One Christmas Morning & One Summer's Afternoon by Tilly Bagshawe Page A

them. Daniel’s voice, low and enticing, the voice that only a few hours ago had been whispering in her ear at Briar Cottage, telling her how gorgeous she looked. And a female voice, higher but completely confident, the cut-glass accent ricocheting off the stairwell walls like shards from a broken chandelier.
    ‘Are you sure no one’s up here?’ Daniel asked.
    ‘If they are, they shouldn’t be. Why? Are you ashamed to be seen with me, darling?’
    ‘Ashamed? Are you kidding? Every man in that room wanted you. I’m the lucky bastard who won the prize.’
    It was too late to run to back into the bathroom. Panicked, Laura flattened herself against the wall, like a toddler playing hide and seek who believes that, if they close their eyes, no one will see them.
    Miraculously, Daniel didn’t see her. He was so mesmerized by Tatiana Flint-Hamilton’s cleavage, and so focused on bundling her into the bedroom, he probably wouldn’t have noticed if a
T. rex
were running down the hall. Looking over his shoulder, however, Tati saw Laura, back to the wall like a sentry on duty, and winked. It wasn’t a mean wink. Quite the opposite. It was matey and conspiratorial, a ‘we’re all girls in it together’ wink.
She has no idea who I am
, thought Laura.
Daniel never told her he came with me.
She stood, rooted to the spot as Daniel rattled the doorknob behind Tati’s bare back and finally got it to open. With loud shrieks of delight, the pair of them shot into the bedroom and out of view.
    Laura didn’t know how long she stood in that corridor. She didn’t remember how she got downstairs, who she passed on the way, or how she retrieved her coat from the cloakroom. But at some point she found herself standing outside in the snow, about halfway down Furlings’s drive, staring at the village lights below her like a sleepwalker emerging from a terrible dream.
    It must have been snowing for at least three hours, as the ground was already blanketed with white. Behind her, sounds of music and voices and revelry hung faintly in the air, like a distant echo. But around her, and in front of her, all was peace and white and silence. The world had been muffled, softened, muted. Laura wished she could do the same to the voices inside her head.
You’re a fool
,
they mocked her.
A complete fool.
    ‘Hey.’
    Gabe Baxter’s feet crunched heavily through the snow. He had no coat on, but had run down the drive in just his dinner jacket. White flakes stuck to his hair and glittered on the lapels of his jacket like sequins. He looked handsome and freezing and as totally out of place as a snowman in a sauna.
    ‘Are you OK?’
    ‘Please go away.’
    ‘I saw what happened. Everyone saw the two of them sneak off together.’
    ‘For fuck’s sake!’ Laura spun around, her sadness and embarrassment and disappointment suddenly condensed into anger. Anger at Daniel for being a snake, anger at herself for being a fool, but most of all anger at Gabe Baxter for just
being.
‘What is your problem? You followed me out here, like some kind of weird stalker, just so you can gloat?’
    Gabe shivered, wrapping his arms around his chest against the cold. ‘Is that what you think? That I came out here to gloat?’
    ‘Well, didn’t you?’
    ‘Unbelievable.’ Gabe shook his head, kicking at the snow with irritation. ‘I tried to warn you, you know. I knew he was a user.’
    ‘You knew nothing!’ Laura shouted. ‘You were jealous, that’s all. So don’t bother trying to dress it up as concern for my welfare.’
    ‘Jealous?’ Gabe’s eyes widened with outrage. ‘Of that tosspot? I don’t think so.’
    They stood in awkward silence for a moment. The snow began to fall faster and thicker, till Gabe’s shoes were completely submerged in white.
    ‘Look, it’s fucking freezing,’ he said, breaking the silence because one of them had to. ‘I’ll drive you home.’
    ‘No!’ Laura sounded angrier than she meant to. But she couldn’t be around