But Finn knew that her sartorial dullness was absolutely deliberate. After all, if her real identity was to be discovered then this was the time and place: back in her ancestral home surrounded by journalists. Not for the first time Finn wondered if he had done the right thing in bringing her back. Only this time it wasn’t his peace of mind he was worried about. It was her anonymity. After all, hadn’t he recognised her straight away?
But, then again, hadn’t he known her better than anyone?
Alex ushered forward a petite woman. ‘Can I introduce Isma Syed? Isma is the travel editor for the Daily Courant and she has a great blog as well—really inspiring and always ahead of the crowd. She’s one of Blakeley’s first guests too. She’s spending the night in the Dower House.’
‘Pleased to meet you.’ Finn smiled at Isma, whose dark eyes were bright with interest. ‘I hope you’ve enjoyed the day so far—and that the accommodation is up to your expectations?’
‘It’s very comfortable, thank you. And, yes! I wasn’t sure that a treetop trail was really my thing, but I enjoyed it far more than I expected. So, Finn, how does it feel to come home? You grew up here, didn’t you?’
It was no secret. ‘My family have lived here for generations,’ Finn agreed.
‘But not in the castle itself? Do you know how the Beaumonts feel about the gardener becoming the Lord of the Manor?’
Finn sensed rather than saw Alex stiffen beside him. ‘I haven’t had an opportunity to discuss it with them, but I hope they would be pleased to know that the castle is being looked after by someone who loves it as much as they did...someone who has an ancestral affinity for the place.’
‘Of course.’ Isma leaned forward, her voice lowered confidentially. ‘Lord Beaumont is dead and there were no male heirs. That’s why the castle was for sale in the first place. But what about Lady Beaumont and her daughter? Do you have any idea where Lola Beaumont is right now?’
Lying didn’t come easily to Finn, but he hadn’t brought Alex here to embarrass her or, worse, to expose her to the media, no matter what he had said earlier that week when persuading her to stay.
‘As far as I know Lady Beaumont is still in California. As for Lola, I haven’t heard from her for many years. So, how does the Dower House compare with other holiday cottages you’ve seen? Any suggestions on how we can improve things?’
‘Ah, you’ll have to wait for my review. I hear you’re also reviving the famous Christmas Eve party?’
Finn nodded. ‘It is a Blakeley tradition.’
‘But do you think it’s wise? After all, the last party ended with the drowning of Lord Beaumont’s mistress and that started it all...’ She raised her eyebrows in query.
Finn was very careful not to look at Alex as he answered, focusing all his charm on the journalist. ‘This is a new era at Blakeley and the party will reflect that. We are planning more of a community affair, including carols sung by the local primary school choir and a village nativity. Have you had a chance to look around the castle yet? Nearly all of it is publicly accessible now, from the servants’ quarters to the room where Elizabeth I is reputed to have had a secret liaison, and it’s all exactly as it has been for the last four hundred-odd years.’
Isma stepped forward, her phone in her hand, no doubt ready to record, her expression avid. ‘Of course Blakeley is famous for its liaisons. When you lived here before did people know about what went on at the parties the Beaumonts held? The wife-swapping, the orgies, the drugs? The mountain of debt their lifestyle was built on? I mean, you were right here. You must have seen things? Heard things? What about Lola? You were around the same age. Did she ever pull a Lady Chatterley with the staff?’
Finn tensed. Great. The travel reporter was hot on the scent and Finn couldn’t blame her. The drowning of a pop star’s model wife at one of the most famous events in the social calendar had been the scandal of the year ten years ago.
The Blakely Christmas Eve party had always been filled with an eclectic mix of aristocracy, minor royalty, actors and musicians, a mecca for the rich, beautiful and cool. When it had been revealed that the dead woman was Lord Beaumont’s lover—and that his own wife had been having an affair with the much younger pop star—the scandal had blown sky-high. Stories of years of excess had circulated, and at some point Lord Beaumont’s debts had surfaced. Facing ruin, he had shot himself, and his wife had fled to LA with her lover, leaving her daughter alone to deal with the debts, with the press, with the scandal.
At that point Lola might have turned things round. She had been young, beautiful, and making a name for herself as a model, an It Girl. If she’d wanted to she could have ridden out the storm and kept her influential friends, her endorsements and her contracts. But then the photos had surfaced. Photos of her at that very same Christmas Eve party on her eighteenth birthday. Photos not meant for the public to see.
Photos for Finn’s eyes only.
It was strange how she had been able to pose in a barely-there bikini, her almost nude body up on a billboard, and nobody had blinked. That was fashion. But private photos, in which she exposed more or less the same amount of skin, were salacious just because of their private nature.
And they’d been everywhere. Front pages, comedy panel shows, opinion pieces. The sins of her parents had been put squarely on her shoulders. She had become a symbol of everything that was wrong in a world that at the time had been facing a recession. The Beaumonts’ excessive consumption had been held up as an example of a world that needed fixing.
Still she might have stayed and fought. If it hadn’t been for the fact that only one person had had access to those photos.
Finn.
He glanced across at Alex, standing by the journalist’s side, her face absolutely impervious, as if none of the things the journalist had said affected her at all. As if she really was someone completely different not just in name but in every way. Someone so closed down there was no knowing what, if anything, she was thinking. It was as if she was sleepwalking through life.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t really take much notice of anything that happened in the castle. Too busy focusing on my future.’
His smile was tight as Alex turned to the journalist, as ever the consummate professional. Did none of this affect her at all? But then she hadn’t asked to be put into this position. He had put her there. How could he judge her for the way she handled it?
‘Isma, can I introduce you to Desiree?’ Alex was saying. ‘She’s got over two hundred and fifty thousand Instagram followers and is thinking about writing a book about her love of travel. I said that you were absolutely the person to speak to. Your book about your year travelling solo was my favourite read last year...it was so inspirational. Thank you, Finn.’
And with a polite but firm smile Alex steered Isma away.
Finn took a glass of Prosecco from the table next to him and drank it down in one long gulp, closing his eyes briefly. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Alex about the photos, to make the explanation he should have forced her to listen to back then. At the time he’d been so angry and hurt that she’d believed him capable of such betrayal he hadn’t been able to see how devastated she was, unable to see the wood for the trees as her world collapsed around her. Everyone and everything she had known was a lie. No wonder she’d thought him a lie as well.
It was too late to repair the damage. But it wasn’t too late to tell her the truth.
Finn watched Alex as she introduced Isma to a striking young woman dressed in an eye-catching jumpsuit. The two women immediately fell into animated conversation and Alex stepped back, her clear gaze sweeping the room, making sure everyone was having a good time, talking to the right people, looking for anything that might need to be explained or contained.
Her disguise was completely effective. No one spared her a second glance.
It wasn’t the glasses. They couldn’t hide her
long lashes or her large grey eyes with their provocative tilt, as if she was smiling at a joke only she could see. The severe bun couldn’t disguise the glossiness of her hair, and her tall, lean curves weren’t diminished by the unflattering cut and colour of her suit.
No, her beauty was as stunning as it had ever been, and no amount of stereotyped frumpy clothes could change that. It was inside. She was switched off. There was no vibrancy lighting her, no animation, and that was why she could slip through the crowds unseen.
But Finn saw her. He always had.
* * *
Alex inhaled as she looked around. Everything was in order. The ballroom was festively decorated, with fairy lights strung around the panelling, and a large Christmas tree dominated the far corner, tastefully blazing with white and silver lights, wrapped presents clustered at the bottom. So the presents were empty boxes? It didn’t matter. This evening, like all this kind of occasion, was an illusion. The journalists, influencers and assembled celebrities were there to be charmed and to spread the word: Blakeley Castle was open once again.
Of course conversation turned again and again to the last owners. Who were Elizabeth I or Charles II or Beau Brummel compared to the disgraced Viscount and his family? But no one gossiping about the events of ten years ago really thought about the cost—about the two people who had died, about the families torn apart. The Blakeley scandal was like something out of a novel, not real life.
Only she knew all too well just how real it had been. No one else could ever know or understand what it had been like in the centre of that hurricane, with her life whirling more and more out of control, everyone wanting a piece of her.
Alex shivered, aware that she was being watched, Looking up, she saw Finn’s dark gaze fixed unwaveringly on her. As if he saw her, not the woman she had worked so hard to be but the girl she had left behind her. That needy creature who had thought beauty and praise worth having, who hadn’t understood how fleeting and insubstantial they were.
How dared he look at her that way? He had lost the right to see her the day he had betrayed her. What game was he playing anyway? How had he tracked her down? And how could she trust him not to betray her again?
The room was too hot, too busy. She needed to regroup. Slipping out of a side door, she let her feet lead her unerringly through the maze of corridors, up the stairs, until she reached the long picture gallery, still hung with portraits of her ancestors.
Alex stood in the cool, dim light and looked around. Thank goodness that oligarch had bought the castle complete with all its contents—she would have hated for the pictures to have been sold off and separated, to hang in museums and private collections, even though the money raised would have been enough to pay off her father’s debts and give her a nest egg to rebuild her life.
The gallery had been included in the tour of the house laid on for the party guests, and she had stood here in this room several times already today, but she hadn’t allowed herself to look up, to be distracted, to remember how she’d used to come here and chat to her favourite pictures. Now, alone, she walked slowly from picture to picture. There was the Gainsborough, the Reynolds, the Holbein... Every ancestor had the same smile, the same sleepy cat eyes she herself had inherited, the same pointed chin.
‘Hi,’ she whispered softly to the spaniel hiding in one lady’s skirts. ‘Sorry I haven’t been to visit for a while. Hello, handsome.’ She reached a hand up to a grey horse, not quite touching it. As a child these painted animals had been her confidants and playmates. These animals—and Finn.
She wandered slowly up the long panelled gallery, reuniting with old friends, stopping to say hello to her favourites until she reached the end, where she stilled, barely breathing, her heart squeezing in on itself until her whole chest ached.
The huge painting of a nude with long red hair and a slanting smile dominated the room. Some had called her the most beautiful woman in the world. She could have married royalty or wealth, a Hollywood star or a business king, but she had chosen a boy with a minor title and a castle, and she had reigned over that castle with whimsical tyranny.
Alex stared up at the painting, at the creamy skin, the curve of perfect pert breasts, the come-hither glance in green, green eyes. ‘Hi, Mum,’ she said.
The portrait stared impassively back. No different from its sitter. Alex could count on one hand the conversations she had had with her mother since that last tragic Christmas Eve.
After breaking up with her pop star lover, the former Lady Beaumont had married an actor some years her senior. They now lived on a ranch with their two children, where her mother ran an online health and wellbeing empire. A disgraced daughter who was a living reminder of a past much better left behind didn’t fit with the brand she’d so painstakingly built up.
Occasionally, very occasionally, Alex would scroll through her social media feed, full of nutritious homemade food and yoga poses, outdoor living and glowing, laughing children, and search for clues. Were her unknown half-siblings really happy, or did they too spend their lives waiting for a nod or a smile, desperately trying to please their capricious beautiful mother? Trying to be the perfect child and always, always falling short?
She didn’t really want an answer. She would hate for them to be raised the way she had been, but on the other hand, if her mother genuinely loved her new family, did that mean there was something wrong with Alex? That she was fundamentally unlovable?
History tended to bear that assumption out.
Swallowing, she turned her back on her mother, smothering a gasp as she saw two white figures at the far end of the gallery. ‘Saffron! Scarlett, you startled me,’ she said, half laughing with nerves. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in bed? You must be freezing,’ she added as she took in their bare feet and thin white pyjamas.
‘Not as cold as that lady.’ Scarlett giggled as she pointed at the portrait of Alex’s mother.
‘True. At least you’re wearing some clothes.’ Alex managed to keep a straight face.
‘Who is she? Is she a princess? And why isn’t she wearing any clothes?’
‘Not a princess, but she used to be married to someone who lived here. It’s considered artistic to paint people without clothes, for some reason, and she was a very famous beauty.’
‘I think she looks mean,’ Saffron said suddenly. ‘Like a wicked witch or a bad godmother who casts an evil spell.’
Alex swivelled to look back at the portrait, at the sensuous look in the famously hooded eyes, the knowing expression. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘I suppose she does.’
‘Alex, Alex, come and look at your picture!’
Before Alex could make her excuses and head back to the ballroom, Scarlett had run up to slip one small, cold hand in hers and begun to tug her towards the small antechamber where the castle’s prized collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings hung.
‘Quickly,’ she agreed. ‘But then straight back to bed. It’s far too cold—and late—for you two to be running around the castle.’
Hypocrite, she told herself. As if she hadn’t spent many nights roaming the castle when other children her age had been fast asleep. But she would have loved someone to scoop her up and order her back to bed. Freedom palled when it was mixed with indifference.
‘Will you read us a story?’ Scarlett asked.
Alex looked down at the small heart-shaped face and the pleading expression in her dark eyes. She didn’t know any children, and rarely needed to interact with them. Amber loved nothing more than organising a child’s party or entertaining their younger clients, but Alex never knew what to say to them...how to be.
‘I really need to get back and do my job,’ she said.
‘Don’t be silly, Scarlett. Alex is far too busy to bother with us.’
There was a resigned loneliness in Saffron’s sneer, one Alex recognised all too well.
‘Let me check for m
essages,’ she said. ‘If no one has tried to contact me then one story. Okay?’
For once her phone showed no urgent messages or red-flagged emails.
‘One short story,’ she warned them. ‘Before I’m missed.’
‘Picture first,’ Scarlett said.
Alex allowed herself to be towed into the dimly lit room where the Beaumont collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings was displayed. She couldn’t help but gasp in recognition as she looked at the jewel-like colours on the six perfectly displayed paintings. They weren’t the best known, or the most critically well regarded, but it didn’t matter because they were all set here at Blakeley.
The nymph in the lake eying up a young Narcissus was standing in Blakeley water. The goddess hiding from Actaeon’s gaze stood in the woods Alex had walked through today on her way to the office. And the sleeping maiden, her hair falling to the floor, her nightgown dipping below one perfect white breast, a rose in her hand, slumbered in Alex’s old bedchamber, on the Victorian bedstead where she had once slept.
‘See, she looks like you,’ Scarlett said triumphantly.
Saffron nodded. ‘She does. If you weren’t wearing glasses and if you grew your hair really long.’
‘And I wore a see-through nightie and forgot to do it up properly? Sorry, girls. I’m a more of a scrunched-up ponytail and yoga pants kind of nightwear person.’
To her surprise both girls laughed at her weak attempt at humour, and the bell-like sound echoed off the panelled walls, warming the frigid air.
‘Come on,’ she said, taking Scarlett’s hand and touching Saffron’s shoulder. ‘If you want me to read a story before I have to go back to the party—and before you both turn into blocks of ice—then we need to get you back to bed.’
Reawakened by His Christmas Kiss Page 6