Mansfield Lark

‘I’m looking at bridal magazines. Poor Rhys nearly threw his back out bringing a stack of them home.’

‘Have you chosen a dress yet?’

‘Yes! Wait till you see it, it’s gorgeous.’

Weddings, Holly thought with a pang. ‘That’s great,’ she said brightly, ‘really, really great!’

‘Are you okay, Hols?’ Natalie asked. ‘You sound a bit off.’

‘Fine,’ Holly assured her. ‘I’m leaving work, and thought we might go to the pub for quiz night. Have a laugh.’

‘I’d love that! But Rhys just started making dinner.’ She paused and added, ‘Why don’t you come here? We can have a nice long chin-wag, and you can tell me what you’ve been up to.’

‘Thanks, Nat, but I don’t want to intrude. I’m tired, anyway; I’ll probably just go home and go to bed.’

‘Ooh, with that gorgeous new man of yours? That’s a much better prospect than spag bol and a bottle of Valpolicella.’

Holly sighed. ‘No, I’m on my own tonight. Alex is with his friends at the Groucho. Again.’

‘And you don’t want to listen to all that boring legal talk,’ Natalie observed. ‘I completely understand! Well, go home and get some sleep. At least tomorrow’s Saturday; you can sleep in.’

‘I can, but Alex can’t. He’s scheduled a surgery first thing in the morning with his constituents.’

When she first heard Alex say he’d scheduled a ‘surgery’, Holly thought he was having his appendix out. Amused, Camilla had set her straight. ‘A surgery is an advice meeting a MP holds once a month for his constituents, Holly,’ she’d chided. ‘You’re so amusing!’

‘Poor man,’ Nat clucked sympathetically. ‘He works very hard, doesn’t he? At least make him take you out to lunch afterwards.’

Holly promised she would, and rang off. As she slid the strap of her handbag over her shoulder and left the office, she decided that Natalie was probably right.

She and Alex just needed some time alone together. They’d both been so busy, what with her work at the magazine and Alex’s constituents, that they scarcely saw one another.

On a whim she retrieved her mobile and called Alex.

‘Hello, Alex Barrington here. Please leave a message.’

‘It’s me,’ Holly said. ‘Let’s do something tomorrow, after your clinic’s done, okay? Let’s spend the afternoon together. I’m on my way home. Call me when you get this, even if it’s late. I’ll wait up. Love you. Bye.’

But although she left her phone on from the time she left BritTEEN until she’d taken a bath and crawled into bed with a book, and although it remained on the bedside table when she finally laid her book aside and turned off the light just after midnight, Alex never returned her call.

‘Where’s Dominic, Gem? Isn’t he coming?’

Gemma Astley scowled into her Mojito. Bloody hell, but she was tired of waiting for Dominic Heath.

She was always waiting – waiting for him to show up, waiting for him to ask her to marry him…waiting for him to say he wanted to start a family together. A girl like her could wait only so long.

Her biological clock was ticking, after all. And it was getting louder by the day.

Not that she could hear it over the rumble of house music and the shouted conversations going on all around her, mind. Ordinarily, she’d be thrilled to hang out here at Annabel’s, rubbing elbows with Mick and Bryan and Pippa.

But Dominic had yet to show up, and her excitement had rapidly curdled into anger.

‘He said he’d be here.’ Gemma looked up as Mick, the blue-haired bass player for the Destroyers, sat down next to her. ‘But once again, he lied.’

‘He had a couple of interviews to do. He’ll be along soon,’ Mick reassured her, and drained his bottle of Stella. ‘Besides, who cares? Let’s have a laugh. Come on.’

Gemma took his hand and together they gyrated on the crowded dance floor until they were breathless and giddy with champagne and laughter. Mick bobbed and weaved on the floor like a blue-mohawked chicken, prancing and twirling like a dervish.

As they made their way back to the table, both of them gasping for breath and snorting with laughter, Gemma caught sight of Dominic, leaning back in his chair with a beer in his hand and a black look on his face.

‘So you finally decided to show, did you?’ she observed as she dropped back into her seat.

‘Don’t start, Gem. I’m tired, and I’m not in the mood.’ He looked over at her, and his face darkened. ‘At any rate, it looks like you’re having a good enough time without me.’

‘I am.’ She shrugged as Mick left and headed for the bar. ‘It was either go and dance, or sit here and wait for you.’

He shoved a hand through his hair. ‘Sorry, babes, but I had an interview with Kerrang! and NME, and it took longer than I expected.’ He laid his hand atop hers. ‘Let’s get out of here and go home, what do you say?’

Gemma wavered. He really did look tired, with shadows under his eyes and his hair sticking up like a coxcomb. She squeezed his hand. ‘That’s the best idea I’ve heard all night.’

Maybe they could get started on that baby after all.

‘Mum wants me to come back to Mansfield,’ Dominic told Gemma as he drove them to his townhouse in Primrose Hill.

‘Will you go?’

He pulled into the underground parking garage and shut off the engine. ‘I don’t know. She says the place is falling apart. The old man needs my help – but he won’t ask for it.’

‘He needs your money, you mean.’

‘Well, yeah, of course.’ He snorted. ‘Ironic, since the last thing he said when I left home was that I’d never amount to anything. ‘A great disappointment,’ that’s what he called me.’

‘That was an awful thing to say,’ Gemma said indignantly, and leaned across the console to kiss him. ‘But I’m sure he didn’t mean it. Besides, you’ve had the last laugh – you’re a massive success, and he’s had to come to you for help.’

‘Oh, no, he meant every word,’ Dominic assured her grimly as he got out of the car. ‘And he won’t want my help. Even if he did,’ he added, ‘I’d tell him to go and stuff it up his arse.’

‘But it’s your mum who asked for your help,’ she reminded him.

‘That’s the only reason I’m even considering it.’

‘I think you should go. It’s past time you two patched things up. How long’s it been since you spoke to your dad?’

‘Eleven years,’ he answered as they entered the ground floor of his townhouse. He tossed his keys on the hall table.

‘That’s far too long to be on the outs with your father.’

‘You haven’t spoken to yours since you were a kid,’ he pointed out.

‘That’s different! Dad ran out on us and never looked back.’ She kicked off her shoes and followed Dominic into the kitchen. ‘Besides, he’s an alcoholic, lay-about plumber, not an earl. One day, you’ll inherit Mansfield Hall…and the title that goes with it.’