He was sure his father would have preferred he marry someone with money and a title, but needs must. And they were obviously very set against Celeste.
It almost made him want her more.
But most of all, it made him want to take a stand against his parents. To step outside the toxic circle they surrounded him with whenever they were together. To tell them, finally, that enough was enough.
He was himself. He was enough. And he’d fall in love with whoever the hell he wanted, regardless of what they thought about it.
Not that he was in love with Celeste Hunter, of course. But the principle remained.
And for once, Theo didn’t think his usual survival tactics of staying silent and trying not to care were going to get him through Christmas Day with the family. Because he saw things differently now. More clearly.
Thanks to Celeste.
‘I really am sorry about this,’ he murmured to Emmaline as they entered the sitting room.
She shrugged thin shoulders. ‘Could be worse,’ she said. ‘My brother’s wife has eight dogs, and only half of them are house-trained. At least I don’t need to worry about that here.’
A ringing endorsement of their Christmas, Theo thought.
At least he wasn’t standing in dog muck. Yay him.
It wasn’t enough for him, any more. He was done being grateful to be part of the family, to have the name and the face that had put him where he was. He was worth more than that. He wasn’t a disappointment—not to himself. At least, he wouldn’t be, if he kept going after the things that mattered to him. He had more to give than just a charming smile and a posh accent. He could do more than marry money or fame.
And he had to tell his parents that. Today.
* * *
Celeste’s parents were not, by nature, early risers. But since Damon and Rachel appeared to be fuelled solely by love that Christmas morning, by the time she’d shooed Theo out the front door and ventured into the kitchen in search of coffee, it seemed the whole house were up and ready for the day.
They were also all staring at her.
‘What?’ Did she have her dressing gown on inside out? Or were Theo’s pants stuck to it, somehow? She’d thought this morning couldn’t get more embarrassing, but she was willing to be proven wrong.
‘I met your young man again on the stairs this morning,’ her father said, over the rim of his coffee cup. ‘He seemed to be leaving in a hurry.’
Celeste winced. ‘Well, it’s Christmas Day. He had to get back to his own family.’ Poor sod. ‘Did Damon and Rachel tell you their happy news?’
‘They did.’ Her mother poured her a cup of coffee—steaming hot and black, no sugar, the way they all took it. Damon joked it was the only thing all four of them actually had in common.
‘Are you ready to reconsider the whole black for the maid of honour thing yet?’ she asked Rachel. At least if her best friend was marrying in, she’d always have someone on her side in family debates.
Unless Rachel took Damon’s side, of course. Hmm, maybe she hadn’t thought this through well enough, when she’d encouraged Damon to follow his heart.
Rachel shook her head and turned her attention back to her coffee—milky white and loaded with sugar, just as she’d drunk it at university.
‘Celeste, we’re worried about you,’ Damon said. Her parents nodded in agreement.
Wait. What?
‘The three of you are worried about me?’ She kind of needed the clarification. After all, she couldn’t remember the last time it was Damon and her parents against her, instead of her and their parents against Damon, when it came to family disagreements.
She was the one who did everything her parents expected of her, followed the path they’d walked first, became what they’d hoped for in a child.
But apparently her sleeping with a TV star was where they all drew the line.
‘Possibly for different reasons,’ Damon said, giving her a look she knew all too well. It was his ‘our parents are ridiculous’ look. ‘But all four of us are concerned.’
Oh, God, he was bringing Rachel into it now. He’d be talking about them as a pair constantly now, saying ‘we think this’ or ‘we like to do it that way’ as if they were so fused together it was impossible for them to have different thoughts or opinions on anything.
She hated it when people did that. She’d never imagined her brother would be one of them.
But then, she’d never imagined he’d agree with their parents about anything, but here they were.
‘You too?’ she asked her best friend.
Rachel gave her an apologetic smile and a small shrug. ‘I don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all.’
Celeste raised her eyebrows. ‘Seems to me I was saying the same thing to you not so long ago...’
‘The point is, darling, that you need to think seriously about how this looks.’ Her mother rested her hands on the kitchen table and looked earnestly at Celeste.
‘How it...looks?’ Had she just not got enough sleep, or was this really as weird as it felt?
‘For your career,’ her father put in. ‘How it looks to the university.’
‘It’s bad enough doing those puff pieces for those podcasts.’ Diana shook her head at the very idea. ‘But doing seasonal novelty television as well—and now cavorting around with that TV presenter, too!’
‘Nobody is going to believe that you’re serious about your research if you’re peddling history-lite to the masses,’ Jacob said firmly. ‘And really, being seen with That Man is just another sign to everyone that you’ve made your choice—and it’s not the right one.’
Celeste could feel strange emotions bubbling up inside her. Ones she wasn’t used to feeling. This went beyond irritation or frustration. Yes, she snapped at people all the time when they interrupted her, and she got frustrated when people wouldn’t just see that she was right. But those feelings were nothing like the anger that seared through her now.
‘Let me get this straight,’ she said, her voice clipped. ‘Damon, you and Rachel are concerned because you think I’m going to get my heart broken by a TV heart-throb who is only dating me for the publicity, right?’
‘Pretty much,’ Damon replied.
‘And Mum, Dad. You’re worried that I’m sabotaging my academic career by taking on TV projects, and that associating with Theo will affect my position at the university.’
Jacob beamed. ‘Exactly! See, Diana, I told you she’d understand.’
Celeste’s smile felt wicked on her lips. ‘Oh, I understand. I understand that you’re all very, very wrong about me. And maybe I’ve been wrong about you, too.’
She spun towards Rachel and Damon. ‘I appreciate your concern, guys, but, trust me, everything is fine. Theo and I have an understanding. This isn’t like your festive fling, or whatever. That was always just a stupid excuse for you two to have sex without thinking about the consequences. Theo and I know exactly where we are—and it’s not leading to flashy diamond rings on Christmas Eve. He’s using me for the publicity, and I’m using him for that too—ready for the new TV show I’ve signed up to hopefully present next year.’ Her mother gasped at that. Celeste didn’t turn her head, but out of the corner of her eye she could see Diana resting her head dramatically against Jacob’s chest. ‘The sex,’ she added, for impact, ‘is just for fun. Nothing more.’
‘Now hold on a moment. What is this about a TV show?’ Jacob asked.
Celeste moved to face her parents now. ‘And you two. You don’t care at all that the guy I’m sleeping with is using me. You don’t care about my heart, at all. You’re just worried that I might show you guys up on the lecture circuit, that your colleagues will think you produced a lightweight, right?’
‘Darling, we know you’re a perfectly adequate historian,’ Diana said.
Behind her, Celeste heard Da
mon smother a laugh.
Perfectly adequate. That wasn’t, surprisingly, the part that got to her. It was the way they thought of her as a historian first. That really was all she was ever going to be to them, wasn’t it? Or rather, she mattered more to them as an academic than as their daughter.
Suddenly, she had a feeling she knew how Damon had felt all these years.
She was more than just an academic or historian. She was a storyteller. She could bring history to life and share it with others, help other people to feel the same passion and enthusiasm she felt for the past. Show them how the present, the world they all lived in, was built on events that had happened decades or centuries before. How knowing the truth about the past made understanding the present—and the chance of change for the future—possible.
Why it mattered—not just to her, but to society.
Theo had shown her that.
‘I don’t want to talk about the TV show today,’ she told them, calmly. ‘We’re not going to agree on it, I can see that. I believe that history belongs to everyone, and it’s important to share it with anyone willing to learn it. I don’t want to lock it up in academic texts—I want to live it, to show how it connects with the everyday.’
Her parents stared at her. They didn’t get it. She’d known they wouldn’t.
She took a deep breath. She’d said her piece about Theo. It was Christmas Day, and Damon and Rachel had just got engaged. And she needed to do a hell of a lot more thinking before she was sure what any of this meant for her future.
But she could see a conversation—no, an argument—with her parents in her future, about her career. And for the first time in her life, she realised that it didn’t matter what they wanted or expected from her. She was never going to win their respect the way she’d always dreamt of.
But she could respect herself, and her own achievements. And maybe that would be enough.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘It’s Christmas. Let’s...let’s just forget all this, just for today. Who wants a Bucks Fizz while we open presents?’
Damon squeezed her shoulder as she headed for the fridge to find the champagne and orange juice, and Rachel gave her a sympathetic smile.
But it didn’t stop Celeste wishing that Theo were there, too.
* * *
Christmas Day seemed to go on for ever.
From the strategically placed mistletoe that somehow he and Emmaline kept being directed towards, to the barbed comments at dinner, and the discovery that the Howards would be staying until Boxing Day, Theo was exhausted by the time the clock chimed ten, and his mother yawned for the third time, and he figured he could reasonably excuse himself to bed.
To bed, but not to sleep. He had a call to make, first.
Celeste had never been far from his thoughts that day. In some ways, it had felt as if he were watching the whole scene through her eyes. He could hear her sharp comments and smart observations in the back of his mind, all day long.
Now he wanted to hear them for real.
He made it as far as the stairs before his father caught up to him—a surprise in itself. Normally he preferred to demand that people come to him.
‘Theo. Son,’ he said, and Theo turned, already on the fourth step, to face him.
‘Yes?’ Maybe this was a Christmas miracle, after all. Maybe his father was about to tell him he was proud of him—and even if it was all down to the whisky, Theo knew he’d take it.
But, no.
‘I hope you appreciate the effort that everyone here has put in today to helping you,’ his father said. ‘And what you need to do next, in return.’
Theo blinked, slowly. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘I know you’re not the smartest tool in the box but damn it, Theo, I thought even you’d be able to figure this one out.’ Francis Montgomery’s face grew redder with frustration, as well as alcohol. Theo just watched.
He felt strangely detached from the situation. He could see his mother coming up towards them now, carefully closing the door to the room where the rest of their party sat, to spare them hearing this, he supposed.
‘Why don’t you tell me, Dad?’ His voice was calm, too. Calmer than he’d expected he’d manage. There was none of the energy he displayed on camera, and no smile, either. As if he felt nothing at all. ‘What is it, exactly, that you’re expecting me to do to win your favour?’
‘As if you don’t know!’ Francis blustered, taking a step up the stairs. ‘All you’ve ever needed to do was bring some sort of good to this family. We weren’t expecting much from you, but really! Just marry a girl with money and save the family estate, how hard is that? We even gave you the girl today, gave you every opportunity, and you didn’t make the smallest effort with her! If we have to sell this estate, it will all be your fault.’
Theo was glad of the calmness that flowed through him, wherever it came from. As his father grew angrier, the calmness only increased, letting him see the man before him more clearly than ever.
‘No,’ he said simply. ‘It won’t. You couldn’t save it, Dad. You weren’t good enough, not me.’
‘Theo, don’t you speak to your father that way! He’s never said you’re not good enough.’ An outright lie from his mother. It didn’t surprise him. She always liked to rewrite events to suit her own narrative.
But Theo was done believing it.
‘I want you both to listen to me, for once,’ he said. ‘I am not going to marry Emmaline, not least because she doesn’t want us to get married any more than I do. In fact, I’m not going to marry anyone just because they have money, or because you approve of them. That’s not the world we live in any more, in case you haven’t noticed.’
His parents were uncharacteristically silent, so Theo carried on, amazed at how good it felt to say the words at last.
‘If you want to save this house, save it. Don’t expect me to do it for you. Because honestly? I’d rather you sell the place anyway.’ His mother gasped at that, and his father’s face turned an even more extreme shade of puce. But Theo didn’t care. Because it was true. He didn’t want Sorrelton House and all its memories—especially since so few of them were good ones.
He wanted his own life. His own decisions.
He wanted to find out for himself who he was and what he could achieve—not what his parents had always told him he couldn’t.
‘I don’t need anything from you any more,’ he said, feeling the truth of the words as he spoke them. ‘Sell the house, do whatever you want with the money—I have my own. I have my own life, my own career, and you know what? I’ve worked damn hard to get where I am, and I’ll keep working for the life that I want. Away from here.’
Then he spun round and jogged up the stairs, whistling a Christmas carol as he went.
He’d leave this place tomorrow, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever come back. Wasn’t sure he’d be welcome, even if he wanted to.
But that was okay.
He could find his own future now.
Theo changed out of the dinner jacket and bow tie he’d been expected to wear for Christmas evening at Sorrelton House, and into a comfortable pair of sweatpants and a faded and worn T-shirt. Then, leaning back against the headboard of his bed, he relaxed his shoulders for the first time in hours, and called Celeste.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey. You in bed?’ She picked up far too quickly to be in company. Or maybe he just liked the idea of her in bed. Preferably his.
‘Yeah.’ A rustle of sheets as she stretched out. He could imagine her there, in the bed they’d shared the night before. He liked that he could picture it perfectly. That he could see her in his mind, if not in reality.
Careful, Theo.
He was treading a line here, one he’d been teetering on for so long he’d almost stopped noticing it. It would be oh-so-easy to slide over to the other side.
Ex
cept he had a feeling that the line might actually be a cliff edge, and he didn’t want to fall.
Theo pushed away the thought that it could already be too late.
‘How was your Christmas Day?’ he asked, settling himself down more comfortably against the pillows.
‘It started with a family intervention about my sex life, but after the fourth Bucks Fizz things started to improve. How was yours?’
‘My parents hustled me up a rich and recently dumped date for the occasion. She cried every time she saw the mistletoe they’d hung around the place.’
‘Ouch.’ He could picture her wincing, but also trying not to laugh. ‘They hated me that much, huh?’
She was so quick, his Celeste. ‘Apparently so.’
‘Well, the good news is, my parents hate the idea of you just as much. Apparently, you’re going to ruin my career prospects.’
‘Probably true,’ Theo admitted. ‘You start hanging around with a lightweight like me for too long, they’ll assume your brains have rotted out your ears.’
‘Hey,’ she said softly. It was a voice, a tone he’d not heard from her before. Gentle. Caring. ‘Don’t say that.’
He could get used to that voice.
‘How are the happy couple?’ he asked, shifting the conversation somewhere more comfortable. ‘Did they at least get to celebrate in slightly more style than when they woke us up?’
‘They’re worried you’re going to break my heart.’ The mocking edge to her words told Theo exactly how ridiculous she thought that was. ‘I reminded them that we had an agreement, and that this was all for show anyway.’
‘Exactly,’ Theo said, pushing away the part of his brain that had just been hoping for more. ‘I mean, we could probably stop it now, if you wanted. Can’t imagine anyone is going to be paying much attention to us over the festive period anyway, and we’ve kind of achieved what we set out to do.’ Except then he’d never get to see her face as he told her how he’d stood up to his parents. Never get to see that small smile as she nodded and told him he’d done the right thing.
A Midnight Kiss to Seal the Deal Page 13