Christmas at the Castle

by Marion Lennox

  There was only Angus. There was only this moment.

  She lifted her hand and traced the contours of his face, as if she had to know him, she had to feel every inch of him, and with every fragment of touch the feeling went further.

  He was gazing gravely down, waiting, waiting and she knew there’d be no compulsion. No would mean no. But yes...

  Yes was out there, filling the room, making her heels suddenly lift from the floor so she was on her toes. So he could draw her in and enfold her to him, so she could finally, wondrously allow his mouth to meet hers...

  So he could kiss her as she ached to be kissed.

  She could finally be where she needed to be.

  Oh, the kiss...

  She knew kisses. Of course she knew kisses. She was a woman who’d been engaged, who knew her way around in the world, who knew men.

  She didn’t know this man. She didn’t know this kiss.

  It was a fusing of two opposing charges. It was heat and power and promise. It was a surge of something that rocked her almost from her feet, that made her tilt those heels higher, that made her melt, sink into him, take as he was taking.

  That made her want...

  She wanted this man as she’d never wanted anything more in her life. But maybe that wasn’t true. Want was too small a word.

  It was as if her mouth had located her true north and was holding. This was her true course. This was her man.

  Her body was hard against his, her breasts crushed against his chest and she could feel his racing heart. Hers was racing in response. The world was shifting, lighting, colours appearing that she’d never known before, shards of sensation rushing through that she’d never felt, never thought she could feel.

  But now wasn’t the time to question anything; now was simply for letting this power take over her body, opening her mouth, allowing her man to deepen the kiss, demanding that she too could take the taste of him, the feel of him...

  Her man. Her Lord? Her Angus.

  They were by the great plate glass windows, the lights of London were all around them and, if London cared to gaze upward, two star-crossed lovers were silhouetted against the penthouse windows of one of the finest hotels in the city and it looked like magic. For Christmas magic happened...

  But then...how old had Holly been when she’d realised Santa was a fairy tale? How had she felt when reality finally broke in, as break in it must?

  As break in it did, now.

  She’d been tugging him close but she wanted him closer. She shifted to hold him tighter, to mould her breasts against his chest...and her makeshift ring caught in the wool of his sweater.

  Such a tiny thing, and a different woman might have tugged and torn and not cared, but his sweater was gorgeous cashmere and she’d been hugged against it and she loved it and the thought of ripping it felt like hurting him.

  So she froze so she didn’t hurt it further—and the kiss broke. He loosed her a little to see what was wrong.

  ‘I’m stuck to your sweater,’ she managed. Her voice didn’t work properly. Nothing was working properly. ‘My ring...’

  ‘Leave it.’

  ‘Let me unhook it.’

  ‘It can stay hooked,’ he growled, gathering her tight again. ‘It’s an engagement ring. Isn’t that for bonding two people together? Isn’t that where we’re headed right now?’

  She stilled. She let the words echo in her head, and with that echo she felt cold, hard sense shove its way in.

  Bonding two people together...

  What was she thinking? How long was it since she’d ripped off Geoff’s ring? How long was it since she’d thought she was...bonded?

  ‘No!’ The word broke from her lips before she even knew she was going to say it. ‘No!’

  * * *

  No? Of course no.

  He heard her panic and he replayed his words, and in that fraction of a moment he knew they’d been the stupidest words he could have used. Here he was with a woman he hardly knew and he was talking of tying her to him. When he knew her background... When he knew her fears...

  Was he out of his mind?

  ‘Let me...let me unhook it,’ she was saying, or she was trying to say it but her voice had changed. She’d changed.

  There was nothing for it but to relax his hold and then, as she was still stuck, he hauled his sweater over his head and moved away still further.

  Her ring and her finger were still inside his sweater. He was no longer attached.

  He felt...empty.

  ‘Tug the ring off so we can fix it,’ he told her, but she shook her head, her expression shuttered. Something inside had recoiled and it was staying that way.

  ‘I’m keeping the ring on,’ she told him. ‘I made a deal. I’ve given Delia your ring and I’ll wear this one for three weeks but it doesn’t bond me to anything.’

  ‘Of course not. But love...’

  ‘I am not your love.’ She practically yelled it, then turned away, twisting the sweater inside out, as if it was desperately important to unhook herself even from his sweater. ‘Of all the crazy set-ups... What were we thinking?’

  ‘I know what I was thinking.’

  ‘No! Angus, I’m on the rebound. I’m not ready. And I don’t think you really want...’

  ‘I do really want,’ he said, trying to gather his wits. Knowing he needed to step back but it was almost killing him to do so. ‘But I can wait. Holly, how long does it take to unhook a ring?’

  ‘You’ll need to wait longer than that,’ she said savagely. ‘Lord or not.’

  ‘Can you cut it out with the title?’ And suddenly more than Holly’s past was in the room between them. His ghosts were all around them. His words were an explosion, his anger coming from nowhere. ‘Holly, I’ll wait for as long as you need to wait,’ he told her. ‘But this will only work if you think about me and not my ancestry. I am not my father.’

  And that was another dumb thing to say. He raked his hair in disbelief that this had suddenly changed so appallingly. He met her gaze and he saw fear. He’d shouted. Of all the idiots, he’d shouted.

  Appalling was too mild a word for it.

  Where had the ghost of his father come from? He felt ill.

  ‘Holly, I’m sorry,’ he said, trying to get a handle on what had suddenly become a situation she looked as if she wanted to run from. He had to wipe the fear from her face. Concentrate only on that, he told himself. Nothing more.

  Step back. Step right back.

  ‘What I just said was dumb,’ he said at last. ‘No, I’m not my father, but you already know that. What I am is your boss.’ Deep breath. ‘Holly, I’ve employed you for three weeks. After that, I won’t be anything to do with any inherited title and you won’t be my employee. It’ll also be that much further from Geoff’s treatment of you. My father’s my ghost and Geoff’s yours but we can be free. Holly, believe me, I’m not holding you to me now, and I won’t hold you to me then, but I can wait and see what happens—when we’re both free.’

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t even look at him. Stupidly she was still trying to untangle the sweater.

  He should help her but he daren’t approach. He could still sense her fear.

  Three weeks. Such a short time to lay ghosts...

  But, until the New Year, she’d be living in his castle. The thought was good.

  ‘We both should step away,’ he managed. ‘Tonight’s been great but we’re both obviously tired. Right now, I’m not making sense even to myself. So let’s both go to bed—with a door closed between us.’

  She nodded, still clutching the sweater. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Holly...’

  ‘Doors. Boundaries. We need them,’ she said dully. ‘Goodnight... My Lord.’

  ‘Please don’t c
all me that.’

  ‘It’s what you are.’

  ‘Until I sell,’ he conceded. ‘But after that I’ll be living in the US and I am not My Lord there. This fantasy will be over.’

  ‘Good, then. Excellent.’ Her face was set, expressionless, as if she was carefully hiding her emotions. ‘Tonight’s been part of that fantasy,’ she said. ‘And fantasy knows its place, so let’s move past it. It’s more than time we went to our separate beds.’

  ‘Holly...’

  ‘Forget the personal,’ she managed and finally handed him his untangled sweater. ‘You’re my employer so forget the kiss. Think of me as hired help, a sauce bottle ring, paid for in cash fiancée.’ She held out her finally freed, beringed finger. ‘I need to bash out a few rough edges but that’s what I am. Angus...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Go to bed,’ she said gently. ‘Because I really, really want to kiss you again but it’s just as well my ring saved the day. This is an impossible situation and we both need to keep our heads. If you’re the least bit interested in kissing me when I’m done being your servant and your fiancée then you can think about propositioning me again, but by then hopefully I’ll have my head together. We’ve both been stupid. Kissing’s done. Go to bed.’

  * * *

  He went to bed but he didn’t sleep. He lay and stared at the ceiling and watched the flickering lights from the city play over the plaster. Eventually he rose and stared out over the river. He poured himself a whisky and then tossed it down.

  There was a tentative scratch on the door, low down. Dog. He opened it a fraction. Holly was through there and he wouldn’t wake her. Scruffy padded through, jumped on his bed and looked at him as if he was expecting night-time confidences.

  With the door safely closed, it was safe enough to talk to the dog.

  ‘I want her,’ he said simply and Scruffy kept on gazing at him as if more was expected, more was to come.

  It was hard to resist a dog with his head cocked to one side, especially when the words were already in his head.

  ‘I’m not pushing her,’ he said into the silence. ‘I don’t take and hold. I’m not like my father.’

  For some reason he was remembering his eighth birthday. His grandmother had given him a piggy bank, a weird-looking pig that grunted when a coin was dropped on its tongue before it proceeded to ‘devour’ the coin. He’d loved it. He’d also loved the bright coins his grandmother had given him to go with it.

  ‘You could use your money to buy ice skates,’ his mother had told him but he’d shaken his head and proceeded solemnly to feed his money to his pig.

  Maybe he’d thought he could get it out later. Maybe he hadn’t even wanted ice skates. No matter, the next thing he’d known, his mother was sobbing.

  ‘He’ll be just like his father,’ she’d told his grandmother. ‘I know it.’

  And then, when he’d decided to study finance...

  ‘How can you be interested in money? You are just like him.’

  And finally, when he’d fallen for Louise...

  ‘How do you know you love her? You just want her, isn’t that right?’ And appallingly, as grief and humiliation had given way to insight, he was left wondering whether she was right.

  Just like his father... His mother seemed to have softened over the years, she let him be, but the old accusations were always there to haunt him.

  Enough. It was more than time to be over the past, he told himself. Right now, Scruffy was eying him sideways, as if there was something deep he didn’t understand. It was as if the little dog was saying: The most gorgeous woman you’ve ever met is right through that door and you’re on this side thinking about past history. Are you mad?

  This dog had brains.

  Maybe he was mad. Maybe they both were. If they could shake off the past, Holly would be lying in his arms right now, skin against skin, her lovely body moulded to his, her warmth, her breath against his lips, her hands...

  ‘Cold shower,’ he told Scruffy and Scruffy looked at him again as if he were crazy.

  ‘I might well be,’ he told him. ‘But sometimes a cold shower is sensible. Believe it or not.’

  Scruffy didn’t believe him. He knew it.

  He didn’t believe it himself, or part of him did but the other part was telling him his feet were heading for the bathroom when they should be heading for the door to the sitting room.

  ‘Sense prevails,’ he muttered savagely. ‘How do I know the difference between wanting and loving? I can’t, and I will not take advantage of an employee.’

  ‘So sack her,’ he demanded of himself.

  ‘Yeah, right. That’s what your father would do. Go take a shower.’

  * * *

  She’d heard the door open, just slightly, and she’d held her breath.

  She’d heard Scruffy wuffle through, she’d heard Angus’s soft greeting and she’d heard the door close again.

  She heard Angus head to the shower.

  She lay and listened to the muffled sound of running water and she tried, really hard, not to imagine the Lord of Castle Craigie as he was now. Naked under running water. Rivulets of water running over a body she just knew would turn a girl’s knees to water. That jet-black hair dripping, water running over his face, his shoulders, his chest, down...

  ‘You’re a sad case,’ she told herself and hauled her bedclothes over her head to block out as much sound as she could, and tried and failed to block out the images being conjured.

  Why was he taking a shower now, an hour after they’d gone to bed?

  A cold shower?

  That brought more images and a girl could almost groan if she didn’t think that maybe the walls were too thin and a girl shouldn’t do anything of the kind.

  She’d sort of like a cold shower herself. Or a good brisk walk in the snow, but it was the wee hours in a strange city and a girl had some sense.

  But sense was in short supply. If her ring hadn’t caught... If Angus hadn’t made that crack about bonding...

  That kiss had melted sense entirely. If Angus had wanted her tonight she would have...

  Yeah, well, let’s not go there, she told herself. Sense had prevailed and it was just as well.

  And sense would stay prevailing. She knew that now, somehow, things had been put on the right footing. For the next three weeks she was chef and pretend fiancée and that was it. Then she’d take her money and run.

  Fast.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THINGS WERE STRAINED between them the next morning, but okay. They could do this. They had to do this because the kids were waiting.

  They found the kids packed and excited, but torn about leaving their mum. A limousine was ready to take Delia and her mother to hospital as soon as they left. Delia was tearful but determined to let the children go.

  ‘I never would have let them if I hadn’t met you,’ she told Holly. ‘I can’t believe His Lordship is marrying someone so lovely.’ She gazed down at the Craigenstone ring, still blazing on her finger. ‘I’ll get Mum to wear this while I’m in hospital and it’ll give her pleasure as well. I can’t believe you’ve been so generous.’

  ‘It’s Angus who’s generous,’ Holly told her. ‘If he hadn’t agreed I never could have done it.’

  Delia eyed Angus dubiously. He was busy stowing baggage and cat-carrier into the back of the car, and explaining to Scruffy why the cat was out of bounds. They had space to talk, and suddenly it seemed as if Delia had the courage to probe.

  ‘So...you love him?’ Delia asked.

  Holly hesitated, twisting the weird little tin ring on her finger. She was supposed to be this man’s fiancée. Her lie had to continue. ‘I guess I must,’ she said. She watched Angus some more and thought...maybe I’m not lying. Heaven help me, maybe I�
�m not.

  ‘If you’re not sure...you be careful,’ Delia said urgently. ‘It’s not my place to say, but oh, my dear, the Craigenstone men can be charming when they want something. Charming and ruthless.’

  But if he’d been ruthless he could have had her last night, Holly thought, as finally they waved goodbye to Delia and set off northwards. He hadn’t pushed. He’d respected her suddenly imposed boundaries. So far, she hadn’t seen a hint of ruthlessness.

  Though she had seen more than a hint of charming.

  She was about to see more. They’d barely crossed the Scottish border when Angus turned off the motorway.

  ‘Quick deviation,’ he told them. The kids were being amazingly quiet, amazingly subdued in the back seat. They’d been told by their mother to stay subdued, Holly thought. They must have been for this wasn’t normal. They’d stopped an hour back for lunch, there’d been little conversation then and there was no protest now.

  Agree to everything—was that what Delia had told them? Was that the way she’d tried to deal with the old Lord?

  She eyed Angus and tried to figure just how ruthless this man could be. He was rich in his own right. You didn’t get rich by being a doormat.

  He wasn’t a doormat, but ruthless? The word stayed with her, a question. She’d accepted Geoff without nearly enough questions. She was asking questions now.

  Why? He had no intention of coming near her for three weeks. After that, he’d be back in the States and she’d be in Australia. There was no need for questions.

  But the way she was feeling...

  He glanced across and met her gaze and smiled and something inside her melted, as it had melted before. Oh, help, this was nuts. This was teenage crush territory.

  Was this why the Earls of Craigenstone had been deemed dangerous for generation after generation? All they had to do was smile.

  ‘I thought we’d pay a visit to my father’s old keeper, McAllister,’ he said. ‘Maggie found out where he is—in a nursing home not far from here. I thought he might like a visit from Scruffy.’