Page 23 of All We Want for Christmas
From her hidden position, Lara stifled a chuckle.
‘Of course he’s too old for you, but I’m still allowed to say that he’s a good-looking man!’
‘Nan! You can’t say things like that. Not now you’re a great grandma.’
‘I just did, Molly. I didn’t lose my ability to give my opinions when you gave birth to Esme. And, you know, I think I’ve seen him somewhere before.’
Molly snorted and Lara pictured her pulling a face. ‘Probably in one of those old-fashioned dramas you like watching. The ones where all the women are downtrodden and work in factories.’
‘If you mean Catherine Cookson, then you could learn a lot from watching them. Thank your lucky stars you live now, not back then.’
Lara pictured Molly rolling her eyes.
‘And he’s handsome enough to be in one of them, but no, I haven’t seen him on the telly. Those programmes were made forty years ago and I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere more recently.’
‘Have you?’ Molly asked, but their attention was drawn by the Chief Elf, who was approaching them.
‘Who do we have here?’ the elf asked them.
‘This is Esme. She’s nine months old,’ Molly said.
‘Hello, Esme. Are you ready to meet Santa?’
Judging by the wail that emerged from Esme when she was lifted out of the comfort of her buggy, Lara guessed the answer was a resounding ‘no’. Molly and her nan were still trying to persuade Esme that seeing Santa would be wonderful as they vanished inside the grotto.
Chuckling to herself, Lara slipped out from behind the trees and looped back to the main light trail. She’d found it hilarious that Flynn was considered good-looking and costume-drama hero material by a great-granny. She wondered if she should tell him, just to see his reaction, and decided that she definitely wouldn’t. It might lead to him thinkingshethought he was good-looking. Then again, he’d probably worked that out already.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘Hello, my dear! I’m afraid you’ve caught me red-handed.’
Henry was hanging decorations on a tree in the corner of the sitting room when Lara walked into the family apartments the next morning to give an update on the launch night.
He grinned sheepishly at her. ‘I’m as bad as any child, but I always like decorating the tree for Christmas.’
Cardboard boxes surrounded him and the room smelled like a pine forest.
‘It looks great,’ she said, pleased to see him looking a little more like his old self. ‘And the scent is wonderful.’
‘The gardening team brought this spruce up here this morning. They cut it on the estate. Normally I go and help choose it myself but I haven’t been able to this year.’ He looked downcast. ‘I love decorating it. My mother and father always insisted on waiting until the week before Christmas, but I wanted to do it as soon as I got home from boarding school for the holidays. I hated it when it all came down on Twelfth Night. It meant I’d be back at school soon.’
His eyes were suspiciously bright and Lara felt sorry for him. His recent health scare must have brought back some mixed emotions and memories.
‘That must have been tough,’ she said kindly.
‘I hated being sent away, but that’s what everyone did then. We refused to send Tara and Harriet. Ironically, they actually wanted to go, but we insisted on a day school. They seemed happy enough, though, and we didn’t miss so much of their childhood.’
‘Sounds like the right decision for everyone,’ Lara said, gladder than ever that her parents hadn’t been able to even contemplate sending her away to school. Her bog-standard local comp had suited her just fine. She couldn’t imagine sending her kids off to board – if she ever had any.
Her eyes stung without warning. For a time, she’d foolishly allowed herself to imagine having a family with her ex, Rob. In fact, she’d done more than imagine. She remembered the day she found out she was pregnant – and the day she discovered she wasn’t any more, memories still sharp enough to stop her in her tracks.
Henry was peering anxiously at her. ‘Are you feeling all right, my dear?’
‘Yes, only a tickle.’ She pulled a tissue from her bag, dabbed at her nose for show and smiled. ‘Thought I was going to sneeze but I’m not. You were telling me about Christmas when you were young.’
Henry picked up a glass reindeer that had seen better days. ‘It’s because I felt so bleak at the end of the Christmas festivities that I persuaded Fiona to revive the tradition of a Twelfth Night Ball after my father passed away and Mother moved into the Dower House until we lost her too.’
The Dower House was now a luxury holiday cottage. ‘It’s a beautiful property. Everyone who stays loves it.’
