One Christmas Morning & One Summer's Afternoon Read Free Page B

When is she going to grow up?
    Rory Flint-Hamilton was not a demonstrative man. But he loved his daughter deeply, and hated watching her throw away her potential and talents on an empty life of partying as she dragged the Flint-Hamilton name through the mud. He also took his role as custodian of Furlings very seriously. He wasn’t going to live for ever. The thought of handing the estate down to Tatiana filled Rory with a fear so acute, it was hard to breathe.
    Folding up the newspaper and putting it under his arm, he got up and shuffled slowly out into the hall. A long, marble-floored corridor lined with Flint-Hamilton family portraits led to what had always been known as the ‘Great Room’, a vast, galleried ballroom with eight-foot sash windows affording a spectacular view of the Downs. In only six weeks’ time, this room would be filled with noise and laughter, bedecked with dark-green holly, blood-red berries and plump, white mistletoe. A towering Christmas tree, cut from the estate’s own woodland, would sparkle beneath the light of the chandelier. Furlings would come back to life, for one night only, the huntsmen in their cheery red coats, and the rest of the men in black tie, with the women dressed to the nines in ball gowns and jewels, clattering across the marble in their high-heeled shoes like a troupe of tap dancers.
    Vicky would have outshone all of them.
    As for Tatiana, who looked so like her mother it was painful … Rory Flint-Hamilton closed his eyes and said a silent prayer.
Please let Tati behave herself. I couldn’t face another scandal. Not here.
    He would send her an email today, telling her in no uncertain terms that her married duke was absolutely
not
welcome. The rest of the world may have gone to hell in a handbasket. But the Furlings Hunt Ball would remain a bastion of tradition and propriety. Rory Flint-Hamilton intended to make sure of it.
    * * *
    Daniel Smart gazed out of the train window, sipping his disappointingly watery hot chocolate and glad he was in the warmth of a first-class carriage and not outside in the cold and wet.
    The last time he’d been to Fittlescombe, he’d been in his final year at Oxford. It was at Christmastime, and he remembered how struck he’d been by the beauty of the village, blanketed in snow, the flint cottages nestled tightly together beneath a crisp, bright-blue winter sky. He and Laura Tiverton had been lovers then. They’d spent a joyous holiday together in the gardener’s cottage at Mill House, making love by the fire and drinking mulled wine and going for long, romantic walks in the snow.
    Christ, that was a long time ago
.
    So much had happened since that Christmas. Daniel’s career had taken off spectacularly. He now had two West End plays under his belt and a third in production. He’d got married to Rachel, had two little boys, Milo and Alexis. And now, at thirty, he was getting divorced, painfully and expensively. As the train clattered on through the Sussex countryside, he wondered whether Laura’s life had been similarly eventful in the eight years since he’d seen her last. He’d been nervous, leaving her a voicemail, afraid he’d come across like a stalker or a weirdo. But, when she’d returned his call the next day, she’d sounded so happy to hear from him, so warm and welcoming, that all his fears evaporated. She’d immediately suggested meeting, and didn’t flinch when Daniel proposed that, rather than her coming to London, he would jump on a train to Fittlescombe ‘for old times’ sake’. Her voice hadn’t changed at all, and instantly took him back to those happy, student days. Rather ungallantly, he found himself hoping that the same could be said for her figure. Most of the girls he knew at Oxford had turned into serious heifers since college. Then again, they’d all had babies. Laura Tiverton was still unmarried and gloriously child-free.
    At last the train pulled up at Fittlescombe station. There was no snow this