there a problem with that?’
‘A problem? Why would there be a problem?’
‘I have no idea. Perhaps you weren’t invited and you’re irritated that I was. Is that it?’
Gabe laughed loudly. ‘Please. I wouldn’t go to that love-in for show-offs and posers if you paid me. Who’s your boyfriend, by the way?’
He nodded rudely at Daniel, a snide smirk plastered across his handsome face.
‘Boyfriend? I should be so lucky,’ said Daniel, languidly extending his hand but not getting up. It was a power play, albeit a subtle one, and Laura loved him for it. ‘Daniel Smart. I’m an old friend of Laura’s. And you are?’
‘Gabe Baxter.’ It was unspoken, but Gabe seemed suddenly to be on the back foot.
‘Gabe plays Joseph,’ Laura explained. ‘When he’s not playing the fool.’
‘Lady Muck here doesn’t approve of a bit of fun,’ said Gabe. ‘This is Fittlescombe, not the BBC or the Oxford Bloody Footlights.’
‘Actually, the Footlights are a Cambridge society,’ said Daniel. Laura could have kissed him. There was just a hint of amusement in his voice, but it was enough to make Gabe’s cheeks colour. ‘Laura’s a brilliant director. A brilliant writer, too. You lot are lucky to have her.’
It was said light-heartedly, and with a broad smile that made it impossible for Gabe to disagree without sounding churlish.
‘Yeah, well, maybe. Enjoy your supper.’
I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to get the better of him, thought Laura. And Daniel does it in a sentence and a half.
‘He seems a bit chippy,’ said Daniel, tucking into his delicious butterscotch-soaked sponge. ‘What was that business about the ball? Have you two fallen out?’
Laura rolled her eyes. ‘We don’t know each other well enough to “fall out”. But he’s an arse. And you just made him look like one. So, thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’ They clinked wine glasses. Daniel’s hand lightly brushed Laura’s and she felt her libido switching back on like floodlights in a stadium. She was so buzzed, she was surprised the rest of the pub couldn’t hear her humming. ‘You’re not off the hook, you know,’ said Daniel. ‘I still want to know what’s been happening in your life. Why you left London to hide out here.’
‘I’m not hiding,’ lied Laura.
Daniel paid the bill. Up at the bar, Gabe Baxter had pulled Lisa James onto his lap and was whispering filthy nothings into her ear. Laura didn’t want to watch them, but it was hard not to. Everything Gabe Baxter did was designed for an audience. He simply had to be the centre of attention.
‘Let’s go home,’ said Daniel. ‘Leave the Holy Family to it.’
* * *
After the noise and bustle of The Fox, Briar Cottage felt eerily quiet. Only Peggy’s asthmatic snores broke the silence.
‘You must be exhausted,’ Laura babbled nervously. ‘Would you like a cup of hot chocolate before bed or should I—’
Daniel stopped her with a kiss so forceful she toppled back onto the sofa. The next thing she knew he was on top of her, kissing her passionately and with a fervour she hadn’t experienced since … well, not for a long time. He smelled of wine and butterscotch and aftershave and sweat. The most delicious smell in the world. Laura felt a jolt of desire so powerful it made her gasp. Then, inexplicably, she blurted out, ‘I had a miscarriage. I was pregnant and he dumped me and I got fired and then I lost the baby. That’s why I came here.’
Daniel stopped and looked at her for a moment, cupping her face in his hands. ‘Poor darling,’ he said softly. Without another word he scooped her up into his arms and carried her to her bedroom, laying her down gently on the bed.
‘Do you want to be alone? I can sleep in the spare room if—’
‘No,’ said Laura forcefully. ‘I want this. I didn’t know if I ever would again, after John. But I do.’
Kissing her cheek, neck and collarbone, moving slowly down her body, Daniel murmured. ‘It was the same for me, after Rachel. I was the one who fucked it up, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Christ, you’re beautiful.’
After that it was all a wonderful, erotic, semi-drunken blur. Daniel peeled off Laura’s clothes slowly, but slipped out of his own with the instant ease of a snake shedding its skin. Moments later he was inside her, his body stronger and more powerful than she’d imagined it, his erection gratifyingly large and as solid as oak. Daniel was twenty years younger than John Bingham and it showed. Laura had forgotten sex could be so fast and frenzied, so animalistic and hungry and … quick. Just as she was letting go and really getting into her stride, Daniel came, his fingers digging into her buttocks and pulling her hard against him as he yelled out in pleasure.
She hadn’t come close to an orgasm herself, but she didn’t care. It felt incredible to be desired again, as if she’d been walking around in leg irons and someone – Daniel Smart – had broken the chains.
Wordlessly she curled up in his arms and they both fell into a deep, sated sleep.
November turned to December, and one of the coldest winters Fittlescombe had seen in a decade. Every morning, village children ran to their bedroom windows, hoping for the much-anticipated snow. Instead they saw a landscape frozen solid, sparkling white with frost like a newly glittered Christmas card. The days were short but dazzlingly bright, a pale winter sun lighting up a cloudless, crisp, sapphire-blue sky. And at night the deep winter blackness was lit by a carpet of stars so perfectly clear it was like sleeping beneath the ceiling of one’s own, private planetarium.
For Laura Tiverton, it was the vivid colours of the countryside that most lifted her spirits. The holly leaves and pine trees seemed almost to glow green against the frosted white background of the frozen chalk hills. Berries and robins’ breasts seemed redder and the sky bluer than she could ever remember them. In the mornings, Laura would try to write by the fire, but the idyllic view outside her study window never failed to distract her, calling to her like a lover, tempting her from her work. Of course, the fact that she had a real lover probably had a lot to do with her revived spirits. Although still not officially an item (he wasn’t technically divorced yet), she and Daniel now spoke to each other daily and Daniel had spent all but one weekend since their first night together holed up with Laura at Briar Cottage. They made love, went for long walks and talked a lot about writing – Daniel’s writing, mostly. He’d recently finished another quite brilliant play, a comedy, that he was in the process of editing and that would soon be making its West End debut. Laura, meanwhile, had a half-written teleplay full of plot holes gathering dust on her PC. If it was slightly soul-crushing, sleeping with someone so very obviously more talented and successful than she was, the excitement of being in a relationship again more than made up for it. Laura told herself that she would knuckle down to work properly after Christmas, once the Nativity play was over.
With only three weeks to go, play rehearsals were now every
