Innocent On Her Wedding Night

And she’d had Simon and Daniel to thank for that.

Up to then, she’d been left pretty much to her own devices in the school holidays. Unlike Jamie, who’d attended a local preparatory school as a day boy prior to following Simon to their father’s old school in the autumn, Laine had made few friends locally. The other children at the village school, finding that she wasn’t interested in the latest junior fashions, and that she preferred reading to the television programmes they all seemed to watch, had tended to ignore her.

And even with her beloved books she’d found herself lonely at times.

But that holiday had been altogether different. The weather had been good, so they’d all been able to spend as much time outside as possible. And Laine had been included in all their activities. It had all been casual—no big deal. She’d just been expected to accompany them.

Until then she’d always been faintly nervous of the river that bordered the end of the Abbotsbrook grounds. She’d been learning to swim at school, but Angela had said firmly that the river was a very different proposition from the swimming baths in the nearby market town, and that Laine must keep well away from it at all times.

But Simon and Daniel had changed all that. Under their eagle-eyed supervision, her technique and confidence had surged ahead, until, as Simon had told their mother, she could swim like a fish.

‘Or an eel,’ Jamie had put in. ‘Eel-Laine.’ And he’d continued to torment her with the nickname, roaring with laughter at his own wit, until Daniel had taken him quietly to one side and stopped it.

But none of Jamie’s teasing had had the power to upset her. She’d been far too happy.

Some of the best days had been spent out on the water in the old dinghy. When the boys had fished, she’d been provided with a small rod and line to hunt for tiddlers.

If they’d played cricket she had cheerfully fielded for them, and had zealously located balls that had been hit into the shrubbery from the tennis court.

Most of all, they’d both talked to her as if they were genuinely interested in what she had to say.

But the holiday had ended far too soon for Laine. Simon had joined his school’s climbing club the year before, and had become swiftly and seriously addicted to the sport, so he’d been taking the last two weeks of his vacation in the Lake District, while Daniel had been summoned to join his father for a rare break in the South of France.

As goodbyes had been said, Laine had launched herself at Daniel, arms and legs wrapped round him, clinging like a monkey. Hugging him strenuously, she’d whispered, ‘I wish you were my brother, too.’

‘Elaine!’ Angela reproved. ‘Kindly stop making a spectacle of yourself. Daniel, do put the wretched child down. I must apologise to you for this ridiculous behaviour.’

‘It’s not a problem, Mrs Sinclair.’ He lowered Laine gently to the ground, ruffling her hair. ‘Please believe I’m very flattered.’

‘Also very tolerant.’ She offered him a limpid smile. ‘But you’re not a babysitter, you know. Perhaps on your visit at Christmas we can all do some rather more grown-up things.’

There was a brief, odd silence, then he said quietly, ‘Of course.’

Christmas, Laine thought ecstatically. He would be back at Christmas. He and Simon. And that would be the best present she could have.

Hero-worship, she told herself wearily, as she got up from the sofa to take the bag of melting ice cubes back to the kitchen. That was what it had been. The world’s most gigantic crush. A childish phase that she should have outgrown quite easily.

However, for the next five years, her entire life had seemed to take its focus from school and university vacations, and she’d waited for them with almost painful eagerness, knowing that Daniel would join them for a week or two at least.

Not that the holidays had been unalloyed delight any more. As she’d got older Laine had become aware that were undercurrents beneath Abbotsbrook’s seemingly tranquil surface. And that Mr Latimer’s all too regular visits were invariably a cause of friction.

She’d been curled up on the window-seat in her room one spring evening, when her mother’s voice, raised in complaint, had reached her from the terrace below.

‘I thought everything would change when you were eighteen,’ Angela was saying. ‘That you could persuade the wretched little man to keep his distance.’

He said tiredly, ‘Ma, the trust will stay in force until Jamie and Laine are both eighteen. You have to accept that.’ He paused. ‘And you’d see less of Latimer if you curbed your spending a little. Fewer weekend parties, maybe?’

‘Your father started them. And it’s the only way I can keep in touch with our friends when I’m buried down here all year round. I wish to heaven I could sell the place and move back to London.’

‘You know the terms of Dad’s will,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until Laine comes of age for that—if you still want to.’

‘I’ll want to,’ she said. ‘If the house is still standing, that is. The damned place is falling apart, and Latimer won’t release enough money to do what’s necessary. Then I have to put up with people treating the place as a shrine—turning up in droves so they can see the room—the desk—where he created “all those amazing fantasy novels, Mrs Sinclair”,’ she added, in a savage mimicry of a Transatlantic accent.

‘And I’m sick of them telling me what a tragedy it was he was taken so soon. Do they think I don’t know that? I’m his widow, for God’s sake. And he wasn’t “taken”. It was a heart attack, not abduction by aliens.’

‘Well, don’t knock the faithful fans,’ Simon advised crisply. ‘After all, it’s Dad’s royalties that have been paying the bills, and frankly they’re not as good as they were a few years ago. In fact, I wonder …’

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