fucking estate in the middle of a fucking city full of fucking delinquents. Somewhere round here would do… a decent place where my kids can go to school 'n' not get their heads fucked by wannabe jail meat… that's all I'm asking."
'They're pretty girlies, Bella," said a dreamy voice. "They'll get more 'n' their heads fucked the minute you turn your back."
"Yeah, and don't I know it. I'll chop the dick off the first man who tries."
There was a low laugh from the corner of the bus where Fox was standing in shadow. "It'll be too late by then," he murmured. "You need to take action now. Prevention is always better than cure."
"Like what?"
He detached himself from the shadows and loomed over Bella, straddling her with his feet, his tall figure blotting out the moon. "Claim some free land through adverse possession and build your own house."
She squinted up at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"
His teeth flashed in a brief grin. "Winning the jackpot," he said.
3
LOWER CROFT, COOMB FARM,
HEREFORDSHIRE-28 AUGUST 2001
Unusually for twenty-eight years ago, Nancy Smith had been delivered in her mother's bedroom, but not because her mother had avant-garde views on a woman's right to home birthing. A wild and disturbed teenager, Elizabeth Lockyer-Fox had starved herself for the first six months of her pregnancy and, when that failed to kill the incubus inside her, ran away from boarding school and demanded her mother rescue her from it. Who would marry her if she was saddled with a child?
The question seemed relevant at the time-Elizabeth was just seventeen-and her family closed ranks to protect her reputation. The Lockyer-Foxes were an old military family with distinguished war service from the Crimea to the standoff in Korea on the 38th parallel. With abortion out of the question because Elizabeth had left it too late, adoption was the only option if the stigmas of single motherhood and illegitimacy were to be avoided. Naively perhaps, and even in 1973 with the women's movement well under way, a "good" marriage was the Lockyer-Foxes' only solution to their daughter's uncontrollable behavior. Once settled down, they hoped, she would learn responsibility.
The agreed story was that Elizabeth was suffering from glandular fever, and there was muted sympathy among her parents' friends and acquaintances-none of whom had much affection for the Lockyer-Fox children-when it became clear that the fever was debilitating and contagious enough to keep her quarantined for three months. For the rest, the tenant farmers and workers on the Lockyer-Fox estate, Elizabeth remained her usual wild self, slipping her mother's leash at night to drink and shag herself stupid, unrepentant about the damage it might do to her fetus. If it wasn't going to be hers, why should she care? All she wanted was rid of it, and the rougher the sex the more likely that was.
The doctor and midwife kept their mouths shut, and a surprisingly healthy child emerged on the due date. At the end of the experience, interestingly pale and frail, Elizabeth was sent to a finishing school in London from where she met and married a baronet's son who found her fragility and ready tears endearing.
As for Nancy, her stay in Shenstead Manor had been of short duration. Within hours of her birth she had been processed through an adoption agency to a childless couple on a Herefordshire farm where her origins were neither known nor relevant. The Smiths were kindly people who adored the child that had been given to them and made no secret of her adoption, always attributing her finer qualities-principally the cleverness that took her to Oxford-to her natural parents.
Nancy, by contrast, attributed everything to her only-child status, her parents' generous nurturing, their insistence on a good education, and their untiring support of all her ambitions. She rarely thought about her biological inheritance. Confident in the love of two good people, Nancy could see no point
'They're pretty girlies, Bella," said a dreamy voice. "They'll get more 'n' their heads fucked the minute you turn your back."
"Yeah, and don't I know it. I'll chop the dick off the first man who tries."
There was a low laugh from the corner of the bus where Fox was standing in shadow. "It'll be too late by then," he murmured. "You need to take action now. Prevention is always better than cure."
"Like what?"
He detached himself from the shadows and loomed over Bella, straddling her with his feet, his tall figure blotting out the moon. "Claim some free land through adverse possession and build your own house."
She squinted up at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"
His teeth flashed in a brief grin. "Winning the jackpot," he said.
3
LOWER CROFT, COOMB FARM,
HEREFORDSHIRE-28 AUGUST 2001
Unusually for twenty-eight years ago, Nancy Smith had been delivered in her mother's bedroom, but not because her mother had avant-garde views on a woman's right to home birthing. A wild and disturbed teenager, Elizabeth Lockyer-Fox had starved herself for the first six months of her pregnancy and, when that failed to kill the incubus inside her, ran away from boarding school and demanded her mother rescue her from it. Who would marry her if she was saddled with a child?
The question seemed relevant at the time-Elizabeth was just seventeen-and her family closed ranks to protect her reputation. The Lockyer-Foxes were an old military family with distinguished war service from the Crimea to the standoff in Korea on the 38th parallel. With abortion out of the question because Elizabeth had left it too late, adoption was the only option if the stigmas of single motherhood and illegitimacy were to be avoided. Naively perhaps, and even in 1973 with the women's movement well under way, a "good" marriage was the Lockyer-Foxes' only solution to their daughter's uncontrollable behavior. Once settled down, they hoped, she would learn responsibility.
The agreed story was that Elizabeth was suffering from glandular fever, and there was muted sympathy among her parents' friends and acquaintances-none of whom had much affection for the Lockyer-Fox children-when it became clear that the fever was debilitating and contagious enough to keep her quarantined for three months. For the rest, the tenant farmers and workers on the Lockyer-Fox estate, Elizabeth remained her usual wild self, slipping her mother's leash at night to drink and shag herself stupid, unrepentant about the damage it might do to her fetus. If it wasn't going to be hers, why should she care? All she wanted was rid of it, and the rougher the sex the more likely that was.
The doctor and midwife kept their mouths shut, and a surprisingly healthy child emerged on the due date. At the end of the experience, interestingly pale and frail, Elizabeth was sent to a finishing school in London from where she met and married a baronet's son who found her fragility and ready tears endearing.
As for Nancy, her stay in Shenstead Manor had been of short duration. Within hours of her birth she had been processed through an adoption agency to a childless couple on a Herefordshire farm where her origins were neither known nor relevant. The Smiths were kindly people who adored the child that had been given to them and made no secret of her adoption, always attributing her finer qualities-principally the cleverness that took her to Oxford-to her natural parents.
Nancy, by contrast, attributed everything to her only-child status, her parents' generous nurturing, their insistence on a good education, and their untiring support of all her ambitions. She rarely thought about her biological inheritance. Confident in the love of two good people, Nancy could see no point
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