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Fliss felt as though her world had slowed, her stomach dropping to her feet. She swallowed, trying desperately not to react. ‘Tara, what are you—?’

‘You know exactly what I’m talking about,’ Tara hissed. Her blue eyes were cold and glittering like chips of ice, her blonde bob dishevelled and messy. Fliss wondered how much she had had to drink.

‘Tara, it’s Christmas. This is childish.’

‘Don’t give me Christmas!’ Tara shot back. ‘You come here, like some kind of cuckoo in the nest, trying to take things that aren’t yours. I know exactly what you’re doing. Kit is my husband. You tried to steal him from me before, and now you’re trying again. But I’m not going to let you. He chose me, remember?’

‘After I’d broken his heart,’ Fliss said, her tone calm but fierce.

‘Just because you couldn’t keep your husband doesn’t mean you can have mine. You’ve always tried to worm your way in, haven’t you? You were nothing; an ordinary bore from a dull-as-ditchwater background, making me feel sorry for you, simpering to make men fall in love with you. God knows what you had to do to claw your way to the top. Why are you really here, Fliss?’

Fliss tried to walk away from Tara, who dug her nails in harder. ‘Get off me,’ she said quietly, her voice sharpened with ice.

Suddenly, there was a heart-stopping scream from the dining room, then: ‘Help!’ Lady Oliver cried out. ‘Someone call an ambulance.’

Tara went pale and instantly dropped Fliss’s wrist. The two women raced down the corridor, portraits of the Oliver ancestors watching over them as they ran.

Chapter 23

Fliss and Tara burst into the dining room to see everyone gathered at the far end of the table where Lord Oliver had been sitting. It took a moment for Fliss to understand what had happened, and then she realised: Lord Oliver was slumped on the floor, his stricken family gathered around him, everyone panicking.

‘Someone call an ambulance!’ Elizabeth was screaming. ‘Call 999! Someone get his pills. Oh, darling!’ she moaned, dropping to her knees beside her husband, as Kit pulled out his mobile and began to dial, stepping back from the commotion as he spoke quietly and calmly into the phone.

‘Daddy!’ Tara screamed, racing over to him.

‘Careful, darling, give him some air,’ Elizabeth warned.

‘What happened?’ Tara demanded, joining her mother on the carpet beside Neville. She stroked his face and wispy hair reassuringly, whilst Elizabeth unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, allowing him to breathe more easily.

‘He was talking and then his words became slurred,’ she explained. ‘He had the most peculiar expression on his face, and then he grasped his arm and slumped down in his chair. He hit his head on the corner of the table as he toppled off, but Kit managed to catch him and slow his fall.’

‘Oh my God!’ Tara gasped, looking devastated. Fliss was desperately concerned but hung back, not wanting to intrude on the family moment. Tara’s jibe about being a cuckoo in the nest still stung. Was that how they saw her?

‘Daddy? Daddy, can you hear me?’ Tara demanded, as Neville groaned.

‘Don’t try and speak, darling,’ Elizabeth advised. ‘Just rest and stay quiet. It will all be all right, we’re getting help. Can someone get his pills?’ She looked around frantically, her gaze landing on Bill who was standing silently watching, seemingly shell-shocked.

‘Bill! His pills. They’re in the top drawer of his desk, in the study. Hurry!’ Elizabeth commanded, finally shaking Bill out of his stupor as he turned and raced out of the room.

‘The ambulance is on its way,’ Kit said, striding back to the group, still holding his phone because the emergency call handler had asked him to keep the line open until the paramedics arrived. ‘We need to keep him warm and comfortable. Harry, can you go grab a couple of the throws from the chest in the drawing room? Katie, take the kids out of here,’ he instructed.

Fliss watched, horrified at what was happening, but quietly impressed with the way Kit had instinctively taken command.

Katie did as Kit had said, rounding up the shocked teenagers and ushering them out of the room.

‘Put that down!’ Sally snapped in fury, noticing that Jasper was filming everything, his phone still raised as he reluctantly followed Katie out of the door.

‘Should we try to move him?’ Elizabeth wondered. ‘So he’s closer to the front door when the ambulance arrives?’

‘No,’ Kit replied definitively. ‘The paramedics can come to him. It’s safest to leave him where he is.’

There was a noise in the hallway outside and everyone looked up as though expecting the medical team to walk in right at that instant, but it was Bill who came in.

‘I’ve got them!’ he called, waving a packet of pills triumphantly. He examined them as he held them out to his mother. ‘What are they for? Does he need one now?’

‘No, but the paramedics will want to know what medication he’s taking. And if he has to stay in hospital overnight, he’ll need them.’

Lord Oliver groaned softly, whether in pain or at the thought of being stuck in hospital, Fliss wasn’t sure – though privately she thought that it might be longer than just one night. She recalled with alarming clarity her own father’s illness and eventual death. How traumatic and isolating it had been. How she should have spotted the signs sooner …