Authors: Tilly Bagshawe
Brett’s eyes narrowed.
You arrogant little minx.
‘The door was open,’ he said coldly. ‘As for stupid, I guess you would know. Challenging your father’s will is downright moronic. You haven’t a prayer of getting Furlings back, you do realize that?’
‘Well, we’ll see, won’t we?’ Tati said brazenly. She knew she must not show weakness in front of this usurper. ‘You’ll find I’m not the only person in this village who wants you out, Mr Cranley.’
‘I don’t give a fuck what the village thinks. I won’t have you coming around
my
house upsetting
my
wife.’
‘It’s not your house,’ Tati hissed.
‘You can explain that to the police when I have you arrested for trespassing,’ said Brett.
‘
You
have
me
arrested?’ Tati laughed. ‘You just assaulted me, naked, in my own bathroom!’
‘Don’t be so melodramatic.’
He stood up and started wandering around the room, picking up random objects and examining them idly. In her shocked state up in the bathroom, Tati hadn’t got a good look at her enemy. Although clearly he’d got a
very
good look at her. Now, she examined Brett Cranley more closely. Her first thought was how much he looked like his daughter, or rather how much Logan looked like him. Man and girl both had the same dark eyes and blue-black hair, the same swarthy, pirate-like complexion. But whereas Logan was a slender, delicate little thing, Brett had the broad, stocky build of a cage fighter. Moving around Greystones’ drawing room now, he seemed too big for the space, like a bear stumbling around a tea room.
He’s not especially tall. But he has presence
,
thought Tati.
She’d witnessed the same effect before in countless other powerful, successful men, men who she’d delighted in seducing and bending to her will. Brett Cranley, she suspected, might prove a more difficult fish to catch. Not that she had the remotest interest in him romantically. All Tatiana wanted from her obnoxious third cousin was the deeds to her house. That and his handsome head on a platter.
Brett gave her a questioning look. ‘What are you doing here, Tatiana?’
She glared at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, why are you in this house? This village? You know damn well you’re never going to get Furlings back. Why don’t you go back to London, find some nice, rich schmuck to marry and live happily ever after? A girl like you could get a score of beautiful houses if she wanted to.’
‘I don’t want to,’ said Tati with feeling. ‘All I want is Furlings. Anyway, what do you mean “a girl like me”?’
Brett’s questions were the same ones she’d been asking herself less than half an hour ago. But she instantly bridled hearing them from him.
‘Oh, I think you know what I mean,’ Brett sneered. He had moved close to her now, too close. Tati could smell the faint, patchouli scent of his aftershave and feel the warmth of his breath on her neck. Before she knew what was happening, he had slipped one hand around the small of her back and begun gently stroking her bare skin beneath the tatty sweater, a gesture at once affectionate, erotic and breathtakingly presumptuous.
It was the latter that Tati reacted to, pushing him away violently.
Brett laughed. ‘Why so affronted? You’re a sexy girl and you know it.’
‘And you’re a revolting old lech, whether you know it or not. You don’t seriously think I’d be attracted to you?’
‘Oh that’s right, I forgot. You prefer boys now, don’t you? Like my son,’ Brett said archly, walking away. ‘Strange, that’s not what I read in the papers about you.’
‘I haven’t the remotest interest in you or your son,’ Tati insisted furiously. ‘All I want is my house back. And whether you like it or not, I’m going to get it.’
‘You’re out of your league,’ Brett said languidly. He was mocking her now, a cruel, amused smile playing on his thin lips as he pulled his car keys out of his pocket and tossed them from hand to hand. ‘Pretty girls like you should stick to what they’re good at.’
‘Oh really. And what’s that?’
‘Shopping and shagging. And looking decorative.’
‘That’s what your wife does, is it?’ said Tati, touching a nerve at last. ‘How proud you must be.’
Brett’s face darkened. ‘You stay away from my wife.’
‘I’ll be glad to. Just as long as
you
stay away from
me.
I’ll see you in court, Mr Cranley.’
Brett said nothing. He merely walked back to his car, laughing.
Once he’d gone, Tatiana stood frozen to the spot, too angry to breathe, let alone move.
Disgusting, arrogant, entitled, sexist pig!
I hate him.
I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone in my entire life.
It was a miracle that both the Cranley children had turned out so sweet. Clearly Angela Cranley must be quite a mother, far from the ‘decorative’ doll of her revolting husband’s imagination.
Conceited little shit.
Shopping and shagging indeed …
Tati had been determined to contest the will even before Brett Cranley showed up at her door. But now? Now she’d sell her own organs to get Furlings back if she had to. Brett Cranley was going to rue the day he underestimated Tatiana Flint-Hamilton.
Laura Baxter brushed her teeth and spat furiously into the basin.
‘I don’t know why you’re so angry,’ said Gabe. Lying on the bed in his boxer shorts in Wraggsbottom Farm’s beautiful, beamed master bedroom, he had a James Bond novel open in one hand and a packet of Maltesers in the other. It was a warm night and the lead-mullioned window beside the bed was open, revealing a glorious view of the valley, with the river Swell at its base and the Downs rolling away to the sea. Gabe had lived here since birth and loved his farm as if it were a person. Since marrying Laura he loved it even more, with all the promise it now held for the future. Their future.
‘I went to see a neighbour,’ he said, popping another Malteser into his mouth. ‘I wasn’t selling our first-born child to Pol Pot.’
‘We don’t have a first-born child,’ said Laura. ‘And we’re not likely to if you keep lying to me.’
She came back into the bedroom looking as furious as it was possible to look in a floral Laura Ashley nightdress covered in pale pink rosebuds.
‘I didn’t lie to you,’ said Gabe indignantly.
‘You went behind my back. It’s the same thing.’
‘It is not the same thing. Christ, what is wrong with trying to buy a few fields anyway?’
Throwing back the covers, Laura climbed into bed, punching the pillows as if she had a grudge against them. She hated it when Gabe was deliberately obtuse. Not to mention deceitful.
‘It is not “a few fields”. It’s hundreds of acres of land that we can’t afford.
And
that may not even be Brett Cranley’s to sell. You know as well as I do that his inheritance is disputed.’
‘All the more reason to buy now, while we’ve got the chance.’
Laura let out a stifled scream of frustration and turned out her bedside light. Pulling the covers around her like a shield, she pointedly turned her back on her husband.
Gabe was equally frustrated. Running the farm was his job. He didn’t tell Laura how to produce television programmes or write scripts. What gave her the right to meddle in his business decisions? On the other hand, he hated fighting with her. Putting down his book and sweets, he wrapped his arms around her stiff, angry body.
‘I love you,’ he whispered in her ear.
Laura didn’t move.
‘I know you want to know what they’re like,’ Gabe teased, slipping a warm rough hand under her nightdress and caressing her wonderful, full breasts. ‘The Cranleys.’
Despite herself, Laura moaned with pleasure. It was utterly infuriating, how good he was in bed.
‘I’ll tell you if you’re nice to me,’ Gabe whispered, his hands moving slowly down over her belly, his fingertips just skimming the soft fur between her legs. Unable to keep up her resistance any longer, Laura turned around and kissed him, luxuriating in the solid warmth of his body. God, he was beautiful.
‘Go on then, tell me,’ she said, releasing him at last. ‘What are they like?’
‘Ha!’ said Gabe. ‘So you do want to know. I knew it! You’re just a sad old village gossip, Mrs Baxter.’
‘What’s
he
like?’ asked Laura, ignoring him. ‘Brett Cranley.’
‘Actually, I liked him,’ said Gabe. ‘I mean, I can see how he could be seen as arrogant.’
Laura frowned. ‘In what way?’
‘He’s a big personality. Maybe even a bit of a bully. He obviously favours his daughter over his son, and the wife seems a bit afraid of him.’
Gabe told her about his brief encounter with Logan and Jason today, and about Angela’s nerves the first time they met.
‘He sounds vile,’ said Laura. ‘What on earth did you like about him?’
‘I don’t know, exactly,’ said Gabe, thinking. ‘He’s direct. Honest. I don’t think he’d cheat you in business.’
‘Well he certainly cheats in his private life,’ said Laura with feeling. ‘At least if the press coverage is anything to go by.’
‘Oh, yeah, but that’s different,’ said Gabe.
‘Why? Because it’s OK to cheat on women? Just as long as you’re honest with men, is that it?’
Laura felt her hackles rising again. She loved Gabe but sometimes he could be so … unreconstructed.
Gabe sighed. ‘Give it a rest, Germaine Greer. You asked, I answered. I liked him. Sorry if you and the rest of the village lynch mob have already decided he’s the Swell Valley’s answer to Vladimir Putin. But I do have the advantage of having actually met the guy.’
‘Well, bully for you. I hope the two of you will be very happy together,’ said Laura.
Turning away from her, Gabe turned off his own bedside light.
‘And I’ll tell you something else,’ he added defiantly. ‘I’m going to get him to sell those fields to me. So put that in your bra and burn it.’
‘Have you seen that stack of marked Year Three homework anywhere? The robot sketches?’
Dylan Pritchard Jones ran a hand through his curly chestnut hair and scanned the mess that was his kitchen. Aside from the detritus of breakfast, almost every surface was covered with copies of
Country Living
,
Elle Décor
,
Period Homes
and every other conceivable variety of interiors magazine. Dylan’s wife, Maisie, was expecting their first child and had gone into a frenzy of what the pregnancy websites called ‘nesting’. Apparently this was a woman’s primitive urge to spend thousands of pounds on expensive Farrow & Ball paint and decorative antique rocking chairs. Dylan prayed it would soon pass. On an art teacher’s salary, it was not easy to make Maisie’s
Homes & Gardens
dreams come true.
‘Last I saw them they were upstairs on the landing.’ Maisie chewed grimly on a piece of dry toast. ‘I passed them on my way to the loo at about five a.m.’
Pregnancy had not been kind to Dylan’s young wife. Relentless morning sickness had turned Maisie’s former peaches and cream complexion an unattractive shade of greenish-grey. At only a few months gone she was already thirty pounds heavier than usual, and her legs were covered with revolting varicose veins that reminded Dylan of mould running through a slab of Stilton cheese. Apparently there were men who found their pregnant wives uniquely attractive and desirable. Dylan Pritchard Jones could only imagine that their wives looked more like expectant supermodels – lithe amazons with compact little bumps beneath their lululemon tank tops – and less like the swollen, exhausted figure of his own other half. He tried to be a patient and understanding husband. But he couldn’t help but count down the days till it was over, and prayed that Maisie intended to get her figure back quickly afterwards. His suggestion last week that she think about hiring a trainer had been met with what he felt was excessive frostiness.
‘Thanks, you’re an angel.’ Kissing her on the head, Dylan raced upstairs, grabbed the work and ran out to his car, a piece of peanut butter toast still clamped between his teeth. St Hilda’s art teacher was perennially late. It was part of his charm, along with his broad, boyish smile, twinkly, bright blue eyes, and the mop of curls that made him look years younger than his actual age of thirty-three, and that women had always found hugely attractive. Dylan Pritchard Jones enjoyed being the ‘cool’ teacher at St Hilda’s, the one whose classes the children actually looked forward to, and with whom all the pretty mothers flirted at parents’ evening. Yes, Fittlescombe’s primary school was a small pool. But Dylan was the prettiest fish in it, if not the biggest. He loved his life.
In the staff room at St Hilda’s, tempers were fraying. The Year Six SAT exams were less than a month away now, but the government had seen fit to choose
this
moment to dump an enormous amount of additional paperwork on its already overloaded state teachers. This morning’s staff meeting had been called to agree a consensus on whether or not Max Bingley should hire an additional administration person. Cuts would have to be made to pay for such a hire, so it was vital that all the departments be represented. The art department, as usual, was late.
‘We really can’t put this off any longer.’ Ella Bates, one of the two Year Six class teachers, voiced what the entire room was thinking. ‘If Dylan can’t be bothered to turn up for the vote, he doesn’t deserve a say in it.’
‘It’s not a matter of what he deserves,’ Max Bingley said calmly. ‘We need consensus, Ella.’
In Max’s long experience, all staff rooms were political snake pits, even in a tiny, tight-knit school like this one. It had been the same story at Gresham Manor, the private boys prep school in Hampshire where Max had spent most of his career, as head of History and, latterly, deputy head of the school.
Max Bingley had loved his job at Gresham Manor. He would never have taken the St Hilda’s headship had his beloved wife not died two years ago, plunging him into a deep depression. Susie Bingley had had a heart attack aged fifty-two, completely unexpectedly. She’d collapsed at the breakfast table one morning in front of Max’s eyes, keeled over like a skittle. By the time the ambulance arrived at Chichester Hospital she was already dead. Max had kept working. At only fifty-three – with a mortgage to pay, not to mention two daughters still at university – he didn’t have much choice. But without Susie, life had lost all meaning, all joy. He moved through his days at Gresham like a zombie, barely able to find the energy to get dressed in the mornings. The Fittlescombe headship offered a new start and a distraction. Max had taken it under pressure from his girls, but it had been the right decision.