Snow Angels (45 page)

‘I love Christmas,’ Georgina said from the depths of Gil’s shoulder, where she was almost asleep.

‘Far too many presents,’ Charlotte said. ‘Your uncle has died. A little respect would be nice.’

‘We could go to France in the summer,’ Gil said.

His mother looked sharply at him.

‘Whatever for?’ she said.

‘They left us the house. We could go and stay there.’

‘You didn’t say.’

‘The legalities aren’t finalised yet.’

‘Is it a nice house?’ Matthew said, sitting up.

‘It’s a lovely house,’ Gil said, ‘by a river.’

‘We could go fishing.’

‘I could go as well,’ Georgina said.

‘I don’t know that I want to go to a house where—’ Charlotte seemed to remember the children and stopped herself.

‘He was happy there,’ Gil said.

‘You don’t know that,’ his mother said roughly.

‘Charlotte—’ Abby said.

Gil’s mother looked hard at her.

‘You spring very quickly to my son’s defence, Abigail. When
people do that it’s high time they were married,’ she said and stamped out of the room.

Gil watched Abby press her lips together so that she wouldn’t laugh. They put the children to bed and sat together on the sofa.

‘I think she will come to France,’ Abby said.

‘Only if we get married.’

‘I would do anything to please your mother.’

‘And me?’

Abby moved closer.

‘I could do things for you that Mrs Fitzpatrick has never heard of.’

He laughed. She pushed him over and leaned on him.

‘You doubt me?’

‘Not for a second.’

‘In bed I think. I don’t want to be interrupted.’

Abby couldn’t help but pause when they passed the doors of the drawing-room, but the piano was silent and still. She would not have admitted to him that she sometimes heard Mozart when there was nobody in the room. When they reached her room the fire was burning brightly but the thick curtains were open. Abby went across and closed out the night, the cold sky, the stars and the bright icy moon. It was what was going to happen inside the room that mattered, she thought, and nobody and nothing could stop her from making him hers. He would belong to her now and nobody else would ever have him again, she swore. She knew a lot about swearing; her mother had taught her. Her father had always proudly said of her mother that she swore better than any docker. Abby went over to Gil and started to undo the buttons on his shirt.

‘Did I ever tell you that you have the world’s most exquisite shoulders?’ she said and she put her mouth to his warm skin and began to kiss him.

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The new book by Elizabeth Gill

A terrific, turn-of-the-twentieth-century saga.

When a tragedy shakes Emma Appleby’s ordered existence in New England, she escapes to the little town in North East England where her father was born. While pub landlord Mick Castle is pleased to see her, others are not so thrilled with her arrival. When Emma opens an academy and sets herself up in competition with the local school, she provokes a savage response from the community. But she will not be deterred – even when her past catches up with her and Mick is forced to choose between family and love.

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