Christmas at the Castle

by Marion Lennox

  ‘I KNEW IT.’ The first reaction—of course—didn’t come from Holly. It came from Maggie, hissing behind her. ‘Didn’t I tell you? Talk about a fairy tale. Slam the door in his face, Holly. He’s not having his wicked way with you.’

  Holly turned and looked at Maggie and then looked at the wine glass in her grandmother’s hand. She gently removed it and set it on the hall table.

  ‘Wicked way?’

  ‘He’s an Earl.’ Maggie glowered.

  Holly turned back and looked at Angus in astonishment. He looked embarrassed, she thought. And more. ‘He looks cold,’ she told her gran.

  ‘Slam the door, Holly,’ Maggie demanded again.

  ‘I can’t do that. Even if he is crazy, he looks freezing.’

  ‘Holly...’

  ‘He gave me hot chocolate,’ Holly said reasonably. ‘And enough money to buy us coal. He might be out of his mind but I’m not turfing him out into the night.’ She tried to peer through the snow and failed. ‘Unless your car’s here.’

  ‘I walked,’ Angus said. ‘It’s snowing too hard to trust the road and I needed to walk. I needed to think.’

  ‘So you’ve given us no choice but to invite you in and warm you up,’ Holly said. ‘Which we’ll do as long as you don’t make any more ridiculous propositions. Gran and I have had a bottle and a half of very nice wine and maybe you have, too.’

  ‘I’m sensible,’ he said stubbornly and Holly gazed up at him and thought he looked anything but sensible.

  Gorgeous was the adjective Maggie had used. Every generation there’s scandal in that castle because some silly girl thinks the Earl is gorgeous.

  But still...

  He was wearing the most fabulous man’s coat she’d ever seen—thick grey cashmere, tailored to fit. A gorgeous black scarf. Long black boots, moulded to calves that... Okay, don’t go there. His after-five shadow was dark, his hair was darker still, and his eyes... They gleamed with what she thought suddenly looked like dangerous mischief and she thought... Maybe Maggie’s right. Maybe I should slam the door.

  But this man had been good to her. This man was saving her Christmas. Maybe a small bit of eccentricity was allowable.

  So she ushered him into the living room and she left Maggie in charge in case he needed a straitjacket and she made them all hot chocolate—no more alcohol for anyone tonight!—while Maggie glowered in the background and Angus filled her tiny living room with his presence.

  And with his personality. He was trying to charm Maggie, trying to make her smile while Holly made the chocolate. She watched them through the kitchen door. He wasn’t succeeding. Maggie was growing more and more suspicious.

  Enough. She took the chocolate in, settled on the edge of a fireside stool—she decided it might be wise not to make herself comfortable—and fixed him with a look that said: Don’t mess with me.

  ‘Okay, shoot,’ she said. ‘What are you saying? I’m a chef. Gran’s a housekeeper. I thought we had our contract sorted. There was no mention of marriage in anything we spoke about this morning.’

  ‘This is another contract on top of the first,’ he said and then added hopefully, ‘I’ll pay extra.’

  ‘I don’t give,’ she said carefully, ‘extra.’

  ‘No.’ He raked long fingers through his jet black hair and Holly realised he looked worried. Really worried. To her astonishment, she found herself softening. ‘Of course you don’t,’ he said, ‘but...’

  ‘Tell me the problem,’ she said and, to her further astonishment, he did just that, without taking off his coat, cradling his chocolate as she’d cradled hers this morning, seeming suddenly, weirdly vulnerable. He told it all in his lovely growly rumble—the story of three kids who were desperate to come to the castle one last time; three kids whose mother didn’t trust him to care for them.

  ‘Is that why you’ve hired us?’ Holly asked in astonishment. ‘So we can look after them?’

  ‘I...yes. Or not look after them—their mother was supposed to be coming, too—but I need you to do the cooking and housekeeping so we’ll be comfortable. But now Delia’s ill and can’t come with them. And she doesn’t trust me to care for them.’ He glanced at Maggie, who was still glowering, and he spread his hands. ‘You know my father’s reputation,’ he told her. ‘I can’t blame her.’

  Maggie was trying to keep stern but this man’s charm was seeping through her armour. She was visibly weakening.

  ‘So...you want me to talk to Delia and tell her I’ll be responsible for the kids?’ Holly asked, trying to sort it in her mind.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘I can do that, but there’s no need for false engagements.’

  ‘There is because I lied. Look....’ There went that gesture again, the hair raking. ‘I messed this up. I should have spent longer, told her all about you and your gran, tried to reassure her without lies, but she sounded frightened.’

  ‘That’s your father’s reputation,’ Maggie retorted. ‘And his father and his father before that. And lying’s what they all did.’ But still her glower was wavering.

  ‘I know, and that’s what I’m up against.’ Angus turned to Maggie, sensing the elderly lady’s softening. ‘I can’t fight it but I hoped Holly could. It was a spur of the moment lie but it was made with the best intentions. I thought...if Holly goes to London to see her she can just be...Holly. There’d be no need for deception, except the big one about us being engaged. Holly’s a chef from Australia with a gran who lives in the village—Delia knows you, Mrs McIntosh, and once she meets Holly there’ll be more reassurance. Holly can be her own bouncy self, but with more control over me and what goes on in my castle than if she was just my chef. Don’t you think it might work? Don’t you think between us we can give these kids Christmas?’

  ‘Those kids certainly have had a hard time,’ Maggie said and, to Holly’s astonishment, she was now definitely wavering. ‘The old Earl got Delia pregnant and then offered to marry her,’ she told Holly. ‘I swear it was to avoid paying maintenance. I don’t know what Delia was thinking to accept marriage but she did, and she’s lived to regret it these last sixteen years. If His Lordship’s serious...’ She turned to Holly. ‘If you can keep your head and be engaged to him...’

  ‘I don’t want to be engaged,’ Holly gasped. ‘I have no intention of being engaged to anyone.’

  ‘It’s only for Christmas,’ Maggie said, as if she was a bit soft.

  ‘No! You want me to lie?’

  ‘You’ve been engaged for the last two years.’ Maggie seized Holly’s hand and held it up so they could see the band of white on her ring finger. ‘As far as I know, you haven’t even seen the ghastly Geoff since he absconded, so you haven’t thrown the ring at him. You can still be officially engaged. Does it matter who to? With luck, you won’t even have to lie.’

  ‘You’re asking me to put Geoff’s engagement ring on again?’ Holly was practically speechless.

  ‘No,’ Angus said and dug his hand deep into his coat pocket. He pulled out a crimson box and handed it over. ‘You’d need this. It’s the Craigenstone diamond. My father gave it to my mother and then took it back as soon as they were married—he locked it in the family vault. When my mother left she raided the vault and took it, along with everything else that was legally hers. This has been on every portrait of Craigenstone brides—except Delia—since Time Immemorial. Delia will recognise it. You have no idea of the number of letters my mother has had demanding its return and the satisfaction she had in saying she must have mislaid it. She hates it, though, so there’s no harm in giving it away.’

  ‘You’re asking Holly to wear the Craigenstone ring?’ Maggie gasped as Holly stared down at the extravagant diamond, surrounded by tiny clusters of rubies. Or not so tiny. The size of the diamond made the rubies look small but any one of these rubies would make a ring on i
ts own. The thing was truly over the top.

  ‘I’m not wearing that all Christmas,’ Holly gasped. ‘As well as all the other objections, what if it ends up in the turkey stuffing?’

  ‘Just while you see Delia.’

  ‘And then you’ll lock it back in the vault.’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘I’m not taking the train wearing that.’ She was looking at it as if it were a scorpion.

  ‘I don’t care if it’s lost.’ He hesitated. ‘Holly, that ring’s brought trouble to whoever’s worn it. Neither my mother or I have fond memories of it. Here’s a deal. If you keep this pretence up, if we pull this thing off and give these kids a Christmas to remember, it’s yours. My mother and I don’t value it and we don’t need its worth. It would be our pleasure to give it to you. If it means these kids can have a good Christmas then it’ll have gone to a good home.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want it,’ Holly said with asperity. ‘I’d be mugged the minute I went out in public. What use am I to anyone if I’m mugged?’

  ‘Everyone will assume it’s paste,’ Maggie said soothingly. ‘With you looking like you do.’

  ‘That’s supposed to make me feel better?’

  ‘That’s the other thing,’ Angus said. ‘We need to get you some clothes.’

  ‘I have clothes and I’m not keeping this ring!’

  ‘We’ll discuss keeping the ring later,’ he said soothingly. ‘If you really don’t want it, then we’ll work something out but for now it’s yours, so if you lose it you don’t need to feel guilty.’

  ‘You mean if I’m mugged.’

  ‘Granted,’ he said and grinned. ‘You can go down feeling virtuous. But you will wear it now, and the clothes question has to be fixed as well. Maggie, where’s the most expensive dress shop in town?’

  ‘There isn’t one,’ Maggie said shortly. ‘And you’re not sending my granddaughter to London by train with the weather like it is—and not wearing that ring! If you want this done then you do it properly. You take Holly yourself. Can’t you...I don’t know...hire a helicopter? Isn’t that what rich Americans do?’

  ‘Choppers in this weather are more dangerous than cars,’ Angus told her. ‘At least the trains are still running.’

  ‘But for how long? Trains get stuck in snowdrifts all the time.’

  ‘Maggie...’

  ‘You take her yourself if you want her to go,’ Maggie snapped. ‘That fancy four-wheel drive you have looks like it’ll get through anything; even that pot-holed driveway of yours. And the main road to London will always be clear. There’s a great dress shop I’ve read about in Edinburgh; even royalty goes there. You can stop there on the way. Buy Holly a few expensive dresses. Then you can drive down, flash the ring, persuade Delia to let the kids come and then drive everybody back. Do it properly.’

  ‘Gran!’ Holly gasped.

  ‘Properly or not at all,’ Maggie said. She folded her arms and glared at Holly and then turned and glared at Angus.

  ‘You’re both mad,’ Holly said.

  ‘Yes, but I’m rich and mad,’ Angus said apologetically, smiling at Maggie. ‘And I pay for what I need and I need you. Maybe Maggie’s right—it’d be better if I took you to London.’

  ‘I’m hired to cook.’

  ‘With this ring you’re hired to be at my beck and call, acting as my fiancée with a bit of cooking on the side. Sharing everything. Except my bed,’ he said hastily as he saw her face.

  ‘You’ll be a nice old-fashioned couple,’ Maggie approved. Then she grinned. ‘What a novelty. Do they exist any more?’

  ‘Gran, this is crazy,’ Holly gasped. ‘It’s impossible. The kids will know.’

  ‘Will the kids care enough to think about it?’ Maggie demanded, and then added a clincher. ‘And think what you could do with the sort of money we’re being offered, my girl. Even without the ring... What we could do with it...’

  That stopped her. Holly’s head was whirling but she made herself pause and think. Even without the ring—which she had no intention of keeping—some things were too ridiculous for words. But keeping this job...

  They’d earn the rental deposit Gran had no hope of saving for.

  That Maggie would be thrown out of her cottage at her age had appalled Holly. Her situation—she had never saved to live anywhere else when she was only renting—was entirely Maggie’s fault, Holly conceded, but that didn’t make it easier to accept. She’d assumed she’d live in this cottage for ever.

  More worldly than her grandmother, Holly had asked the hard question: ‘How could you have expected a landlord to let you live in a house for ever?’ Maggie had simply burst into tears. There was no answer.

  Nor was there a rental deposit.

  So, she told herself firmly, start now. This was an engagement of convenience with a salary to make her eyes water. Ridiculous or not, to throw away such an offer would be nuts. Even if it involved wearing a rock. Even if it meant letting this man buy her clothes and drive her to London.

  ‘Fine,’ she said weakly. She sounded desperate and she knew it. She took a deep breath though and hauled herself together. ‘But...but there are conditions.’

  ‘Conditions?’ Angus sounded wary.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, thinking of that appalling cold castle and the dust sheets and the horrible Stanley and three kids who sounded as if they needed a decent Christmas even more than she and her Gran did. ‘I’ll telephone Delia tomorrow morning and talk to her. If she agrees, then we’ll go to London on Thursday—you and I together. But tomorrow and Wednesday...

  ‘We’ll start at seven tomorrow, won’t we, Gran, and we need an open purse. If Gran can find someone else from the village to help us for two days, then I want permission to hire them, too. I want that castle spring-cleaned from stem to stern. I want the whole place warm and I want Christmas decorations everywhere. I want an excellent cooker, hired or bought, I don’t mind which, but I do need quality appliances, and I want enough food in stock to make your tummy bulge. It’ll cost you a fortune, Lord Craigenstone, almost as much as this ring you’re tossing about, but take it or leave it.’

  What a nerve, she thought. What an absolute nerve. She’d been tossed a financial lifeline and here she was, putting it at risk. But maybe that risk was necessary. If she was to organise Christmas it’d be a Christmas to remember. The thought of pretending an engagement to a lord in a gloomy, cold ancestral pile made something inside her cringe.

  Life had been too appalling. These last months had been hell for her and hell for Maggie. And also maybe for these three kids?

  This man before her was their ticket to time out. He was throwing money and rings around with gay abandon. So... One fantastic Christmas before the world closed in again?

  ‘I want a Christmas to remember or no Christmas at all,’ she said and met his dark eyes and held them. ‘If you’re serious about giving these kids a Christmas...I assume the way you’re tossing cash about that money is no object.’

  He met her gaze calmly, consideringly. ‘I pay for value.’

  ‘But if you’re anything like your father, you’ll hold onto what you pay for,’ Maggie interjected. ‘You’re not keeping my Holly.’

  ‘I’m paying Holly from now until New Year,’ he said, still watching Holly. ‘I have no intention of staying engaged for one moment longer than I must. This arrangement came out of my mistake—I told a lie on the spur of the moment and I’ll pay for it. I’ll pay and then I’ll move on. I am not like my father. I do not hold.’

  ‘And I have no intention of being held,’ Holly said, just as evenly. ‘So you can stop worrying, Gran, and start making lists. So, My Lord, do you agree to our terms?’

  ‘Angus,’ he snapped.

  ‘My Lord,’ she said serenely, ‘this Christmas is going to be a fantasy Christm
as for all of us. Christmas in Castle Craigie with all the trimmings. I think you should wear your kilt.’

  ‘You want that in the contract, too?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said calmly. ‘But you’re getting off lightly. I could be asking you to dress up as Santa.’

  ‘Not even for you.’

  ‘This isn’t for me,’ she said without missing a beat. ‘This is for three kids and for Gran. That’s who I’m doing it for.’

  ‘So you will take my ring?’ He held it out again, the outrageous extravagance of it looking incongruous in the extreme in the tiny crofter’s cottage.

  Holly stared down at it for a long moment. A ring. An engagement ring. She’d sworn...

  But this wasn’t about engagement. It wasn’t even about trust—or not very much. It was about giving three kids a Christmas to remember and giving Gran security. She could do this.

  She thought suddenly of what else was demanded—that he drive her to London. It’d mean spending two days in the car with him and a night in London.

  ‘I could go by train,’ she said dubiously, still looking at the ring.

  ‘No, you can’t,’ Maggie snapped. ‘If you think I want to be stranded alone in that castle with His Lordship while you’re stuck in a snowdrift somewhere south of the border you have another think coming. Car or nothing.’

  ‘Is this about you or me?’ Holly demanded and, amazingly, her gran chuckled. It was the first time her grandmother had laughed since Holly arrived. Holly knew that laugh; she’d loved it. Every time Gran had visited Australia, which she’d done every year since Holly was born, which possibly explained just why she was so broke now, that chuckle had filled Holly’s life. Gran’s broad Scottish burr, her laugh, her warmth, her adoration of her son and his wife and their little girl...

  It was with her now, all around her, and she knew there was no way she could not do this.

  Do it now, she told herself, before you think of any more consequences, and with that she reached forward and took the ring and slipped it on her ring finger.

  ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘Yes, I will.’