Newborn Under the Christmas Tree

by Sophie Pembroke

  ‘Just not at Thornwood Castle.’

  ‘Right.’

  Alice leant back in her chair, still eyeing him suspiciously. ‘So, let me check I’ve got this straight. You’re going to turf us out of the castle into some other outbuilding on the estate, probably without heating or running water, and let us muddle through as best we can until we give up and leave you alone with your castle and your plans.’

  Liam took a deep breath and tried to sound patient. ‘No. I’m going to relocate you and your groups to a suitable building somewhere else on the estate. I’ll also continue to pay your salary and give you an agreed amount of funding for your work every month.’

  ‘There are no suitable buildings on the estate,’ she said, wilfully ignoring his generous financial offer.

  ‘I don’t have to keep you here, you realise. There’s nothing in the will about it.’ At least, as far as he knew. He hadn’t actually got all the final details yet. But if he could get Alice to agree to his terms he was pretty sure they wouldn’t matter anyway.

  ‘Then why are you?’ Always so suspicious.

  ‘Because you’re right—you are doing good work here. And I respect that. I... My mother and I had to run to a women’s refuge once. We left in the middle of the night, taking nothing with us. We had no money, no support, nothing—and they helped us. If we’d had somewhere like Thornwood, maybe we’d have been able to prepare better, or get out sooner, before it got so...bad. But regardless, I’m not about to kick all the women you help out into the street.’

  ‘And that’s very laudable,’ Alice said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. ‘But it doesn’t change the fact that there are no suitable buildings on the estate. So there’s nowhere for you to move us to.’

  ‘Nothing at all?’ Liam raised his eyebrows. ‘I find that hard to believe on an estate this size.’ In fact, he knew different. He’d found at least six possible sites on just one afternoon’s walk around the grounds.

  Alice waved a hand, dismissing his objections. ‘Just some broken-down old barns and the odd decrepit cottage.’

  Liam settled back with a satisfied smile spreading on his lips. ‘There you go, then.’

  ‘You’re going to throw these women out into draughty, falling-down buildings more suitable for housing animals?’ The outrage on her face was almost comical. Liam resisted the urge to laugh at her, purely because he needed her on his side.

  Which meant explaining. He hated explaining himself.

  ‘Did you, at any point after you discovered that I would be inheriting Thornwood Castle, do any research into me and, say, my career?’

  Alice blinked, the anger fading from her expression in the instant her eyes were closed. ‘You plan to renovate a barn for us to use?’

  Huh. Less explanation required than he’d expected. That was a good sign. Someone who could follow his train of thought without him having to sound out every single syllable was someone he might just be able to work with.

  ‘If that turns out to be the best option, yes.’ Pushing his chair away from the table, Liam got to his feet and paced the length of the table. He always thought better on his feet and, to be honest, he hadn’t had the time to think the details of his idea all the way through just yet. ‘I’m going to be having a lot of work done around the estate anyway, so adding one more building won’t affect anything too much. I’m sure you have ideas about exactly what you require—’ He glanced at Alice for agreement and she nodded firmly. ‘So we take a look around together, find a suitable place, fix it up and move you in.’

  ‘That easy, huh?’ Alice still looked sceptical.

  Liam shrugged. ‘I don’t see why not.’ It wasn’t as if he hadn’t turned around bigger projects in record time. A building for a group of women to meet and knit and talk in...how hard could that be?

  * * *

  It couldn’t be that easy. It never was, in Alice’s experience.

  ‘And what, exactly, are you expecting in return?’ she asked.

  Liam raised his eyebrows, gripping the back of his chair as he looked down at her, his bow tie hanging loose around his neck. He looked like a libertine from the twenties, ready for late-night cocktails, and it was incredibly distracting. Alice resisted the urge to stand up, to make them more equal again. This was a negotiation. She couldn’t let him know he had her rattled, or that he’d gained the upper hand in any way. Even if it was just by being unfairly good-looking.

  But the truth was, she’d been blindsided. She’d expected to fight for the survival of her women’s groups. She’d expected to have to argue for the right to stay, to continue her work. And she’d certainly expected Liam to drive a hard bargain.

  Instead, he seemed to be offering her exactly what she needed—a purpose-built building for her groups, perhaps even with proper heating. And so far he hadn’t asked for anything in return.

  No doubt about it, there had to be a catch.

  ‘In return?’ Liam asked. ‘I get Thornwood Castle back. What more could I want?’

  No, that definitely sounded too innocent. ‘That’s what I want to know.’

  He flashed her a wolfish smile. ‘So suspicious.’

  ‘With good reason.’ Reasons she didn’t plan on sharing with him. ‘So why don’t you tell me exactly what you’re planning here at Thornwood?’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Throwing up his hands in defeat, Liam took his seat again. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘You mentioned building works. Are you planning on knocking the whole place down and starting again?’ It was a joke, mostly. But the more she thought about it, the more nervous the idea made her.

  Liam laughed. ‘No. Even I have more respect for the old place than that. But I do want to make some changes.’

  ‘Like a roof that doesn’t leak? Maybe even some working heating?’ Those were the sort of changes Alice could get behind.

  ‘Definitely those. But also some bigger changes to the grounds and accommodation here.’

  ‘Like?’

  Liam’s expression turned serious again. ‘I want to make Thornwood accessible to the wider world for the first time.’

  ‘I’m not exactly keeping people out of here, you realise.’ Thornwood had already thrown open its doors. It didn’t need whatever grand gesture Liam had planned.

  ‘Yeah. But your people...’ He trailed off, and Alice made the leap to the obvious conclusion.

  ‘The women and children I help aren’t going to make you rich.’ Of course it came down to money. Didn’t it always with people like him?

  ‘I want Thornwood to be self-sustaining,’ Liam countered. ‘And that means it needs to earn money from the people visiting it.’

  He made it sound perfectly reasonable, but Alice knew what it meant. ‘You mean you’re going to turn Thornwood into the sort of tourist attraction your aunt would have hated,’ she said bluntly.

  ‘Basically.’ Liam smiled unapologetically. ‘I kind of imagine my ancestors rolling in their graves.’

  ‘And you like that? That you’re disrupting centuries of tradition here, going against what Rose would have wanted?’

  Just like that, all of Liam’s laid-back charm disappeared. ‘Rose didn’t want to leave me Thornwood in the first place, so don’t pretend that she did. She said she wanted me to make it my home at last. Well, fine. This is what I want my home to be.’

  ‘Really?’ Somehow Alice found that hard to believe. ‘Is that what home is to you? Complete strangers trampling through it all the time, gawking?’

  ‘Isn’t that what you’ve done? Opened my home to strangers?’

  ‘It’s different, and you know it,’ Alice snapped. She frowned. Something in his words was niggling at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  Liam sighed. ‘Look, I’m offering you a good deal
here. I’ll even let you help choose the location—’

  ‘So generous,’ Alice murmured, still running his past sentences through her brain again.

  ‘And we can have you set up somewhere else on the estate early in the spring, if things go well, and whatever renovations we decide on don’t require planning permission.’

  The spring. Alice looked up sharply. ‘That long?’

  ‘It’s December, Alice. I’m good, but I’m not a miracle-worker. I’d say we’re looking at February at the earliest, and that’s only if we can agree on a location quickly—preferably one in decent condition.’ He frowned. ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘I just... I hadn’t planned on staying that long.’ She’d been putting off thinking about it, but she’d already stayed longer at Thornwood than anywhere since she’d left Robert. She’d sworn then that she wouldn’t let herself get tied down like that again—wouldn’t risk being trapped that way. Thornwood had always seemed a safe place, especially with Rose there, and she’d been doing good work. It had been easy to get sucked into that comfortable, secure feeling again.

  But Alice knew that sort of security was only ever an illusion. Liam Jenkins’s arrival had only made that clearer.

  Maybe it was time to go.

  ‘You hadn’t... You’re not staying?’ Liam’s eyebrows rose up in surprise. ‘Then why am I working this hard to save a scheme you don’t even care enough about to hang around and run?’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t care,’ Alice said, fast. ‘I do. Very much. This...what I’ve set up here, it’s important. It’s one of the best things I’ve done in my life.’

  ‘Then why go?’

  ‘It’s just...time.’ She felt awkward just saying it, letting him see that it mattered to her.

  But the way Liam surveyed her across the table, she got the feeling he might just possibly understand.

  And then, finally, the words he’d spoken that had been stuck in the back of her mind made their way to the front.

  ‘She said she wanted me to make it my home at last.’

  At last.

  Which made it sound as if he’d refused to make Thornwood home in the past, while Rose was alive. But why?

  If she didn’t stick around, she’d never know. And, more importantly, she’d lose any power she had to make sure that Liam continued the work she’d started the way he’d promised—with a new building and plenty of financial support. She couldn’t leave until she was sure that the women she was leaving behind were safe.

  She forced a smile. ‘It’s fine. I’m happy to stay—at least until everything here is settled.’

  ‘So you’ll move your group to whatever building I find for you?’

  Nice try. ‘No. So I’ll stay and help you find the perfect place for my groups, somewhere even better than Thornwood Castle, and get them settled in. And then I’ll leave.’

  ‘The perfect place?’

  ‘Well, of course.’

  Liam sighed. ‘In that case, we’d better get started. In my experience, perfection is pretty hard to come by.’

  Alice didn’t smile. She knew that better than most people.

  * * *

  She was leaving anyway. If he’d just held out, she might have agreed to leave without the promise of a new venue for her groups. And then he could have...what, exactly? Kicked a load of needy women and children out on the streets? Or, worse, back to abusive homes?

  No, he couldn’t have done that. He knew too well how it felt to have nowhere to go. Nowhere that felt safe. Nowhere to call home.

  And now he had Thornwood. Which felt neither safe nor homely, but at least had the benefit of being potentially lucrative.

  Once he’d turfed out the current inhabitants, of course.

  Standing, he held a hand out across the table to Alice. ‘So, we have a deal?’

  She took it, her grip firmer than he expected from her pale face and slender form. ‘We do.’

  ‘Good.’ He scanned her eyes, looking for any hint of emotion—doubt or fear or anything, but there was nothing there. Nothing at all.

  He knew that expression. He’d practised it himself.

  What was Alice Walters hiding? He suspected he might never know her full story, but he could guess a little of it right now. This wasn’t just a job to Alice; this was personal.

  Someone, some time, had put Alice in the same position as some of these women.

  The thought made him irrationally angry, and his jaw clenched tight.

  ‘Um, can I have my hand back now?’ Alice tilted her head to the side as she asked, obviously surveying him the same way he had her.

  He wondered what she saw. Then he decided he probably didn’t want to know.

  ‘Of course.’ He dropped her hand and stepped back from the table. ‘In that case, I’d better get back to work—unless you need my help ushering out the last of your guests? I’m figuring the main event must be over by now.’

  Alice nodded. ‘I think so. I’ll go and check everything went okay with the silent auction, say any last goodbyes, and then I can finally get out of this damn dress and off to bed.’

  The dress. Just the mention of it made Liam study it again, taking in those delicate straps, seemingly made out of thin golden rope, holding up the fabric that draped across her body, before widening into a fuller skirt. Something about it hinted at the idea that it might just fall to the floor at any moment.

  Liam had to admit, he liked it a lot better than the woolly cardigans she normally hid herself behind.

  ‘It’s a great dress,’ he told her with feeling. ‘You look gorgeous in it.’

  Alice’s cheeks flushed a light pink. ‘Thank you. Rose always said I had to look the part for these things, so she had someone send a few dresses over for me to choose from. This one was my favourite—not least because it has hidden pockets. Well, it was my favourite, before I realised how uncomfortable the bra I have to wear with it is.’ Her blush turned darker as she said that, and Liam chuckled.

  ‘Trust me, it’s worth the discomfort.’ Grinning, Liam started back towards the ballroom via the main hall. He was finally starting to get his bearings in the labyrinthine corridors of Thornwood Castle. Soon he wouldn’t even need the sketched map he’d taken to keeping in his pocket, and glancing at only when he was sure no one was looking.

  ‘I’m glad you think so,’ Alice said, following him down the corridor. ‘You don’t scrub up half bad yourself, you know.’

  ‘Aussie surfer dude turned English aristocrat, huh?’

  Alice laughed. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Glad to know I can pull it off.’ Liam frowned as an unexpected noise echoed off the stone walls of the corridor they were walking down. ‘Did you hear that?’

  Alice’s forehead creased too. ‘I’m not sure.’ She took another turning and suddenly they were back in the main hall again, its oversized Christmas tree looming over the staircase. From beyond the next set of doors, they could hear the dying chatter of the fundraiser, the last few guests still hanging on in there. But that wasn’t the noise that had caught Liam’s attention.

  The sound rang out again and, this time, there was no doubt in Liam’s mind what he was hearing. He knew the sound of a baby crying well enough—from the age of ten upwards, it had seemed every foster home he went to had a new baby—one he was expected to help look after. ‘Did someone bring their baby with them tonight?’

  Except he couldn’t see anyone nearby, and the cry had sounded very close.

  As if it was in the room with them.

  ‘I don’t think...’ Alice trailed off as the baby cried again. Then she stepped closer to the tree, taking slow, cautious steps in her long shimmering dress, as if trying not to spook a wild animal.

  Liam followed, instinctively staying quiet.
r />   The crying was constant now, and there was no denying where it was coming from.

  Alice hitched up her dress and knelt down on the flagstones, reaching under the spread of the pine needles, dislodging a couple of ornaments as she did so. Then she pulled out a basket—not a bassinet or anything, Liam realised. Just a wicker basket, of the sort someone might use to store magazines or whatever.

  A wicker basket with a baby lying in it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘WHOSE IS IT?’ Liam whispered, as the baby gripped hold of Alice’s finger and, just for a moment, stopped crying. She stared down into its unfocused eyes and felt her heart tighten in her chest. Gritting her teeth, she held her emotions in check. There was a reason she stayed away from babies.

  And that reason meant she had to get this one back to its mum as soon as possible.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Alice murmured back. ‘But it’s very young. Newborn, even.’

  She hadn’t spent a great deal of time around babies before she came to Thornwood. But since then she’d met children of all ages—from a day old upwards. And this baby looked smaller, younger, fresher than any of them.

  Who could have left it there? Who did she know who was even pregnant? Susie Hughes had given birth the week before, and Jessica Groves wasn’t even six months yet. And neither of them would have left their child unattended under a Christmas tree, anyway.

  Bracing herself, she lifted the baby out of the basket, taking care to keep the blanket tucked around it for warmth. Underneath, it was naked, except for a small cloth. Alice unwrapped it carefully, focusing on the clinical, hard facts—not the emotions coursing through her body as she held the baby close.

  ‘It’s a boy.’ Not that it mattered. What mattered was the roughly cut and tied umbilical cord. ‘Oh, God, Liam. I think he’s just been born. Today, I mean.’ Maybe even here at Thornwood. Alice swallowed at the thought of some desperate woman giving birth alone in a cold, dark corner of the castle, while they were all partying in the ballroom. And then leaving her son in the main hall, where he was sure to be found.