She closed the lid on the music box absently, moving to the side of the bed, the pot-pourri on the bedside table smelling of fresh roses when she touched them.
Her knees felt weak as she sat down abruptly on the side of the bed to look around her.
She didn’t understand.
What did all this mean? Who kept her room like this? Not Bessie, surely; she had enough to do in the rest of the house without cleaning a room that wasn’t used any more. Besides, the cook/housekeeper would never have done all this without being instructed to do so. And that instruction, surely, had to have come from Lydia.
Meg really didn’t understand.
Why would her mother, so cold and remote, although not quite so much today, have bothered not only to leave Meg’s room as it had always been, but to keep it so…
‘Is this your bedroom?’
Meg was too bemused by her discovery to do more than turn her head slowly in Jed’s direction, feeling slightly numbed even as she nodded.
He strolled into the room, much as she had a few minutes ago, pausing when he reached the display of cups and rosettes she had won so many years ago.
He turned to look at her, his expression unreadable. ‘Do you still ride?’
She shook her head. ‘Not for the last few years; there isn’t much opportunity in London.’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe you should take it up again; you were obviously good. I’m sure Scott would enjoy learning to ride.’
‘Maybe,’ she agreed distractedly, some of the shock starting to wear off now.
What was Jed doing up here? This bedroom was on the other side of the house from the adjoining bedrooms they had been allocated yesterday, so what was he doing here.
He turned fully, leaning back against the bookcase. ‘I was just going downstairs to see if I could get a cup of coffee from Mrs Sykes,’ he explained as if reading her thoughts, ‘when I saw you crossing the upper gallery.’
Meg frowned. ‘You followed me.’
‘I followed you.’ He nodded, his tone gentle. ‘I thought you could maybe use some company—was I wrong?’ he asked huskily.
She swallowed hard, one of her hands tightly clenched in the lace cover on her bed. ‘No, you weren’t wrong. I thought—I thought all this—’ she looked around at the beautiful feminine room ‘—I thought it would all be gone.’ She blinked back sudden tears. ‘And instead, instead I found…’ She broke off, her emotions too fragile for her to continue.
‘Instead you found that it’s been kept exactly as you left it, yes?’
Jed moved to sit on the side of the bed beside her.
‘What does it mean, Jed?’ she choked, fighting to hold back the tears, knowing she hadn’t succeeded as they fell hotly down her cheeks.
He reached up to gently smooth the tears from her cheeks. ‘I think what it means,’ he said huskily, ‘is that your mother is a very complex and emotional woman that only your father truly understands.’
Her father…That conversation she had had with him last night, when he had told her that her mother loved her. This bedroom, the way it had been kept exactly as it was, surely had to mean that was true. But then why didn’t her mother show that love. Why did she hold herself so aloof.
‘Your mother isn’t like you, Meg,’ Jed soothed at her silence. ‘Her emotions, whatever they might be, are kept firmly under control.’
Sonia claimed she wasn’t like her, either. And yet this last couple of days Meg had discovered an emotion in both of them that she hadn’t thought either was capable of. That emotion was love. Maybe they didn’t in the open, giving way that Meg did, but they did love.
As she loved Jed, she suddenly saw with startling clarity. Not could. Not would. But did.
She loved the way he looked, his sense of humour, the fun he had with Scott but at the same time gentle with him, the understanding he showed her parents, the warm way he talked of his own family. But most of all, she loved him, his forcefulness when necessary, the way he had of making problems seem trivial by making her laugh at them, his intelligence.
The way he kissed her. She groaned low in her throat as he began to do exactly that.
He felt so good, tasted so good, that at that moment nothing else seemed to matter but him.
They were hungry for each other, lips and hands seeking, receiving a response that neither of them tried to deny, Meg’s body turning to liquid fire as Jed touched her, and she knew he felt the same as she caressed the hardness of his back.
‘You’re so beautiful, Meg,’ Jed rasped as he pushed her jumper aside. ‘So small, perfect, and beautiful.’ He groaned before lowering his head to capture one roused nipple between his lips, his hands caressing her waist and thighs.
She was on fire, needing him, all of him, wanting him so much.
A need he felt too if the heat of his body was anything to go by, his body hard with wanting her, that hardness demanding against her as he moved to lie above her.
She could feel his desire, felt her own response, her fingers feverishly entangled in the darkness of his hair as her neck arched in pleasure at the feel of his lips and tongue against her sensitized flesh, a pleasure that was building inside her, crying out for release.
A release she knew impossible as she opened her eyes to look up and see the lace canopy of her bed.
Not here, this couldn’t happen here, amongst the memories of her childhood. She couldn’t.
‘Not here, Meg,’ Jed raggedly echoed her thoughts as he began to kiss her lightly, soothingly, her neck, her cheek, her eyes, her nose, and finally her lips, his hands cupping each side of her face as he looked down at her. ‘It isn’t that I don’t want you—I can hardly claim that at this moment, can I?’ he added self-derisively, his body hard with need of her. ‘I do want you, Meg, more than I would have believed possible.’ He gave a pained frown. ‘But this—this room…’ He looked around at the trophies of her childhood.
‘I feel the same way, Jed.’ She reached up to touch the heat of his cheek, her smile rueful. ‘It isn’t right for me either. Perhaps—perhaps we should just go back downstairs and forget this ever happened?’
Forget?
He very much doubted he would ever forget the feel and taste of this woman.
But he didn’t want to just make love to her for a short time, wanted days, nights, weeks with which to know her, to learn every pleasure they could give each other.
He fell back on the bed beside her, looking up at the lace canopy overhead, not knowing what to do about this woman, not knowing what to do with Meg Hamilton.
That he wanted her was in no doubt.
That she wanted him too was undeniable.
But what else did they both want? Everything? Or nothing? He couldn’t go any further with this relationship until he knew the answer to that.
And he didn’t think she could, either.
‘We’ll go downstairs.’ He nodded, turning to look at her. ‘But we won’t forget it, Meg.’ He touched one of her flushed cheeks, her eyes still dark with arousal. ‘We’ll talk later, hmm, when everyone else has gone to bed?’
She avoided meeting his gaze now. ‘If that’s what you want,’ she replied noncommittally.
Jed put a hand beneath her chin to raise her face to his. ‘We will talk, Meg,’ he told her firmly. ‘Really talk.’
He could see the slight panic in her expression he had seen earlier when she’d questioned him about his conversation with Sonia, frowning as he again wondered at the reason for it. Scott. Scott was the answer, he felt sure, but he had no idea in what way.
Or whether Meg would trust him enough, cared for him enough, to tell him.
Although none of that concern showed as they joined in the giving of presents from beneath the tree, Scott obviously enjoying his role as Father Christmas as his grandfather gave him each gift to bring in to the receiver.
This wasn’t something they did in Jed’s family, usually giving all the presents on Christmas morning. But this giving of the tr
ee presents in the evening certainly carried on the anticipation of the day.
But if Meg had moved to sit as far away from Jed as possible, avoiding meeting his gaze too whenever he chanced to look her way, which was often, then Scott was certainly enjoying himself, receiving by far the most presents, several more from his mother, a ride-on tractor and trailer from his grandparents. David’s doing, Jed felt sure as he watched the little boy’s excitement; Lydia probably didn’t have any idea of the hopes and dreams of a three-year-old boy.
Jed had even received a couple of gifts himself, a very good bottle of red wine from Sonia and Jeremy, and a first edition from David and Lydia. Again David, Jed felt sure as he warmly thanked them both.
Meg’s gifts from her family, considering the rather frosty welcome she had received yesterday, were also surprising. She received a set of expensive oils from Sonia and Jeremy, and a beautiful cashmere sweater the same colour as her eyes from her parents.
‘I took your father along to the shop for colour reference,’ her mother explained distantly as Meg thanked them.
But there was one more small gift to be delivered, Scott’s smile shy as he moved purposefully towards his grandmother.
Jed felt his own stomach muscles clench as he saw the suddenly strained look on Meg’s face, the slight movement she made with her hand, as if she would like to stop Scott, that hand dropping back to her side as she decided against it.
Jed turned quickly back to look at Lydia, willing her, whatever the gift was Scott carried, not to hurt the little boy who was her grandson.
Lydia looked confused as Scott stood in front of her holding out the gaudily covered present, obviously clumsily wrapped by his own little hands. ‘For me?’ she said huskily, obviously completely unprepared for this. ‘But I thought you and Mummy had given me a bottle of my favourite perfume?’
It was the most Lydia had spoken at one time to Scott since his arrival, and Jed could see that Meg was blinking back the tears, but the slight movement she again made to go to her son’s side, in an effort of protection, Jed felt sure, was checked by her father’s hand placed on her arm this time, David giving a slight shake of his head as Meg look up at him, his gaze firmly fixed on his wife.
Jed felt his own tension deepen, moving to stand at Meg’s other side, knowing what she was feeling, dreading; if Lydia said or did anything to hurt Scott…
He would strangle the woman himself if she did, Jed decided fiercely.
‘We did, Granma.’ Scott nodded, his smile still shy. ‘But we went to the shop and bought it; I made this for you myself.’ He still held out the gift.
Lydia swallowed hard as she reached out to accept the gift, her face very pale beneath her make-up.
And the breath of every other person in the room was cautiously held, Jed realized as he looked at them in turn, Sonia’s scarlet-tipped nails digging into Jeremy’s sweater-covered arm as she clung to him, David’s arm about Meg’s waist now as she leant weakly against him.
Jed turned sharply back to look at Lydia, ready to leap forward and scoop Scott up in his arms if this all went terribly wrong.
‘Mummy said she thought you already had one,’ Scott began to chatter as his grandmother started to upwrap the present with shaking hands. ‘But I made this at kindergarten for you. Do you like it?’ he prompted with the innocent excitement of the very young as the unwrapped paper revealed a star painted in gold.
A slightly misshapen star, obviously made with very small, inexperienced fingers. But to Jed’s eyes it was all the more beautiful for being that.
But would Lydia, a woman who never looked less than perfect herself, from her styled hair to her elegant shoes, be able to see that?
Jed felt Meg’s hand slip into his, his fingers tightening reassuringly about hers as his gaze remained on Lydia.
No one moved, no one spoke as Lydia stared down at this personal gift from her grandson, the tension slowly building in that silence.
‘It’s for the tree.’ Scott’s voice began to wobble in a little uncertainty as he received no response to his gift.
Jed looked across the top of Meg’s head at David, the other man deathly pale as he continued to look at his wife, but still he remained unmoving.
Couldn’t he see—why didn’t David do something? Anything to stop what was about to happen.
And then Lydia looked up, her face ravished with an emotion Jed had never seen there before, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.
‘It’s beautiful, Scott,’ she gasped brokenly. ‘So, so very beautiful.’ The tears were falling heavily as she slid off her chair onto the carpeted floor, taking Scott in her arms to hug him as if she would never let him go. She looked up finally, attempting to smile reassuringly at her grandson. ‘Let’s you and I go and put it on the tree right now,’ she encouraged as she stood up, the star in one hand as she reached out the other for Scott’s.
‘Can we?’ The excitement was back in Scott’s voice as he took his grandmother’s hand. ‘Can we really?’
‘Of course we can.’ His grandmother had eyes only for him as the two of them left the sitting-room together.
Jed looked quickly at Meg. There were tears on her cheeks too as she slipped beneath her father’s arm, releasing Jed’s hand to hurry after the unlikely pair.
Jed crossed the room in long strides, not sure what was going to happen next, only that it was going to be something momentous. And that he had to be there, for Meg, and for Scott, when it did.
Chapter 10
Meg came to an abrupt halt in the cavernous hallway to stand back as her mother and Scott approached the tree together.
Her mother’s tears just now had disturbed her a little. Never, in all her twenty-seven years, had she seen her mother cry, and she wasn’t sure what they meant now either, only that her mother had voluntarily touched and spoken to Scott for the first time—more than touched him; she had hugged him as if he were the most precious thing in the world!
Of course, Meg already knew that he was, she just didn’t know what to make of her mother thinking so too.
She turned slightly as she felt Jed’s presence beside her, his narrowed gaze intent on her mother and Scott as they attempted to put the star as high up the tree as Scott held in Lydia’s arms could reach.
‘Do you think I should go and—?’
‘No,’ Jed breathed softly, turning briefly to give her a reassuring smile. ‘The two of them seem to be doing just fine on their own.’
They were, yes, her mother, with Scott still in her arms, standing back now to enjoy their handiwork, both their faces raised in wonder.
The star was no less misshapen than it had been when Scott had brought it home and insisted on wrapping it several days ago, and the glitter was no more evenly spread on its tips, and yet at that moment it was the most beautiful decoration on the tree.
‘It’s beautiful, Scott,’ his grandmother told him chokingly. ‘Absolutely perfect. Thank you so much.’
Meg felt her heart squeeze tight with emotion as Scott smiled shyly at his grandmother.
This had to be all right. It just had to be.
‘What do you think, Meg? Jed?’ her mother asked without turning to look at them. ‘Doesn’t Scott’s star look absolutely wonderful on the tree?’
‘Wonderful.’ It was left to Jed to answer as the two of them strolled over to join them, Meg too stunned at her mother calling her Meg for the first time to be able to speak at all.
Even more so as her mother reached out and tightly clasped her hand. ‘What a truly lovely son you have, Meg,’ she said emotionally. ‘You must be very proud of him.’
‘We’re all proud of him,’ Meg’s father echoed smilingly as he, Sonia and Jeremy came out to join them in the hallway.
‘Oh, David,’ her mother choked tearfully.
‘My name is David too,’ Scott told them excitedly as he was gathered up into his grandfather’s arms. ‘Sometimes, if Mummy gets cross with me, she says, “Scott David Hamilton,
that was naughty!”’
The adults’ laughter at this broke the tension, much to Scott’s confusion, and Meg’s embarrassment. He hadn’t realized he had said anything funny.
‘I know, Daddy,’ Sonia said laughingly. ‘Let’s all go and sing Christmas songs off-key around the piano, like we used to.’
Meg gave her twin a surprised look; Sonia had always hated those family singsongs at Christmas. Or, at least, she had always said that she did.
‘What a wonderful idea,’ their mother, another one who had always claimed she found the singing of Christmas carols tedious, agreed warmly. ‘We’ll start with “Jingle Bells”,’ she added firmly. ‘I’m sure you know “Jingle Bells”, don’t you, Scott?’ she queried as she led the way into the music room, Meg’s father, Sonia and Jeremy following behind.
‘What is going on?’ Meg asked Jed, slightly bemused by this turn of events. And initiated by Scott giving his grandmother a gift Meg had tried to discourage him from bringing here, sure that her mother would be horrified by the imperfection that had made it all the more precious to Meg herself.
The fact that her mother seemed to feel the same way about it still stunned her.
‘I have no idea,’ Jed drawled, his hand light on her elbow as he turned her in the direction of the music room. ‘But I should just enjoy it, if I were you.’
She did, the seven of them singing Christmas songs and carols for over an hour, her father playing the piano, the rest of them standing around it as they sang. To Meg’s surprise, Jed had a rich baritone, which he put to good use.
But the embarrassment she felt every time she looked at him was still acute; they had almost made love earlier this afternoon, and it was something she just couldn’t forget.
Although Jed claimed he didn’t want her to, that the two of them would talk later. Quite what that talk was going to entail—apart from the fact that any relationship between the two of them was going to be impractical and necessarily short-lived. As Jed had already pointed out, he lived wherever the fancy took him, and she was firmly rooted in London, by her work, and Scott. No, there could be no relationship between the two of them once they left here, and, as they both already knew, there could be no relationship between them here. Impasse.
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