Then Aiden stepped forward, holding a sparkling glass star. ‘Room for one more?’
My breath caught in my chest. I recognised that star.
That was the star that had sat at the top of my tiny plastic tree in my uni flat. The star Mum had sent me in a care package that December, not that she was likely to remember. The star that had been missing from the tree when I returned to the flat on New Year’s Day afternoon. Well. At least I knew where it went, now.
But I knew more than that. I knew that, however mad he still was at me, Aiden was still as haunted by that Christmas we’d spent together as I was.
‘Always,’ Isabelle said, smiling. Aiden reached out to hang my star on one of the lower branches, but Isabelle grabbed his arm and lifted it higher, directing him to one of the more prominent branches.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘You want to show it off.’
Aiden didn’t look so sure, and the look he cast me made me think that maybe he was regretting even bringing the damn thing. He must have known I’d be here, I realised. Must have planned, and brought that star because of it. Because we still had unfinished business – and this Christmas was our chance to finish it, at last.
I just wished that thought didn’t fill me with such dread.
Following Aiden’s look, Isabelle turned to me. ‘Now, Freya! I’m sorry, we haven’t been properly introduced, and I’m sure Edward hasn’t managed to even tell you everyone’s names yet. I’m Isabelle. Saskia’s grandmother.’
I resisted the urge to say I know. I recognise you from all the photos in the Rosewood Journals. I had a feeling that wasn’t the best way to start our acquaintance, given what the journals had to say about Isabelle’s earlier life, and her marriage to Nathaniel.
Frankly, I considered it a miracle that any of the family were still speaking to each other, given all the truths that had emerged in the writing of that book.
Isabelle went around the room, introducing me to the assembled company: Sally and Tony, Saskia’s parents – her dressed in a vibrant green and gold floaty top over leggings, and him in a Santa’s elf apron; Aunt Therese, looking like a throwback to 1953 with pinned hair and a nipped-in waist; and Saskia’s sisters, Caro and Ellie, and her brother-in-law Greg. Caro must be around Max’s age, I thought. There hadn’t been much detail about her in the Journals, probably to protect her privacy in future life.
Ellie was a study in opposites from her sisters – pale and blonde where Saskia and Caro were brunette. Greg held their baby girl, Nicolette, up in his arms so she could watch the lights on the tree. She must be around eight months, if I remembered what Edward had told me correctly.
He’d been so excited about the baby. I’d bet money it wouldn’t be long before he and Saskia followed suit.
All in all, it was a festive and happy family gathering – far removed from the scandal and secrets I’d read in the Journals. But even then, the love they’d all felt for each other had come through in the text. A tribute to Edward and Saskia’s hard work and talent, I supposed.
‘And of course, Edward tells us you already know Aiden,’ Isabelle finished, and I smiled tightly.
‘It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, but yes. We’ve met.’
‘Met.’ Such a small, insignificant word for what had passed between Aiden and I. But it would have to do.
‘I’m relishing the opportunity to catch up,’ Aiden said, his gaze locked with mine. His bright blue eyes were steady, but there was a glint in them. A promise of something.
Or maybe a threat.
Aiden, I suspected, wasn’t going to let me leave Rosewood without answering some questions – questions he’d been waiting fourteen years to ask.
Therese clapped her hands together. ‘Time for cocktails!’
Thank God. I needed a drink.
Mostly because I had a very strong feeling that Aiden wasn’t done with me yet.
Chapter Three
The whole group moved through to the drawing room, with the exception of Tony, who headed for the kitchen muttering something about checking on the dinner. I caught up with Mum as we made our way down a long hallway, whispering so as not to be overheard.
‘You doing okay?’
Mum’s eyebrows jumped up in surprise. ‘Of course! Everyone has been lovely. Really, though, Freya. You should have brought some of your decorations. Max would have liked a piece of home here this week.’
I winced, guilt welling up. ‘Bad memories,’ I lied. It sounded better than No sentimental attachment to any remains of my marriage. Even if I didn’t, Max did – it was his family, his whole existence we were dissolving. I had to find a way to make this Christmas special for Max. I peered through a window as we passed. Still snowing. Good. Making a mental note to ask Tony if he had the makings of hot chocolate in the kitchen, I tried to reassure myself that Max was fine. ‘Max seems to be having a good time, though. He’s certainly made friends with Caroline fast enough.’
Up ahead, Caro and Max snuck off down a side passage, proving my point. I felt the pressure of the guilt in my chest ease ever so slightly.
‘Where are you two going?’ Edward called after them.
‘The middle room,’ Caro yelled back over her shoulder. ‘Max wants to see that Spontaneous Human Combustion documentary I TiVo-ed.’
Of course he did. Max had an unholy interest in the paranormal and horror stories – both reading and writing them. Which probably explained why he was so fascinated by the forbidden lure of Aiden’s dark and violent crime novels. Max’s lovely, sweet English teacher, Miss Yates, would be thrilled, I was sure, when Max went back to school after Christmas with a short story all about spontaneous human combustion to show her.
Mum gave me a black look, and I knew that Max’s sudden interest in human burnings was entirely the fault of my failed marriage, as far as she was concerned.
I was pretty sure Mum didn’t actually blame me for Darren’s affair and subsequent desertion. But I knew she believed I was the only person who could possibly have stopped it.
And I hadn’t. In fact, I’d done the exact opposite. Although, if she asked, I’d given it everything I could, of course.
‘Right, now who wants to try a Mistletoe Mojito and who would rather a Santa On The Beach?’ Isabelle asked, as Therese opened the drinks cabinet.
‘Does the mojito have actual mistletoe in it?’ Saskia asked, frowning. ‘Only it’s kind of poisonous…’
Therese rolled her eyes. ‘It’s a name darling, that’s all. Seasonal, you know.’
‘So, what do you make of them?’ Aiden’s voice, detached and emotionless behind me, made me flinch. He spoke as though we were observing characters in a play, not real people.
‘Why?’ I asked, turning to face him. ‘Are you planning on writing a crime novel set at Rosewood?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I meant, are they as you expected from the book?’
Oh. Right. ‘They’re all lovely,’ I said, evenly. ‘And I didn’t have any expectations.’
‘Of course you did,’ Aiden replied. ‘Everyone does. It’s part of what makes them so extraordinary.’
‘You seem to have settled in here very well,’ I pointed out. ‘You’ve been here, what, six months, you said? So you’ve had far more time to observe them. What do you make of them?’
Aiden gave me a strange half-smile. ‘Time isn’t everything.’
‘And that isn’t an answer,’ I snapped back, not wanting to hear what he meant by that comment. My brain was already supplying its own explanations. Answers that had to do with how two weeks of one Christmas holiday could still be confusing my life fourteen years later.
‘Ask me again after a couple of Santas on the Beach,’ he said. ‘Which one are you going to try?’
‘Um, neither?’ I’d stopped being a fan of interesting cocktails after a very unfortunate hen party about a decade earlier. ‘Think I can ask for a G&T?’
‘Leave it with me. I already promised I’d fe
tch Caro and Max soft drinks, anyway.’
‘You’ve been talking to Max?’ The words were out before I could stop them.
Aiden paused, looking at me with wary, waiting eyes. ‘Are you about to give me a warning to stay away from your son?’ I could just make out the restrained anger in his voice.
Ever since I arrived, I’d known that Aiden was holding back, covering his frustration and anger with a veneer of civility for the sake of our hosts. I wondered how long he’d be able to keep it up.
‘No,’ I said, as evenly as I could manage. ‘It’s just… Max wants to be a writer one day. And he’s been nagging me about being old enough to read your books for months now.’
Aiden’s eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘He isn’t.’
‘That’s what I keep telling him.’
‘Right.’ There was something new in Aiden’s gaze now. Curiosity, mingling with the earlier emotions. ‘I’d better go get the drinks.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, wondering if that curiosity was a good thing or a bad thing. I was sure I’d find out before Boxing Day, either way.
He sloped off past the group clustered around the drinks cabinet, and disappeared out of a second door, into another hallway. I had no idea where it led, having missed the guided tour earlier, but Aiden obviously did. I hadn’t been kidding when I said he seemed at home at Rosewood.
Which made me wonder again: why had he been hiding out at Rosewood for six months?
His words from earlier that day came back to me – about how Rosewood was a place of secrets. What secrets – or truths – was he hiding from? And why did I care, after all this time?
The last I couldn’t answer. Except to say that I did.
‘Where did Aiden go?’ Saskia looked around me as if I might be hiding him somewhere, then gestured to the cocktail glass in her hand. ‘I have his Mistletoe Mojito here.’
‘I think he went to find me something less… festive to drink. Sorry.’
Saskia’s expression slipped into an easy smile. ‘Totally understood. Although, actually, the Santas on the Beach aren’t too bad. As long as you ignore the rather disturbing connotation.’
I winced. ‘I’d been trying hard to do that, thanks.’
Saskia eyed me, and I waited for the inevitable question, already formulating my answer in my mind. ‘So, you and Aiden knew each other at uni?’
I shrugged casually. ‘We met in my last year.’ We spent two glorious weeks together. ‘We were both stuck there alone over Christmas, so Edward suggested he look me up.’
‘And?’ Saskia asked. ‘What, you spent Christmas with him then never saw him again?’ That was a leading question if ever I’d heard one. I studied Saskia a little closer, looking for a sign that Aiden had told her about our fling, but her expression was open and guileless.
I hedged my bets. ‘Basically.’ Even if she knew, I really didn’t want to talk about it in a room full of our combined families.
Saskia frowned. ‘Why? I mean, Aiden’s a nice guy, and a good friend to have. You didn’t stay in touch, even though you were both at the same university? Didn’t you both even study the same subject?’
‘He was my little brother’s friend. I was working on my dissertation, spending time with my boyfriend. He, I imagine, was out seducing freshers. We really didn’t have very much in common.’
It was true, as far as it went. It just wasn’t the whole story.
‘I suppose,’ Saskia said, but she still sounded doubtful. ‘Still, it’s been lovely having him stay here. Caro adores him, of course, and so does Therese, come to that. We kind of needed a breath of fresh air here, lately. But…’ she trailed off, and I frowned. What was I missing here?
‘But?’ I prompted.
‘I think… and so does Edward, actually, that it’s time for Aiden to move on. Not because we don’t want him here, but because… well, honestly, I think he’s hiding here.’
Hiding from what? I wanted to ask. But instead, I said, ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because Rosewood is a great place to hide from your troubles, and I’m not saying we haven’t all taken refuge here from time to time. But Aiden has too much else to be doing to wallow too long.’
Which didn’t answer the question I was asking at all. ‘No, I meant, why are you telling me?’ Because if she knew our history, she had to know I was the last person he’d talk to about his feelings, right? Unless she knew something I didn’t.
Saskia gave me a small half-smile. ‘Because I saw the way he looked at you when you walked in this morning. And I know that look. If anyone could tempt him out of hiding, I think it might be you.’
And with that, she handed me Aiden’s Mistletoe Mojito and left, crossing the room to where Edward and Ellie were chatting. Leaving me wondering exactly what Aiden had been saying about me since he arrived at Rosewood – or if he’d said anything at all. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe our secret was still a secret after all.
I observed Saskia and Edward from across the room, watching as she joined the conversation easily, wrapping an arm around my brother’s waist and resting her head against his shoulder.
Something inside my heart twinged. I missed that easy connection with another person. I hadn’t felt it with Darren in years. In fact, I could barely remember having it with him at all. But part of me couldn’t help but remember another time I’d experienced it. That feeling of just needing to touch another person, the way someone’s arm around my shoulders felt natural and right, and his hand in mine… just the way things were meant to be.
Then I looked away, and saw Aiden walking towards me, a gin and tonic with a slice of lime in his hand. He smiled, almost a real smile this time, and a warm feeling settled over me again until I remembered Saskia’s words.
What are you hiding from, Aiden Waites?
But before I got a chance to ask him, Tony appeared in the doorway, still wearing his apron, and announced, ‘Dinner is served!’
***
Christmas Eve dinner was served in the main dining room, all decked out with candles and greenery and berries laid out along the table. Silver bells had been tied to the back of every chair, along with a sprig of mistletoe, and on the table, miniature silver stags held menus between their horns.
‘Ellie likes to decorate,’ Aiden said, as he slipped into the chair beside me. ‘Also, we have to sit boy-girl at these things. Isabelle insists.’
‘Sounds formal,’ I replied. ‘Also impossible – there are far more women than men here.’ Was he just making excuses for sitting beside me? If so, that probably meant he had an ulterior motive – all those questions I’d seen in his eyes earlier. The ones I didn’t want to answer.
Across the table, Max and Caro were sitting with their heads together over some old book. I caught his eye long enough to mouth ‘you okay?’ to him. His only response was a roll of the eyes before he went back to ignoring me, sneaking a glance at Aiden in passing. I took that to mean he was fine, knowing that his interest in Aiden had very little to do with his connection to me, and a lot to do with his bestseller status and gruesome books.
‘We just have to make the effort, to keep Isabelle’s sense of propriety happy. You get used to it,’ Aiden said with a shrug, and it took me a moment to realise he was still talking about Rosewood, not my pre-teen son’s attitude.
‘You seem pretty comfortable here,’ I said, thinking about my conversation with Saskia earlier. ‘No plans to leave?’
Aiden gave me a lopsided smile. ‘Why would I? The food’s great, there are cocktails on tap, no one minds when I disappear to write for days on end, and the company’s not bad either. It’s every writer’s dream.’
I thought it more likely that most writers just dreamt of being half as successful as Aiden was, but I didn’t say anything.
‘So what brought you here in the first place?’ I asked instead.
‘Edward, mostly,’ Aiden replied. ‘I mean, he called and invited me.’
No indication as to why, I reali
sed. Saskia was right. He was hiding from something at Rosewood. But what?
‘He just called you up one day out of the blue and suggested you move to Rosewood?’ I raised my eyebrows at the suggestion. ‘Sounds unlikely.’
Aiden was spared answering for a moment or two as the starters were served – scallops with chorizo and watercress – and Tony waited for us all to murmur our appreciation before sitting down to eat his.
‘So?’ I pressed, when it seemed like Aiden had forgotten my question.
Sighing, he put down his fork and finished chewing his scallop. ‘I think he thought I could use a break,’ he said, finally. ‘Things in London had grown a little… intense.’
It was still strange to think of him still living in the same city as me for all those years, and our paths never crossing. Of course, I knew it was perfectly possible – in a city as big as London, it was easy to hide.
And yet Aiden had come all the way to Rosewood to do that instead.
‘Intense how?’
He shrugged. ‘You know. Work. Deadlines. Reviews.’ My eyes narrowed. He’d been dealing with all of those things for years. So why now? Then he went on, ‘Relationships.’
Ah, there we had it. ‘Bad break-up?’ I guessed. ‘Been there.’ Was still there, really, dealing with all the rubbish that came with it.
‘Not exactly.’ His gaze slid away from mine, and I knew there was something more to it.
‘Tell me.’ As the words came out, I heard the echo of them in my memory – in his voice, not mine. The way he’d leaned across the table between us that first night, in my grotty student flat, and taken my hand, warm and familiar even though I’d barely known him two hours, and just said, tell me. And I had.
I’d told him everything. Everything I hadn’t been able to confess to my family.
How Darren had suddenly decided that he wasn’t sure that this – that I – was what he wanted. That he wasn’t ready to settle down at twenty-one, and that’s where we were headed. So he’d dumped me, unceremoniously, a month before Christmas, when we were supposed to be spending it together at my flat in Lancaster.
Christmas at Rosewood Page 3