Christmas at His Command

by Helen Brooks

  ‘You know about Celine?’

  Marigold blinked, unable to believe her ears for a moment. He wasn’t even going to try to deny it? Perversely that made her madder than ever. ‘Again, I would have thought that was obvious,’ she said icily.

  ‘Then what was with the crack about a nice evening?’ he snarled savagely. ‘And me fooling you?’

  She had never heard him like this, not even when he had thought she was Emma. He obviously didn’t take kindly to being caught out. ‘I said you didn’t fool me,’ she reminded him cuttingly.

  ‘You also said you didn’t want to see or hear from me again a few hours after promising to become my wife,’ he grated, ‘so what the hell is this about? And don’t say you think it’s obvious because it damn well isn’t, not to me. I’ve been up for twenty-four hours and I’m not in the mood to play games, Marigold.’

  Games! He thought this was a game, did he? And he had obviously only just got in. ‘You told me you were at the hospital last night,’ Marigold said, refusing to let her voice quiver. ‘So?’

  ‘So I saw a clip on TV of Celine arriving in London,’ Marigold said tightly. ‘You were with her. And Bertha said you were with her last night.’ Well, she had in a way.

  ‘Wait a minute, let’s get this straight. You said you knew about Celine?’

  ‘I do. There was a programme about the fashion awards, all very glitzy and glamorous,’ Marigold said scathingly.

  ‘And you think Celine was there last night?’ There was the briefest of pauses. And then his voice had changed to a soft, icy tone when he said, ‘And you phoned Bertha to see if I was with Celine at this do? Is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was something wrong here. Her stomach curdled with horrible premonition.

  ‘You could have called me on my mobile, or phoned the hospital if you wanted to talk to me direct, Marigold.’

  ‘You…you weren’t at the hospital.’

  ‘Did you check? Before you talked to Bertha?’ he asked, still in the quiet, deadly tone which was sending chills of foreboding all over her body.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I wasn’t worth one phone call.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she protested faintly.

  ‘The hell it wasn’t.’

  ‘I thought—’

  ‘I know what you thought, Marigold. You were sure I was fooling around with Celine last night so you called Bertha to check up on me. Damn it, I’ve been such a fool. I thought I could make you love me the way I love you, but you never gave me a chance, not really, did you? Apart from the physical attraction between us I don’t think you even like me.’

  ‘Flynn, that’s not true.’

  Her genuine distress didn’t impress him at all. ‘You believed I would ask you to marry me and then go out and spend the night with another woman.’

  The contempt in his voice cut Marigold to the quick, the more so because it was the truth. What could she say, what could she do to make this right? Whatever had occurred during the day she believed Flynn had been at the hospital last night. He hadn’t been with Celine.

  And then he proved her wrong when he said bitterly, ‘I was with Celine last night, Marigold. I left her at four this morning. She’s in Intensive Care after having a tumour the size of a golf ball removed from her head. When she comes round—if she comes round—she’ll probably have to learn to walk and talk again; she might be blind or worse. She should have been operated on weeks ago but some charlatan of a doctor she visited missed all the signs of a tumour and told her she was having migraines due to stress.’

  Marigold was frozen with horror.

  ‘She came to see me yesterday for a second opinion; she was never intending to go to any function. I knew I had to operate immediately from the tests I did in the afternoon but until we opened up the skull no one realised how bad it was.’

  ‘Flynn, I’m so sorry.’ Remorse and shame were strangling her voice. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘There’s nothing left to say.’ It was terribly final. ‘I was fooling myself all along there was anything real between us.’

  ‘No, please! Listen to me. I didn’t understand—’

  ‘No, you didn’t, but then I wasn’t important enough to you for you to make the effort, was I?’ he said bitterly. ‘If you thought I was capable of behaving like that then there is no hope. I’ve tried to show you myself over the last months, Marigold. The inner man if you like.’ It was said with cutting self-derision. ‘I’ve never pretended to be perfect, but neither am I the slimeball you’ve got me down for.’

  ‘I haven’t. Flynn, I haven’t.’ She was crying now but it seemed to have no effect on him at all.

  ‘You are going to have to trust someone some time, Marigold,’ he said flatly, ‘but it won’t be me.’

  He meant it, she thought sickly. She’d lost him.

  ‘Goodbye, Marigold.’ And the phone was put down very quietly.

  The next few days were the worst of Marigold’s life. She got through the working hours by functioning on automatic pilot, but once she was home, in the endless loneliness of her little flat, there was no opiate to the pain of bitter self-reproach and guilt.

  She picked up the telephone to call Flynn a hundred times a night, but always put it down again without making the call. What could she say after all? She’d let him down in the worst manner possible and there was no way back. She hadn’t even given him the opportunity to defend himself before she had sailed in, all guns firing. He must have got home from the hospital, exhausted and mentally and emotionally drained, and then had the welcome of her telephone message.

  If she said she loved him now he would never believe her—she certainly hadn’t acted like a woman in love, she flailed herself wretchedly. Love believed the best of the beloved; it was generous and understanding and tender.

  She deserved his hatred and contempt. She deserved all the pain and regret.

  This orgy of self-recrimination continued until the weekend, and then two things happened which jolted Marigold out of her hopelessness, the first event instigating the second.

  At half-past nine in the morning on a cold but bright Saturday Marigold answered a knock at the door to find Dean on her doorstep, an enormous bunch of flowers in his hand. He spoke quickly before she could say a word. ‘I’ve come to ask if we can still be friends, just friends,’ he said quietly, not sounding like himself at all. ‘It was the truth when I said I missed you, Dee, and I don’t want it to end like this. I know you’re involved with someone else and I don’t blame you, but I’d like to think we can still ring each other now and again, meet for coffee, things like that. What do you think?’

  She stared at him in astonishment, seeing the genuine desire for reconciliation, and then surprised them both by bursting into tears.

  Two cups of coffee and a couple of rounds of toast later Marigold found herself in the extraordinary position of—having cried on Dean’s shoulder—being encouraged by her ex-fiancé to chase after another man. ‘If I thought there was the inkling of a chance of us getting back together I wouldn’t be saying this,’ Dean admitted wryly, ‘but there isn’t, is there?’

  Marigold shook her head, her mouth being full of toast and Marmite.

  ‘And I feel a bit responsible you didn’t trust Flynn as you would have done if I hadn’t played fast and loose,’ Dean said in such a way Marigold suspected he expected her to deny he was to blame.

  ‘Good, you should,’ she responded firmly after swallowing the toast.

  ‘Yeah, right.’ He drained his coffee-cup, aware the time of Marigold seeing him through rose-coloured spectacles was well and truly over. ‘So, go and see him. Talk to him face to face. Tell it how it is. Grovel if you have to. If you don’t you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering if things might have been OK if you’d just tried.’

  Marigold stared at him. Comfort came in the oddest ways and from sources you least expected.

  Once Dean had left she ran herself a hot bath an
d lay soaking in strawberry bubbles as she considered all they had said. If someone like Dean, essentially pretty shallow and selfish, could make the grand gesture he had made this morning, it surely wasn’t beyond her to do something similar for Flynn, was it? OK, so Flynn might cut her dead or reduce her to nothing with that cynical tongue of his, but what did that matter? If that happened she deserved it, and she had no pride left after the misery of the last few days. She would do anything, anything to show him how sorry she was.

  He had said he loved her, in that last terrible phone call, and she believed he had. Perhaps he still did? Perhaps she hadn’t destroyed everything? And even if Celine was his first love she didn’t care any more. It was her he had proposed to a few nights ago, their future he had been thinking about.

  Marigold had rung the hospital a few times, enquiring after Celine, but each time she had got a standard formal reply. ‘Miss Jenet is as well as can be expected.’ The last two days she hadn’t rung at all, but once out of the bath she picked up the phone and dialled the number of Flynn’s home in Shropshire.

  ‘Bertha?’ She took a deep breath after hearing Flynn’s housekeeper’s voice. ‘It’s Marigold. I’m ringing to ask how Celine is.’

  ‘Oh, hello, dear.’ From the tone of Bertha’s voice she knew nothing about their break-up, and this seemed to be borne out when Bertha said, her voice a little puzzled, ‘Why don’t you ask Mr Moreau, dear?’

  ‘He’s so busy.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to tell me! He’ll be ill if he carries on, but hopefully now Celine is on the mend he can relax a bit more. She’s still progressing little by little, dear, but she was awake more yesterday and her speech is all but back. It’s a blessing her eyesight hasn’t been affected, isn’t it? I think that’s what was worrying Mr Moreau the most.’

  By the time Marigold put down the phone a few minutes later she was trembling with reaction. Celine was all right; she was going to get better. According to Bertha, Flynn was confident he had removed all of the tumour and the prognosis for the future was good.

  She was going to go round to his flat as soon as she was dressed. She had to see him now, today. She needed to make him understand she loved him, really loved him, and then the rest was up to him. If he couldn’t forgive her… She dared not let herself think about that. If she did she would revert to the soggy mess of the last few days, and right now she had to be strong.

  After blow-drying her hair into a shining, sleek shoulder-length style, she stood for some time surveying the contents of her wardrobe. She needed to look smart but not too smart; feminine and appealing but not too obvious.

  Eventually she chose a pair of new smart brown trousers with her brown boots, teaming them with a white cashmere jumper which had been wickedly expensive but always made her feel good. She made up her face with just a smidgen of foundation to hide the paleness of nerves, and stroked a couple of coats of mascara on her eyelashes.

  She couldn’t compete with Celine in the beauty stakes, she thought soberly, and she wasn’t going to try. This was her; five feet four, brown hair, blue eyes, and capable of the utmost stupidity as her behaviour a few days ago had proved. Would he talk to her? She shut her eyes tightly and prayed for strength. She’d make him!

  As the taxi pulled into the beautifully kept grounds of the private hospital Marigold did a few deep-breathing exercises to try and combat her wildly beating heart.

  She had gone to Flynn’s London flat first but when there had been no answer had assumed he was at the hospital. Of course, he might not be, she reminded herself nervously, but he was bound to turn up here sooner or later. Considering the taxi had run up a bill equal to a small mortgage, she wasn’t budging further anyway!

  After paying the taxi driver, she squared her shoulders under her brown leather jacket and marched purposefully to the reception doors, which glided open at her approach. She waded through ankle-deep carpet to where an exquisitely coiffured receptionist was waiting with a charming smile. ‘Can I help you?’ she purred sweetly.

  ‘I would like to speak to Mr Moreau. Mr Flynn Moreau,’ Marigold said firmly.

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘No, I don’t have an appointment.’

  ‘Then I’m really very sorry but—’

  ‘I’m not a patient of Mr Moreau’s,’ Marigold said quickly. ‘I’m a friend. I’m sure he will want to see me when he knows I’m here.’ She was getting better at lying, Marigold thought a trifle hysterically. That one had come out as smooth as cream.

  A couple of men walked down some stairs at the far end of the reception area, obviously from the Middle East as their flowing robes proclaimed. They looked as though they owned a couple of countries apiece at least.

  ‘Mr Moreau’s secretary is not in today but I’ll see if I can contact him,’ the receptionist said pleasantly. ‘I’m really not sure if he is in the building.’

  Oh, yes, right, Marigold thought disbelievingly. If Flynn thought she was a poor liar he ought to listen to this woman!

  ‘Who shall I say wants him?’

  ‘Miss Flower.’ She was not going to give her first name to this vision of sophistication!

  ‘If you would like to take a seat, Miss Flower, I’ll see what I can do.’ The receptionist waved a pale beringed hand with long, perfectly painted red talons in the direction of several pale cream sofas some distance away, and Marigold had no choice but to smile politely and comply.

  She could see the woman talking on a telephone from where she was seated but was too far away to hear what she was saying, although once or twice the heavily made-up, almond-shaped eyes looked her way. As the receptionist replaced one telephone another rang at the side of her, and she was once again engrossed in conversation.

  The Middle Eastern gentlemen had been standing talking in low voices, and as they now departed in a swish of long robes and exclusive perfume Marigold glanced about her, trying not to appear overawed. Money might not be able to buy good health but it certainly made being sick more enjoyable! She knew Flynn worked in the public sector at the local hospital as well as this private one, and the two places must be like two different worlds. Suddenly panic was making her throat dry. She should never have come. This was a big mistake. Celine was far more suited to his world than she was and now the other woman was ill Flynn might well be hoping they would get back together again.

  ‘Hello, Marigold.’

  For the first time in her life she knew what it was to have her heart stop dead as the quiet, deep voice sounded just behind her left shoulder. She swung round so quickly she nearly fell off the sofa, and then jumped to her feet in a totally uncool way. ‘Flynn! I…I didn’t hear you.’

  He raked back an errant lock of hair from his forehead, a slow gesture which suggested his air of calmness was deliberate. ‘Sophia said you were here asking for me.’

  He looked terrible. As handsome as ever and so sexy he should be certified as dangerous, but there was a grey tinge to the tanned skin that spoke of extreme exhaustion and his mouth wasn’t just stern but drawn and tight. A sudden thought crossed her mind and she said quickly, ‘Celine? She is all right. Bertha said she was getting better.’

  ‘Celine is fine.’

  He was wearing a pale blue shirt and his hands were thrust in the pockets of his suit trousers, his tie hanging askew as it so often did. She felt such a flood of love rise up in her that she wanted to cry. Instead she said shakily, ‘I’m sorry to bother you here but I had to talk to you. The…receptionist said she didn’t know if you were here or not.’

  He shrugged powerful shoulders. ‘It’s been a hectic few days. There was a bad pile-up on the motorway and I’ve been to-ing and fro-ing between hospitals.’

  She nodded. So that was why he looked dead beat. For a moment, a crazy moment she had just wondered if it was because he had been thinking about her.

  His eyes narrowed slightly as they focused on the silky veil of her hair for a moment before taking in her smart trousers a
nd the figure-hugging cashmere sweater. ‘You’re obviously on your way out to lunch somewhere,’ he said dismissively. ‘How can I help you?’

  For a second she almost turned tail and ran in the face of his cool indifference, but something in the way he was standing, the faintest indication that his hands were balled fists in his pockets, caused her to stand her ground. ‘I’m not going out to lunch,’ she said evenly, her voice not shaking any more. ‘I came to see you.’

  ‘Why?’

  It was now or never. ‘To tell you I love you,’ she said very clearly.

  ‘Go home, Marigold.’

  But she had seen his eyes flicker and the grimace of pain—fleeting but definitely there—that had twisted his mouth as she had spoken.

  ‘Not until I am sure you understand how I feel,’ she said thickly. ‘If you walk away now I shall follow you. I’m not afraid to cause a scene.’

  She saw his eyes widen just for a moment and then he took her arm, his voice grim as he said, ‘This is ridiculous but if you insist you had better come to my office. This is a hospital, in case you’d forgotten.’

  His office was sumptuous with a view over bowling-green-smooth lawns and mature trees, but Marigold didn’t notice the decor. Once Flynn had shut the door he walked over to his desk, perching on the edge of it as he waved her to one of the visitor’s chairs in front of it. ‘I’m due in a meeting shortly so I can only spare you five minutes.’ It was the cool, calm voice of a stranger, unemotional, cold.

  She ignored the seat and walked across to stand right in front of him, so close she could see the five o’clock shadow on his chin although it was only midday. She touched his face lightly and though he didn’t move a muscle she knew he had tensed. ‘You need a new blade in your razor,’ she said softly.

  Her words were followed by a silence which slowly began to vibrate, an electricity in the air that was almost tangible. He remained perfectly still as he said, ‘I’ve been up since two in the morning; complications with one of the road-accident victims. I’ve got an electric razor in my desk; I’ll use that later.’