Free One Christmas Morning & One Summer's Afternoon by Tilly Bagshawe

up and change,’ he said briskly. ‘Won’t be long. Then we can have a couple of gin and tonics before we set off.’
    * * *
    Furlings’s Great Hall shimmered in the candlelight like a brightly jewelled palace. Everyone agreed that Mrs Worsley and the Ball Committee had outdone themselves this year, and that the house had never looked more spectacular. Constrained as ever by Rory Flint-Hamilton’s tight hold on the purse springs, the hunt wives had sensibly gone for a Victorian Christmas theme. Expensive ice sculptures had been replaced by simple but striking arrangements of holly berries and dark-green foliage. Walls were hung with ivy and mistletoe and clove-stuck oranges, instead of pricey artificial decorations, and gaudy electric light fixtures had been eschewed in favour of more than a thousand simple church candles, twinkling like living stars on the walls, windowsills and every available surface.
    The tables, dressed with plain white linen, made the perfect backdrop for the spectacular Flint-Hamilton silver, polished to burnished perfection by the kitchen staff till it gleamed and danced in the candlelight. Red glass bowls of dates and brightly coloured sugared almonds added a dash of colour, and throughout the house a rich, pungent smell of mulled wine filled the air. Flames leaped up in the huge, baronial fireplace, where a pile of pine logs as tall as a ten-year-old child crackled cheerfully. And, in all four corners of the room, Christmas trees cut from the estate woodlands, and decorated only with candles in clear glass baubles, stood like sentries, welcoming guests to the feast.
    Most of the locals came early, eager to start the merrymaking and to catch the first glimpse of this year’s celebrity guests. The Home Secretary and his wife were coming, as were Hugh Grant and his new girlfriend, and the Hollywood actress Mia Celeste. Keira Knightley pleased everyone by arriving early with her fiancé, James Righton
and
both of the Miller sisters. And the new English cricket captain showed up, fresh from his Test victory in the West Indies, looking tanned and gorgeous and, rumour had it, newly single.
    ‘Laura, my dear. You look a vision.’
    Harry Hotham sidled up to Laura and Daniel, reeking of aftershave and looking as happy as a puppy in a steakhouse as a string of stunning young women wandered past. Beside him, his long-suffering wife Marjorie wore the expression of a woman who would have much preferred to be at home watching
Gardeners’ World
or listening to a Mahler symphony on Radio 3. In a sensible, knee-length floral dress and flat shoes, with her hair pulled back in an eighties-style bow and wearing no make-up at all other than a slick of bright-pink lipstick, she reminded Laura of her own mother.
    I must call her
,
she thought guiltily. She’d been so consumed with the play, and Daniel, and her writing, she’d barely spoken to her parents in months.
    ‘You’d better keep a tight hold of her, Daniel.’ Harry winked amiably. ‘Or one of these young bloods will whisk her away.’
    Daniel laughed thinly. He wasn’t really listening. Looking over Harry’s shoulder, he seemed almost awestruck by the glamorous guests who kept arriving, slightly to Laura’s surprise. She’d assumed he attended smart events like this all the time.
    ‘I mean it,’ Harry said to Laura. ‘You’re the belle of the ball.’
    ‘Thank you, Harry,’ Laura said politely, despite the fact that this was a blatant lie. The famous actresses looked ravishing, of course, but so did any number of the local girls, almost all of whom were slimmer and sexier than Laura. Even Lisa James, who was here not as a guest but to serve cocktails, was attracting a huge amount of male attention in her short black dress with the feather-fringed skirt. Watching her, Laura was astonished to see Gabe Baxter, squeezed uncomfortably into a dinner jacket and trousers, heading over to the bar and whispering something lewd in Lisa’s ear.
    How