by Heidi Swain
For a mad moment I thought she was threatening me, warning me off her hunky turf.
‘It’s icy out here,’ she grinned, pointing down to the pavement. ‘I’d hate to see you turn your ankle in those heels.’
Laughing, she stuck out her tongue, spun round and swaggered off in the direction of what I guessed was home.
Jamie managed to find a parking space in the market square quite close to The Mermaid pub, but surprised me by insisting on taking my arm until we were safely over the threshold. I could feel the pressure of his taut muscles and the heat from his body melding into mine and silently congratulated myself for not falling at his feet in a dead faint. He might have spent the last two days taunting and offending me but he still had one hot bod.
I knew it was ridiculous to be feeling like this at my age and my cheeks glowed with embarrassment. I was allegedly of sound mind and not known for taking off on romantic, or lustful, flights of fancy. I reminded myself that I was still wearing my work clothes and as such should be capable of playing the role of the professional I had taken so much time and trouble to perfect.
‘Why don’t you find us a table,’ Jamie suggested, his voice raised above the noise of the other customers, who were enjoying the beginnings of a night in the pub, ‘and I’ll get the drinks?’
‘OK,’ I nodded. ‘Thanks. I’ll have a Coke please.’
‘Diet?’
‘No thanks,’ I shrugged. ‘There’s not much point when Dorothy’s in charge of what I eat.’
Jamie laughed and pushed his way through to the bar. It was impossible not to notice the heads that turned in his direction or the number of people who stopped to slap him on the back and welcome him home. The most vocal was the landlord.
‘In case you didn’t hear, first drinks are on the house,’ Jamie grinned, when he eventually found me. ‘Courtesy of Jim and Evelyn.’
‘That’s very kind,’ I acknowledged, raising my glass in thanks towards the bar and the eager faces watching our every move. ‘So,’ I said, turning my attention back to the green eyes and freckles, ‘what is it you wanted to talk about? Isn’t it about time you accused me of rifling through the family silver cabinet?’
Jamie readjusted his jacket and inched his chair closer to the fire.
‘I’d forgotten how cold winter in Wynbridge can be,’ he said, ignoring my snarky comment and blowing on his fingers. ‘And I’ve only missed one.’
‘It certainly does seem to be a few degrees colder here than everywhere else,’ I admitted, already regretting what I’d said. ‘I think it’s the flatness of the landscape. It lets the wind do its worst without having anything to check it. Most days I’ve resorted to piling on the layers.’
‘But not today,’ he said with a nod to my stockings, heels and slim-fitting skirt.
‘No,’ I blushed, crossing my legs, ‘not today.’
‘For the last couple of days you’ve thought you should dress for the role my parents had led me to believe you had come to the hall to take up.’
‘Yes,’ I said, as I realised that Catherine had finally taken my pleading looks to heart and come clean about her surgery. ‘Something like that, although sometimes the work I do does require me to dress up, rather than down.’
I felt the colour deepen in my cheeks. That hadn’t come out quite how I planned it to and Jamie raised his eyebrows.
‘If I’m employed as a PA, for example,’ I explained.
‘But not, I suspect, when you’re working as a carer or companion.’
‘No,’ I agreed, ‘in my capacity as carer and companion I can usually get away with no heels.’
‘So why did you agree to play along?’ he asked. ‘Were you trying to impress me?’
‘Not at all,’ I said defensively. He raised his eyebrows again and I went on, determined he shouldn’t get the wrong idea. ‘I heard you and your dad arguing in the kitchen the morning you arrived home. I heard him telling you that I was at the hall to organise Christmas and I thought it would be in everyone’s best interests not to contradict him.’
‘So you weren’t aware that no one had mentioned Mum’s surgery to me?’
‘Not then,’ I said. ‘I had no idea.’
‘Well it was very loyal of you to play along for Dad’s sake, and Mum’s.’
‘I know I’ve hardly been at the hall any time at all,’ I told him, ‘but I already feel very attached to the place and the people in it. Your parents have been very kind to me and I appreciate that.’
‘They’re always kind to everyone,’ he smiled.
‘So I understand.’
His smile faltered as it dawned on him what else I might have heard.
‘I’m sorry I called you a charity case,’ he said, the colour rising in his cheeks. ‘I’m guessing you did hear that part of the conversation as well.’
Now it was his turn to squirm, because from what I’d heard it had hardly been a ‘conversation’.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, taking another sip of my drink and thinking there was nothing to be gained from gloating. ‘Let’s just put that one down to jetlag, shall we?’
‘That’s very generous of you,’ he nodded. ‘I appreciate your understanding, Anna, and the fact that you’ve let me off the hook so easily, especially as I’d already been stuck in Europe for a couple of days and got my head around the change in time zones. I can’t justify my behaviour or any of the mean things I said to you at all.’
‘Well, let’s just leave it then,’ I laughed. ‘Crossed wires can be a devil to untangle so let’s just forget about them, shall we? You know now that I’m here to help your mum convalesce.’
‘And you know that I’m back home after spending some time in the far-flung corners of the globe.’
‘And have made a massive decision whilst being there,’ I added for good measure.
A shadow fell across his face.
‘Has anyone told you what that decision was?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said, my voice catching in my throat. ‘Has your mum told you why I was adamant I didn’t want to play the role of party planner?’
‘No,’ he said, eyeing me over the top of his glass. ‘Do you think we should share?’
I didn’t particularly want to spell out why I had struggled to make the decision as to whether I should stay or go once I had discovered what Angus had really got planned for the end of the year at Wynthorpe Hall, but Jamie had only been home a few days and already there had been a muddle. I didn’t much like muddles and thought it would probably be best all round if we wiped the slate clean.
‘I think,’ I therefore reluctantly agreed, ‘that might be a very good idea.’
Chapter 11
‘I got the drinks,’ I said, ‘so you go first.’
‘That’s a bit sneaky,’ Jamie frowned, taking the glass I held out. ‘If I’d known that’s how it was going to be, I would have got the drinks this time too.’
‘Too late now,’ I shrugged with a sly grin. ‘So come on, tell me, why exactly did you leave home and what is this gargantuan decision you had to make?’
Jamie sat back and shook his head. Whatever it was, he still didn’t look very happy about it.
‘OK,’ he began. ‘You know I have two brothers, right?’
‘Yes,’ I said, surreptitiously easing my feet out of my shoes and tucking them under my chair. ‘Christopher is the eldest, then there’s Archie, then you.’
‘Exactly,’ he said.
He stared into the fire, the flames eating up his thoughts.
‘And,’ I encouraged, ‘you do know the landlord is going to be calling time in a bit, don’t you?’
‘All right, Miss Bossy Boots,’ he smiled, his eyes slowly moving from the flames to look back at me. ‘I’m getting there.’
‘Well get there faster,’ I nudged.
‘OK,’ he said, sitting up straighter. ‘A while ago Mum decided, quite out of the blue we all felt, that she wanted to sort out, officially, the future of the hal
l. You do know it belongs to her, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘she did mention it the day I took her for a check-up at the hospital in Norwich.’
I didn’t add that she had sounded worried and weighed down by the responsibilities surrounding it or that she had been concerned Angus had been pestering Jamie to make the decision I was now poised to discover.
‘Well, we all kind of assumed that it would be going to Christopher,’ Jamie continued.
I myself had assumed the very same thing.
‘Because he’s the eldest, isn’t he?’ I asked, just to make sure I really did have it all clear in my head.
‘Yes, and that’s how it’s worked in our family for generations. Irrespective of whether the eldest is a girl or a boy, they are always first in line to inherit the hall and the estate.’
‘So what happened?’ I asked. ‘I’m guessing it wasn’t all as straightforward as it should have been.’
‘Nowhere near,’ Jamie sighed, ‘because Christopher didn’t want it.’
‘He didn’t want it!’ I wanted to laugh out loud. ‘Who on earth wouldn’t want to inherit Wynthorpe Hall?’
Jamie looked at me as if I was mad and I have to admit I had for a moment forgotten the look of concern Catherine had worn when she told me that she was the current owner of the hall.
Jamie ignored my outburst and carried on with his explanation.
‘Chris, his wife Cass and the boys have a wonderful life in Shropshire, close to Cass’s family. They love it there and even though Cass said she would move if Christopher really wanted to, he simply refused.’
‘Whatever did your parents say?’
‘They were shocked. Nothing had ever been mentioned before because it was just sort of assumed that he would step up and take it all on.’
I took a moment to digest the implications of Christopher’s unanticipated refusal.
‘So then,’ I said, ‘I’m guessing it fell to Archie to step into the breach.’
Jamie nodded.
‘Didn’t he want it either?’
‘Oh, he wanted it all right,’ spat Jamie, his tone loaded with a loathing I found unnerving. ‘He couldn’t wait to get his hands on the place.’
I had assumed the motive behind Angus’s desire to gather the family to the hall at Christmas was because they were all fond of one another but didn’t have the opportunity to get together very often. Jamie’s mention of Archie, however, didn’t sound friendly at all.
‘So what was so wrong about that?’
‘Let’s just say he seemed a little too eager to get the ball rolling,’ Jamie went on. ‘And after some digging I finally discovered exactly why he was so keen.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, as you know he convinced Mum and Dad to stop the public coming and using the hall. He said it was because of public liability issues and goodness knows what else, but it wasn’t that at all.’
‘What was it then?’
‘To put it bluntly,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘he wanted the place shut down so that, when he’d taken charge, he and his other half could rock up and play lord and lady of the manor with the least possible inconvenience.’
I tried to imagine the middle brother in the photograph arriving and barking out orders to the staff. Based on what he looked like I couldn’t imagine him doing it, but if he had it wouldn’t have gone down very well, especially with Hayley. I was pretty certain she would have found somewhere interesting to stick her Hoover pipe if anyone attempted to lord it over her.
‘Not that that little piece of theatre would have lasted long given the dwindling money, but from what I can make out he had plans to play the role until . . .’
‘Until what?’ I quizzed when he stopped talking again.
‘Until,’ he said, sounding even more appalled than before, ‘he gave the nod to the person he’d lined up to buy it.’
‘No way,’ I gasped. ‘He wouldn’t do that, surely? Your mum told me the hall has been in her family for ever. Why on earth would he want to sell it?’
‘For the money, of course,’ seethed Jamie. ‘Archie has no idea that I know any of this but I’ve discovered he has one of those health spa chains lined up to step in as soon as he’s had enough of the place and has bled the coffers dry.’
‘Well, if that doesn’t make Christopher change his mind, I don’t know what will.’
I couldn’t imagine for one second that he would let his family home fall into the hands of the sauna-and-swim, yummy mummy brigade.
‘He knows what I’ve found out,’ said Jamie dully. ‘And it hasn’t made him change his mind at all. He’s still adamant he doesn’t want the responsibility.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
I felt as if the wind had been knocked out of my sails.
‘I told him everything as soon as I’d had it all confirmed by the person I’d employed to look into Archie’s affairs and when he said it made no difference I had to go and tell Mum.’
‘She must have been devastated.’
‘She was. And that was when she turned to me.’
‘You?’
‘Yes,’ he said, putting his glass on the table and running his hands through his hair. ‘Me. She asked me to step up and take the place on.’
‘And what do your brothers have to say about that? Are you going to do it?’
My mind was buzzing with even more questions now.
‘The others don’t know yet,’ he said. ‘Archie still thinks he’s next in line but I daresay Christopher has worked it out. I asked Mum not to say anything until I’d properly made up my mind and I think Dad’s got it in his head that if an announcement is made at Christmas everyone, and by everyone I mean Archie, will just accept it because they won’t want to upset the applecart.’
‘I see.’
‘And yes,’ he said, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulling out the pen his father had hidden in the Advent calendar. ‘Apparently I am going to do it, even though I don’t want to.’
‘Your dad gave you the pen to sign the paperwork,’ I nodded, the penny dropping.
‘Exactly.’
‘But why are you so reluctant to take it on?’ I asked. ‘Listening to you talking about the importance of the insurance policy, it sounded to me as if you want to protect the place just as much as everyone else.’
‘Oh I do,’ he said. ‘I really do, but believe me, Anna, there’s a vast difference between feeling protective towards somewhere like Wynthorpe Hall and then finding yourself completely responsible for it. When I was growing up it was my home, a huge part of my life, but I had absolutely no reason to dream up a future for myself that included it and now all that has changed. If I want to keep the hall in the Connelly family I have to let go of the future I crave.’
I hadn’t really had a chance yet to think it through from his point of view. To my mind he was just a lucky rich sod who had been handed something absolutely incredible on a plate.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said, ‘I love Wynthorpe Hall, but I’m just not sure I’m ready to stagnate in a tiny corner of the East Anglian Fens.’
‘So what are you going to do?’ I asked. ‘Have you really made up your mind that you’re going to do it?’
‘I have no choice,’ he shrugged. ‘We can’t lose it and if Archie gets his hands on it then that’s exactly what will happen.’
His eyes roamed back to the fire and I sat back in my chair and wondered, not for the first time since I arrived in Wynbridge, where the quiet few weeks I had been longing for had disappeared to.
‘So what about you?’ he said eventually. ‘I’ve told you my side of the saga, now it’s your turn. What are you really doing here and why does planning the Connelly family Christmas turn your stomach?’
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and focused on my glass.
‘Hey, come on,’ he said. ‘Spill, because you’re not getting out of here until you do.’
I opened my mouth to say som
ething, I don’t know what, but was saved by the bell. Literally.
‘Time, folks, please,’ bellowed the landlady as she pulled lustily on the big brass bell behind the bar. ‘Don’t you all have homes to go to?’
‘My goodness,’ I laughed. ‘Exactly how long have we been sitting here?’
Outside, in the market square, it was bitterly cold. The clear, inky sky was studded with thousands of jewel-like stars and the pavements were glistening with frost. As we set off back to the hall I felt my shoulders relax a little as the Land Rover cab gradually began to thaw and relief that I hadn’t had to keep my side of the bargain washed over me. However, the snug and slightly smug feeling was short-lived.
‘Why are we stopping?’ I asked. ‘Is there something wrong?’
A few miles out of town Jamie swung off the road, into a field and up onto a concrete pad put there by a farmer.
‘No,’ he said, pulling on the handbrake and taking the vehicle out of gear. ‘Nothing’s wrong. I just thought everyone would already be in bed at home and I didn’t want to give you the opportunity to wriggle out of sharing on the pretence that you were worried about waking them up.’
Evidently I hadn’t wriggled anywhere close to off the hook at all. I bit my lip, knowing I was really in no position to argue as he had already come clean and kept his side of the bargain, and I wondered just how little I could get away with sharing.
‘So, Miss Woodruff,’ Jamie smiled, unfastening his seat belt and twisting round to face me, ‘tell me exactly the reason behind your desire to work your way through Christmas and why you’re the world’s most reluctant party planner.’
I took a deep breath and cracked open my window a little. The air was fresh and sharp and I drank it in, feeling its keen sting in my nostrils.
‘I accepted the job at the hall, working as a companion to your mum,’ I quickly began, ‘on the understanding that Christmas wasn’t going to be a big deal for your family this year.’
I stole a quick glance as he shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. I guessed he already knew that much from Catherine and he was beginning to look a little impatient now; as well he might in the rapidly freezing temperature.
