The world, time, everything seemed to stand still for an age as Lydia gazed at him, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Will was here, in London? That couldn’t be right.
‘You’re a sight for sore eyes,’ Will said softly, taking a hesitant step closer to her. ‘Although seeing you in that dress makes me think I should have worn a tie. I nearly didn’t get in as it was. I had to get Joanna to come and tell the prat on the door that I was invited.’
Lydia opened her mouth, but there seemed to be a distinct lack of words to fill it.
‘Say something,’ Will said. ‘Something that’s going to make me feel like much less of an idiot for driving all the way down here to see you.’
‘Joanna invited you? She never said!’
‘I asked her not to,’ Will said. ‘And I sort of invited myself, as it goes.’
‘W— Why?’ Lydia asked him. ‘I thought we’d agreed …’
‘Yeah.’ Will nodded emphatically. ‘Yeah, I’d thought we’d agreed too, and then after you were gone for a day or two, and I got bored of drowning my sorrows, I suddenly realised that we hadn’t agreed anything. You’d agreed it all on your own and I went along with you, because when you want to be, you’re good at talking people into thinking they’ve agreed to stuff. It is your job, after all.’
Will drained one glass of champagne, and then after a moment’s thought, finished off the other one too.
‘The thing is, I don’t agree, Lydia. I don’t agree to us not seeing each other for a whole year. I don’t agree to us being sensible, or practical, or putting our jobs first. I seem to have fallen in love with you. Strange, granted, as you are pretty tricky and complicated, not to mention very inconveniently located. But still, that’s how I feel. And I was sitting in the pub, face like a smacked arse, when Gracie sat down next to me and said, don’t be a twat, Will. That girl had the guts to go and get you. Now, be a man, and have the guts to go and get her.’
‘She said that?’ A tiny smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. ‘Gracie called you a twat.’
‘Yeah.’ Will grinned. ‘And she was right. I’m not the sort of man to let a girl tell me what to do. I don’t know what I was thinking, letting you talk me into your plan of meeting in a bloody boathouse in a year. Well, I watched your film, An Affair to Bloody Remember, and if they’d both just gotten together when they fell in love, then she wouldn’t have ended up in a wheelchair, and it would have been a lot shorter film. I mean, yeah, maybe you should wait and see if you’re not sure, if things aren’t quite right. But I am sure, and things are right, the rightest I’ve ever known them, in fact. So I’ve thought about it. I’m not prepared to leave the next time I see you to fate. I don’t agree not to see you, or think about you, or want you, or long for you every second you are not there. I do not agree. What are you going to do about that?’
And in one fluid movement, Lydia closed the gap between them, flinging her arms around Will and kissing him, so enthusiastically that he stumbled back a couple of steps, finding his way into a seat, his hands on Lydia’s waist as he drew her down into his lap, at what must have been the stroke of midnight as all at once he night sky lit up with an explosion of fireworks, heralding the New Year. Lydia’s head resting on Will’s shoulder, they sat curled up in each other, watching the spectacular display ignite the city into celebration.
Eventually, as the spectacle died down, Will took Lydia’s hand in his, kissing her fingertips.
‘So, just to be clear, are we now agreeing not to let the distance and our work and all the complicated crap get in the way, and to do as much as possible to see each other as much as possible? Because I need you Lydia, I need you here, next to me, as much as is humanly possible.’
‘We are,’ Lydia said happily, the tip of her nose touching his, as she stroked his hair from his face. ‘I’m so stupid, I’d talked myself into thinking I was doing the right thing, making the right choice for once in my life. But the second I saw you standing there, I knew that I have to be with you. Maybe it will go horribly wrong and I will get my heart trampled on again, but I don’t care. Because you are so worth taking the chance for, Will. I need you too.’
Will wrapped his arms around her, holding her so tightly that she could feel his heartbeat, thundering in time with hers.
‘Happy New Year, Lydia Grant,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I know it’s going to be the best year of my life.’
Chapter Twenty-One
24 December
The (Next) Night Before Christmas
It truly was a silent night at Heron’s Pike. Exhausted from a day of partying with the village children, Jake and Tilly had volunteered to go to bed even earlier than usual and, after tucking the turkey into the Aga, so that it would be ready just in time for them to take down to the pub in the morning, Katy and Jim had gratefully followed them not too long after. The couple had had a busy year, bookings picking up steadily until they were fully booked over the whole summer, and socially too now that Katy had made new friends in the village.
As Lydia felt the crunch of snow under her boots, she glanced back up at the house, seeing that there was still a light on in Jackson and Joanna’s room, where no doubt Joanna was trying her new silk negligee out on her boyfriend. Twelve months in with no sign of a ring and Joanna had told Lydia she couldn’t be happier, feeling something really special had gradually begun to develop between the two of them. ‘And do you know what?’ Joanna told Lydia earlier that day. ‘Even if he did propose, I’d say no, for now, at least. I think I’m finally learning you don’t need an expensive piece of metal and stone to make a person stay with you. All you need is love – whoever would have thought it!’
A night light still glowed in Alex and David’s room, although Lydia was almost certain it was for very different reasons. Even on her first birthday, baby Lily Carole Amis was not particularly minded to do anything so boring as sleep. It was a good job that her parents adored the rosy-cheeked little scrap, Lydia thought, as she ruled the pair of them with a rod of iron. David had proved himself to be a brilliant father, and the moment that Lily had come into the world Alex had softened, almost as if now she had a child to care for she wasn’t afraid to let the world see the real, sweet, vulnerable person she was. And the softer she became, the more self-assured David was, the three of the them forming a tight-knit, if utterly exhausted, little unit.
Lydia shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself as she continued the walk down to the boathouse, pausing as she saw the flickering light in the window, holding her breath in anticipation.
What a year it had been, what a hectic, crazy, wonderful year. Sometimes it had felt to Lydia that the only moments she was ever still were those blissful, all too short hours she spent in Will’s arms. He had become her anchor, and she his, each of them gradually evolving and revolving their life around the other.
Early in February, Will had started to take restoration projects a little further south, until finally, during a wonderful dreamlike summer, he’d brought the most incredible seventeenth-century Cotswold manor house back from the brink of decay for a wealthy London couple who wanted a country pile and had heard that Will and his team were the best. Lydia had delighted in spending every weekend with him, lost in what seemed like a wonderland of cottage garden flowers, bumbling bees and heated kisses in the long grass. For the four months he’d worked on the project, Will chose to rent a cottage locally, and gradually the pair of them got to know, not only each other, but also the softer, more feminine landscape that ensconced them, and they gradually came to admire it, almost as much as Will did his own beloved lakeside mountains.
Then on the final day, as Will walked Lydia around the grounds of the beautiful old house, waiting for his clients to come and see the finished product, he’d remarked, ‘You know what, I could almost live in this part of the world. Have a house here, at least. A base to branch the business out from.’
Kicking a patchwork of multi-coloured leaves into the air with the toe
of her boot, Lydia nodded in agreement.
‘Me too. In fact, my chambers has offices in Oxford, so relocating would practically be a breeze …’
They both stopped stock still in the crisp afternoon, exchanging looks, but neither one of them wanted to say out loud that here in the swell of the Gloucestershire landscape, they might have inadvertently kicked up, along with the autumn leaves, a solution that meant a future together was possible.
Then autumn faded into winter and Lydia was entrusted with a career-enhancing murder case to defend, and Will headed back to Cumbria for a new job. Lydia had spent eight tortuous weeks without him, neither one of them able to find the time to close the aching gap between them. And yet, although she missed him so much that even her skin and her hair hurt, Lydia was not lonely, knowing that she’d speak to him every night before they went to bed.
‘I hate being this far apart from you,’ Will had said, last night, the last time they had spoken.
‘Me too, but it’s not long to wait now. You and me in the boathouse, the night before Christmas. Just like we planned.’
‘I could come to the house, you know.’ Will chuckled. ‘I’ll be back about nine?’
‘Yes, you could, but that’s not like a romantic movie at all, is it, Will?’ Lydia admonished him. ‘I want the next time I see you to be in that shed, where we first got to know each other. And I insist on whiskey in a flask and an oil lamp.’
‘It’s a good job I love you,’ Will pretended to grumble as he put down the phone.
Just then, as Lydia reached the boathouse door, she was hit with a terrible premonition. What if he wasn’t here? What if something had happened between last night and now to change his mind; after all, he hadn’t texted or called. She hadn’t heard from him since he hung up. What if there had been an accident and she had lost him after all? The thought was so terrible that tears sprang into her eyes and she slammed open the boathouse door in a panic.
What Lydia found in the boathouse rendered her utterly silent.
Will was sitting in the boat, alive and well, and more than that he’d filled the shed with what had to be hundreds of candles, lined up along every surface, filling up one boat entirely, so many that the grimy shed was glowing with light and warmth.
‘Oh, good,’ Lydia breathed as she gazed around. ‘You’re not dead.’
‘I’m not … what?’ Will stood up in the boat, rocking it slightly, holding out his hand to her. Skipping, Lydia hurried to join him.
‘For a second, just a second, I imagined what life would be like without you, and I panicked. But you’re here, and you’ve done this for me.’ Lydia smiled. ‘And it’s so lovely.’
‘That’s the response I was looking for. It took me ages to light all these.’ Will helped her into the boat, drawing her into his arms as they kissed.
‘Christ, I’ve missed you,’ he whispered into her hair.
‘And I’ve missed you,’ Lydia replied, smiling into his eyes. ‘Did you bring whiskey?’
‘Yes, but, listen … I’ve got something to say first.’
‘What, is it bad? Do you want to split up?’ Lydia asked him, anxiously.
Will frowned. ‘Yeah, ’cos I always risk third degree burns on lighting a ton of candles when I want to dump a lass. Shush, woman, of course I don’t want to split up.’
‘What, then?’ Lydia asked him, a little unsteady on her feet as Will checked both his jeans pockets and then found something, in the inner pocket of his jacket, which he brought out. Taking a deep breath, he opened a small box and showed the contents to Lydia. It was an antique ring, perhaps Victorian, a rich dark-red ruby set between two tiny diamonds, clasped in yellow gold.
‘What I want to say,’ Will said, ‘is, have you got any plans on Tuesday, because, well … did you know that Gretna Green is only twenty miles away?’
‘Are you asking me to marry you?’ Lydia asked, tearing her eyes off the ring to look at him.
‘Yes,’ Will said anxiously. ‘And I’m only joking about Gretna Green, you can’t actually go and get married there on the spur of the moment any more, I checked. Besides, I’ve got the feeling that you’d probably want something fancy, with a big dress and your friends and all that girly stuff. What I was trying to say was, if you’ll have me, I would marry you on Tuesday, I would marry you now, tonight, if I could, because I can’t marry you soon enough.’
Lydia said nothing.
‘Is it the ring?’ Will asked her anxiously. ‘It was my grandmother’s, and her mother’s. I know it’s not a great big Tiffany rock, but I never wanted to give it to anyone else, if that means anything.’
Still Lydia was silent.
‘Say something, before the bloody building burns down!’ Will exclaimed.
‘Yes,’ Lydia said. ‘Yes, I will marry you, yes, it is the perfect ring, and yes I am going to want a fancy wedding with a big dress, and yes, I love you.’
‘Brilliant.’ Will’s smile dazzled her. ‘Oh, there is one other thing too.’
‘Something else? Are you pregnant?’ Lydia asked him, making him laugh.
He unfolded a dog-eared and grubby bit of paper that he produced from his back pocket, and handed it to her. Lydia looked at it. It was estate agent details for a derelict barn in four acres of land in the Cotswolds.
‘I’ve bought you this barn as a Christmas present,’ Will said. ‘I know it doesn’t look much, but I sort of thought I could make it into a house for you. I’ll even put a turret on it, if you insist …’
The boat nearly capsized as Lydia lunged at Will, almost knocking him off his feet as she embraced him, and they collapsed into a giggling heap in the bottom of the boat.
‘Happy Christmas, darling,’ Will said as they gazed up at the stars through the broken skylight. ‘Are you having a good one?’
‘Best Christmas ever,’ Lydia whispered, feeling the heat of his body warm her, and the graze of his cheek against hers. ‘My perfect Christmas, at last.’
Turn the page for a few delicious recipes featured in The Night Before Christmas:
Whole Salmon Baked in a Coarse Salt & Herb Crust, Stuffed with Black Olive Pesto
Preparation time: 20 mins
Cooking time: 50–60 mins
Serves: 6–8
Ingredients:
Approximately 2.5–3kg whole salmon, filleted,
1 orange, thinly sliced
1 lime, thinly sliced
1 bunch fresh dill
1 bunch lemon thyme
5 large eggs, whites only (save the yolks for making breakfast omelettes or Prairie Oysters – gross but effective hangover cure – as the need arises!)
2.5kg coarse salt
For the pesto (tip: can be made in advance and stored in the fridge):
Two cloves garlic, roughly chopped
Large bunch flat leaf parsley
Large bunch basil
1 sprig rosemary
4 sunblush tomatoes
150g pitted black olives
4 tbsp finely grated Parmesan
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Place the garlic and herbs in a food processor and blend until finely chopped. If you don’t have a food processor, it can be done in a pestle and mortar but is harder work! (Why not reward yourself with an extra mince pie!)
Add the tomatoes, olives and Parmesan and pulse until coarsely chopped.
Scoop the mixture into a bowl and stir in the olive oil to make a thick paste. (Alternatively, if you’re strapped for time – and who isn’t at this time of year – you can probably find olive pesto or olive tapenade in your local supermarket.)
Method:
Preheat an oven to 200°C. While the oven is heating, spread each fillet with the pesto, lay on the lime and orange slices and reassemble the fish.
Measure and combine the egg whites with the salt and finely chopped herbs. Mix until ingredients are thoroughly combined. Place one-third of the mixture on the bottom of a lined baking tray. Spread the mixture out to form
a bed for the salmon to rest on. Place the stuffed salmon on top of this mixture and gently press down.
Place the remaining two-thirds of the salt mixture over the salmon to completely cover the entire fish. Do not crush or smash the fish.
Place the entire pan into the oven and bake for approximately 50–60 minutes, or approximately 10–12 minutes per 500g of raw fish. Remove from the oven and carefully peel away the outer layer of salt. The crust will be a light golden brown and should peel away in sections.
Transfer onto to a serving platter, slice and serve immediately.
Don’t worry; despite being cooked in a salt crust this isn’t an overly salty dish, it’s a great method for keeping fish moist – and a nicely dramatic way of serving the results of your labours!
Stuffed Pork Belly with Parmesan and Herbs
This recipe is very easy, but the results look impressive. It is perfect for a special dinner, or family lunch. The trickiest bit is probably the rolling and tying up of the belly but don’t worry you don’t have to have a brownie badge in knots to be able to keep your dish together!
Preparation time: 30 mins
Cooking time: 1.5–2hrs mins
Serves: 8
Ingredients:
3–4.5kg belly boneless pork, skin removed (but keep hold of it – this will be the crackling – the best bit!)
5 tbsp olive oil
Juice and zest of 2 lemons
2–4 cloves of garlic, chopped
Large bunch of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
Handful of fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
4 tbsp of ground Parmesan
Method:
Mix together the parmesan, herbs, oil, garlic and lemon juice and add salt and pepper to taste. Mix to a stiff paste and put into the fridge to solidify – this makes it easier to use.
The Night Before Christmas Page 27
