‘To apologise. But in the end, rather than cause more trouble for my father, I decided against it. He feels he was to blame in the first place for sending you to the conservatory to find Toby. Elaine, of course, insists that you broke her poor boy’s heart that night.’ He grinned at Georgia’s look of horror. ‘And Dad made it worse by assuring her that Toby’s only casualty was his self-esteem.’
‘Which endeared me to the lady all the more,’ said Georgia gloomily, and she took another sliver of prizewinning cake.
‘Do you mind?’
‘Yes, a bit. Not that it matters. I’m unlikely to meet up with her again,’ she said, licking icing from her fingers.
Chance got up. ‘Let’s take the tray out and lay our plans for the evening, Georgie. An evening,’ he added, ‘I shall enjoy far more with you than on my own. I could hardly believe my eyes when I found you camping out at Ridge Cottage.’
‘I don’t blame you,’ she said bitterly. ‘I should have paid more attention to the weather forecast before leaving for my getaway Christmas for one.’
‘But now it’s Christmas for two and all’s well,’ said Chance.
Not sure she entirely agreed, Georgia bent to pat Ruby. ‘When does this lady go out again?’
‘I’ll take them both out shortly, but you stay inside this time. I’ll take you on a tour of the ground floor instead.’
Chance took her first into a big, empty room, with long windows looking out over the garden. ‘This will be the dining room in time.’ He led her out into the hall again, which eventually gave way to an open colonnade leading to a reception hall. ‘The drawing room is over here on the left.’
He opened a door and switched on lights in a large room with supremely comfortable furniture interspersed with antique pieces. ‘This needs some final touches,’ said Chance, eyeing it objectively. ‘Any suggestions?’
Georgia gave it some thought. ‘If it were mine I’d hang a couple of abstract paintings as contrast to the conventional furniture, add a mirror or two, and maybe some seasonal flowers to bring the room to life.’
He nodded. ‘You’re right. It’s like Sleeping Beauty, waiting for the kiss.’
‘It’s a lot of house for one man.’
‘True. My original intention was something on a much smaller scale. But when I was house-hunting Ridgeway came up on my computer screen. The shot was taken with the gardens in full bloom: a Midsummer Night’s Dream of a house. One look and I was hooked. The feeling only intensified the first time I actually crossed the threshold. I knew I had to live here.’ Chance smiled wryly. ‘Friends thought I was mad, and Toby, of course, sneers about delusions of grandeur.’
‘How about your father?’
‘He loves the place.’ Chance looked at his watch as they left the room. ‘I suggest we go our separate ways for a while. I must take the dogs out briefly, and then shower and so on. I’ll have drinks waiting in the kitchen about seven. Will that suit my guest?’
‘Perfectly. Then I’ll help put our Christmas dinner together.’
‘I don’t normally ask guests to prepare their own dinner!’
Georgia shrugged, smiling. ‘I’ll enjoy doing it.’
As they reached the stairs Chance tapped his watch. ‘No later than seven.’
GEORGIA MADE GOOD USE of the time. After a quick shower, and a protracted session with her hairdryer, she pulled on the trousers and sweater her mother had bought from Amy’s shop. The butterscotch shade of the cashmere was such a perfect match for her hair that contrasted so dramatically with her dark eyes she raised a wry eyebrow at her glowing reflection, well aware of what—or who—was responsible for her extra sparkle. Steady, she warned herself. Don’t go there.
It was just after seven when Georgia went downstairs to the kitchen, to find the table festive with gleaming crystal and red candles in silver holders. She turned with a smile as Chance, impressive in a formal suit for the occasion, entered by the door from the boot room to the sound of clashing steel bowls in the background as the dogs enjoyed their supper. He took one look at her and stood deliberately still; the gleam in his dark blue eyes was all the reward for her efforts she could have wished for.
Chance kept looking at her as he shut the door behind him. ‘I’ll leave the dogs out there while we put the meal together; it’ll keep Ruby’s white hairs away from your velvet.’
‘They’ll brush off,’ she assured him, and moved to the big refrigerator. ‘What are we eating? In spite of all that cake, I’m hungry again.’
‘So am I.’ Chance joined her to throw open the double stainless steel doors. ‘I’m afraid it’s just ham, turkey and cold beef. Take your pick.’
‘Very posh leftovers,’ she commented.
He smiled crookedly. ‘Leftovers or not, Georgie, I rather fancy my Christmas at home surpasses anything St Moritz can offer.’
‘You’ve certainly got as much snow,’ she said, flippant to hide her rush of pleasure. ‘Now, are you by any chance—forgive the pun—the kind of man who wears protective gear to cook?’
‘Sadly, no. But Mrs Dawson does.’ He opened a drawer and took out a striped butcher’s apron.
Georgia accepted it with gratitude and slipped it over her head. Chance took the strings and tied them behind her back, and for a moment they both stood utterly still. His breath on her neck sent a quiver of response streaking through her entire body, until indignant barking from the boot room broke the spell and Chance went off to let the dogs in.
Putting a cold supper together with Chance was a very convivial experience, both of them talking with the ease of old friends as they worked. She looked up from the dressing she was whisking to find his eyes on hers.
‘I’m enjoying this, Georgie!’
So was she. Far too much. ‘This is ready now.’
‘Good. I’ll just cut some bread, open the wine, and we’re there.’
The simple food was perfect, the wine was vintage champagne, and, no matter who his relations were, enjoying it with Chance Warner made Christmas dinner an experience to remember.
‘You have the most extraordinary colouring,’ he commented as he refilled Georgia’s glass. ‘Those dark chocolate eyes of yours are striking with that hair.’
‘Hair from my mother, eyes from my father—’ She broke off as her phone rang. ‘Sorry, I must answer this,’ she said as she took it from her bag. ‘It’s my mother.’
Rose and Paul Cooper had heard about the snow and were so anxious it took a while to allay their fears.
‘I’m safe and absolutely fine,’ said Georgia at last. ‘We’ve just sat down to supper, and I’m having a wonderful time. I’ll ring you tomorrow. I love you too—lots. Goodnight.’ She looked up to meet searching blue eyes.
‘Did you mean it?’ Chance demanded.
‘That I’m having a wonderful time?’ She paused. ‘Yes, I am.’
He smiled slowly. ‘So am I, Georgie.’
‘Exactly what a gatecrasher needs most to hear!’
He shook his head. ‘A gatecrasher is an uninvited guest, Georgie. I asked you to come here.’
‘Ordered me!’
‘Necessary, in the circumstances. I had to get you to safety as quickly as possible. Next time you fancy getting away from it all try somewhere less isolated.’ He paused. ‘On the other hand, if you’d done that this year we wouldn’t be sitting here together right now.’
‘I had an official reason for going to Ridge Cottage,’ she informed him. ‘Mother left a box of papers there, and only remembered it at the airport as they were leaving. I had the brilliant idea of spending Christmas alone at the cottage and collecting it, but though I searched high and low I drew a blank.’
Chance smiled in surprise. ‘If it’s a shoebox full of old photographs and so on I actually have it here, Georgie. I found it just days ago, when I finally felt fit enough to make a routine check on the cottage. The letters in it are minus any envelopes with addresses, so the box would have gone to the estate agent after the h
olidays to wait until claimed.’
‘Oh, Chance, that’s such a relief!’ Georgia smiled radiantly. ‘I wasn’t looking forward to telling Mother her box was missing.’
‘I’ll get it after supper. In the meantime…’ He refilled their glasses and raised his to her in a toast, the candle flames reflected in his eyes. ‘Happy Christmas, Georgie.’
She held her glass high. ‘Happy Christmas, Chance.’
LATER, CHANCE TOOK THE FAMOUS box from a drawer in his desk in the study, and gave it to Georgia while he made up the fire.
‘Would you like me to leave you alone to browse?’ he asked.
‘Of course not.’ She snuggled deeper into her corner of the sofa as she stared at the box. ‘I feel a bit like Pandora,’ she muttered as she removed the lid.
Chance sat down beside her. ‘How about a brandy while you delve?’
She shook her head. ‘Not on top of champagne. I know my limitations.’ She took out a small bundle of letters tied with pink ribbon. ‘I’ll just see who wrote these to Mother and put them back.’ Georgia untied the faded ribbon and turned the first letter over to read the signature.
Kiss my baby girl for me, with all my love, George.
She blinked hard. ‘They’re from my father.’ She put the letter back and retied the ribbon, then began looking through the photographs. ‘That’s me,’ she said, pointing to a smiling baby hugging a teddy.
‘What a charmer!’
‘Why, thank you, kind sir.’ She smiled tenderly at a formal wedding photograph of a dark-eyed young man in RAF uniform gazing raptly into the adoring eyes of his pretty bride. ‘My father and mother.’
‘They look so young!’
‘They met when my father was stationed at the airbase outside Pennington. My mother was a nurse at the hospital. They were married within weeks, and less than a year later I was born.’ Georgia sighed as she put everything back in the box. ‘Just after that photograph with the bear was taken my father’s plane crashed into a hillside in a freak storm.’
‘God, how tragic!’ He took her hand. ‘What happened then?’
‘We went back to Pennington to live in the family home, and my mother got a job as practice nurse in a medical centre.’ Georgia smiled reminiscently. ‘After my grandparents died Mother and I did everything together, though she never cramped my style if I wanted to go out with Amy or anyone else. While I was at university Mother gave up nursing to work for a hospital charity, and met Paul Cooper at one of the functions she organised.’
‘Did you mind sharing her?’
‘I’m ashamed to say I did, at first.’ She pulled a face. ‘I’d been the centre of her world until then. But I grew to like Paul very much. And because my mother had him in her life I was able to enrol with an agency when I graduated, instead of trying for a conventional teaching post.’
‘But you miss your mother now she’s in Portugal?’
‘That I do.’ She sighed. ‘Once I had the flat I didn’t go home to them all that often. But I knew that I could whenever I wanted to. And now I can’t.’ Georgia turned to look up into his intent face. ‘And that’s quite enough whingeing from me, Mr Warner.’
He moved closer. ‘I can sympathise with a woman who admits to missing her mother. I remember my first Christmas without mine only too well.’
She grasped his hand in contrition. ‘Which puts my situation right into perspective. I still have my mother.’
‘True.’ Chance raised her hand and bent to kiss it.
She gazed, utterly still, at his bowed glossy head and felt something click inside her, as if a missing piece of a puzzle had slotted into place. He sat up, his eyes on hers. Georgia stared back, her heartbeat suddenly in overdrive.
‘Georgie, I have a problem,’ he said huskily.
‘What kind of problem?’
‘It started the night of Toby’s birthday, when a beautiful girl—’
‘Woman!’
He rolled his eyes, easing the sudden tension. ‘As I was saying,’ he went on, ‘the moment when a beautiful woman walked into my arms and kissed me by mistake and I wanted to steal her from my brother.’
‘But since I don’t belong to your brother, or to anyone else, larceny is unnecessary,’ she said bluntly.
His eyes narrowed. ‘Does that mean you’re not against the idea, Georgie?’
She shrugged. ‘A friendly kiss at Christmas is harmless enough, surely? It happens under the mistletoe all the time.’
Chance nailed her with a look. ‘From our past brief experiences I doubt that any kiss between us would be harmless in the present situation. And the point of all this, Georgie, is that I’ve brought you here to keep you safe. So, damned hard though it is for me, I’m going to let you go to bed with just a brotherly pat on the hand.’
Georgia burned with mortification. She’d allowed her hormones to get out of hand over a man whose name meant nothing but trouble. ‘All right,’ she said, and startled him by getting to her feet. ‘Goodnight.’
Chance leapt up and seized her hand to stay her. ‘I didn’t mean right now!’
‘I think it’s best.’ Georgia smiled at him sweetly. ‘You’ve been so kind, the last thing I want is to make things hard for you, Chance.’
‘Hard!’ He closed his eyes for an instant, and then opened them on hers with a look like a blowtorch. Then she was in his arms, with his mouth on hers in fierce possession which sent her giddy with delight, just like before. She could taste champagne, and aroused man, and she sank into him with a helpless little moan which brought a sound half-groan, half-growl from Chance. He wrenched off his jacket and pulled her onto his lap, holding her against him while his mouth possessed hers with a force which sent such fire flicking along her veins her blood threatened to vaporise. At last he loosened his grasp, and looked down into her dazed, glittering eyes for long, supercharged moments while they both got their breath back.
‘Not chocolate,’ he informed her at last, a lazy, relishing note in his voice that ignited a delicious quivering deep inside her. ‘Right now your eyes are black, molten treacle—with a touch of brimstone.’
‘Is that a good thing?’ she asked unsteadily.
‘No. It’s damned dangerous,’ he growled, and touched the tip of his finger to her bottom lip, his face taut with a hunger which brought such heat to Georgia’s cheeks she turned away, burrowing into his shoulder as his arms tightened. ‘You are so delectable,’ he said into her hair, ‘that I want to give vent to my inner big bad wolf and gobble you up right now. But I won’t. I’m going to find the strength from somewhere—God knows how—to let you go up to bed alone.’
Georgia leaned back, her eyes wide on his. ‘Why, Chance? We’re two unattached adults thrown together in a situation totally outside the norm. Would it be so terrible to exchange a kiss or two?’
‘No. Not terrible at all. Which is the point.’ He pulled her closer and rubbed his cheek against her hair. ‘I would soon want a hell of a lot more than that, which for me, and for you, would be pure magic. But, Georgie, when I heard you tell your mother you were safe I swore I’d keep you that way.’
The urgency abruptly drained from Georgia, like air leaving a balloon. ‘Oh, I see.’ She pushed his arms away and stood up, her face set. ‘You were born in the wrong century, Chance Warner. No one will know whether we’ve been as pure as that driven snow outside or not—’ She stopped dead. What was she doing? Begging a man to make love to her?
‘Don’t do this, Georgie,’ said Chance through his teeth.
‘No, I won’t.’ She raised her chin, snatching back the pride she’d mislaid for a mad moment. ‘Don’t panic! I won’t bother you again. You’re quite safe up there on your pedestal.’ Her eyes glittered coldly as she turned on her heel to make for the door, but he was there before her, barring her way.
‘Georgie—’
‘Only my nearest and dearest call me that,’ she spat at him.
His jaw clenched. ‘Listen to me! The last thing I meant to
do was hurt you—’
‘Then heaven help me when you do!’ She brushed past him, slammed the door in his face, and raced along the hall to run up to her room, desperate to be alone. But her flight was so headlong she tripped on a stair and gave a smothered scream—just as the entire house was plunged into darkness.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘GEORGIA!’ yelled Chance. ‘Are you all right? For God’s sake don’t move. Where are you?’
She reached out an unsteady hand to touch the banister. ‘Halfway up the stairs—I think.’
‘Don’t move. I’ll get a torch.’
Georgia heard the dogs barking as Chance reached the kitchen. Disorientated, she hugged her arms across her chest, shivering from reaction to their quarrel as much as shock from the power cut. But as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark she could see a faint glimmer from the tall Venetian window at the top of the stairs and felt better. She waited a long time before a torch beam cut through the darkness.
Chance sprinted along the hall and up the stairs to her, and would have pulled her close, but Georgia, still raw and hurting from his rejection, thrust him away with a violent hand.
His arms dropped instantly. ‘All right, put your claws in. But at least hold on to my hand so I can get you back to the study. Sorry I was so long.’ He shone the torch beam on the stairs as they went down. ‘I checked on the trip switches in the boot room in the hope that I could just trip them back in, but no luck. There isn’t a light visible for miles around, so the power cut is obviously general. And it’s snowing again, so no hope of getting it back for a while.’
When they reached the study Georgia burrowed back into her corner of the sofa in relief, grateful for light as Chance made up the fire. He picked up the phone and listened, but shook his head and put it down again.
‘Dead. The telephone lines must be down, too.’ He shone the torch on the phone he took out of his pocket, and cursed under his breath. ‘I spoke to my father twice on it this morning, when I was outside with the dogs, and forgot to put it back on charge. I need to ring the electricity board. May I borrow yours?’
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