Yuletide Bride

Violet Grant gave her daughter a slightly guilty, shamefaced smile. ‘Yes, well...it looks as if I might have made a slight error,’ she admitted airily. ‘But I thought the man mentioned Mr Warnock. So, I naturally assumed it was something to do with our local grocer. I didn’t realise the call was about Max Warner wanting to spend the night with us.’

You idiot—he’s only here to view the house! Amber wanted to scream at her mother. But she couldn’t. Not when she hadn’t yet told the older woman about the proposed sale of the Hall. Oh, Lord! What on earth was she going to do about this increasingly perilous situation?

Unfortunately, Violet Grant—now with the bit firmly between her teeth—appeared to be virtually unstoppable.

‘It will be so nice having an old friend staying here with us, here at the Hall,’ she told Max. ‘I still haven’t got used to complete strangers marching through the house. Although our paying guests always say that it’s so much nicer and more comfortable than an impersonal hotel,’ she confided before turning to Amber. ‘There’s no problem, dear. After all, we have plenty of rooms available.’

Amber knew that she ought to be thoroughly ashamed of a sudden, overwhelming urge to place her clenched hands tightly about her mother’s neck. ‘We’re...um...we’re all booked up,’ she lied wildly.

‘How can we be?’ Violet frowned. ‘Only this morning, you were saying that you wished we had some guests for the weekend.’

Amber gritted her teeth. She was just trying to think of some of their regular visitors, who might have arranged to stay at very little notice, when she caught sight of the chilly, mocking gleam in Max’s glittering blue eyes.

Her heart sank like a stone as she suddenly realised that he was actually enjoying her discomfiture. Although, what she’d done to deserve his enmity, she had no idea. After all, he was the one who’d abandoned her.

‘I’d be delighted to stay here at the Hall,’ Max drawled, his mouth twisting with sardonic amusement at the expression of consternation and dismay clearly visible on Amber’s face. ‘Unfortunately...’ he added after a long pause, ‘I have to return to London tonight. But I’d be very interested to see over this house.’ He turned to smile at Violet. ‘I understand that it dates from Tudor times, and is one of the oldest houses in Elmbridge.’

The older woman nodded her head. ‘Yes, you’re quite right, it is. I’m sure Amber would be delighted to show you around.’

Oh, God—he’s positively enjoying this! Amber realised, her body almost shaking with tension. Far from being prepared to accept that he wasn’t wanted, Max was clearly getting the maximum amount of grim enjoyment from this fraught situation. And time was running out. She had to get rid of him—as quickly as possible. But how on earth was she going to do it?

Just as she was coming to the conclusion that the sooner she showed him around the house—keeping well away from the attic, of course—the sooner he’d be gone, her desperate thoughts were interrupted by a loud knock.

‘Hello...?’ Rose Thomas put her head around the sitting-room door. ‘I’ve just come to fetch Emily. I hope she’s been behaving herself?’

‘Of course she has.’ Amber turned to smile at her friend, momentarily overcome with relief and euphoria at the welcome interruption. But, as she heard the sound of childish laughter only a second or two later, she realised there was nothing she could do to avoid a catastrophic disaster.

‘Mummy...Mummy! We’ve had a really stupendous time dressing up in Granny’s old clothes!’ Lucy called out as she ran full tilt into the sitting room, quickly followed by Emily. ‘We looked absolutely terrific!’

‘I’m sure you did,’ Amber managed to gasp, almost frozen with terror as she watched the little girls running excitedly around the room. She had no hope of being able to fool a clever, perceptive man like Max. But Rose, who’d known Lucy since she was a baby...? Would she notice the startling similarity between the two heads of dark, curly hair and sparkling blue eyes?

But her friend clearly hadn’t noted anything amiss as she gazed across the room at the tall, dark stranger who was rising to his feet.

‘Surely, it can’t be...?’ Rose exclaimed as the man gave her a broad smile. ‘Good Heavens—it really is Max Warner!’ she laughed, her cheeks pink with excitement as he crossed the room towards her. ‘I’d heard that you were now back in the country, but never expected to see you quite so soon. You hardly seem to have changed at all.’

‘Since I shudder at the memory of myself as a wild teenager, I sincerely hope that I have, my dear Rose,’ Max grinned, taking her hand and lifting it gallantly to his lips.

Despite her fright and panic, Amber felt a flash of indignation at this piece of quite outrageous flattery. Surely plain, calm, sensible Rose couldn’t be so silly as to fall for such a line? However, as they chattered together, with her friend sparkling beneath the awful man’s quite overwhelming charm, it really did seem as if she’d become momentarily transformed into a lovely woman.

You had to hand it to Max—he was a real con artist! she acknowledged grimly as Rose very reluctantly took her leave.

‘Well...!’ she exclaimed as Amber accompanied her and Emily across the hall towards the front door. ‘When I arrived and saw that glamorous car, it never occurred to me that it might be Max Warner. What a surprise!’

‘Yes, it certainly is,’ Amber agreed bleakly.

‘I don’t understand.’ Rose frowned. ‘If you weren’t expecting him—what on earth is he doing here?’

‘Don’t ask!’ she groaned. ‘It’s all to do with the sale of the house. But everything has become so compli-cated—’ Amber broke off, looking nervously back over her shoulder. ‘I...I’ll give you a ring tomorrow...explain everything,’ she added, quickly bending down to kiss Emily goodbye, before dashing swiftly back to the sitting room.

Unfortunately, on her return, she discovered that even those few minutes’ absence had proved to be fatal.

‘...of course, Lucy’s a very clever little girl,’ her mother was saying. ‘I’m hoping that she’ll be clever enough to get into the local grammar school. But, as she’s only seven years old, there’s still a few years to go yet,’ she added, smiling she patted the glossy, dark curls of the child sitting on her lap.

‘But I’m going to be eight years old in June,’ Lucy added quickly, jumping to her feet and running over to the tall man leaning elegantly against the mantelpiece. ‘How old are you?’

‘I’m as old as my face—and just a little older than my teeth,’ Max retorted, waving aside her grandmother’s protest as he smiled idly down at the small girl.

‘That’s a very clever answer!’ Lucy grinned up at the man towering over her small figure. ‘Are you going to be staying with us for a while?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ he murmured, his dark brows creasing into a puzzled frown as he gazed down at the little girl.

‘That’s a pity, because I really like riddles. My friend, Emily, told me a new one today—and I bet Granny won’t know the answer,’ she confided, before turning to skip back across the carpet to where Violet was sitting. ‘When is a pony not a pony?’

The older woman smiled and shook her head.

‘When it’s turned into a field!’ Lucy shouted before collapsing into a fit of giggles.

Standing frozen in the open doorway, Amber felt as if she were viewing the curtain rise on the last act of a Greek tragedy. Numbly waiting for nemesis to strike, she watched as Max turned his head to look into the large mirror over the mantelpiece. She saw his body becoming taut and rigid, his eyes narrowing to dark points of hard steel as he stared first at himself, and then at the reflection of the small girl on the other side of the room.

Paralysed by panic, and helplessly unable to prevent her whole world from crashing down about her head, Amber’s heart thumped wildly in her chest as Max continued to stare blindly into the mirror, his expression grim and forbidding. And then, as if coming to a decision, he turned to cross the room. Murmuring a polite farewell to Violet Grant, he glanced down intently at Lucy for a moment, before striding swiftly towards where she stood in the doorway. Grasping Amber’s arm in an iron grip, he barely halted his swift progress as he dragged her after him into the hall, then slammed the door shut behind them.

‘My God!’ he exploded, the sound of his angry voice reverberating loudly in the large, vaulted space of the hall. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Tell you what?’ she muttered, helplessly aware that she’d never been any good at telling lies as she felt the hot colour flooding over her pale cheeks. ‘I...I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Oh, yes, you damn well do!’ he retorted harshly, his fingers tightening cruelly on her arm. ‘That little girl is obviously my daughter—for Heaven’s sake!’

‘No! No, you’re quite...er...quite wrong....’ she whispered, desperately tried to evade his fierce gaze.

‘I’m not prepared to listen to any stupid lies, Amber,’ he ground out threateningly, before swearing violently under his breath as he glanced down at the slim gold watch on his wrist. ‘Unfortunately, I’m already late for another appointment. But if you thought you’d seen the last of me eight years ago—you were very much mistaken!’ he growled, the icy-cold menace in his voice sending shivers of fright and terror running down her spine. ‘Because, I’ll be back just as soon as I can. And that’s not a threat—it’s a promise!’

* * *

And she had absolutely no doubt that he would be back, Amber told herself, shivering with cold and nervous exhaustion. Max had very clearly stated his firm intention of seeking her out once again. And there was nothing she could do, but wait with ever-mounting despair for his return.

It had seemed, during the past two weeks, as though she was existing in the midst of a living nightmare, never knowing from one moment to the next when or how he would turn up to cast an evil shadow over her life. And while she was normally very busy at this time of year, she’d hardly been able to concentrate on even the simplest task. In fact, with Max’s sudden reappearance in her life, she was finding it almost impossible to focus on the present when her mind was so completely filled with memories of the past.

‘Mummy...? Where are you?’

‘Over here,’ Amber called out as her small daughter appeared on the other side of the old walled garden.

‘Do hurry up!’ Lucy begged, running down the gravel path towards her. ‘If we don’t go soon, I’ll miss my riding lesson.’

Amber grimaced as she glanced down at her watch. ‘Sorry, darling, I completely forgot the time.’

‘I hope you’re going to change out of those old clothes,’ Lucy told her, critically viewing her mother’s slim figure, clothed in a scruffy pair of jeans beneath a windproof jacket, which had clearly seen better days. ‘And you’ve got some leaves stuck in your hair.’

‘Hey—relax! It’s Saturday, remember? No one has to get all dressed up at the weekend,’ Amber laughed, bending down to allow the little girl to remove the greenery from her thick, golden brown hair.

‘I thought you were going to do some Christmas shopping.’

‘Oh, yes, you’re right. I’d completely forgotten. OK, you win,’ she grinned through her hair at her daughter. ‘I’ll try and find something smarter to wear.’

A self-appointed arbiter of her mother’s wardrobe, Lucy had very strong views on what was, and what wasn’t, suitable attire for various social functions. However, not having any spare money to spend on clothes, Amber had quite cheerfully stopped worrying about the dictates of fashion a long time ago.

‘What are you going to wear?’ Lucy demanded as she finished removing the straw from her mother’s hair.

‘Oh, I’ll think of something.’

‘All my friends say that you’re very pretty. When I’m grown up, I’m going to buy you lots and lots of lovely clothes,’ Lucy told her solemnly.

‘Thank you, darling!’ Amber grinned down at her daughter. Although she was only twenty-six and still—if Philip Jackson was to be believed—an attractive woman, she knew that she’d never been half as pretty as Lucy. With her cloud of black curly hair and large, clear blue eyes, the little girl was the spitting image of her father. Which was yet another problem to be faced. Because it wasn’t just the threat of Max’s return that was causing her so much anxiety and distress—there was the added worry of how and when to break the news to her friends. And that was something she was going to have to do sooner rather than later. Because, while Rose had been far too excited by Max’s sudden reappearance to notice the startling resemblance between father and daughter, Amber knew that she couldn’t rely on her other friends being so blind. And, most important of all—what about Lucy herself? How on earth could she even begin to try and explain to such a young girl the torturous events of the past...?

‘Oh, do stop day-dreaming, Mummy. Please hurry up!’ Lucy pleaded, almost dancing with impatience.

‘Just give me five minutes to change, and I’ll be right with you,’ Amber promised, sighing heavily as she picked up the basket full of vegetables before slowly following her daughter back down the garden path.

CHAPTER THREE

‘DON’T panic—there are still ten shopping days to go before Christmas!’

Momentarily unnerved by the words being hoarsely whispered in her ear, Amber gave a startled yelp, nearly dropping her heavy load of parcels as she spun around to find herself staring up into the twinkling brown eyes of Philip Jackson.

‘For Heaven’s sake!’ she gasped as the young doctor swiftly removed the packages from her arms. ‘It’s bad enough having to fight one’s way through the crowds without you scaring me half to death!’

‘I didn’t mean to give you a fright,’ he grinned. ‘But why does everyone seem to be gripped by a “shop till you drop” frenzy at this time of year?’

‘I don’t know. It’s crazy, isn’t it?’ she agreed as they walked slowly up the street. ‘So, just what are you doing here, in the middle of town on a Friday morning?’ she teased. ‘Surely a busy doctor ought to be in his surgery looking after the sick and infirm.’

‘I’ve taken the morning off for some last-minute shopping,’ he confessed with a rueful grin, before insisting on leading her into the Market Tavern for a mug of their famous ‘Winter Warmer’—hot chocolate with a dash of brandy. ‘It will do you good, and you’ll still be quite sober enough to drive home,’ he assured her when she expressed her doubts about the wisdom of drinking in the middle of the day. ‘On the other hand—how about joining me for lunch in one of the local restaurants?’

Amber shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Philip. I can’t make it today. Mother’s in bed with a heavy cold, and I must get back to keep an eye on her.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Although I have to say that you don’t look too well, either,’ the doctor added, glancing with concern at her pale, finely drawn features and the dark shadows beneath her eyes.

‘I’m all right,’ she shrugged, perfectly well aware—from a despairing glance in her mirror this morning—that she was looking like death warmed up. Just as she knew that part of her present exhausted state of mind wasn’t just the worry about Max’s return. She was also becoming deeply disturbed about her mother.

Amber had finally been forced to explain to her mother the necessity of selling their home, and Violet Grant’s reaction had been every bit as bad as she had feared. Amber still shuddered to recall the wild, hysterical accusations and virtual collapse of the older woman. It was well over a week since her mother had taken to her bed, claiming that she had a bad cold and refusing to leave her room—an action that was now causing her daughter grave concern.

Unfortunately, it was all too reminiscent of Violet’s behaviour eight years ago, following the scandal and collapse of her husband’s business. And so, while she was trying hard not to overreact to the situation, Amber knew that if her mother continued to avoid facing up to life by hiding in her bedroom, she was going to have to seek some serious medical advice.