‘Here you go.’ Ben stood back and surveyed the lights wound around the Christmas tree, ensuring they were evenly spaced out. ‘I think you’re ready to go.’
Alice was quivering with excitement, the box of tree ornaments open beside her. Festive music played in the background and the enticing scent of hot chocolate permeated the air.
It was very different to the professional approach to Christmas decorating at Askett Hall, where people flocked to tour the decorations in the staterooms and grounds from late November. But Ben preferred the modest tree Sally had chosen, her collection of baubles selected not because they matched a theme but because each one had a sentimental connection or memory.
He sat back with his hot chocolate and watched Sally help Alice place the first bauble on a low branch and realised with a shock that he felt completely at home for the first time in a long, long time.
True, there was something cosy about Sally and Alice’s flat. It was small—two teeny bedrooms, a postage-stamp bathroom, a kitchen that was more of a cupboard, and a combined sitting and dining room that felt full with the three of them in it—but the walls were hung with colourful prints and framed selections of Alice’s art, from baby handprints to her current rainbow-and-stick-person phase, and the huge sash windows looked out to sea.
The house Ben was renting was five times the size and expensively and tastefully decorated, and Askett Hall was full of priceless heirlooms, but neither felt like a home. The flat did, not because of the furniture or wall colour, but because it was full of love. Ben had not been deprived in any way as a child, but Askett Hall wasn’t a home—it was a business, a legacy and a sacred trust, and as heir he’d been groomed from a small boy to take it over. Decorating the tree had been a publicity opportunity, not a family moment.
But just because that had been the past didn’t mean it had to be the future.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said as Alice disappeared off to her bedroom to collect a teddy. ‘I’d like to show Alice Askett Hall. Maybe sometime over the holidays.’
Sally stilled, her cheeks pale. ‘I understand, but she’s not even slept over at your house here yet. You wouldn’t want her for Christmas itself?’
‘No, of course not. I hope I can see her on Christmas morning, I was planning to be here in Polhallow. And when I say Alice, I mean the two of you. Can the café spare you for a couple of days maybe after Christmas?’
‘Maybe in the new year when it’s less busy, before school starts. Would that work?’
‘That would be perfect.’
‘And, Ben? If you are planning to be in Polhallow, then you should spend all of Christmas day with us. We have a big family meal downstairs in the café. You’d be very welcome. Alice would like that. We both would.’
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