happy,’ Olivia reaffirmed. ‘And you?’
‘Not as happy as I would be if I was kissing you, but I think we’re already the subject of enough family curiosity, without stoking up any more for the time being, don’t you?’
His answer couldn’t have shown better how similar their thinking was. Olivia loved that there was no gameplaying between them, no having to contrive artificial tests and tricks so that each could lure the other into being the first to admit to their feelings. It had charmed and delighted her that instead of holding back from her, in the style favoured by New York men – who promised to ring and then didn’t, only to do so just when you’d given up, requiring a girl to pretend then that she wasn’t interested, or risk losing face – Robert had been prompt and plain about seeking her out this morning, after picking her up at the airport yesterday, discreetly creating an opportunity for them to be alone together via the simple expedient of announcing after breakfast, ‘Come on, Olivia. It’s Christmas Eve, and you and I are on holly-finding duties. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas at Denham without holly’
‘Mom’s already been quizzing me, saying that we seemed to be “getting on very well”,’ she informed Robert ruefully, loving the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed.
‘That’s probably because my mother will have been warning her not to let you seduce me,’ he teased her, mock solemnly.
Olivia aimed a playful punch at his shoulder with her free hand, retaliating, ‘My mother has been warning me to remember that you’ve got a decision to make about Lauranto.’
‘Is that an issue?’
Oh, she did like his directness. It made everything feel so easy and natural.
‘Not for me,’ she answered him truthfully. ‘It must be a difficult decision for you to make, though?’
‘I do feel I have a duty to the people of Lauranto. My grandmother is set in her ways; the whole country is in need of modernisation.’ He turned to her. ‘And I, Olivia, have a very great need of you in my life.’
So this was happiness, this giddy, dizzy, disbelief, this delight that made everything – every sensation, every sense, every thought – feel as though it was imbued with a special wonder.
Hand in hand they continued through the garden. The crisp winter air smelled of frost and wood smoke from Denham’s chimneys, the sky swept clean of clouds by the sharp easterly wind blowing down from the Derbyshire hills, the Cheshire plain cradled snugly between those hills and the Welsh mountains to the west. The Romans had marched and fought and settled here, mining the area’s rich deposits of salt, building the fortress city of Chester, but it was a county that belied the bloodiness of its history, blanketing it with its rich farmland, which spoke more easily of orderly contentment and peace.
They’d reached the end of the walled garden now, the land beyond it parkland scattered with the handsome specimens of trees originally planted by Denham’s first owner.
With unspoken mutual consent, Robert opened the age-silvered oak door in the wall to let Olivia pass through ahead of him. To the west of the formal garden lay the vegetable garden and the Victorian succession houses, whilst in front of them, beyond a pretty wooded area in which winter crocuses were still showing their lavender petals, lay the ha-ha that separated the formal gardens from the park, with its muntjac deer.
‘I do love Denham,’ Olivia sighed happily, before adding consideringly, ‘I like Osterby as well, of course, especially its peacocks.’
‘Noisy brutes,’ Robert complained before relenting and telling her, ‘There are some in the palace garden in Lauranto.’
As he spoke he pulled the wooden door shut behind him, and reached for her.
Olivia went willingly into his arms, raising her face for his kiss. She could feel the silky warmth of the scarf he was wearing against her hand. She could smell the clean soap scent of his skin, mingling with the tweedy wool smells of his jacket and scarf. His lips were cold at first and then deliciously warm, the sensation reminding her of the childhood pleasure of hot chocolate sauce poured over ice cream.
As he had done before, Robert simply kissed her, taking his time, making the sensation of his mouth moving against her own a subtly sublime pleasure that had her toes curling in her Wellingtons.
When he finally released her it was to take her hand again, telling her as they headed for a holly tree on the edge of the thicket, ‘I’ve got to revisit Lauranto in February. When I do, I’d like you to come with me.’
Olivia stood still. She could feel the unsteady beat of her heart, and the colour coming up under her skin.
‘You…you would?’
‘Yes. Very much. As I was saying earlier, there’s a lot that needs to be done, for the people, for Lauranto’s heritage, and I’d like you to see everything as it is, before—’
‘I’d love to go with you.’
This time when Robert kissed her, Olivia knew that, without the words being said, a commitment had been made between them, an awareness shared of what could be, along with an acknowledgement that they would travel to that destination at their own pace.
Robert observed the glow of happiness illuminating Olivia’s. Everything was going to work out. In fact, it was all going to be perfect. Olivia was perfect and he could love her for that alone, he told himself.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’d better go and get that holly, otherwise it won’t just be our mothers who are asking questions.’
Emma, Katie, Harry and David had taken possession of the billiard room from which the younger members of the family were currently barred. Despite the cold outside, the windows were open, the better to dispel the telltale scent of the roll-ups they had been passing round, the smoking of which had produced a shared mood of beneficent relaxation, spoiled only by David, who had started giggling and been unable to stop until Harry had dragged his younger brother to the window and held his head out of it, to bring him down.
It was the day after Boxing Day, and after two days of charades, sardines, and similar hearty party games shared with the littlies, the four of them were all agreed that they deserved some chill-out time that was a bit more relaxing.
‘The thing is,’ David remarked earnestly, ‘it’s not as though smoking a joint does anyone any harm. I mean, it’s not like doing heroin or coke, is it, so the parents making a fuss about it is just a joke really.’
‘You’re the joke, fathead, if you think that Dad wouldn’t make a fuss if he caught us,’ Harry responded.
‘Oh, Dad. He’d probably think a chap should be cashiered from his regiment, he’s so old-fashioned.’
‘In the twenties heroin and coke were all the rage, and accepted. It wasn’t even against the law,’ Katie offered. She was still feeling very down about not being able to go to Klosters. She’d had a miserable telephone conversation this morning with Zoë, who had sounded even more wildly off the wall than normal, whispering into the phone that she couldn’t talk properly now but that she’d met ‘my fate and my soulmate in the shape of my own personal Earl of Rochester’.
The sudden warning rattle of the door handle had the four of them leaping to their feet,
