‘Sorry to break the party up, but we’d better go.’ Amanda smiled and scooped up the yawning Alice. ‘Past bedtime isn’t it, poppet?’ The little girl rested her head on her mother’s shoulder and put her thumb in her mouth. ‘Happy New Year, Lottie.’ She kissed first Lottie, then Rory. ‘Thank you for a lovely evening.’
‘Me too.’ Mick drained his glass. ‘I better get a move on. I promised to call Niamh, she’s not forgiven me yet for not making it back home to Ireland with her to see the New Year in. I need to earn some brownie points.’ He winked at Lottie, then ruffled her hair. ‘I think I’d better be checking the cheap flights out and keep her company for a few days. Happy New Year, treasure.’ He shook Rory’s hand. ‘Cheers, mate. See you all tomorrow.’
* * *
‘I can’t believe it’s so long since we last had a wedding here, can you?’
‘Peaceful isn’t it?’ Rory pulled Lottie to him and nuzzled at her neck until she wriggled and tried to escape. ‘Lovely, just us and the kids. No bossy mothers-of the-bride about. Maybe we should have one of our own?’
‘Bossy mother? We’ve got Gran.’
‘I meant a kid.’ He smoothed his hand over her stomach and felt Lottie instinctively tighten her muscles.
‘We’ve got Roxy and Alice.’
‘One of our own would be nice, wouldn’t it?’
‘Nice when you can hand them back.’ She smiled, but he didn’t miss the tightness in her voice, or the little sigh of exasperation that he was sure she had tried to keep in. ‘And anyway we’re having enough trouble looking after ourselves and the horses.’
‘You’ll be able to start up the business again soon. Stop worrying.’
‘But I do worry.’
Rory grimaced. He’d got worries of his own; worries that he’d rather hoped would have disappeared by now, before Lottie found out. But he knew that life for them would never be straightforward, they didn’t live a nine-to-five existence and didn’t want to. There would never be a good time to start a family, but people did it anyway, didn’t they? ‘Well there’s plenty of time. I didn’t mean we had to rush into it, but it’s what everybody does, isn’t it? I mean not even Dom and Amanda wasted time.’
She stared. ‘We’re not wasting time. Is that what you think? You’re wasting your life?’
‘Don’t be daft, Lots. I only meant it’s what people do, it’s just normal.’
‘But we don’t have to be the same as everybody else, do we?’
‘Well no, but … I mean, it’s the next step, isn’t it?’
‘It doesn’t have to be. I mean, aren’t you happy with it just being the two of us?’
‘Of course I am.’
‘You’re not getting bored?’
‘How could I get bored of you?’ He pulled her closer in to his side. ‘But I thought it might be fun teaching our own kids how to do stuff. And Mum was saying how she’d love to be a grandma …’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Lottie looked down. ‘Look, I am sorry if that’s what she wants, I just …’
‘It’s not a problem, honest. No rush, let’s make them wait a bit, eh? Anyway,’ he grinned, ‘I know that one day you’ll love having a tiny version of me to boss around.’
She didn’t smile back. ‘Maybe, but not yet.’
‘You’re not doing my ego much good here.’
‘Your ego does fine on its own, Rory Steel.’ The smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘I just want things to be right between us first.’
‘Right? But they are, aren’t they? I thought you were happy. Is it you that’s getting bored?’
‘Don’t be daft. I didn’t mean between us in that way. I meant money-wise, this place. Nobody is making bookings for next year, they’re all too worried it won’t be fixed.’
‘It’ll be fixed.’ He said it with the type of conviction he knew she needed to hear. ‘Come on, gorgeous,’ he pulled her to her feet and drew her in close so that he could look straight into the big green eyes he loved so much. She still looked the same old Lottie, his Lottie. The money thing was obviously worrying her more than she let on, that was the trouble – she was just too good at coping sometimes. ‘Let’s see the year in with some baby-making practice. You don’t want me to forget how to do it, do you?’ He winked. ‘Just in case.’
‘What are you doing here, Andy? Up to no good, I bet.’ Sam grinned at the slightly overweight middle-aged man, then transferred her attention to Lottie. ‘Everything okay, babe?’
‘You know each other?’ Lottie raised an eyebrow. The man standing on her doorstep had just announced that he had an appointment with Lady Tipping, then had smiled reassuringly at her as though she was ten years old, although she probably did look like a kid in her scruffy breeches, old fleece, and spotty socks. A very big kid, though.
Quite honestly everything wasn’t okay. She was fed up of fending off property developers and trying to be nice to insurance investigators. This one hadn’t even bothered to do his homework properly. There was no such person as Lady Tipping (well, not to her knowledge, and certainly not in Tippermere). There was Lady Elizabeth Stanthorpe and there was her, Charlotte Steel.
‘Course we do. We go way back.’ Sam winked. ‘This bugger ran a full-page spread about me and my Davey when he played in the World Cup, didn’t you, darling? Called us girls plastic fantastic.’
‘Spread? So he’s a journalist?’
Andy ignored Lottie’s interruption. ‘Well to be fair, Sam …’
‘There was nothing fair about that, babe.’ She waved a stern finger. ‘Martina was well pissed off with you telling everybody how much her nose job cost. She’d told her Frankie that it cost half that. Made him out to be a right dickhead, you did. And you know the boys don’t like to look stupid in front of the rest of the team.’
Lottie, who had been trying to work out how to slam the front door in the stranger’s face in a polite way, looked from Sam, who was a vision in skin-tight maroon leather trousers, matching jacket and brown thigh-high boots, to the guy and back again.
‘And you said I’d been to that dodgy London geezer for my new boobs. Davey wasn’t pleased at all when he’d arranged it all special for me. I mean, look at them.’ She opened her leather jacket with a flourish and cupped her generous breasts in both hands. ‘They’re perfect. There’s nothing cheap about my Dave. No way would he let just anybody mess with my body.’ She jiggled them about. ‘These are as real as fake ones get, you know. Look.’ He was looking. ‘And they’re quite squeezy – not solid at all like those cheap ones.’ She flexed her fingers. ‘You have to look dead close to see the scar. Davey was really insulted when you said that.’
‘Sorry, no er insult intended.’
He didn’t look sorry, thought Lottie, more like transfixed.
‘So you don’t have an appointment?’ She took the opportunity, while the pair of them were engrossed with Sam’s boobs, to get a word in.
‘You’ve