As the evening progressed it became apparent, when the subject of Edwina frequently came up, that her father was of the opinion that it was only because Lukas Tavinor was head of the household that he had personally phoned Edwina to ask her to stay. However, in Edwin Hargreaves's view, it was really his brother Ash who had extended the invitation.
Oh, how Jermaine would have loved to have believed that. But she knew differently. Hadn't Ash himself told her he'd made one colossal mistake where Edwina was concerned, and had allowed lust to rule his head? From that Jermaine could only imagine Ash meant that Edwina was now out of his system. It therefore figured that it wasn't Ash who wanted Edwina at Highfield over Christmas—but Lukas.
Inconstant swine! Inconstant? Just because he asked you first? For heaven's sake. Jermaine brought herself up short. Anyone would think Lukas had declared undying love to her, when all he'd done was to ask her to spend Christmas with him and, when she'd refused, asked her sister instead. Well, wasn't that inconstant? No, it wasn't. What it was was telling her that she might refuse his invitation but that there were dozens of others who would accept. Indeed, someone already had. Someone ready and more than willing to drop her other plans and dash to Highfield.
Christmas Day passed with an exchange of gifts and Jermaine helping with the preparation for the evening meal. Needing a break from being forever cheerful, she took herself off for a long walk during the afternoon.
She discovered on her return that her father had been unable to wait any longer for Edwina to ring, as he'd expected, and that he'd telephoned Highfield himself. Jermaine was glad she had not been there. Her father might well have asked her to get him the Highfield number, and she didn't know, should Lukas have answered the phone, whether or not she would have wanted to speak to him.
Jermaine wasn't sleeping well. That night was no exception. Had Edwina been in Lukas's study? Had he kissed her the way he'd kissed...? Jermaine blanked off her mind, but was still wide awake, sitting up in the window seat in her room, at one o'clock on Boxing Day morning, when it began to snow.
She watched for some while as huge flakes quickly covered the ground. How silent everywhere was, how beautiful the night. She wished she were with Lukas. Pathetic. She sighed and got into bed. Put the man out of your mind, do.
But he was even more difficult to put out of her mind when later, around eleven that morning, when she had just hunted out some old snow boots with a view to taking herself off for another soUtary walk, Jermaine, shrugging
into a jacket, heard the sound of a vehicle crunching over the snow-covered drive.
'Who's this?' she heard her mother ask, plainly not recognizing the vehicle as belonging to any of their friends.
Jermaine went and joined her, and, taking a glance out of the window, saw a Range Rover standing there. When none other than Lukas Tavinor stepped out of it, she thought—as a symphony started up in her head—that she'd had him so much on her mind her brain had conjured him up; that because she so wanted to see him she was imagining it was him.
But Lukas was no figment of her imagination. 'Isn't he Lukas, Ash's brother?' her mother exclaimed. As Grace Hargreaves worriedly pondered, 'Do you think something's happened to Edwina?' Jermaine had to try to rapidly get herself together.
'I shouldn't think so for a minute,' she answered, glad her father was out at the village shop, hunting up some reading matter. He'd panic like crazy if he thought Edwina had had 'another' accident.
The doorbell sounded and Jermaine, who would by far have preferred her mother to answer it while she composed herself a little more, went to the door. If something awful had
befallen Edwina, and Lukas was coming to tell them in person rather than break bad news over the phone, then Jermaine saw it was up to her to answer the door.
A blast of cold air hit her as she pulled back the door—she barely noticed it.
Oh, how wonderful it was to see him. Her heart felt so full that for long, long seconds time seemed suspended and she just stared at him.
Lukas too seemed stuck for words as he looked back at her, though she very soon realised her imagination was going off at a tangent. For, as casually as you like, he was suddenly saying, 'I was in the area...' And with a smile that turned her knees to water, he continued, 'I thought I might stop by and cadge a cup of coffee.'
The sun came out on the whole miserable time she'd had since she had last seen him. A smile started deep inside her. 'I was just going out for a walk,' she blurted out—and could have kicked herself. Now she'd just deprived herself of fifteen minutes, perhaps half an hour, of his company.
'You're going on your own?' he enquired.
'I love the snow,' she said, and wondered what was happening to her brain. That was no sort of an answer.
'No diabolical Stuart walking with you?'
She laughed. Oh, joy, oh, bliss, just to see Lukas. 'Everything all right?' Her mother appearing at her shoulder brought Jermaine abruptly down to earth. All too plainly there was nothing the matter with Edwina, and her mother should be told so at once.
Jermaine opened her mouth to tell her that Lukas had merely stopped by for a cup of coffee when, to Jermaine's delight, he said, 'Good morning, Mrs Hargreaves. I've come to borrow your lovely daughter for a walk, if you've no objection.'
Grace Hargreaves was all smiles, and, to Jermaine's total embarrassment, she obviously believed Lukas had driven the many miles on such a bad-weather day merely to take her youngest daughter for a walk. But, before Jermaine could find her voice and say that Lukas just happened to be in the area, her mother was inviting, 'Perhaps you'd like to stay to lunch when you come back? After yesterday's feasting we're only having a cold meal today, but you're more than welcome.'
'Thank you,' he promptly accepted, and Jermaine forgot everything, save that she had just been assured of a couple of hours, or more, of Lukas's company.
'See you later,' she said to her mother.
Buttoning up her jacket as she went, Jermaine tried desperately hard as Lukas fell into step with her for some kind of normality. 'You've Edwina staying with you, I believe,' she said nicely as they approached some of her father's outbuildings.
'She's having a lie-in this morning,' Lukas replied.
Because she had a late night last night? Jermaine wondered, and, as sudden jealousy raged at that thought, she found she had stepped inside one of the outbuildings—as if to get away from Lukas himself.
'Looking for something?' he enquired, following her in, observing that she appeared to be staring into space.
Oh, heavens! Jermaine abruptly collected herself and knew she would just about die if Lukas gathered so much as an inkling of the savage green-eyed emotion that racked her when she thought of him with her sister.
'There's a sledge in here somewhere,' some guardian angel remembered for her. Jermaine looked at him then, saw him affable, friendly—and sophisticated. 'But of course you wouldn't...'
'I would,' he promptly assured her.
She stared at him. 'You wouldn't?'
'Would,' he said.
She laughed, and knew then, even though she might regret it later, that she was going to enjoy this time with him. She loved him so, and had missed him more than she had dreamt it was possible to miss anyone.
The sledge, when they found it, was rusty and cobwebby, but otherwise sound. 'Lead on. Miss Hargreaves,' Lukas commanded, taking hold of the rope and pulling the sledge behind him. 'Presumably you know the best sledging spots.'
'You know you're going to get soaked?'
'I don't care,' he said, and looked so terrifically wonderful that Jermaine wanted quite dreadfully to kiss him.
She looked away and desperately fought to banish any such impossible impulses, while seeking to find any safe topic that would get her away from this moment of weakness. 'So, what did Santa bring you for Christmas?' she asked lightly.
Lukas was silent for a few m
oments. 'Not what I wanted,' he answered at length.
'Shame,' she jibed. 'You couldn't have been a very good boy.'
'That's the trouble,' Lukas complained. 'I've been so good, you just wouldn't believe.'
'I wouldn't,' she laughed, feeling then that she wanted to give him a consoling hug, and was glad that they had arrived at the small trio of hills they'd been making for.
They didn't have the hills to themselves, but for Jermaine there was no one else there as she gave herself up to the sublime pleasure of just being with the man she loved. Up and down the hills they trekked, she squealing, Lukas laughing, as they bumped and tumbled—and never had she been more happy.
She wasn't feeling hungry, but guessed it must be nearing lunchtime when the assorted bunches of sledgers started to thin out, until there was just her and Lukas there.
Her conscience prodded her. 'We'd better go back.'
But she felt that Lukas was as reluctant as she when he suggested, 'Just one more.'
'Your trouble is you've never grown up,' taunted she to the man whom she full well knew carried a tremendous load of responsibility on his shoulders.
Tm allowed to play sometimes/ he declared, dramatically and defiantly. She laughed, and she wanted to kiss him again, because he was just so—Lukas—but couldn't.
'Come on, then,' she sighed, equally dramatically. 'Just one more.'
Together they climbed up the hill for the last time and sat close together—and moved off. Gathering speed as they travelled the short trip, Jermaine just knew that this time they were going to come to grief—she didn't care. Never had she enjoyed an outing so much. This time was precious to her, and would live in her memory for ever.
They were going too fast, the route having become icy with use, and they did come to grief; in fact there was no way in which Lukas could prevent it. They both came off the sledge, but as she lay looking at the bluest of skies on a sunny winter's day Jermaine just had to laugh from the pure and utter joy of it.
Then, all at once, something was blotting out the sun. Lukas was leaning over her and looking down at her—and still she laughed. Lukas continued to stare down at her, his eyes warm, and somehow tender.
She saw him swallow, and imagined he liked her quite a lot when he said softly, 'Look at you. Soaked. Your wonderful hair soaked, your make-up long gone. Know something?' he asked, and when she shook her head he told her, 'You look absolutely fantastic'
Jermaine loved him. She loved him, loved him. 'Is my nose red?' she asked, her mouth still smiling.
He bent and kissed her nose. 'It's like ice,' he stated.
'You should see yours, mister,' she laughed, and he kissed her once more. Suddenly it was the best Christmas she'd ever had. 'I'll give you thirty minutes to pack that up,' she told him cheekily, and a kind of groan escaped him.
Then he was kissing her, and again kissing her, and holding her, and she was kissing and holding him in return. 'I've missed you,' he murmured against her mouth. But she couldn't believe he had said what she wanted him to say—that he'd missed her—so she kissed him.
Lukas looked into her lovely violet eyes as the kiss ended, and then tenderly he kissed her snow-chilled face. 'Come on, let's get you back home. You're frozen,' he declared, helping her to her feet.
Jermaine didn't feel in the least frozen, but supposed she had been too nicely brought up to confess about the fire he had caused to burst into flame within her.
They were silent but companionable on the short walk back to her family home, where her wonderful mother had asked Lukas to stay to lunch. She had about another hour of his company, Jermaine mused, and she was going to enjoy it. That life was going to be pretty bleak afterwards—well, she just wasn't going to think about when Lukas left today.
'I'm sorry if we're a little late,' Lukas apologized to her mother, as they stood in the hall shedding their top clothes.
There's nothing to spoil,' Grace Hargreaves assured him. 'But you're both soaked!' she scolded, instantly forgiving Lukas his every sin when he smiled.
Jermaine looked across at Lukas to see how this giant in the world of big business was taking being scolded, and was delighted to see that he appeared to be quite enjoying her mother mothering him.
And mother him she did. While she sent Jermaine upstairs to have a hot shower, Jermaine heard her showing Lukas the downstairs facility, requesting his topcoat and suggesting he let her have his clothes for her to whip round in the tumble drier.
Jermaine, while wanting to hurry to be back with Lukas, thawed herself out under the hot shower, and then washed her already sham-pooed-that-day hair. But by the time she had dried her hair and had decided, since he had been dressed casually, that she would dress casually too, she could wait no longer to see him again.
Swiftly, her long legs encased in a smart pair of trousers, Jermaine went down the stairs. She found Lukas and her parents in the drawing room, and saw at once that Lukas must have submitted to her mother's ministrations.
'All dry?' Jermaine commented, more because she felt suddenly shy to have this man in her family home, where it must appear that he was her visitor.
Lukas studied her. 'No ill effects?'
'You came off the sledge, naturally,' her father commented before she could reply, and continued, though it was totally untrue, even if he must have believed it to be true, 'Edwina always used to love sledging.'
After that, it seemed as if no other topic could be raised without Edwina's name being brought into the conversation by Edwin
Hargreaves. They moved to the dining room to eat, but lunch was not a comfortable meal for Jermaine, and she was beginning to regret that Lukas had ever come or that her mother had invited him to share their meal. Jermaine was used to her father singing Edwina's praises, but Lukas wasn't. Might he not be weary of it?
Jermaine's new-found enemy jealousy suddenly started an attack; perhaps Lukas wasn't weary of it? He had, after all, invited Edwina into his home for Christmas. In fact in his home was where Edwina was right at this minute.
So what the dickens was Lukas doing here, with her?
Jermaine had come to no sort of conclusion before her father was suddenly embarrassing her to death by saying, very pointedly from where she was viewing it, 'Of course, Edwina's being extremely brave. She hasn't fully recovered from that injury to her back yet.'
'Backs can be the very devil,' Lukas agreed evenly.
'I'm not sure she's fit enough to even now be left on her own—without another female in the house,' Edwin Hargreaves hinted, and
Jermaine wasn't sure whether she went ashen, or scarlet.
In the ensuing silence, she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her. She was aware of Lukas's eyes on her, but she wouldn't, couldn't, look at him after her father's very near outright suggestion that Lukas take her back to Highfield with him.
She sought desperately hard for some topic with which to change the conversation, but was so swamped with mortification that she couldn't think straight. Which meant she had to leave it to Lukas or her mother to change the conversation.
Only her mother was saying nothing, and when Lukas did speak, Jermaine was staggered that he didn't change the topic at all, but told her father, 'I did ask Jermaine to spend her Christmas at Highfield, but...'
'You did?' her father cut in, jovial all of a sudden as he turned to glance at his younger daughter.
'I promised you and M...' she began, but was cut off before she could finish.
'You must have known that neither your mother nor I would hold you to that sort of promise if you'd prefer to spend that time with your friends,' her father remarked, and Jermaine heartily wished she'd got the nerve to run from the room.
Were it not for drawing attention to the fact that inwardly she was dying of embarrassment here, she might very well have made a dash for it. But by no chance was she going to let Lukas know how utterly miserable this who
le conversation was making her.
Though, quietly, he was suddenly saying. The offer is still there, Jermaine.'
She looked at him then, saw a sensitivity in his fine grey eyes—but didn't want his pity.
'I'm sorry,' she began to decline—only for her father to speak over the top of her.
'There you are,' he cut in cheerfully. 'Here's Lukas, pleased to have you stay. You'll be able to check if Edwina is all right when she says she's all right, and not just putting a brave face on it, and...'
'It's very kind of Lukas,' Jermaine interrupted, starting to feel desperate, 'but I couldn't possibly...'
'Of course you can,' her father triumphed. 'You're not going back to work until January the second, so...'
'I can't!' Ye gods, her father would have her spend the next seven nights at Highfield, when she was sure Lukas had only meant his invitation for one or two!
'You can, you know,' Lukas said softly, by her side. And, when she stared unhappily at him, he added, 'I'd very much like you to.'
Her heart did a crazy kind of flip—he sounded, looked, so sincere. That's settled, then,' Edwin Hargreaves announced.
Jermaine looked from Lukas to her father, and then to her mother, who appeared for once as if she might want to bury an axe in her husband's head, but was too polite to start one of her rare altercations with him in company.
'What do you want to do, sweetheart?' Mrs Hargreaves dared her husband's wrath by asking her younger daughter.
But when Jermaine, because the feeling of humiliation was weighing her down, was about to tell her mother that she didn't want to go anywhere, Lukas was lightly organising, 'We'll go in my vehicle—I don't want you having trouble driving your car if we're snowed in at Highfield.'
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