‘Can you scoot along a bit and make room?’ Tati asked Logan sweetly.
‘Of course.’ Unaware that there was anything amiss, the little girl did as she was asked, bumping into Jason, who in turn squeezed up against his mother. In order to give Angela room to breathe, Brett found himself being pressed uncomfortably against the wall.
Aware that he looked like a fool, he stood up, muttering expletives under his breath and indicating with an angry jerk of the head that the family should do the same. One by one they filed out to take communion, right past Tatiana. To Brett’s immense irritation, Logan gave Tati a hug. Jason smiled shyly. Angela kept acknowledgements to a brief but cordial nod. Brett deliberately knocked into her as he pushed past, his face like thunder.
‘What are you doing here?’ he hissed in her ear.
‘Praying,’ Tatiana responded pithily. ‘For strength.’
‘You could have sat somewhere else,’ Brett growled.
‘I could indeed.’ Tati met his gaze unwaveringly ‘And so could you. You’d better hurry, Mr Cranley, or there’ll be no more salvation left.’
Once communion was over, the Cranleys filed back into their seats. Brett had hoped to shove Tatiana down to the wall end and wedge her in there, but Logan was the first back to the pew. When Tatiana stepped to one side to let her in, she obligingly skipped along to the end herself, leaving Jason and Angela no choice but to follow suit. This left Brett in the uncomfortable position of standing next to Tati for the final hymn – ‘Guide Me Oh Thou Great Redeemer’ – and being forced to sing, one of the few things in life he was profoundly bad at.
Tatiana wisely said nothing, staring resolutely ahead until the church doors opened and people began pouring out onto the village green. But Brett was sure he saw the faintest hint of a smirk playing around her lips beneath that oh-so-demure veil.
One of these days I’m going to fuck that girl and hear her beg me not to stop, he thought furiously.
On the face of it, all Tatiana had done this morning was to arrive late to church and sit down in her normal seat. If Brett took issue with her publicly he would look like a prize fool. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d already been made a fool of, shown up as a charlatan. By reclaiming her pew with such dignified, quiet entitlement, she’d made him look as though he was playing at being lord of the manor, in front of the entire village. It was the same strategy she was trying to use in court, to turf him out of Furlings. Next to Tatiana, Brett Cranley and his family had been made to look like cheap, shoddy imitations of the real thing. From her attention-grabbing entrance to that outfit that made her look like Lady Mary from Downton bloody Abbey, Tatiana had succeeded in embarrassing him in as subtle, underhand a way as possible.
His face reddening like a ripe pepper, Brett rounded up his family and practically dragged them out of the churchyard.
Sidling up to Tatiana, Dylan Pritchard Jones slipped an arm around her waist.
‘Bravo,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I do believe you rattled him.’
‘I’m not sure one can rattle a snake,’ Tati said dolefully.
‘You know, the funny thing is, for a moment there, all wedged into the same pew like that, you almost looked like a family,’ said Dylan.
Tati looked horrified. ‘We did not. Please, don’t ever say that.’
‘But it’s true,’ said Dylan. ‘Logan obviously adores you.’
‘Yes, well. She’s a sweetie,’ Tati admitted.
‘And the brother was all smiles.’
‘Jason’s sweet too,’ said Tati.
‘Exactly. And Angela Cranley’s a lovely woman.’ Catching Tati’s questioning look, Dylan added swiftly, ‘I mean she’s nice. Kind. Not the sort of person who’d try to do anyone down. If it weren’t for the horrible dad, I reckon they’d welcome you with open arms.’
Tati looked at him frostily. God, she was magnificent in that suit and hat. Like Wallis Simpson without the vulgarity.
‘I don’t want to be welcomed into the Cranley family, thank you very much,’ she said caustically. ‘I want my inheritance. And I’m damn well going to get it.’
‘Come on,’ said Dylan, who suddenly felt in desperate need of a hair of the dog. ‘Let’s go to the pub. I’ll buy you lunch and let you rant for a whole hour.’
Spotting Gabe and Laura Baxter about to leave, Tati said, ‘Sounds good, thanks. I’ll meet you there.’
Running across the green, she tapped Gabe hard on the shoulder.
‘I suppose you think you’re clever, do you?’ she said accusingly. ‘Getting your grubby little hands on my fields.’
‘Good morning, Tatiana,’ Gabe smiled. Turning to Laura he said, ‘You go on ahead, darling. I’ll catch up with you.’
‘When I win my court case in September, I’ll have your deeds to that land revoked,’ Tati told him furiously.
‘Uh huh,’ said Gabe. ‘And when the aliens invade and take over the earth, they’ll turn my farmhouse into their intergalactic headquarters.’ He started walking away. ‘Get a grip, Tatiana.’
‘You know, I’m not surprised you and Brett Cranley have teamed up. There are so few low-lives in this village, it must be lovely for you to have found a kindred spirit at last.’
Against his better judgement, Gabe stopped and turned around. ‘You know, you’re right. There aren’t many low-lives – although I see you’ve adopted one in Dylan Dick-Hard Jones.’
‘What do you mean?’ Tati said crossly.
‘I mean that all he’s interested in is what’s between your legs, sweetheart. Then again, that’s all you’ve got to offer these days, isn’t it?’
Tati blushed scarlet, but for once had no comeback.
‘Still, there may be a lack of low-lives but at least there are plenty of snobs,’ Gabe went on, twisting the knife. ‘You’ll have plenty of people to commiserate with over croquet and cucumber sandwiches while I’m busy working my land. Enjoy your afternoon with Dick-Hard,’ he called over his shoulder, walking away for good this time. ‘Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
As always on a Sunday lunchtime, The Fox was packed.
Outside, the pretty beer garden was full of families, parents enjoying their ploughman’s lunches and pints of shandy while their children played on The Fox’s excellent rope swing, a veritable death-trap that propelled one off a high bank right across the river Swell and back again at bone-rattling speed.
Inside, Fittlescombe’s single males propped up the bar, arguing over last night’s football and debating the merits of the new series of Top Gear. Wandering in, in search of Dylan, Tatiana noticed that Archie, the new gardener’s boy at Furlings, was amongst them, although at eighteen he was too young and too shy to join in with the adult banter. He was good looking, though, in a floppy-haired, blond, freckly sort of way. Back in Tatiana’s day, the only gardener allowed to set foot in Furlings’ grounds had been the wizened and taciturn old Jennings. It crossed her mind how much she’d have enjoyed having a toyboy like Archie on the estate, and how much fun it would have been to take him to bed and play Lady Chatterley. If I hadn’t been so lonely there, perhaps I’d have stuck around, she thought wistfully.
Tatiana found Dylan inside, at a small table close to the bar.
‘Everything all right?’ Dylan asked. ‘Gabe Baxter looked as if he was giving you a hard time outside church.’
Tati waved a hand dismissively. ‘Gabe. He’s such a pleb. He’s got it in for me for whatever reason. I suspect it’s to do with his wife.’
‘Laura?’ Dylan waited for her to elaborate.
‘Yes,’ Tati said casually. ‘I might have accidentally slept with her boyfriend once. Ex-boyfriend. The one before Gabe.’
Dylan chuckled. ‘How do you “accidentally” sleep with someone?’
‘I didn’t know he had a girlfriend,’ Tati explained. ‘He certainly didn’t behave as if he did. Anyway, I did Laura a favour. He turned out to be a total dickhead and she and Gabe got together that very night. But
of course, now he has decided to rewrite history and paint me as the villain of the piece.’
Dylan changed the subject. He didn’t want to waste his lunch talking about Gabe Baxter, a man with whom he maintained a nominal friendship but whom he’d always secretly envied. Before long he and Tati were chatting away happily about school, and some of the pupils they had in common, over a long, lazy lunch. A couple of Boody Marys and a mouth-watering steak and kidney pie put paid to Dylan’s hangover, and Tati positively glowed with contentment after her second ice-cold glass of Chablis, remembering her bettering of Brett Cranley at church this morning.
By the time they paid the bill and emerged onto the green, it was almost three o’clock on a gloriously warm Sunday afternoon.
‘What are you doing now?’ Dylan asked casually.
Tati’s face clouded over. ‘Paperwork, unfortunately,’ she groaned. ‘I stayed late on Friday but I still have a stack of forms to finish for Years Three and Four. You’ve no idea how time-consuming it is.’
‘Oh, I do,’ Dylan reminded her. ‘I’ve been a teacher for eight years. I’ve done my fair share of mindless form-filling, believe me. If you like you can bring them over to mine and I’ll help you. Maisie’s away and I’m not really doing anything this afternoon.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Tati. She loathed the education department paperwork with a passion, not least because half of it made no sense to her and she had to cross-reference answers between one exam board and another. An experienced teacher like Dylan could get the job done in half the time. ‘You really don’t mind?’
‘Course not. Go and get the files and I’ll nip home and put some coffee on.’
By the time Tatiana arrived at the Pritchard Jones’s house, having changed into more comfortable denim shorts, flip-flops and a faded Rolling Stones T-shirt, a delicious smell of fresh-roasted coffee was already wafting through the kitchen. Maisie’s interiors magazines and piles of fabric samples lay scattered over the oak table, and pictures of Dylan’s very pretty young wife were everywhere, from the fridge door to the pinboard to the walls, covering every inch of space not already taken up by Dylan’s landscape paintings.
‘Your wife’s gorgeous,’ said Tati admiringly, and truthfully.
‘Thanks,’ said Dylan, a tad stiffly.
‘How come I never see her at school?’
‘She used to pop in a lot.’ Dylan handed Tati a mug of coffee and poured another for himself. ‘But she’s pregnant now and she gets very tired, especially in the afternoons. She’s usually napping when I get home.’
‘Is she a designer?’ Tati flipped idly through the magazines, clearing a space on the table on which to plonk her giant stack of paperwork.
‘God no. This is all just for the baby’s room. She doesn’t work,’ Dylan said, a touch dismissively, Tati thought.
She sat down at the table, but Dylan gestured towards the sofa, kicking off a sleeping tabby cat to make room for the two of them.
‘Let’s work over here. More comfy.’
For a second, Gabe Baxter’s ‘Dylan Dick-Hard Jones’ jibe replayed in Tati’s mind. He’s only interested in what’s between your legs. But she quickly pushed the thought aside. Gabe Baxter was poisonous, an obnoxious little wide boy on the make. What did he know about Dylan’s intentions? Tati wouldn’t let Gabe ruin the one, genuine friendship she’d made since coming back to Fittlescombe.
In the end, she and Dylan got through the paperwork in record time. Once Dylan had shown her the ropes, it was easy. Of course, no one at St Hilda’s, least of all the poisonous Year Six teacher Ella Bates, had bothered to talk her through the system. Tati realized now she’d spent untold hours chasing her tail, quite unnecessarily.
‘I can’t bloody believe this,’ she complained to Dylan. ‘Those cows. They could easily have told me what to do. I hate working at that damn school.’
‘You don’t mean that.’ Dylan smiled his twinkly smile and cleared away the papers, his hand accidentally brushing Tati’s bare leg as he reached over to the coffee table.
‘I do,’ said Tati. ‘I mean, I love the kids.’
‘That’s because you’re a natural teacher.’
‘Do you really think so?’
Despite her outer confidence, she’d always doubted her own abilities. For whatever reason, Tatiana wanted to be a good teacher, to have a genuine skill that people valued and respected. That her father would have valued and respected.
‘I do.’ Dylan smiled. There was something so good about his face, so kind, beneath those unruly auburn curls. He wasn’t small-minded and petty like the other staff, or cold and austere like Max Bingley. ‘Just look at how far Logan Cranley’s come on since you’ve been helping her with her reading. That didn’t happen by magic, you know.’
‘Thanks,’ said Tati, suffused by a warm glow of pride. Used to compliments about her looks, it was rare for her to be admired for anything else. Since her father’s death, and losing her birthright to the Cranleys, her self-esteem had been particularly low. ‘I don’t know why you’re so nice to me,’ she told Dylan.
‘Don’t you?’
His voice had taken on a rough, throaty edge. He touched her leg again, but this time there was nothing accidental about it.
Tatiana watched his fingers lazily move up and down her thigh. At first it was almost as if it were happening to someone else. But the rush of desire that shot through her was most definitely all her own. God it had been so long, so very long since she’d had a man. She’d never really thought about Dylan sexually, perhaps because he was older, and married, although that had never hindered her libido in the past. Since her father’s death, Tati had effectively shut down that side of herself completely. Apart from that one, disgusting yet disturbingly erotic touch from Brett Cranley weeks ago, she hadn’t had anything approximating to an enjoyable sexual experience in well over a year.
‘You’re so beautiful.’ Dylan was whispering in her ear now, his hands creeping upwards, playing with the frayed hem of her shorts. On autopilot, Tati reached around the back of his neck, pulling him towards her and kissing him. The kiss was more curious than passionate, like someone reminding themselves of a familiar, favourite food that they’ve always loved but haven’t eaten in a long time. Dylan’s response was unequivocal. Pushing her down onto her back so she was stretched out full length on the couch, he kissed her back hard, pressing his entire weight down on top of her. The combined sensations of his stubble grinding against her cheek, the smell of his aftershave and excitement, and his hand sliding under her T-shirt to grab her bare breasts made her gasp out in pleasure. But a few seconds later reality reasserted itself. Feeling Dylan’s rock-solid erection pressing down on her groin through his khaki trousers, Tati suddenly panicked. Dick-Hard Jones. All she could hear was Gabe Baxter’s mocking voice in her head:
You’ve adopted a rat of your own.
Opening her eyes, like a hypnotized patient emerging from a trance, the first thing she saw was a photograph of Dylan’s wife staring down at her from the kitchen wall.
‘We can’t do this.’ She tried to wriggle out from under him, but Dylan seemed oblivious. ‘Dylan,’ she shouted louder. ‘Stop.’
‘Stop? Why?’ He raised his head a fraction, but was still lying on top of her, his weight pinning her down.
‘You know why,’ said Tati. ‘Your wife.’
‘She’s away. She won’t know,’ Dylan murmured, resuming his exploration of Tati’s magnificent left breast.
‘That’s not the only reason,’ said Tati, trying not to enjoy the sensation. ‘We work together. We’re friends.’
‘You are so fucking sexy.’ Ignoring her, Dylan reached down and began to unbutton her fly. Tati froze, lust replaced by anger, at Dylan, at herself, and at Gabe bloody Baxter, for being right all along.
‘I said Stop!’
With all her strength, she drew her right knee upwards into Dylan’s groin.
It was more of a nudge than anything, but he jumpe
d off her all the same. A look of profound annoyance flashed across his face. ‘Are you kidding me?’
‘No. Why would I be kidding?’ Tati sat up, shaking, and straightened her clothes. ‘Come on, Dylan. You know as well as I do this is a bad idea.’
‘That’s not what you thought five minutes ago.’ He ran a hand through his hair, a picture of frustration and fury. His erection, sticking out like a tent pole at the front of his trousers, looked ridiculous now, and not remotely sexy.
‘You led me on,’ he whined petulantly.
Tati would have laughed, but there was a cold glint in Dylan’s eye that made her think better of it. Instead she picked up her papers, clasping them to her chest like a shield.
‘That wasn’t my intention. Look, you’re an attractive man. It’s not that.’
‘Please,’ Dylan snapped. ‘Don’t patronize me.’
Tati felt like crying suddenly. It was true, she had kissed him back. And she had been tempted. But only for a moment. Dylan was behaving as if she’d made the first move. As if she’d come here with the express purpose of seducing him, which couldn’t have been farther from the truth.
‘I’d better go,’ she mumbled, backing away from him towards the door. ‘Thank you for the help with the papers.’
She longed for him to say something, to relent, to admit that he was sorry and had gone too far and that they could still be friends. God knew Tati needed a friend in Fittlescombe, and up to this point, Dylan Pritchard Jones had been it. All she needed was a smile, a small gesture, anything to break the tension. But instead Dylan turned away, his face set like flint.
‘You can see yourself out, I assume,’ he said bitterly.
Tati fled.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Monday morning saw a break in the weather and the first rainy day southern England had endured in weeks.
Jason Cranley sat at his desk, staring through a grimy window at the grey London skyscape. It struck him that the city seemed somehow more right, more real, in the drizzle than it did in the sunshine. Tower Bridge had looked fake last week against a backdrop of blue sky and sunshine, like a prop from a movie set. The rain seemed in an odd way to suit it, to bring it back to life. Or perhaps it was just he, Jason, who suited the rain? He who needed the grey world outside because it reflected the grey world inside, the ever-present clouds inside his head?
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