Fern Britton 3-Book Collection: The Holiday Home, A Seaside Affair, A Good Catch

‘You were going to tell me who had asked about me.’

‘Oh yes.’ He looked from her eyes to her lips and then seemed to shake himself and come back to the question. ‘Well now, there’s all the lifeguards for a start, and there’s … well … there’s someone else.’

Mesmerised by the thickening of the atmosphere between them, Connie murmured, ‘Who else?’

In answer he turned his head slowly to one side so that his nose wouldn’t squash hers and his lips kissed her mouth very gently. As he broke away, he said quietly, ‘Me.’

Connie had never been kissed by a boy before. This was unlike any practising she’d done on her hand or her mirror. This was warm and responsive and sensual and she wanted more.

After a while, Merlin lifted his hand and very gently cupped her breast. As his thumb stroked her nipple, she understood why girls at school were obsessed with discussing sex. She’d felt something similar reading the odd adult book borrowed from a friend, but this was real. A man was kissing her and touching her and wanting her. He took her hand and placed it on the zip of his trousers. He groaned as he pressed her hand down. She realised somehow that this was the point of no return. Either stop now or step into the unknown.

He lifted her hand and pulled her up. ‘How about we go upstairs?’

Her legs felt weak and her breathing was quickening. What should she say? She knew she shouldn’t be doing this. He kissed her again so that she couldn’t speak and when he stopped kissing her, she led him up to her bedroom. It wasn’t long before all thoughts of how wrong this was left her completely.

The memory had reawakened Connie’s libido and she turned in the bed to face her husband. ‘Darling, are you asleep?’

His eyes were closed but his mouth moved. ‘No.’

‘Would you like a cuddle?’

‘Don’t I always?’

*

Next door, Pru and Francis were in bed reading a Kindle and a pamphlet respectively. Francis turned to the back page of the pamphlet. ‘I think we should give Abi a cookery course at the Starfish. It’ll stand her in good stead at uni, when she goes.’

Pru, deep in her Kindle, didn’t reply. Francis tried again: ‘Darling, did you hear me?’

Pru laid her open Kindle on her lap and turned to look at him with rather dilated pupils. ‘Oh, yes, yes.’ She shifted her body to face his and touched his lips with her fingers. ‘It’s been a long time, Francis.’

‘Since what, Pru?’

‘Since I made love to you.’

‘Oh, er, yes. Must be … quite a long time now.’

‘Shut up and let me kiss you.’

‘Let me clean my teeth first.’

‘Don’t worry about that. Kiss me.’

‘I’m a bit tired, actually.’

Pru stopped advancing on him. ‘It’s Belinda, isn’t it?’

‘What?’ Terror gripped Francis.

‘You fancy Belinda. Are you having an affair with her?’

‘NO!’ he almost shouted.

‘Do you want to have an affair with her?’

‘NO.’

‘I’m not blind, Francis. I saw you in the kitchen with her that day, playing with the kids, chucking grapes at each other. And then that time you let her dress you up as a sea fairy.’

Pru moved to sit on the edge of the bed and hugged herself. For the first time, Francis saw her vulnerability. He moved towards her and put his arms round her shoulders.

‘I love you, Pru. I may not have said so often enough. But I do.’

She turned and looked at him, her eyes shining with tears. ‘I love you too. You’re not going to leave me for Belinda, are you?’

‘God, no!’

Then Pru’s mouth was on his. As she lifted herself on top of him, her Kindle slid to the floor. In the dying light of the screen a passing moth may have read the title: Fifty Shades of Grey.

*

Over in The Bungalow, Henry popped his head round Dorothy’s door to say good night and found her weeping.

‘What’s all this, old girl?’ He walked to the bed and sat beside her. She sniffed. ‘I can’t stop worrying about the girls and Abi and Jem. What’s going to happen to them? If you die first, I’ll be left with all the mess. They’ll be furious that you never made a will …’

Henry felt a twinge of guilt and sighed. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘You know what you should do. Find out if Susan is still alive. Do what you should have done forty-odd years ago. Even if you have to pay through the nose, it will be worth it for the peace of mind. Please … for the children’s sake if not for mine?’

Henry kissed the top of her head. ‘I’ll get on to it tomorrow. I promise.’

Dorothy took his hand and gripped it tightly. ‘We’re old, Henry, and time won’t wait. Do the right thing, for the children and for me.’

Henry padded back to his own room, deep in thought. He knew he was being an old fool. Dorothy meant the world to him and he had let her down. He lay in his bed, looking at the cosy clutter around him: old copies of The Times, books that had belonged to the children when they were young – he spied a copy of Five Go to Smuggler’s Top and remembered Connie’s addiction to Enid Blyton. As his eyes roamed the shelves, they settled on something that he had barely noticed for a long time, though it must have been there since they moved into The Bungalow. It was a battered but still intact box containing the first prototype of Lawyer, Lawyer produced by the factory. Henry threw the covers off and went over to the shelf, removing the game from beneath a Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. So much of his life was down to this game, he mused. Work, Dorothy, the house …

Henry thought back to the first time he laid eyes on Dorothy. More than forty years had gone by, yet it seemed as if it were only yesterday …

*

Henry had just returned from lunch on a dreary, overcast Wednesday when his father’s secretary appeared, summoning him to the old man’s office. He knocked on the half-glazed door and went in without waiting for a reply.

His father was sitting behind his big old desk, silhouetted against the Crittall windows, which looked out on to the factory car park. He was wearing his usual office clothes of loose tweed trousers, twill shirt, knitted tie and sleeve garters.

‘Ah, Henry, come in. Are you busy this afternoon?’

‘Nothing too important. Why?’

‘I’d like you and Miss Danvers –’ he waved to the corner of the room just behind the open door – ‘to join me for a meeting about advertising. Apparently we’re not doing enough.’