Tilly Bagshawe - One Christmas Morning - A perfect Christmas treat!

Harper

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www.harpercollins.co.uk

This ebook first published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2012

Copyright © Tilly Bagshawe 2012

Cover images © Simon Wilkinson/Getty Images (woman); Shutterstock.com (illustrations)

Tilly Bagshawe asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © December 2012 ISBN: 9780007472543

Version: 2014-07-31

Table of Contents

Title Page ONE CHRISTMAS MORNING TILLY BAGSHAWE

Copyright Copyright Copyright One Christmas Morning: A Swell Valley Story Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Keep Reading – The Inheritance and Swell Valley short stories About the Author Also by Tilly Bagshawe About the Publisher Harper An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB www.harpercollins.co.uk This ebook first published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2012 Copyright © Tilly Bagshawe 2012 Cover images © Simon Wilkinson/Getty Images (woman); Shutterstock.com (illustrations) Tilly Bagshawe asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © December 2012 ISBN: 9780007472543 Version: 2014-07-31

One Christmas Morning: A Swell Valley Story ONE CHRISTMAS MORNING

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Keep Reading – The Inheritance and Swell Valley short stories

About the Author

Also by Tilly Bagshawe

About the Publisher

‘All right, Michael, let’s try it again, shall we? And this time maybe without the finger up your nose.’

Laura Tiverton gave what she hoped was an encouraging smile to the six-year-old boy on stage. The child glared back at her sullenly. For a Christmas angel in the Fittlescombe village Nativity play, Michael O’Brien was sadly lacking in festive spirit. Not that Laura blamed him for that. At this point she wanted nothing more than to go home, lock the door, pour herself an enormous Laphroaig and eat an entire bowl of Cadbury’s chocolate buttons in front of Downton Abbey .

‘“We Three Kings of Orient Are”, from the top.’ She forced the jollity into her voice as Mrs Bramdean launched into the familiar chords on St Hilda’s Primary School’s famously out-of-tune piano. What on earth possessed me to agree to direct this fiasco? Laura thought despairingly. I’m a screenwriter, not a schoolteacher. I don’t even like children. Then she thought about the baby she’d miscarried in the summer – John’s baby – and for the hundredth time that week found herself fighting back tears.

Twenty-eight years old, with a mane of curly hair the same blue-black as a crow’s feathers, pale skin and soulful, dark eyes like two wells of oil, Laura Tiverton was both attractive and successful. After three years spent working as a writer on two BBC dramas, last year she’d finally produced a pilot of her own, a show about a newly qualified teacher from the shires left to sink or swim in a failing inner-city comprehensive school. Although the series wasn’t ultimately commissioned, Laura was already winning praise for herself as an innovative and talented young TV writer. Her love affair with the BBC’s very handsome, very married Head of Drama, John Bingham, had only served to raise her profile further as one of the corporation’s brilliantly rising stars.

And then last spring, in one fell swoop, it had all gone horribly wrong. Laura fell unexpectedly pregnant. Although the baby wasn’t planned, she’d been delighted, believing John Bingham’s assurances that he loved her, that his marriage had been over for years, and that he only stayed with Felicia because of their children, now all in their late teens.

‘You’ve done the right thing for so long, darling,’ Laura told him over dinner, the night she did the test. ‘But now we’ll have a child of our own to think of. Don’t you think it’s time you made the split with Felicia official?’

John looked so noble and concerned across the table, his chiselled features somehow even handsomer at fifty than they had been in his youth. There was a wisdom about him, a maturity and solidity that Laura found sexy and reassuring at the same time. He mumbled something about timings and ‘being sensitive to everyone involved’, and Laura thought, He’ll make a wonderful father. I’m so lucky .

The next morning Laura was fired. Her show was cancelled, the producer citing ‘creative issues’. When Laura tried to call John to remonstrate, she discovered he’d changed his mobile number. His embarrassed PA, Caroline, refused even to give Laura an appointment to see him.

‘I’m so sorry. His schedule’s er … well it’s terribly full. Maybe in a month or two. When things have settled down.’

Reeling with shock, Laura had committed the cardinal sin of calling her lover at home. She would never forget the strained, tearful voice on the other end of the line.

‘If you’re that girl, the one trying to blackmail my husband, you can jolly well go away! You won’t get a penny out of him. And you won’t destroy this family either.’