The Inheritance (9 page)

‘Yes, well so am I,’ lied Tati.

She realized she was being obnoxious and that her rudeness wasn’t helping matters. But her nerves were out of control. It had taken all of her reserves of courage to steel herself to come here today in the first place, to swallow her pride and ask for the job that her father had arranged for her before he died.

But Rory had been dealing with Harry Hotham. Harry had known Tati all her life. He’d taught her as a child and flirted with her gently but incorrigibly as she blossomed into womanhood. Harry would have adored the tight-fitting Gucci skirt suit and vertiginous Jimmy Choo heels she’d chosen for today’s interview. But suddenly Tati felt nervous that the new man, Bingley, might not be so appreciative. With her long hair cascading down her back like a river of honey and her wide, pale pink lips glistening with Mac gloss like two delicious strips of candy, her look did not scream ‘village schoolmistress’.

Not that it mattered what she wore if the new headmaster couldn’t even be bothered to see her.

‘This is ridiculous.’ Snatching up her Chanel quilted handbag, Tati headed for the door. If she hurried she’d miss the first of the parents arriving to collect their little darlings and be spared the embarrassment of being seen loitering around a primary school as if dressed for a
Vogue
cover shoot. ‘Tell Mr Bingley I’ll call to reschedule.’

But just as she pushed open the double doors, Max Bingley emerged from his office. ‘Miss Flint-Hamilton? Do come in. I’ve only got a few minutes but I can see you now if it’s quick.’

Tati hesitated, wildly unsure of herself and feeling particularly foolish in her teetery heels. Max Bingley was younger than Harry Hotham but he had far more gravitas, and none of Harry’s playful twinkle in his eye. With his military bearing and craggy but handsome face, he radiated authority like a star radiates heat. In one sentence he had successfully asserted his dominance over Tati and taken complete control of the situation, a state of affairs that Tati was neither used to, nor enjoyed.

‘I … erm … all right,’ she stammered, following him back into his room and sitting meekly in the chair that he indicated.

‘How can I help?’ Max asked. His tone was friendly but brisk.

‘I … well. It’s about the job,’ Tati began uncertainly.

Max raised an eyebrow. ‘What job?’

‘Well, my father … you see, he and Harry Hotham …’ Tati blushed. What on earth was she doing here? The last thing she wanted to do was get into the ins-and-outs of her father’s will with this complete stranger, some second-rate schoolteacher from who knows where. She took a deep breath.

‘Harry Hotham was a friend of my family,’ she blurted. ‘My father and he were keen that I should teach at the school. But then I learned Harry had retired.’

Max Bingley frowned. ‘I see. Are you a qualified teacher?’ He looked Tati up and down with what she took to be a combination of curiosity and distaste.

‘Well, no. Not exactly. I’m a …’ Tati searched for a word to describe herself. ‘Socialite’ made her sound vacuous. ‘Heiress’, sadly, was no longer accurate. She cleared her throat. ‘I did train as a teacher.’

‘But you never qualified?’

‘No.’

‘Have you ever worked in a school?’

‘Not until now.’

Tati smiled and flicked her hair alluringly.

Max Bingley’s frown deepened. ‘So let me get this straight. You have no experience or qualifications. But my predecessor offered you a
teaching
position here?’

‘Yes,’ Tati said defiantly. ‘With respect, Mr Bingley, I hardly think that teaching a few five-year-olds is beyond me. We’re talking about the village primary school, not a fellowship at Oxford!’

She laughed, earning herself a withering glare from across the desk. The interview wasn’t going at all the way she’d hoped.

‘Look, it wasn’t a formal offer or anything,’ she backtracked hastily. ‘I don’t have a letter. Harry didn’t operate like that.’

‘Didn’t he indeed?’ muttered Max Bingley.

‘My father was keen I should use my training,’ Tati ploughed on. ‘Now due to … family circumstances, I find myself back in Fittlescombe for a while. So I thought, you know, why not?’

She leaned back languorously in her chair and re-crossed her legs, giving St Hilda’s new headmaster a front-row view of her perfectly toned upper thighs. He wasn’t so easily manipulated, but realizing the game she was trying to play, for a split second it was Max Bingley’s turn to feel flustered and unsure of himself. But he quickly regained his composure.

‘I’m afraid I can think of a number of reasons why not, Miss Flint-Hamilton, the main one being that the children of this village, of this school, deserve a decent education. I can’t parachute in a completely inexperienced teacher on the back of some vague offer that may or may not have been made to you by my predecessor! The very idea’s ridiculous.’

Tati got to her feet, stung. ‘There’s no “may or may not” about it,’ she said hotly. ‘Harry Hotham promised me a job. Do you think I’d be here otherwise?’

She looked so terribly upset that for a moment Max Bingley relented. He had two daughters of about the same age as Tatiana and flattered himself that he understood young women. Behind the cocky façade, Max realized, this girl was terrified. Terrified and embarrassed in equal measure.

‘Sit down,’ he said kindly. ‘I’m not doubting your word. I’m merely saying that it wouldn’t be right for me to give you a job as a teacher here, even if I had a position available. Which, as it happens, I don’t. Without experience, you wouldn’t succeed at it, Miss Flint-Hamilton. The children would suffer and so would you.’

Tati sat down, deflated. She was hardly in a position to argue with any of the above. On the other hand, if she were going to stay and fight for Furlings, she needed the money from her trust fund. And if she were going to eat, never mind buy any furniture for Greystones, she needed a salary. She needed this job.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, picking up her handbag. ‘I’ve clearly wasted both of our time.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Max. ‘If you’re seriously interested in teaching and would like to gain some experience, I might consider taking you on as a classroom assistant.’

Tati brightened.
Classroom assistant.
Would the trustees go for that?

‘You’d have to do a three-month trial first, so I could assess your suitability for the job.’

‘A trial?’ Tati frowned.

‘Yes. Unpaid, although we’d cover your basic expenses.’

‘
Unpaid
?’ There was no disguising her outrage now. ‘Thank you, Mr Bingley, but if I’d wanted to volunteer my time I’d have gone directly to Oxfam. No doubt I’ll see you around the village.’ And with that she stormed out, slamming Max Bingley’s office door shut, the smell of burning olive branches lingering in the air behind her.

The bell must have rung while she and Max were talking. Outside the playground was thronged with overexcited children and weary mothers, rolling their eyes at one another as lunchboxes, backpacks and discarded items of uniform were thrust into their outstretched arms.

Blinded with rage, at herself as much as anyone, and desperate to get out of there, Tati stumbled in her high-heeled shoes and careered into one of the fathers. Dropping her Chanel bag onto the asphalt she looked on in horror as its contents spilled everywhere.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ she hissed through gritted teeth.

A stunningly pretty ten-year-old girl, resplendent in what looked like a brand-new St Hilda’s summer uniform of red and white gingham dress, white ankle socks and straw boater with a red ribbon, gasped.

‘She said the “f” word!’ Did you hear her, Jase? She said the “f” word!’

Belatedly, Tati caught the Australian accent. Looking up she saw that the ‘father’ she had bumped into was not a father at all but Jason Cranley, the mute, freckled guy she’d met up at Furlings a few days ago. The little girl must be the daughter, Logan.

‘She’s got cigarettes in her bag!’ Logan squealed accusingly, picking up a half-empty packet of Marlboro reds and shaking them in Tati’s direction. ‘Don’t you know smoking is the most dumbest thing you can ever do? You can die! And you can get wrinkles.’

For some reason this last rejoinder made Tati laugh.

‘Wrinkles? My goodness. That sounds
very
serious.’

‘It is.’ Logan’s huge, dark eyes widened beneath her long lashes. She really was an extraordinarily pretty child, although it struck Tati that she looked nothing like either her mother or brother. ‘I’ll throw them in the bin for you if you like.’

Jason, who’d watched silently until now, finally found his voice. ‘You can’t throw other people’s property in the bin, Logan.’ Taking the cigarettes from his little sister, he handed them back to Tatiana.

‘No. But you can steal it from under their noses, apparently,’ Tati shot back waspishly, ‘by conning a dying man into leaving you his home.’

Jason blushed. ‘I’m n-n-not the enemy, you know,’ he stammered. ‘None of this will business has anything to do with me.’

‘No, well. I suppose not,’ Tati conceded grudgingly, appraising him more closely than she had done at Furlings a few days ago. He wasn’t bad-looking. But he was very much a
boy
rather than a man. There was a fragility about Jason Cranley, one might even say an innocence, that made one want to protect and mother him. Perhaps it was the freckles? Tati couldn’t imagine him having sex, although it was clear from the way he blushed and avoided eye contact that he was attracted to her.

‘I’d like it if we could be friends,’ he mumbled.

Tati considered this. She had no problem with Jason Cranley. Only with his greedy, conniving, inheritance-pilfering father. Besides, it might turn out to be useful to have a Cranley family member on her side. She may lack experience as a teacher, but when it came to pulling a young man’s heart strings, or fanning his sexual obsession, Tatiana Flint-Hamilton was very much an old hand. Jason could be her ‘man on the inside’ at Furlings. If she were going to win this legal battle over the will, she would need all the help – and inside information – she could get.

‘Me too,’ she smiled. ‘I had a shitty day, that’s all. Of course we can be friends.’

Reaching out, she touched his arm in a conciliatory gesture and was gratified when Jason blushed as if he were on fire.

‘What was so shitty?’ Jason asked. In her sexy, expensive clothes, exuding glamour like a movie star or a royal princess, it was hard to imagine Tatiana’s days being anything other than gilded and wonderful.

‘Oh nothing.’ She waved a hand dismissively in the direction of the school buildings. ‘The new headmaster doesn’t think I’m capable of ascending to the dizzy heights of village schoolteacher. He wants me to
audition
to be some PGCE nark’s
assistant
. An “unpaid trial”, that’s what he offered me. Can you believe the nerve?’

Jason Cranley couldn’t. From his limited first impressions, Tatiana Flint-Hamilton seemed capable of absolutely anything. He certainly wouldn’t have the balls to cross her.

‘Anyway,’ Tati smiled, pulling a cigarette out of her packet ‘I’ll definitely be needing one of these
to calm my nerves.’

‘No!’ Logan, who’d been watching this exchange between her brother and the very beautiful lady with interest, shook her finger up at Tati disapprovingly. ‘Wrinkles, remember?’

Tati shook her finger back and lit up. ‘Wrinkles Schminkles.’

To Jason Cranley’s delight, and the other parents’ slack-jawed astonishment, she winked at him as she sashayed out of the playground.

Back at Furlings, Brett Cranley was in the kitchen. Sitting at the table with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his arms folded, he was listening intently to his new neighbour, Gabriel Baxter.

‘They can’t be developed,’ Gabe was saying. ‘The whole valley’s an area of outstanding natural beauty. The only thing they’re good for is farming. And your yields – the estate’s yields – over the last ten years have been dismal.’

‘So why do you want them so badly?’ asked Brett. He liked the young farmer sitting opposite him. In jeans and an open-necked shirt, his naturally pale skin tanned the colour of just-cooked-toast from long summer days spent out in his fields, and with his blond hair flopping over his eyes messily like a handful of straw, Gabriel Baxter came across as honest, ambitious and direct. But Brett Cranley took nothing at face value when it came to business.

‘Because I’d do a better job at farming them,’ said Gabe bluntly. ‘Farming’s my business. It wasn’t Rory’s and it isn’t yours. Plus, they abut my land directly, so I could almost double my holdings and benefit from all those economies of scale.’

‘Why do you want to double your holdings?’ Brett asked.

Gabe looked puzzled. ‘Why not? Wouldn’t you?’

Brett smiled broadly. He liked this boy more and more.

‘I’ll think about it.’

Gabe was itching to close the deal. He’d wanted those fields for years, for all the reasons he’d told Brett, and because they were just so bloody pretty. He wouldn’t be happy till he’d nailed a new ‘Wraggsbottom Farm’ sign onto the gate at the bottom of the lower meadow. For the first time since he’d inherited the farm from his father, he could sense they were within reach. But this was his first meeting with Brett Cranley and he knew he mustn’t push too hard.

‘Thank you.’ Standing up he shook Brett’s hand. Just then the kitchen door opened and Logan came skipping through the door, with Jason trailing in her wake, carrying her schoolbag, blazer and straw hat like a put-upon courtier.

‘Have you met my kids?’ asked Brett, his eyes lighting up at the sight of his daughter, who looked exactly like him.

Gabe smiled at Jason. ‘I met your son.’

‘Oh yeah?’ said Brett, uninterested. ‘Well
this
is my baby girl.’ He pushed her forward proudly, as if she were a prize vegetable he’d just grown.

‘Hello,’ said Gabe.

Logan stared up at him, her dark eyes like saucers beneath her long, camel-like lashes. She didn’t think she’d ever seen such a handsome man in her life. He looked like a prince, or a knight, or a—