‘Mum’s been on the waiting list for ages!’ Zara exclaimed.
‘Bianca bags cost an absolute fortune!’ Esme rushed to my side, wide-eyed and looking a little put out. ‘Holster! When did you . . .? How on earth . . .?’
I gazed at Ben and we shared a look of bemusement.
‘It’s one of my dad’s.’ I shrugged nonchalantly. ‘He sent it to me for Christmas.’
‘Your dad? Antonio Biancardi. Biancardi – Bianca,’ Esme stuttered, reaching to stroke the leather. ‘Oh. My. God.’
Lady Fortescue’s face was a picture of disbelief, admiration and envy. ‘You’re Antonio Biancardi’s daughter?’
I swallowed. ‘Yes.’
‘For the record,’ Ben laughed, squeezing his way into the melee and putting his arm around my waist, ‘I don’t care who her father is. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference. Does it, Mother?’
‘No, no, of course not,’ said Lady Fortescue with a high-pitched laugh. She grabbed my arm. ‘But do you think he’d like to contribute to our charity fashion show next year?’
‘Probably.’ I beamed. ‘He seems like a very nice man.’
Lady Fortescue shot me a look of confusion but she was prevented from digging for any more information as Lord Fortescue clapped his hands.
‘Right, everyone, to the Great Hall, please, we’ve ignored our guests long enough.’ He peered at Esme. ‘And will you be joining us for dinner, young lady?’
‘Coolio! I mean, yes please, I’d be honoured.’ Esme dipped into a bizarre curtsey until Zara pulled her by the hand.
‘You can sit by me.’
Lord Fortescue offered his wife his arm and the four of them left.
And then Ben and I were alone in the room. He switched off the chandeliers and the table lamps until the only light came from the glow of the fire and the glimmer of the Christmas tree.
I walked slowly towards the tree, gazing up at the silvery angel remembering Marjorie’s tales of Ben as a boy.
‘I love Christmas,’ I murmured, as Ben slipped his arms around my waist.
‘Me too. It’s perfectly acceptable to turn off all the lights and smooch in the dark at Christmas.’
Slowly he turned me round to face him and the reflection of the fairy lights danced in his eyes and my heart started to pound.
‘You don’t have the urge to launch yourself at the tree then, and cover yourself in pine needles?’
‘Not at the tree, no.’ He grinned. ‘Launching myself at you is a different matter entirely.’
He cupped my face in both of his hands tenderly and all I could hear was the crackle of the fire, the steady sound of his breathing and, far away, voices laughing as guests continued to arrive.
‘Well, that was all very exciting,’ I breathed, suddenly nervous.
Every kiss we’d tried to share so far, every moment, had been interrupted and I was determined that this time nothing would come between us.
‘You, Miss Clipboard,’ he said, ‘are the most amazing, surprising and capable woman I have ever known. And my mother has well and truly met her match.’
He tilted my chin and his breath felt warm on my face.
‘I can’t believe you went to all that trouble, working on the plans for the art gallery for me. You’re incredible and very clever. Plus you have freckles, even in winter; I didn’t know that was possible. I love those freckles; I could look at them all day.’
I looked into his eyes and ran my fingers up the fabric of his jacket, linking them behind his neck. ‘And I can’t believe you found Antonio Biancardi for me. I’ve got a father. For the first time. And he seems lovely! And the owner of a coveted accessories brand to boot, which seems to have gone down rather well with your mother. I love that you’re so impulsive and spontaneous. Plus you have the most beautiful curls; I could run my fingers through them all day.’
‘Then we’re quits.’ He grinned.
‘Will you really stay at Wickham Hall?’ I murmured.
He nodded. ‘Will you?’
I grinned. ‘I’ll have to, won’t I? Someone has got to organize you.’
‘Will you be able to cope?’
‘With you?’ I snorted. ‘I think I’ll manage.’
But his eyes were unusually serious. ‘I mean it, Holly. Being my girlfriend will mean a lot of intrusion in your life. I know how you avoid the limelight. Even opening the art gallery will attract attention. People will want to know about you, talk to you, photograph you even . . .’
I rolled my eyes at him. ‘Benedict Fortescue, do you know what I think?’
He shook his head, a smile playing at his lips, as I closed the last few inches of distance between us. ‘Tell me.’
‘I think you should stop planning for the future and live for the moment.’
‘Really?’ He traced his thumb across my lips, sending a jolt of electricity down my spine. ‘In that case, is this a good moment to tell you that I love you?’
‘It’s the perfect moment,’ I whispered, weaving my fingers through his hair.
‘I love you, Holly Swift.’
And then he kissed me to prove it. And I kissed him back. And there was just him and me, a boy and a girl, and it was as if our bodies were made for each other. Suddenly I didn’t care about tomorrow or what was in my diary or when I was going to get round to finding somewhere new to live because I had us, now, this second. If this was what living for the moment meant then I liked it. A lot.
‘I’ve just realized . . .’ I laughed as we finally came up for air. ‘I got my Christmas wish and it was even better than I dreamed of.’
Ben wrapped his arms round my waist and pulled me tightly towards him. ‘You must have been a good girl, then.’
‘Very good indeed, shall I show you how good?’
And I kissed him again, the man I loved, in my favourite room at Wickham Hall by the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree and the moment was utterly, utterly perfect.
Epilogue
The pale morning light crept through a sliver of space between the curtains and teased me gently awake from a wonderful sleep. This bed was absolute heaven. I smiled and stretched languorously before opening my eyes. I blinked a few times until I could focus; my painting, Secret Sunrise, was propped up against the wall on the other side of the room and its colours and energy made my heart sing. I lay still for a moment, gazing up at the golden drapes, listening to the dawn chorus from the trees just outside the window.
I smiled and sank my head further into the pillows; this was the perfect way to start the day. All that was missing was a certain someone . . .
The door opened and Benedict tiptoed in, carrying two mugs of tea and wearing nothing but his boxer shorts and a cheeky smile.
‘Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. You look all dreamy and gorgeous.’
A wave of love washed over me as he padded across the carpet. His hair was all messed up and there were still crease marks on his face from the pillows.
‘Is this real?’ I sighed. ‘Is this really happening to me?’
‘It is.’ He made a space on the Chinese lacquered cabinet beside me and set down a steaming mug. ‘Tea. Just how you like it.’
‘Hurrah.’ I sat up and took my first hot sip.
I loved that he knew how I liked my tea; I loved a thousand other things, too: like the fact that he folded his jeans when he took them off at night and the way he slept with my hand tightly in his . . .
‘So,’ he murmured, dropping a kiss on my nose. ‘How was it?’
‘Did you want marks out of ten?’ I giggled, setting my mug back down.
He scooted back to his side of the bed and pulled the duvet up. ‘No, but as I appear to have made your third wish come true, I just thought I’d ask if the experience lived up to your expectations.’
My third wish: to wake up at Wickham Hall in a four-poster bed. Tick.
I snuggled up to him, resting my cheek against his chest. ‘It more than did that; I feel like a princess.�
��
Ben wrapped his arms round me tightly and kissed the top of my head. ‘Well, princess or not, you’ve got twenty minutes to get yourself downstairs and ready for your next adventure.’
‘Arrghhh!’ I jumped out of bed and ran into Ben’s en-suite bathroom.
‘By the way,’ he called.
I stuck my head back out. ‘Yes?’
‘You didn’t snore.’ He winked.
Twenty minutes later, Ben and I were on our way downstairs with our suitcases. Lord Fortescue had very kindly suggested that I move my things into Ben’s room while the Dower House, a lovely detached cottage on the far side of the estate, was being spruced up for us to move into. It was only for a week and we would be away for some of that.
Ben dropped the bags onto the top step and gave me a sheepish look. ‘I’ll be two minutes, I promise. I just want to check something with the architect before we go.’
‘Two minutes,’ I warned, chuckling to myself as he ran off in the direction of the old garages. Ben’s plans for the new art gallery had been approved speedily, partly because he was able to use the old sets of drawings. The buildings had been cleared and the scaffolding had gone up and Ben spent every spare minute consulting with builders and architects about his beloved project.
‘Holly, dear, I’m glad I’ve caught you.’
I turned to see Lady Fortescue, wrapped in a long robe and still in her slippers, her arms crossed against the crisp spring air.
‘Good morning, Beatrice.’ I beamed. ‘Such an exciting day!’
She nodded warmly. ‘And I couldn’t be happier for you.’
At that moment, Lord Fortescue’s Range Rover pulled up in front of the hall with Ben in the passenger seat. He jumped out, opened the boot and loaded the cases inside.
‘Ready?’ He raised an eyebrow and reached for my hand.
‘Wait,’ said Lady Fortescue hurriedly. ‘I wanted to give you this, Holly.’
She uncurled her fingers to reveal her pearl bracelet with the diamond clasp.
My eyes widened. ‘For me?’ I breathed. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
I held out my wrist while she put it on me and Ben snaked an arm round my waist. ‘That’s a lovely gesture, Mum,’ he said.
‘You remind me so much of myself when I first came to Wickham Hall.’ Lady Fortescue sighed. ‘Wide-eyed at the beauty of the place, full of ideas and energy. I was about your age when Hugo gave me this and now I think I’m ready to hand it over. To you.’
We looked at each other, both of us with tears in our eyes.
I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and hugged her tight. ‘Thank you, Beatrice; I love it, just as much as I love Wickham Hall.’
‘Bye, Mum,’ called Ben, ushering me into the back seat of the car.
He murmured into my ear as he slid in beside me, ‘That’s it; you’ll never escape us Fortescues now.’
I kissed him swiftly and smiled. ‘And I never want to.’
‘Morning, Hugo,’ I said, leaning forward into the front of the car where Lord Fortescue was drumming his fingers on the wheel.
‘All set?’ he boomed. ‘Got everything?’
I checked my bag for the umpteenth time; our passports and flight tickets to Bergamo lay on top of everything else.
Ben smiled that sunshiny smile that lit up my heart. ‘Are you ready to meet your father?’
I nodded and squeezed his hand. ‘Let’s go.’
You’ve come to the end of Wickham Hall.
But now you can tuck in to another delicious modern love story from Cathy Bramley:
Verity Bloom hasn’t been interested in cooking anything more complicated than the perfect fish finger sandwich, ever since she lost her best friend and baking companion two years ago.
But an opportunity to help a friend is about to land her right back in the heart of the kitchen! The Plumberry School of Comfort Food is due to open in a few weeks’ time and has rather gone off the boil. It needs the kind of great ideas that only Verity could cook up . . .
But as Verity tries to balance stirring up publicity, keeping their top chef sweet and soothing her aching heart, will her move to Plumberry prove to be a sheer delight . . . or a recipe for disaster?
Read on for a sneak peek at the opening chapters!
Chapter 1
My stomach rumbled as I pulled the pan out from under the grill. I’d been slaving over my laptop at the kitchen table since first thing and now it was four o’clock. All I’d had to keep me going were two chocolate Pop Tarts.
Even by my standards, that was a bit meagre.
There was more to making the ultimate fish finger sandwich than met the eye, I mused, prodding the fish to make sure it was cooked. To be proper comfort food, it had to meet very stringent criteria. The bread had to be soft and white. I’d bought a new loaf from the corner shop this morning specially. The fish fingers must be good ones; life is simply too short for anything less. I keep a box of Birds Eye’s best in the freezer at all times, alongside my stash of cottage pie, lasagne and tikka masala ready-meals.
I spaced the four golden strips of breadcrumbed cod evenly across the bottom slice, taking care to leave a gap in the centre for easy slicing. Next the ketchup – Heinz, of course. I gave the bottle a firm shake and added a neat stripe to each of the fish fingers.
Rosie, my part-time housemate, steamed into the kitchen wearing a sports bra and shorts and turned the tap on full blast before fetching a glass.
‘Just in time to witness my pièce de résistance,’ I announced, sliding the plate away from the spray of water.
‘Please tell me that’s not your Sunday lunch?’ She waggled her eyebrows sternly. ‘Wait till I tell Nonna.’
Her Italian grandmother believed lunch on the Lord’s Day should consist of at least four courses, take the entire morning to prepare and the entire afternoon to clear up.
I sliced through the sandwich and sat down at the table.
‘Yep. Protein, carbs, vegetables . . . a perfectly balanced meal,’ I said. OK, vegetables was stretching it a bit, but the bottle did claim to be full of sun-ripened tomatoes . . . ‘And more importantly, it only took me twelve minutes. Sorry, Nonna.’
‘You should treat your body as if it belongs to someone you love,’ she tutted. She twisted the cap off a tub of seaweed extract and shook two tablets out into her hand.
I watched her knock them straight back with a gulp of water. ‘Who do you love – Nemo?’
Rosie choked mid-swallow and spluttered with laughter. ‘Touché, Princess Prick and Ping, touché.’
I pretended to give her a dirty look.
She referred to me as that because of my over-reliance on the microwave, although she didn’t spend much time in the kitchen either. Nor anywhere else. Rosie was too busy to spend long doing anything. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her relax. Not completely. Even when she watched TV she had her phone in her hand, her iPad balanced on her knee and her laptop on the coffee table in front of her, each device tracking different social media campaigns for her clients. She was totally dedicated to her job and she’d been promoted twice since I’d known her, which was only two and a half years.
She moved in when I needed a lodger to help pay the mortgage after splitting up with my fiancé. Not that she didn’t have a property of her own; she’d had several over the years. In her spare time she bought and renovated run-down houses, selling them on for a profit which she squirrelled away. Her plan was to buy a big house for herself and be mortgage-free by the age of forty. I had no doubt that she’d do it.
‘I’m detoxing,’ she explained, rattling the bottle of vitamins under my nose. ‘Because I love myself.’
‘And I,’ I said with my mouth full of sandwich, ‘love fish fingers.’
I agreed with her actually; food was about love. To cook for someone was to show them how much you cared. My problem was that I’d lost that loving feeling. Or more accurately, that loving someone.
‘How’s the project g
oing?’ She sat down and read the document open on my laptop. ‘Need any help?’
Spending all day working might not be everyone’s ideal Sunday but it had provided the perfect distraction from the sadness of today’s date, which I wasn’t ready to tackle yet. Besides, tomorrow’s meeting was unusually important.
‘I think I’m there,’ I said proudly, removing the elastic band from my wavy brown hair. I ruffled my fingers through it, wishing for the umpteenth time it was as dark and glossy as hers. ‘I’ve got an amazing idea for improving customer loyalty: the One, Two, Three Plan. Instead of incentivizing purely new customers, this is about giving existing customers reasons to stay with us for a minimum of three years. I’ve come up with loads of benefits.’
‘Sounds great,’ Rosie said, stretching her face, a gesture I recognized as stifling a yawn.
‘It is, honestly,’ I protested. ‘Even Liam thought it was good. Better than his will be, he reckons.’
‘You’ve shown Liam?’ Her mouth gaped. ‘Have I taught you nothing about office tactics?’
I gave her my o-ye-of-little-faith look. ‘Of course I have; I wanted his opinion.’
My boyfriend of six months, Liam, was also my colleague in the marketing department of Solomon Insurance in Nottingham. We shared an office, which had worked out just fine so far: not only did we manage to indulge in illicit snogs occasionally at the far end of the office, but we helped each other out with problems and pooled our best ideas for the good of the company. Admittedly most of the ideas came from me, but he was good at other things like persuasion and flattery. And if you’d ever tried getting extra printer paper from our office manager you’d know just how important those skills are.
Rosie lowered her head to the table and groaned. ‘Oh, Verity.’
‘Look, I know you want me to fight tooth and nail for this job, but that’s just not me,’ I said with a laugh, laying my hand over hers.
A few weeks ago, Solomon’s had been bought out by an American company which had sent in a man with a hatchet to trim the fat from our friendly little firm. His name was Rod Newman. He didn’t talk, he yelled. He didn’t listen, he yelled. And he had the attention span of a goldfish. So far three people from accounts, five from sales and two from personnel had been deemed as ‘fat’ and had disappeared the very same day.
Wickham Hall: Part Four - White Christmas Page 10
