smirk on her face. ‘Well, what do we have here? I promise not to tell Norman you’ve been talking to a handsome soldier.’
‘What are you doing over here, Fanny?’ Lili could have crowned the girl. Trust her to interfere.
‘Mr Janus suggested I came over to help you as there were already two collectors where I was.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Lili flatly.
‘Norman?’ Corporal Morgan asked.
‘Her fiancé,’ Fanny replied delightedly before Lili could get a word in.
‘No, we’re not betrothed, we were… walking out.’ She felt the heat in her face as she reddened. She’d been going to say sweethearts, but had thought better of expressing such feelings to someone she barely knew.
‘I see.’
Was he disappointed? It seemed to Lili he was.
‘Corporal Morgan was at the fundraiser we had at the hotel last week,’ Lili explained.
‘I wouldn’t know, would I? I was busy cleaning up after people.’
Lili was losing her patience, but she wasn’t going to show this in front of the corporal.
‘And a lovely do it was, too,’ he said.
Fanny was distracted at this point by someone asking her about the afternoon’s entertainments.
‘Sorry about her,’ Lili whispered. ‘A right miserable piece she can be.’
‘Don’t worry. I know a few like her.’ He chuckled.
The smile lit up his face, like it had the first time she’d met him, making him even more… handsome? Attractive? Beautiful? Don’t be daft, she told herself. If she hadn’t already had a sweetheart, she would have been interested though, she was sure. No. that was terrible, to think like that. But she was only human. Tut, tut, turned by a pretty face. She almost fancied Auntie Megan was speaking to her.
The corporal looked at his wristwatch. ‘I’d better take my seat soon. It’s being saved for me. Look… I’m leaving ’ospital next week.’
‘That’s… good,’ she said, thinking the opposite.
‘It is, but, because I’m still limping, I have a clerical role at the training base at Shoreham-by-Sea.’
He’d be nearby, but still far enough away for her never to see him again. He was a connection to Wales, to home. That’s what she was thinking. And no doubt he’d return there after the war.
‘However, since my family are here, in Littlehampton, I’ll be visiting regularly on days off.’
‘Your family are here? I assumed they were in Aber Valley.’
‘We moved two years ago next January. To get away from the mines, wasn’t it. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again, Miss Probert.’
‘Lili,’ her mouth said before her brain had a chance to intervene. It was rather informal. She’d been the same with Norman when they’d first met.
‘Then you must call me Rhodri.’
‘All right.’
Fanny had finished talking to the person who’d made the enquiry and was concentrating on the pair again, so Lili said, ‘See you around then, Rhodri,’ in Welsh, so she wouldn’t understand, hoping that he did, in fact, speak Welsh. Not everyone in the Valleys did. She kept her face neutral, so that Fanny couldn’t deduce anything from her expression.
He replied in kind, saluting and lifting a hand in farewell before limping away with his stick.
‘Wassat mean then, what you said?’ Fanny asked, looking cross.
‘Just cheerio,’ she half-fibbed, not wanting to explain about Rhodri’s new post.
‘Huh, sounds silly to me.’
‘I’m not going to dignify that with a reply, Fanny Bullen.’
‘You just did.’ Fanny grinned. ‘Looks like the show’s starting.’
Lili hadn’t mentioned her performance to Rhodri, not wanting him to have any expectations. She closed her eyes, lifting her thoughts to the heavens. Let my slot be over quickly and go well.
Author Bio –
Francesca has enjoyed writing since she was a child. Born in Worthing and brought up in Littlehampton in Sussex, she was largely influenced by a Welsh mother who was brilliant at improvised story telling. A history graduate and qualified teacher, she decided to turn her writing hobby into something more in 2006, when she joined a writing class.
Writing as both Francesca Capaldi and Francesca Burgess, she has had many short stories published in magazines in the UK and abroad, along with several pocket novels published by DC Thomson.
Her Welsh World War 1 sagas were inspired by the discovery of the war record of her great grandfather, a miner in South Wales. Her latest series, The Beach Hotel, is set in her own childhood town, where her Italian father had a café on the riverside.
Francesca is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Society of Women Writers and Journalists. She currently lives on the North Downs in Kent with her family and a cat called Lando Calrission.
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