Five rows back from where Max Bingley was sitting, Dylan Pritchard Jones said a silent prayer that the Lord might do something about his hangover. Dylan’s wife Maisie was away visiting her parents, which had left him free to spend a leisurely Saturday evening at The Fox last night. He didn’t remember having drunk so very much. Then again, he didn’t remember anything at all after about ten o’clock, when Chris Edwards, the local bobby, had suggested a round of ‘I have never’. The next thing Dylan knew he was waking up fully dressed in his marital bed at five o’clock this morning with a sandpaper-dry mouth, a stomach that churned and curdled like a vat of cottage cheese and a headache that felt as if it might at any moment burst through his skull and run around the room shrieking like some mad leprechaun. Four Alka-Seltzers, a hot shower and a fried breakfast later, he’d felt well enough to put on a clean shirt and stagger to church. He’d only come to support Tatiana, but so far she’d failed to show up, to the entire congregation’s immense disappointment.
Almost the entire congregation. Logan Cranley, wedged between her father and brother in the disputed front pew, couldn’t have cared less about Tatiana, so delirious was she with happiness that Gabe Baxter had decided to come to church this week. Logan had to turn around and crane her neck to get a good look at him, which was annoying. And of course there was his wife, looking pretty but (in Logan’s opinion) far too old for him, selfishly imposing herself on Logan’s fantasy by sitting next to him and occasionally whispering things in his ear that made Gabe smile. Still, if she pretended that Laura Baxter wasn’t there, Logan found it was easy enough to lose herself in Gabe’s mesmerizing blue eyes and to imagine his strong arms beneath his Thomas Pink shirt wrapped tightly around her. Thank God she’d vetoed that hideous, babyish dress Mummy had picked out for her and gone for jeans and her new blue top with sequins from Zara. That looked far more teenager-ish. Obviously she was too young for Gabe today. But if she wanted him to notice her in a few years, she needed to plant the seeds of romance now. She was hardly likely to do that in a smocked number with pink bows that made her look about six.
Four rows back, on the other side of the aisle, Laura whispered in Gabe’s ear. ‘I think you’ve got a fan in the Cranley pew. And I don’t mean your buddy Brett.’
It had been a tough few weeks in the Baxter household. Gabe had ignored Laura’s wishes and bought the land from Brett Cranley, raising the money through a combination of a second mortgage on their house plus a hefty bank loan. Laura, whose parents had lost their own home back in the early Nineties and had almost lost their marriage as a result, was horrified by the scale of their debts, and even more horrified by Gabriel’s devil-may-care attitude to their finances. They’d had some bitter, horrible rows. But last night they’d made love again for the first time since the sale went through. Laura was trying hard to put both her fear and resentment behind her.
Looking up, Gabe saw Logan staring and winked, prompting a blush that could have earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.
‘She’s a sweet kid,’ he whispered back to Laura, squeezing her possessively around the waist. Gabe had also felt miserable and unglued after all the fighting and was deeply relieved to be back in Laura’s good books.
‘She is,’ said Laura. ‘You shouldn’t encourage her though.’
Gabe grinned. ‘I can’t help it if all females find me irresistible.’
The congregation stood up, preparing to shuffle up to the front for communion. Dylan Pritchard Jones was just thinking that this might be as good a moment as any to slip away unnoticed – Tatiana had clearly thought better of a confrontation with Brett Cranley at the Sunday service, which was no bad thing – when the rear doors of the church swung open.
‘Bloody hell,’ Will Nutley whispered to Santiago de la Cruz, who’d been dragged to church by his fiancée Penny. ‘Talk about an entrance!’
Dylan almost didn’t recognize Tatiana. With her long hair swept up elegantly beneath a veiled, pillbox hat, and her to-die-for figure modestly encased in a 1930s-style skirt suit, exquisitely cut in ultra-fine lightweight wool, Tatiana looked like a vision from another time. Serene, mature, effortlessly classy, radiating that unique confidence and entitlement that only the true upper classes seemed to possess. Every head swivelled to gawp as she glided up the central aisle towards the altar, meekly bowing her head in front of Reverend Slaughter as she took the first host.
‘The body of Christ,’ the vicar intoned pompously, handing the wafer to Tatiana.
‘Amen.’
A line of parishioners had formed behind Tati as she made her stately way to the front of the church. Turning around she paused, giving all of them a chance to get a good look at her chilly composure, before turning sharp right into the first pew and sitting down right next to Logan Cranley.
Oh my God, Dylan Pritchard Jones winced. She’s sitting right next to them! The entire congregation held its collective breath.
‘Miss F-H!’ said Logan in an awestruck voice, loud enough for the entire church to hear. She knew Tatiana from school and the two of them had always got along well. ‘I didn’t know you came to church. You look so pretty!’
‘Thank you, Logan,’ Tati smiled. ‘You look very pretty too. I love your top.’
Logan grinned like the Cheshire cat. At the other end of the pew, Brett Cranley looked as if someone had just pissed in his champagne. Nostrils flared, lips drawn into a tight line of loathing, he seemed unprepared and had clearly been caught off guard by Tatiana’s bold assertion of her ancestral rights.