A Daughter For Christmas

by Cathy Williams

  ‘And how long ago was that?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ He sighed impatiently. ‘Seven months.’

  ‘Seven months, and still nowhere has turned up? How convenient for both of you. I don’t know why you’ve stuck her down in the basement, though,’ she continued, masochistically relishing every word and knowing that she would regret her impulse later. ‘Surely there’s enough space in the house for her?’

  ‘I think you and your over-fertile imagination should get yourselves to bed.’

  She’d thought she might have antagonised him with her insinuations, but she hadn’t. If anything, he sounded amused, which made her madder because his amusement reduced her remarks to the level of a childish outburst. He could laugh at what she said, she thought, because he had no intention of paying a scrap of attention to a word she was saying, and he certainly had even less intention of divulging the details of his private life.

  Why should he? He would hardly admit that the wedding ring was lined up when he clearly knew how she felt on the matter.

  ‘Me and my over-fertile imagination,’ she said with freezing politeness, ‘would like answers to our questions.’

  He stood up and half yawned.

  ‘Go to bed, Leigh.’ He paused and then said in a lazy, speculative voice, ‘before I’m tempted to carry you there.’

  That was sufficient. She walked quickly out of the sitting room, fuming, feeling his eyes on her as she walked along the corridor.

  Heaven only knew what plans he had for himself and Fiona and Amy, but she would go to hell and back rather than let them materialise.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ARRANGEMENTS for Christmas had now been formalised. The three of them would travel up to Nicholas’s country house on Christmas Eve and would return to London on the day after Boxing Day.

  Leigh, who could not enthusiastically imagine any plan that included herself and Nicholas cooped up at close quarters for any period of time, spent several days trying to work out how she could back out, but in the end she was sabotaged by Amy.

  She was hovering in her niece’s bedroom, clearing up books and toys, while Nicholas sat on the bed and chatted about the Nativity play—now over and done with in under forty minutes after weeks of frantic rehearsal—when she heard him say casually, ‘So, where would you like to spend Christmas, Amy?’

  Amy was looking at her father, beaming, still swept away at her fifty-second role of an elf in the play.

  ‘Last year we went across to Sophie’s mum and dad,’ she said eventually.

  ‘And wasn’t it lovely, Ames?’ Leigh said brightly, shoving books into the bookcase and glaring at Nicholas’s back.

  ‘But that was last year,’ Nicholas told her. ‘This year’s going to be a little different. There are three of us now, and I wouldn’t dream of celebrating Christmas on my own. Santa might bypass me completely unless I can persuade a certain seven-year-old girl to keep me company.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Leigh interjected sarcastically from behind, ‘that he wouldn’t dream of doing any such thing, providing you’ve been a good little boy all year long.’

  Nicholas ignored her input.

  ‘I’m not sure I believe in Father Christmas,’ Amy told him confidentially, ‘I mean, how can he fly around the world in the space of just one night? And he is rather large to fit down chimneys, isn’t he?’

  Nicholas turned and looked at Leigh dubiously. ‘I’m sure Leigh has the answer to your questions,’ he said, grinning at her.

  ‘Magic,’ Leigh said vaguely.

  ‘Not!’ Amy grinned broadly. ‘But, of course, he might be real,’ she continued, hedging her bets and thinking of Christmas presents.

  ‘I thought that we three might have a little holiday in the country,’ Nicholas said, dragging the conversation back to the point in hand. ‘I have a wonderful place in Warwickshire, surrounded by fields. There are even a couple of horses. They’re a bit old, I admit, but not too old for a ride.’

  And that had been that.

  ‘Out and out bribery,’ Leigh said later when they were in the kitchen, discussing the technicalities of driving up to Warwickshire with a boot full of presents.

  Nicholas, who was sprawled in a chair, sipping his cup of coffee, raised one eyebrow in a question.

  ‘Bribery? What on earth are you talking about? I merely told Amy that there were a couple of horses around.’

  ‘You knew how she would react. How many seven-year-old children can resist the temptation of riding a horse?’

  ‘Did you ride horses when you were seven?’

  ‘No, but the temptation wasn’t there.’

  He shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose, now that you mention it, it was something of an argument-clincher.’ He stretched out his legs onto the chair in front and Leigh paused to look distastefully at him.

  ‘That,’ she said pointedly, ruffled because she felt that she had been railroaded into something she hadn’t wanted and ashamed at her own selfishness, ‘is unhygienic.’

  He gave her a look that seemed to say it was his house, after all, then he appeared to think better of it and removed his feet from the chair.

  ‘Not much time to work out turkeys and Christmas trees,’ he said. ‘In fact, just about a week.’

  ‘You mean you haven’t got an instant solution?’ Leigh smiled sweetly at him. ‘I would have thought that would have all been part of the master plan.’

  ‘I’ll give the Daleys a call tonight—get Marge to come in just before we arrive to air out the bedrooms.’ He cradled the cup in his hands and stared at the dresser thoughtfully. ‘She can buy all the food we’ll need while we’re there, and if Jo mounts a tree in the drawing room we can decorate it as soon as we arrive.’

  Leigh, looking at him as he spoke aloud, felt something stir inside her. At times like these, when they weren’t at each other’s throats, she was overwhelmed by something very nearly like contentment. A certain peace. She had spent the past year and a half running at full speed, battling her way through problems and trying not to drown under the burden of financial worry. Now, listening as Nicholas took over, she felt utterly and blissfully relaxed.

  It wouldn’t last, of course. In a minute the questions would spring into her head again, but for the moment she drank her coffee, perched on a bar stool by the kitchen counter, and regarded him without suspicion.

  ‘What did you do last Christmas?’ she asked idly.

  ‘Last Christmas,’ he said, with an element of surprise in his voice, ‘I was in the middle of a take-over, and I worked. Solidly.’

  ‘Sounds fun.’

  He looked at her cryptically from under his lashes. ‘My, you are getting sarcastic in your old age, aren’t you?’

  Leigh went faintly pink. ‘What about your parents?’ ‘Cruising in the Caribbean. Work sounded infinitely less exhausting.’

  ‘And where are they this year?’

  ‘At home in the South of France, with their vast assortment of friends.’

  ‘You could always go there,’ she suggested half-heartedly, and he looked at her, amused.

  ‘And bypass the opportunity to get under your skin for days on end? Besides, I haven’t spent Christmas in the company of a child for...for as long as I can remember...’ He rose and stretched. ‘Enough of this maudlin reminiscing. I have a mountain of work to do before we leave and now is as good a time as any to start doing it.’

  Leigh felt a swift stab of disappointment at the thought of being left in the kitchen on her own. It was warm and cosy in here, with the wind blowing in a blustery fashion outside and rattling the window panes. She had never seriously envisaged what it would be like to have a family. Jenny had always been the one who had hankered after hearth and home, but now it occurred to her that there was something to be said for domesticity.

  Her mind sprang ahead to when she would no longer be wanted in this house—when Nicholas had established himself as Amy’s father and her supporting role was over. When the curtain call cam
e and it was time to leave. She tried to imagine the freedom of being able to do exactly as she pleased and found that she couldn’t.

  ‘Wake up.’ He was standing right next to her, breathing into her ear, and she jumped.

  ‘I thought you were going to do some work,’ she said irritably. Her daydreaming had broken her fragile mood of tranquillity.

  ‘I am, and it’ll go so much quicker if I have someone to transcribe while I dictate.’

  ‘In that case, I’m sure it won’t be too difficult to get hold of one of your secretaries. They’re probably poised by their telephones, just waiting for such a call to arms.’ She slid off her kitchen stool, taking care to avoid coming into contact with him, and began to wash the few items of crockery in the sink.

  ‘Half an hour,’ he said, propping himself against the kitchen counter and watching her. ‘A bit of typing. It would be a help.’

  ‘I loathe typing,’ Leigh told him, turning off the tap and removing her gloves. She faced him with her arms folded. ‘Why do you think I hated working in an office?’

  ‘But I’m sure you’re very proficient at it.’ He produced one of those blisteringly charming smiles of his. ‘It’ll save an awful lot of time, you know. We’ll be able to get off to a much earlier start on Christmas Eve. Miss all that traffic. Get there in good time to decorate the tree. So much better than arriving in the dark, with Amy barely able to keep her eyes open in the back seat.’

  ‘Oh,’ Leigh said slowly, ‘I get it. If I don’t sit and play secretary it’ll be all my fault if Christmas Eve turns into a disaster.’

  ‘Well,’ Nicholas shrugged his shoulders, not responding to her remark, ‘up to you. I can’t force you to do it. And I certainly don’t want to be accused of taking advantage of your role of nanny here.’

  Leigh looked at him with exasperation. ‘OK!’ she snapped. ‘Your talent for bribery amazes me. What next?’ she demanded, following him out of the kitchen towards the office at the end of the house. ‘If I don’t cook the Christmas lunch shall I be single-handedly responsible for all poor weather fronts, moving in from the Arctic and settling over your country estate?’

  She could hear him whistle under his breath, pleased, she thought, with having got his own way. As usual.

  ‘There, now,’ he said soothingly, settling her into a leather chair by the desk and switching on the computer. ‘Half an hour at the most Stop me if you don’t understand something or if I’m going too fast for you.’

  He drew another chair close to hers, opened his briefcase and extracted a mound of paperwork.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Leigh muttered, staring at the screen which stared back at her, waiting for her input. Pressurised by her sister, she had done a six-month secretarial course after leaving school, but to sit in one spot, typing in other people’s words, was a form of torture for her. Her job in an office had only slightly been alleviated by telephone calls to customers and paperwork, neither of which she found thrilling but both of which were preferable to typing. ‘There’s no way that this can possibly be listed as one of my duties, and I won’t be helping you out again.’

  ‘You can start with this letter,’ he said, handing over a sheet of paper with his strong, black writing on it. ‘I’ll need three copies. You can use the fax machine for copying.’

  Leigh glowered and started typing, while next to her Nicholas scribbled and amended and occasionally made a phone call, talking in curt monosyllables.

  To her surprise, they worked quickly and efficiently together, although, as she had expected, the half-hour deadline had been wildly optimistic.

  When he began dictating, prowling around the room restlessly as though movement enhanced his ability to think, she stopped typing, waited until he had finished his sentence and then said in her best secretarial voice, ‘Some of this is grammatically incorrect.’

  ‘Good girl! Then you can sort it out.’ He grinned at her, and she refused to succumb to the humour.

  ‘It’s also after eleven. I thought you told me that we would be here for half an hour at the most.’

  ‘Slight miscalculation.’

  ‘I feel sorry for any poor woman who has the misfortune of working for you.’

  ‘They love it, if you really want to know. I may get on your nerves some of the time but...’ He moved swiftly to where she was sitting, leant over and said softly, ‘I’m an absolute poppet to work for.’

  Leigh bit back the inclination to laugh loudly at that and gave him a jaundiced look. ‘And I’m from planet Mars,’ she said.

  ‘I doubt they’re as attractive as you on Mars,’ Nicholas told her, straightening, and for a split second there was something in his voice, some deep undertone, that made her skin begin to tingle.

  Now that she thought about it, it was very intimate in this little office. It was a small room, with dark furnishings and fully stocked bookshelves. Nicholas used a single spotlight on the desk. Apart from that bright beam, illuminating the computer and an area of desk around it, the lighting in the room was subdued.

  ‘Well...’ She stood up and stretched, suddenly nervous and eager to be out. ‘It’s not too difficult, being more attractive than a small green alien with antennae. Anyway, we’ve been here...’ she looked at her watch ‘...a little over two hours, and I think it’s time I headed off to bed.’

  She began to move towards the door and he said, without looking at her, ‘Why don’t we have a nightcap? Unwind a bit after all this.’ He glanced across at her and the combination of the shadowy light and her sudden awareness of him made her lick her lips apprehensively. As she stood there, hesitating, debating what she could say to his suggestion that wouldn’t sound puerile, he drawled, ‘You don’t seem terribly keen at the prospect of having a drink with me.’

  ‘I’m just a little tired, that’s all.’

  ‘Tired or nervous?’

  ‘Tired,’ she said firmly, ‘but I guess I could have a quick drink with you.’ Coerced again, she thought. Made to feel, somehow, that declining his civilised offer would be a show of immaturity. Or maybe she was reading a little too much into the offer.

  This time no gin and tonics, though, she decided. When he asked her what she would like she asked for a glass of white wine. After he had returned from the kitchen with it she settled down into the chair and sipped her drink, tucking her legs underneath her.

  They spent a few minutes discussing this and that and nothing in particular, then he said in a musing voice, ‘You’re good at it, you know.

  ‘At what?’

  ‘The secretarial bit. Transcribing. You’re a quick thinker. I’ve had hell with temps who have found it impossible to reorganise into lucid English what I’ve written down for them to type.’

  ‘They probably describe it as having hell with bosses who write down in a disorganised manner what they’re expect to type.’

  He laughed appreciatively, and she felt that warmth run through her again. ‘I don’t suppose you would consider doing the occasional bit of secretarial work for me in the evenings. I would increase your salary, naturally.’

  ‘Out of the question, I’m too exhausted by the end of the day to make this a habit. You only succeeded in talking me into it in the first place by using Amy as leverage.’ She had another sip of wine and half closed her eyes.

  ‘You’re too young to be exhausted in the evenings. You should be out, going to clubs and parties and burning the candles at both ends.’

  ‘I shall wait until I’m older to do that,’ Leigh said, too tired to take offence at what he had said. ‘In the meantime, I’ll just give in to my exhaustion.’

  He didn’t say anything for a while and when she looked at him he was twirling his glass in his hands. ‘I haven’t noticed much social activity going on in the house,’ he said finally, ‘I don’t want you to feel in any way restricted by the fact that it’s not your place.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I mean, no men on the scene.’ He swallowed a mouthful of wine and then re
verted to playing with the glass, staring at the white liquid swirling around. ‘Surely you must have recovered from your break-up with this character you were going out with.’

  ‘That’s absolutely none of your business.’ More to the point, it was her cue to leave and get back to the sanctuary of her bedroom, but she couldn’t be bothered. She would finish her drink and leave, she decided, in her own time. She wouldn’t allow what she did to be dictated by her reactions to what he said to her.

  ‘Have you recovered? Sometimes it helps to talk about these things.’

  Leigh opened her eyes completely and gave him a long, hard, cynical look. ‘And you’re proposing to be my listening ear, is that it?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Thanks but, no, thanks.’ She placed her glass carefully on the table next to her and rose to her feet. ‘Before I fall asleep down here I think I’ll head upstairs.’

  He got up as well and moved to stand in front of her so that she was obliged to look up at him with an expression of puzzled politeness. What now? she wondered. His face, while not exactly annoyed, was slightly flushed.

  ‘Why do you back off the minute I mention your sex life?’

  ‘I don’t back off,’ Leigh told him, startled by his overreaction to her lack of response. ‘I just prefer to keep my private life to myself.’

  ‘I suppose it must have been difficult...with Amy...’

  ‘I suppose, like I said, that it’s none of your business.’

  ‘Are you still carrying a torch for this man?’

  Carrying a torch for Mick? The idea of it was almost enough to make her burst out laughing, but she had a feeling that reaction would not be appreciated.

  Perhaps he really felt as though he could somehow help. Maybe he thought that she had some kind of sexual hang-up, and he felt sorry for her. Poor, immature Leigh Walker, too naive to know how to deal with the opposite sex. If the women in his life were along the lines of Fiona, she could see how he would have arrived at that conclusion.

  Sophisticated, hard-headed women could protect themselves but women like her, she supposed, were the sort of miserable wretches who were too inexperienced in love to play the game. He probably thought that Mick had broken her heart and then walked out just when she’d needed him most.