ONE SUMMER’S AFTERNOON
TILLY BAGSHAWE

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2013

Copyright © Tilly Bagshawe 2013

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

Tilly Bagshawe asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Ebook Edition © June 2013 ISBN: 9780007472550

Version: 2014-08-22

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Close of Play

Introducing the Swell Valley Novels

About the Author

Also by Tilly Bagshawe

About the Publisher

MONDAY

‘All right, so let’s run through it again. Who’s going to open the batting with Will?’

The five men considered this all-important question in the beer garden of Fittlescombe’s prettiest pub, The Fox. This Saturday was the big match, an annual cricketing fixture between Fittlescombe and the neighbouring village of Brockhurst. Dating back more than a hundred and fifty years, the Swell Valley cricket match was older than the Ashes, and every bit as hotly contested. For the last six years in a row, shamingly, Brockhurst had trounced the home team. Indeed, almost since the match’s inception, Fittlescombe had been perceived as something of a gentlemanly shambles, gracious losers in the great tradition of affable, British sporting failures. The village had produced only two county players in the last century, in comparison with Brockhurst’s six, and no Test cricketers at all (Brockhurst could boast two). But this year the men of Fittlescombe were confident the tables would be turned, thanks in no small part to the return to their ranks of William Nutley, a brilliant batsman whom many locals considered good enough to play at county level. Will had grown up in the village, but his family had moved away a few years back, after old man Nutley lost the family fortune in a string of bad investments and was forced to sell his gorgeous Elizabethan manor house. But now, aged twenty-two, Will was back, living modestly in a rundown farmworker’s cottage, and playing better than ever.

‘It should be one of the older lads. Someone steadying, to calm the boy’s nerves.’

It was George Blythe, the local carpenter and Fittlescombe’s captain, who made this observation, but it was greeted by universal nods and murmurs of assent from his table mates – namely Dylan Pritchard Jones, the handsome young art teacher at St Hilda’s School in the village; Gabe Baxter, a local farmer and handy fielder with a first-class bowling arm; Timothy Wright, a retired stockbroker who lived in the village and who in his youth had been a star bowler at Eton; and Frank Bannister, the sweet-natured church organist, who was frankly an appalling cricketer but was far too nice a person to be kicked off the team. The Fittlescombe XI ranged in age from fourteen (Seb Harwich was coming home from school for the match) to sixty-five-year-old Timothy, and the levels of ability were equally diverse. Not all of the players had been able to make it to tonight’s get-together at The Fox. But all had agreed that the five men present would settle on a batting and bowling order, as well as arranging a schedule for the week’s practices. The key question at issue, however, was whom to pair with Will Nutley. Everybody knew that, while Will was their great white hope, he was also prone to terrible nerves. Especially when playing in front of his beautiful ex-girlfriend, Emma Harwich, who was sure to be there on Saturday supporting her brother. One silly mistake, one lapse in concentration on Will’s part, and all Fittlescombe’s long-cherished hopes would be dashed. The choice of batting partner was crucial.

‘I vote Tim,’ said Gabe Baxter. Blond and stocky, like a handsome pit-bull terrier, Gabe was considered the sexiest player of the tournament, closely followed by the good-looking but terribly vain Dylan Pritchard Jones. ‘You’re our safest pair of hands. And you’ve known Will forever.’

Timothy Wright smiled ruefully. Bald and paunchy, with a permanently red nose and cheeks latticed with broken red veins after a lifetime of hard drinking, Timothy was not one of Fittlescombe’s heart-throbs. ‘I’m flattered, dear boy, but an opening batsman I am not. I’m afraid I’m very much a one-trick pony.’

‘Lionel, then?’ said George Blythe, the thin and wiry village captain.

Lionel Green, owner of Green’s Books on the high street, was the next oldest player after Timothy at fifty-seven, and a competent, if not spectacular, batsman.

‘I think he’d be a better bet,’ said Timothy. ‘He should steady the lad’s nerves. Although the very best thing would be to think of a way to stop the Harwich girl from coming at all.’

‘I doubt you’ll succeed at that,’ Dylan Pritchard Jones said archly. At thirty-two years old, with a thick mop of curly hair and twinkly, lapis-blue eyes, Dylan was considered almost as much of a catch as Gabe Baxter; although, like Gabe, he was spoken for, married to the patient and lovely Maisie. ‘Emma Harwich could give Tatiana Flint-Hamilton a run for her money when it comes to loving the cameras. There’s bound to be a ton of press here on Saturday. She won’t miss a chance to get her pretty little face in the papers.’

Local teen Emma Harwich had been signed to a London modelling agency last year, since when her career had taken off exponentially. A few months ago Emma was named as the new face of Burberry, and was rapidly eclipsing Tatiana Flint-Hamilton as Fittlescombe’s most famous beauty. Emma and Will Nutley had briefly dated a few years ago. But that was back when Emma was an unknown, and Will had expected to inherit a not-so-small fortune.

‘Shhh,’ Timothy Wright hissed. ‘He’s coming.’

Will Nutley emerged from the bar back out into the garden, carrying a tray laden with beers. Six foot five, with broad shoulders and enormous hands and feet, Will had been nicknamed BFG at school. With his red hair, freckles and big amber eyes, fringed with lashes as long and thick as a camel’s, Will was not what one would call classically handsome. But he was funny and self-effacing and blessed with immense charm – what his father Donald called his ‘likability factor’. It was this that had helped him find work as a recruitment consultant, despite his conspicuous lack of A-levels or degree. A country boy at heart, Will loathed his city job, but he was smart enough to be grateful for the income it afforded him. At least he earned enough to live in Fittlescombe and commute.

Will lived for long warm summer evenings like this one, spent with friends in the idyllic garden of his favourite pub. Picking his way unsteadily along the winding stone path, bordered on either side by towering hollyhocks and foxgloves, he made his way to the large table by the pond. Overhung by a hundred-year-old willow tree, whose gnarled trunk leaned towards the water and whose long green fronds provided shelter for the dragonflies that darted across the lily pads like kamikaze bombers, this was the farthest table from the playground and the distracting whoops and shrieks of local children.

‘You took your time,’ said Dylan Pritchard Jones good-naturedly, relieving Will of the tray and handing round the heavy pints of warm, half-spilled beer. ‘Hey, I was only joking,’ he added, catching Will’s stricken face.

‘It’s not you,’ said Will, sitting down heavily at the table. His team-mates exchanged worried glances.

‘W-what’s the matter?’ asked Frank Bannister, the organist. ‘Has something happened?’

‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost, mate,’ added Gabe Baxter.

‘I was just talking to Danny,’ said Will gloomily. Danny Jenner was The Fox’s landlord and a Fittlescombe institution. With the honourable exceptions of Graham the barber and Mrs Martel the chemist, Danny Jenner was the biggest gossip in the Swell Valley. ‘You won’t believe who Brockhurst have brought in at the last moment.’

Five beer glasses thudded down on the table simultaneously.

‘Who?’ the men asked in unison.

‘Only Santiago de la bloody Cruz,’ said Will, putting his head in his hands. ‘Can you believe it?’

They couldn’t. Santiago de la Cruz was a world-famous name in cricket, and for all the wrong reasons. Preposterously handsome, with olive skin, hair as glossy and blue-black as a raven’s, and a proud aquiline nose that gave him a predatory air, Santiago had been born to an Argentine mother and English father. Raised in Buenos Aires, Santiago was at least as well known for his advertising contracts and playboy antics as he was for his prowess as a fast bowler. Argentina not being a Test-cricketing nation, de la Cruz had transplanted himself to England, where he’d promptly been snapped up to play for the Sussex county team. Not since Imran Khan’s captaincy had cricket in Sussex had such a high profile. Ticket sales had gone through the roof, with a huge surge in female fans flocking to the stands at Hove to catch a glimpse of their idol, with his soulful eyes, so dark they were almost black, and his sensual mouth, set in a semi-permanent expression of sardonic amusement. It was well known that Santiago had ambitions to play for England, although, at thirty-one and without an international cap to his name, that looked like a long shot. In the meantime, however, he already made more in sponsorship deals than international stars like Freddie Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen, thanks to his good looks and media savvy alone.

‘Are you sure?’ asked Timothy Wright. ‘I think Danny must have been pulling your leg. The rules are quite clear: all players for both teams must live in their respective villages. Santiago de la Cruz doesn’t live in Brockhurst. He lives in Brighton.’

‘Not any more, he doesn’t,’ said Will. ‘He’s rented that thatched place on Woodbury Lane. Moved in yesterday, apparently, on a one-year lease.’

‘That’s outrageous!’ said Gabe.

‘Shipping in professionals like that – it’s bloody cheating is what it is,’ agreed Dylan.

‘It’s not cheating,’ Will said reasonably. ‘They don’t have to confirm their final line-up till Wednesday.’

‘It’s completely against the spirit of the thing,’ chipped in Timothy Wright. ‘Typical bloody Brockhurst.’

Will shrugged. ‘Whatever. He’s here, he’s playing and he’s opening the bowling for Brockhurst on Saturday. Charlie Kingham was overheard at the Black Swan last night, boasting about it. Apparently, the landlord over there’s running a book on how many overs it’ll take de la Cruz to take my wicket.’

‘Are they, now?’ As captain, George Blythe felt the onus was on him to defend Will’s reputation, and by extension Fittlescombe’s chances. ‘Well, don’t you worry about it, William. Pride comes before a fall. De la Cruz is such a peacock, I expect he’ll be too busy worrying about his hair and make-up to see you coming.’

They all laughed, except for poor Will.

Santiago de la Cruz’s good looks worried him at least as much as his famous rival’s bowling arm.

Will had been banking on using this summer’s cricket match to win back the heart of his first love, Emma Harwich.

If I could score a century, and take home the Swell Valley cup for Fittlescombe, maybe she’d start to fancy me again, he’d argued to himself, night after night for almost a year. But now, with cricket’s answer to David Beckham swooping in to seize the limelight at the last moment, what possible chance did he have?

It was unlike Will Nutley to hate anybody. But at that moment, listening to the reassuring platitudes of his teammates, Will came close to hating Santiago de la Cruz.

*****

Santiago de la Cruz flipped open his vintage Hermès suitcase and lifted out a stack of perfectly pressed, sky-blue linen shirts. Karen, his PA, had done a stellar job packing up his penthouse flat on the front in Brighton and installing him here, at Wheelers Cottage. He’d arrived yesterday to find his bed made, his fridge stocked and his Sky Sports fully operational. Other than hanging up his shirts, there wasn’t a thing for him to do.

Santiago had never understood what possessed otherwise intelligent men to hire useless, leggy blondes as personal assistants. He was as much a fan of leggy blondes as the next man. But all PAs worth their salt were over fifty and a solid 80 per cent battleaxe. Karen was two stone overweight, wore surgical stockings come rain or shine and had blisters on her hands as tough as barnacles after a lifetime’s heavy lifting. She’d made Santiago’s move to Brockhurst a dream. A good thing, as he’d been having nightmares about it since the day his agent had persuaded him to sign on the dotted line.

‘You’ll love it,’ the agent had assured him, over a wildly expensive lunch at the Dorchester that he would no doubt bill Santiago for later. ‘That part of the country’s alive with hot chicks.’

‘It’s the middle of fucking nowhere,’ Santiago had grumbled.

‘Who cares?’ The agent grinned. ‘You won’t want to leave.’

‘I loathe the countryside.’

‘No you don’t. You love it. Which is why you’re gonna make the perfect face of the Best of Britain Hotel Group.’

And there was the rub. Santiago’s year-long prison sentence in some godforsaken Sussex village was going to earn him a cool two million pounds in sponsorship from a leisure consortium that specialized in five-star country-house hotels. They’d originally wanted him to tour the country as an ‘ambassador’ for their various different properties, but as a county player Santiago had to stay in Sussex. Brilliantly, his agent had brokered a deal whereby his client would spend a year in a chocolate-box thatched house in Brockhurst, home of English cricket. He would play in the famous Swell Valley One-Day Match, which in recent years had become almost as popular a society fixture as the Boat Race or the Cartier Polo. In return, the leisure group would have use of the house, and the coveted de la Cruz image, for various promotional shoots and events, all endorsing their ‘Best of Britain’ brand. And Santiago would plug their hotels relentlessly at every possible opportunity.

It had seemed like a no-brainer at the time – money for nothing. He could still play for the county, still commute to London for weekends in the off season. But, now that he was actually here, his heart sank. The house was picture perfect, but it was the sort of house a wealthy grandmother might retire to, all low ceilings and beams and leaded-light windows. Santiago had already cracked his head twice. The whole place made him feel horribly claustrophobic. As for the wall-to-wall stunning women Santiago’s agent had promised him, so far he’d seen nothing but a couple of middle-aged village shopkeepers and a gaggle of overweight teenagers, who had pointed and stared at him as they loitered around Brockhurst’s only bus stop yesterday, as if he were an animal in a zoo.

After putting the last of his shirts into the heavy Victorian chest of drawers by the window, he opened the latch and stuck his head outside. The views, at least, were fabulous. From his bedroom window, Santiago looked over his pretty cottage garden to the glorious Swell Valley beyond. Startlingly green fields sloped down to the River Swell, a wide, glinting swathe of silver, snaking its way along the valley floor. On the far side of the river, the South Downs rose up dramatically like great, benevolent giants. The grass on the hills was a paler green than in the valley – almost grey, in fact – and crisscrossed with bright white paths that had been etched into the chalk over thousands of years. Only one building was visible, at the foot of the Downs close to where Fittlescombe village lay hidden from view, folded between two hills. It was a medieval hall house, probably a large farm originally, and it stood surrounded by its own orchards. Curious, Santiago picked up his ‘Best of Britain’ binoculars from the dressing table (his sponsors had provided him with a number of twee, country-themed gifts, including walking sticks with carved pheasants’ heads on the top, a fly-fishing rod and an engraved hip flask, presumably for use on fictional shooting weekends) and zoomed in on the house.

The first thing he noticed was that the binoculars were superb. He had a perfect view of the house and garden, and was even able to zoom in on the roses climbing up the brickwork. The second thing he noticed was the front door opening and an incredibly pretty blonde in a tiny floral bikini emerging into the garden. She was carrying a bath towel and a magazine and, despite being barefoot and (presumably) alone in her own garden, she carried herself as if she had an audience, with the haughty, self-satisfied bearing of the very young and very beautiful.

Spreading out the towel, she proceeded immediately to remove her bikini top, revealing a pair of small but perfectly formed breasts, like two apples dipped in caramel.

Santiago let out a long, low whistle. Now that really was the best of Britain, or at a minimum the best of Brockhurst. Would she be at the match on Saturday? he wondered. Surely she was bound to be. It wasn’t as if there was anything else to do around here.

He closed the window and went downstairs in search of a cold gin and tonic, feeling mildly cheered.

Perhaps his agent would turn out to have been right after all.

The Swell Valley was starting to look up.

TUESDAY

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’

Penelope Harwich stared down at the blackened chicken casserole, so badly burned it probably couldn’t even be identified from its dental records, and ran her hands through her hair in despair.

‘Why didn’t the bloody bipper go off?’

This last question was addressed to Sebastian, Penny’s fourteen-year-old son, who was hunched over the kitchen table at Woodside Hall, deep in his Nintendo 3DS.

‘It did,’ he said without looking up. ‘I turned it off.’

‘Why?’ wailed Penny.

‘Because it was annoying,’ said Seb, reasonably.

‘Yes, but why didn’t you come and get me? I set it so I’d remember to take the lunch out of the oven!’

‘Well I didn’t know that, did I?’ said Seb, reluctantly turning off his game and pushing open the kitchen door, to allow the smoke to escape. ‘You set that thing all the time – to remember to call granny, to remember to do the ironing, to remember some other thing you’re supposed to remember.’

Penny groaned. She wished this weren’t true. That she didn’t muddle through her life like a victim of early-onset Alzheimer’s, barely able to brush her own hair or make a cup of tea without some sort of outside assistance. But, ever since her divorce last year (since her husband, Paul, had left her on their twentieth wedding anniversary, for a man, admitting to a gay double life that Penny had had literally no suspicion of whatsoever), she’d lost so much confidence she barely trusted herself to remember her own name.

‘I think we’d better leave this in the garden for a bit. Till it stops, you know, smoking,’ said Seb.

Watching her lovely, kind, capable fourteen-year-old son slip on her oven gloves and carry the charred mess outside, Penny Harwich felt poleaxed with guilt. Paul’s abandonment and spectacular coming-out had been hard on all of them, a terrible shock. But, while she had unravelled like a dropped spool of yarn and Emma, Seb’s older sister, had taken refuge in anger and acting out, Seb had held things together with a maturity and stoicism far beyond his years.

‘If someone’s gay, they’re gay,’ her son had told her calmly while she sobbed on his shoulders. ‘It’s not Dad’s fault and it’s certainly not yours. You just have to, you know, get on with it.’

And Seb had ‘got on with it’, going back to boarding school with no apparent problems, even spending occasional weekends with his father and his new partner, Mike. When Penny had steeled herself to ask Seb what the boyfriend was like, he’d shrugged and said simply, ‘All right. He can fix toasters. And he likes cricket.’

For Seb Harwich, the world was divided not into gay and straight, old and young, rich and poor, but into those who did and did not like cricket. How Penny wished her own world-view could be so simple, so accepting.

As it was, she felt guilty about everything. Guilty for not reading the signs, for not knowing about Paul, for not changing him. Guilty for not being a better mother, a better wife, a better artist, a better person. And, while Penny was busy blaming herself, her daughter Emma vociferously seconded the motion, blaming her mother for everything from her father’s sexuality, to the dilapidated state of the house, to the weather.

The chicken casserole, Emma’s favourite, had been Penny’s latest doomed attempt at appeasement. Emma was home for a week, ostensibly to watch Sebby in the big cricket match, but actually to have her photograph taken, bask in male attention and make her poor mother’s life as hellish as humanly possible. It was hard to know what, exactly, had pushed Emma Harwich from being a normal, slightly moody teenager, to a full-on-entitled, spoiled bitch. Whether it was the bombshell dropped by her father or the explosion of her modelling career, which had happened at about the same time, Penny didn’t know. Either way, it was safe to say that money, fame and attention had not had a beneficial effect on Emma’s character.

This was really Seb’s big moment, and Penny knew that she should be focusing on her son this week and not her daughter. Not only was it the first time he’d made the team, but Seb would be the youngest player in Swell Valley cricketing history to bat for Fittlescombe against their age-old rivals. As ever, however, Emma was the squeaky wheel that ended up getting the grease.

Seb came back in to find his mother pulling leftovers out of the fridge with the frenzied energy of a bag lady trawling for food in a dustbin. ‘What on earth am I going to give her now?’ she wailed. ‘She only eats chicken and fish.’

‘Mum, it’s Emma, not the bloody Queen,’ said Seb, calmly putting the food back. ‘You’ve got cheese. Let’s have pasta and cheese sauce.’

‘She’ll never eat that. Far too many calories,’ fretted Penny.

‘Well she’ll have to go hungry, then, won’t she?’ said Seb. ‘We’ll do a salad on the side. She can stick to that if she’s fussy. But you’ve got to have the pasta, Mum. You’re too thin.’

This was also true. At thirty-nine, Penelope Harwich was still extremely pretty in a wild-haired, hippyish, Pre-Raphaelite-beauty sort of a way. But the stress of divorce had stripped the pounds off her already small frame, to the point where the jut of her hip bones and ribs was clearly visible through the long cotton sundress she was wearing.

Twenty minutes later, with the cheese sauce bubbling on the Aga, the pasta almost done and a hearty-looking salad sitting in a big bowl on the table, Penny had started to relax. Seb pulled a bottle of Chablis out of the fridge and had just opened it, ignoring his mother’s protests, when the front door opened and a familiar man’s voice rang out through the hall.

‘Yoo-hoo! Only me.’

‘What does he want?’ Seb’s shoulders stiffened. Penny’s son was not a fan of Piers Renton-Chambers, the local Tory MP and self-styled ‘family friend’. Seb had no memory of Piers constantly dropping round when they were a family. But, since his parents’ divorce, he’d become an almost constant visitor, offering Penny help around the house, financial advice and, as he put it, a ‘shoulder to cry on’. Seb hoped fervently that Piers’s shoulder was the only thing his mother might be crying on. He didn’t trust the man an inch.

‘Be nice,’ hissed Penny, just as Piers walked in. Considered good looking for a politician, at forty Piers Renton-Chambers was probably at the height of his charms. He was reasonably tall and regular-featured, and he still had a full head of hair, although the beginnings of a widow’s peak were starting to form, a fact that bothered him quite inordinately. His other attributes were a deep, resonant, orator’s voice – no matter what he said, he always sounded slightly as if he were making a speech – and his immaculate grooming. Unlike Penny, who rarely got through a day without wearing at least one stained item of clothing, often forgot to brush her hair and was no stranger to odd socks, Piers never looked anything less than dapper, clean-shaven and altogether beautifully turned out. But, if he was a little vain and pompous, he was also incredibly kind. For all Sebby’s misgivings, Penny didn’t know how she would have got through the last year without Piers’s support. And, despite his obvious affection and attraction for her, he had never made a move or overstepped the line – or at least, not yet.

‘Oh, you brought flowers. How lovely,’ she beamed, relieving him of a hand-tied bunch of pale-pink peonies. ‘And peonies, too, my absolute favourite.’

‘Are they?’ said Piers.

‘You know they are, you twat,’ Seb murmured under his breath. Happily, neither of the adults heard him.

‘Something smells good.’

‘It’s cheese,’ said Seb in a distinctly churlish tone, earning himself a reproachful look from his mother.

‘We’re having pasta and cheese sauce,’ said Penny, pouring Piers a glass of wine. ‘You’re very welcome to join us.’

‘I’d love to,’ he enthused.

Seb rolled his eyes and returned to his Nintendo.

‘It’s a bit of a scratch lunch, I’m afraid,’ said Penny. ‘I made a casserole for Emma this morning but I totally forgot it and we had to throw it out.’

Just then, as if summoned by the mention of her name, Emma walked in. Dropping her Balenciaga shoulder bag on the floor like a sack of potatoes, and kicking off her Jimmy Choo gladiator sandals, she strode across the room like a ship in full sail, ignoring both Piers and her mother, grabbed a packet of cigarettes from the kitchen drawer, lit one and proceeded to exhale smoke directly over the saucepan.

‘Jesus, what the fuck’s that?’ she said rudely, wrinkling her nose at the pungent smell of the cheese sauce. ‘It smells like boiled socks.’

‘It’s cheese sauce,’ said Seb.

‘You know, you really shouldn’t speak to your mother like that,’ Piers said bravely. ‘You’re lucky to have a mother who cooks for you, at your age.’

Emma looked at him like something she was having trouble scraping off the bottom of her shoe. ‘Fuck off,’ she said coolly. ‘I’m not eating it.’

‘Fine,’ said Seb crossly. ‘All the more for us. Do you want me to drain the pasta, Mum?’

But Penny was watching Emma fill an enormous wineglass up to the very top with Chablis and start chugging it down like water.

‘You must eat something, darling,’ she said gently.

‘I would if you made something edible,’ snapped Emma.

Piers watched the way Emma’s lip curled when she spoke to Penny, and saw the fury flashing in her strangely mesmerizing, sludge-green eyes. There was no question that Emma Harwich was wildly, intoxicatingly beautiful. At almost five foot ten, most of which was legs, and with the thick blonde hair of a seventies siren, she reminded him of the blonde icons of his own youth: Farrah Fawcett, or a young Jerry Hall, or Agnetha from Abba. Of course, she was skinnier than those girls. Models were expected to be these days. And her face was harder, more angular. There was nothing soft about Emma, nothing maternal or inviting. Instead, she exuded sexuality and arrogance in almost equal measure. It was not an endearing combination, but Piers could see why it had proved to be a successful one professionally, and no doubt in other ways.

‘Seb made a salad,’ Penny said meekly. ‘Try some of that at least.’

Gracelessly, Emma sat at the table, helping herself to a plate of salad without thanks and before the others had even sat down. A few minutes later, however, they were all eating. The pasta was delicious. Forking it down, silently watching the fractured family dynamic around the table, Piers Renton-Chambers decided he would make a point of spending a lot more time at Woodside Hall.

‘I suppose you’ve heard the news?’ he said conversationally to Sebastian. ‘Santiago de la Cruz has taken a house in Brockhurst. He’ll be playing on Saturday.’

Seb dropped his fork with a clatter. ‘Are you joking?’

‘No,’ said Piers, pleased to have engaged the boy’s interest for once. ‘It’s the talk of the village. He’s rented Wheelers Cottage, apparently. Moved in a couple of days ago. I believe there have been one or two sightings of him out and about already.’

‘But he’s a professional!’ said Seb. ‘Does Will know?’

‘Will?’ Piers looked questioningly at Penny, but it was Emma who answered him.

‘Will Nutley. He’s an old boyfriend of mine, and Fittlescombe’s “secret weapon” for this year’s match. He’s quite a good batsman, apparently.’

‘He’s an amazing batsman,’ said Seb hotly.

‘My brother hero-worships him,’ said Emma bitchily. ‘It’s rather sweet.’

‘I don’t hero-worship him. I like him,’ said Seb, looking daggers at his sister. ‘And I have no idea what he ever saw in you.’

‘Hmmm. I can’t imagine.’ Emma laughed arrogantly. The news that Santiago de la Cruz had moved into the next-door village appeared to have worked wonders on her mood. ‘Wheelers Cottage, eh?’ she said to no one in particular. ‘I might have to take a stroll past there tomorrow. Welcome Mr de la Cruz to the neighbourhood.’

‘Didn’t you hear what Piers said?’ Seb was starting to lose his temper. ‘He’s bowling for Brockhurst.’

‘So?’

‘So he’s the enemy.’

‘Don’t be silly, Sebby,’ said Emma dismissively. ‘It’s a game of cricket, not a war.’

Seb Harwich looked at his sister with a withering mixture of pity and contempt. Clearly she understood nothing.

‘Well, it’s turning into a bit of a war as far as the television networks are concerned,’ Piers chimed in. ‘Now that de la Cruz is playing, Sky Sports have crawled out of the woodwork with a whopping bid for exclusive coverage.’

‘They won’t get it, will they?’ asked Penny. ‘I can’t imagine the Swell Valley match not being on BBC Two. It would be like telling the BBC they couldn’t cover the Boat Race.’

‘They won’t push the Beeb out, but they might see off ITV,’ said Piers, cheerfully. ‘Either way, it’s good news for the valley, and the constituency as a whole. Money’ll start pouring in now.’

‘Yes, but it’s not about money,’ said Seb. ‘Only a Brockhurster would think like that.’ Piers Renton-Wank-Stain seemed to understand even less about the spirit of cricket than Seb’s sister. He was surrounded by Philistines.

‘Whatever,’ said Emma, sighing dreamily, and already imagining herself on Santiago de la Cruz’s well-muscled arm. ‘I think it’s wonderful that Santiago’s playing.’

‘“Santiago?” What are you, best friends now?’ snorted Seb. ‘He won’t be interested in you anyway,’ he added, slurping up the last of his fusilli. ‘You’ll only make a fool of yourself, throwing yourself at him.’

‘Throwing myself?’ Emma tossed back her golden mane and laughed loudly. ‘He should be so lucky.’

‘He’s in his thirties. It’s disgusting! He’s almost as old as Mum.’

‘All right, Seb, that’s enough,’ said Penny, who didn’t like the turn the conversation was taking. She agreed that a playboy like Santiago de la Cruz was the very last thing Emma needed in her life. But she knew her daughter well enough to know that, if she dared to say as much, she might as well be delivering Emma naked and wrapped in a bow into the unsuitable Argentine’s bed.

‘What about poor Will?’ said Seb, getting to his feet to clear away his empty bowl. ‘You know he’s still in love with you. It’s vile the way you keep him hanging.’

‘I love Will too,’ said Emma, a trace of nostalgia creeping into her voice. ‘But it’s complicated. Our lives are so different now. We’re so different.’

‘Yeah,’ snorted Seb. ‘He’s nice and you’re a total cow.’

He stormed off.

‘What’s got into him?’ Emma asked guilelessly, helping herself to her brother’s leftover salad. ‘He wasn’t this moody and obnoxious the last time I came home.’

‘I think,’ Piers said tentatively, ‘he might be a bit wound up about the match. De la Cruz polling up like this at the last minute might be good for the local economy, but it’s not exactly cricket, if you’ll pardon the pun. This game means a lot to your brother.’

‘How would you know?’ Emma shot back rudely. Pushing her plate away, she lit another cigarette. ‘You’re not family, you know.’ She too got down from the table and stalked out of the kitchen.

‘I’m sorry.’ Penny blushed. ‘I know it’s been a year. But it’s been hard for Emma. She was so close to her dad.’

Piers Renton-Chambers put a hand over Penny’s and squeezed, in a slightly more than friendly manner.

‘You’ve nothing to apologize for, my dear. She’ll grow out of it. They both will.’

I do so hope so, thought Penny. And I hope Emma was joking about setting her cap at Santiago de la Cruz.

With her brother and her besotted ex-boyfriend both playing for Fittlescombe, that really would set the cat among the pigeons.

*****

Later that afternoon, having parked his cheery red Mini Cooper on Brockhurst High Street, Piers Renton-Chambers crossed the street to the village shop with a spring in his step. Piers loved his life as MP for Arundel and South Downs. He’d grown up in West Yorkshire, but this part of the Sussex countryside was so stunning, Piers had had no qualms about moving here. Of course, it also provided the added benefit of being one of the safest Tory seats in England. Barring some spectacular scandal, Piers had landed the closest thing British politics offered to a job for life. All he had to do was fix a few potholes and keep the ladies of the local Conservative Party Association sweet. Piers flattered himself that keeping ladies sweet was one of his key political talents, and he wasn’t entirely wrong in that assumption. Unfortunately, it was a different matter when it came to finding a wife.

The Swell Valley was renowned as a home, or second home, for a plethora of England’s more attractive and eligible women. One could barely step outside one’s door without bumping into a famous actress, model, socialite or heiress and, as the local MP, Piers had a built-in excuse for approaching all of them and engaging them in conversation. Yet for some reason, when it came to asking a woman out for dinner, or ‘making a move’, as the tabloid writers put it, he found himself hamstrung. Inexplicably, the opposite sex seemed to find Piers’s chat-up lines cheesy and his romantic approaches were invariably rebuffed.

Since becoming a regular visitor at Woodside Hall, he’d taken things much, much more slowly. Here, for the first time in years, was a real chance: a chance to make a marriage that would be the envy of all his friends in Westminster and at the Carlton Club. Piers couldn’t entirely put his finger on it, but he felt sure that today, in some subtle way, he had advanced his case and improved his chances.

A bell above the door rang as he walked into Upton’s Stores. Mrs Upton, the shopkeeper, was chatting to a pretty young brunette whom Piers recognized as Laura Tiverton. Laura was a successful television writer who lived at Briar Cottage in Fittlescombe, who had inexplicably thrown herself away on a piece of local beefcake by the name of Gabriel Baxter. Gabe and Laura’s engagement party last week had been the talk of villages for miles around.

‘Is he really that ill, then? Shame,’ Mrs Upton could be heard saying to Laura.

‘I don’t know any details. But I saw the local GP making a house call to Furlings yesterday and again today. And he wasn’t at church last Sunday. That’s the first time he’s missed a service in more than ten years.’

Furlings was the ‘big house’, set on a hill above Fittlescombe with panoramic views of the village, the green and the South Downs beyond. Its master, Rory Flint-Hamilton, was the local lord of the manor. It must be Rory Flint-Hamilton they’re talking about, thought Piers.

Rory’s failing health had been the talk of all the local villages for months now – especially as his daughter and sole heir, Tatiana Flint-Hamilton, was a well-known party girl and all-round tearaway. If Tatiana and her fast crowd of London friends were to move into Furlings when the old man died, who knew what would happen to the grand old estate, never mind the village?

‘Has the young Miss been home, then? Tatiana?’ Mrs Upton asked.

‘Not as far as I know.’

An irritated look crossed Laura Tiverton’s face. Laura’s path and Tatiana’s had crossed last Christmas, when Tatiana had run off into the night with Laura’s then boyfriend, a little toad by the name of Daniel Smart. Laura was delighted to be shot of Daniel, but she was not a fan of Tatiana Flint-Hamilton. Few local women were.

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