‘It doesn’t matter,’ sobbed Logan. ‘I’ve left home and I’m not going back. I can’t stay in Fittlescombe anymore, Jase. Not after what I’ve done. Everyone in the village knows. It’s awful! Poor Laura.’ Her face twisted into the very image of misery as she told him about the fire. ‘Her baby could have died because of me.’
‘Yes, but it didn’t,’ said Jason, stroking her hair. ‘Nobody died. You made a mistake. A bad one. But running away doesn’t solve anything.’
‘You did,’ said Logan. ‘You ran away.’
‘That was different,’ said Jason, frowning.
‘Who’s running away?’ Tati appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was extremely fond of Logan, and of course knew everything about the fire. A small, childish part of her was glad that Gabriel Baxter had been made to suffer. He’d done everything he could to keep her from getting Furlings back all those years ago, when she’d tried to challenge her father’s will. To this day she was sure Gabe had bought those lower fields from Brett purely to spite her. Tatiana Flint-Hamilton never forgot a slight. However, even she could see that what Logan had done: getting drunk and passing out, leaving a lighted joint burning in a barn full of dry hay, was reckless and unforgivable. By all accounts Laura Baxter had saved her life, risking her own and her unborn child’s in the process.
‘I am,’ said Logan. ‘I’ve left home and I’m moving in with you.’
Jason and Tati exchanged alarmed glances. Jason spoke first.
‘Logan sweetie, you can’t live here.’
‘Why not? I won’t be any trouble.’
Tatiana couldn’t help but grin. That was like a sex addict turning up at a nunnery and promising the mother superior that they ‘wouldn’t be any trouble.’ Logan Cranley was nothing but trouble. She couldn’t seem to help it. It was part of her genetic make-up, just as it had been part of Tati’s at sixteen.
‘You can stay for the time being,’ said Tati, earning herself a look of frank incredulity from Jason.
‘Really?’ Logan’s eyes lit up. Getting up from the table, she threw herself into Tatiana’s arms like a grateful puppy.
‘We’ll see how it goes.’ Tati looked at Jason and smiled.
She’s trying to make it up to me, he thought, smiling back. Although somewhere in his chest the anxiety was already starting to gnaw away at him, like a dog with a bone. Logan living under their roof could only mean one thing: more drama.
As if they didn’t have enough already.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Tatiana Cranley sat back in the red leather armchair and flicked through the property particulars for a third time.
‘Jasmine Farm, immaculate Grade II-listed retreat in the heart of the Swell Valley. ￡3.25 million.’
Too small, thought Tati, slipping the wisteria-clad, six-bedroomed farmhouse to the bottom of the pile. Completely secluded within its own land and almost eight miles from Fittlescombe, Jasmine Farm wasn’t in the heart of anywhere. One of the many perfect things about Furlings was that it boasted both privacy and grandeur, whilst remaining part of the village. Isolated splendour was overrated, in Tati’s opinion.
‘Wesley House, lovingly refurbished former manse overlooking Fittlescombe village green.’
The Shenleys’ old house? Far too small. This was going to the opposite extreme. I’d be able to see Furlings from the bedroom windows. No thank you.
She lingered a little longer over the third set of particulars. The picture showed a stunning, small stately home, its ancient stone walls half covered with ivy. The cover page read:
‘Brockhurst Abbey. Idyllic country estate of medieval origins, complete with moat and maze. ￡5 million.’
That was more like it. A country house to be proud of. A statement house, historic, beautiful and on a suitably grand scale. Tatiana remembered Brockhurst Abbey from her childhood, back when elderly nuns still lived there. The estate was famous for its orchards, the apples from which produced a popular and very strong local cider called Abbey Dry, a rival to nearby Merrydown. Tati and her friends used to get horribly drunk on it in their early teens, before the more sophisticated pleasures of London beckoned. But as a small child, she remembered how the nuns used to terrify her. With hindsight she could see that they were perfectly sweet, harmless old women. But at the time, something about their grey habits and the silent, shuffling way they moved, crunching along the gravel paths, had caught Tatiana’s childish imagination and given her the creeps. She had an irrational fear of becoming one of them, locked up forever in a lonely world of prayer, without conversation or life or company or fun. Even as a child, a life without fun had been the worst thing Tati could imagine.
How much fun am I having now? she wondered idly.