Christmas Nights

by Penny Jordan

  Heaven put the mixing bowl to one side and gave Janet a woeful look as she pushed her fingers into her already tousled dark curly hair.

  ‘I’m sorry to be such a wet lettuce, Jan, but you know…’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Janet agreed sympathetically.

  ‘I just wish that Lloyd was earning enough for us to be able to employ you,’ she added with a grin. ‘He keeps complaining that he’s getting sick of microwave cooking. I think, of course, he’s using that as an excuse for getting me to go to his parents’ for Christmas. Not that I mind. I get on really well with his family. Have you made any plans yet? After all, it’s only next week…’

  Heaven shook her head.

  ‘Mum and Dad have offered to pay for me to fly out to Adelaide with them. They’re off to spend Christmas and all of January with Hugh.’

  Hugh, as Janet knew, was Heaven’s married brother who lived in Australia with his wife and children.

  ‘Why don’t you go with them?’ Janet urged her. ‘Who knows? You might even find you like it so much that you decide to stay there.’

  ‘Shipped off to Australia, like the family black sheep?’ Heaven countered painfully. ‘No… that isn’t what I want, Jan, even if the days are long gone when someone in disgrace was sent away from home. I feel that if I run away now people will think I’m running because I’m guilty, because I was to blame for the breakup of Harold’s marriage, because all those things he said…’ She stopped and gulped in a steadying breath.

  ‘I was not having an affair with him,’ she told her friend fiercely. ‘And even if he hadn’t been the completely loathsome and reptilian thing that he is I still wouldn’t have been tempted… not with another woman’s man. That just isn’t me, Jan… Mind you, some of it was my own fault,’ Heaven admitted with what Janet privately considered was far too much generosity; she had her own opinion of Harold Lewis and it wasn’t good—creep was far too kind a description of him, so far as she was concerned.

  ‘I should have guessed what lay ahead when he pretended he didn’t have enough cash to reimburse my travelling expenses when I went for the initial interview, but I was still green then and the job seemed such a good one. Residential, with summers with the family in Provence and the opportunity not just to cook for him and his wife and the two girls and do all their private entertaining, but also to cook for his business lunches and dinners as well…’

  ‘I do understand how you must feel,’ Janet consoled her. Heaven gave her a small smile.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to rant and rave at you. It’s just the unfairness of it all that gets to me still. He deliberately used me, set me up, lied about me by pretending that we were having an affair to Louisa, his wife, so that she would walk out on him, so that he could then divorce her and get away with keeping the house and hardly give her any proper settlement. She’s the one I should be feeling sorry for…’

  ‘Have you seen anything of her since?’

  ‘Since I so publicly got the sack and my name and my supposed role in their divorce, not to mention his bed, got so much media attention?’ Her pretty mouth twisted. ‘No, not really. Oh, she did try to make amends; she apologised for the fact that I’d been dragged into things and she told me that she recognised with hindsight just how cleverly she’d been tricked into believing I was having an affair with her husband.

  ‘Apparently he’d been dropping hints about “us” virtually even before I’d gone to work for them and had, in fact, insisted on employing me above her head; and he’d then gone on to deliberately arouse her suspicions and undermine her by letting her think that he was attracted to me.

  ‘You’d never think he was virtually a millionaire, would you—not after the way he’s been so mean with Louisa?’

  ‘Sometimes the richer a man is the meaner he is,’ Janet pointed out.

  Heaven grimaced in distaste. ‘If you ask me Louisa is well rid of him, and I suspect from what she hinted at that she has started to feel the same way since their divorce. She did say that she had tried to tell her friends that Harold had lied about me and about my role in the break-up of their marriage, but let’s face it, no one is really going to believe her.’

  As she saw the way Heaven’s expressive eyes filled with sad tears, Janet felt her own eyes fill up in sympathy.

  It wasn’t just her job she had lost, Heaven reflected inwardly as she determinedly pulled the pudding mixture towards her and started to finish a fresh batch of puddings. The money she was earning from the small classified ad she had taken, offering ‘Mrs Tiggywinkle’s traditional figgy puddings by post’, had brought her a much needed small income even if she was beginning to get sick of the sight and smell of her very saleable and mouthwatering puddings.

  No, it wasn’t just the job she had lost. Not even Janet knew about those delicate, fragile private hopes that had begun to grow after Louisa’s brother had casually asked if she would like to take up a spare ticket he had for one of London’s newest plays.

  Jon Huntingdon, Louisa’s brother, was an eminent financial consultant. Tall, dark-haired and suavely handsome. He had set Heaven’s all too vulnerable heart beating just that little bit too fast the very first time she had been introduced to him by Louisa, several days after she had first taken up her new job. Unmarried and in his thirties, Jon Huntingdon was almost too swooningly male, too darkly handsome, with a heart-melting sense of humour betrayed by the twitch of his mouth as he gently teased Louisa’s daughters, his nieces.

  Heaven had prepared for their date in a fever of excitement; she had even cajoled an early birthday cheque out of her father in order to splash out on a new outfit. A Nicole Farhi dress and jacket, the dress a silver shimmer of thick matt jersey cut in a halter-neck style and supported simply by a thin silver collar.

  She hadn’t really needed to see the appreciative male gleam of sensual pleasure in Jon’s eyes the evening he had picked her up to know that the dress looked good on her, but she had enjoyed seeing it there none the less.

  After the play had ended he had taken her out for supper at a small French restaurant she had never even heard of, but when she had ordered and tested the French onion soup she had known that his taste in good food was as impeccable as his taste in well-made clothes.

  After dinner he had driven her home, parking his silver-grey Jaguar discreetly in the drive of the Lewises’ house and then switching off the lights.

  Heaven, who had been awaiting this moment ever since he had made his casual invitation to take up his spare ticket, hadn’t been sure if it was exhilarated excitement that was churning her stomach so nervously, or pure fear.

  She had been out with good-looking men before, but she had never previously met anyone who’d affected her as quickly and overwhelmingly as Jon had done, and she had known even then, with that heart-deep instinct that all women possessed, that he was a man who could be something very special in her life… perhaps even be the man.

  And then he had kissed her.

  Briefly, decorously, unthreateningly… the first time!

  After the world had stopped turning around her, after she had stopped feeling like one of those small figures in a child’s toy snow storm, he had kissed her again.

  And she had responded, totally unable to stop herself from letting her emotions show.

  ‘I’m not used to this,’ she told him shakily and plaintively when he eventually released her.

  ‘Do you think I am?’ he countered rawly before drawing her back into his arms. ‘You smell of cinnamon and honey, and everything good that was ever created,’ he told her huskily as he breathed in the scent of her with heart-rocking sensuality, ‘and I could eat you—every tiny last bit of you.’

  He didn’t do that, but he certainly kissed her again, deeply, lingeringly, like someone relishing every mouthful of a delicious meal, parting her lips and tasting her mouth as though he were enjoying some sweet, juicy-fleshed fruit.

  There wasn’t anything else. He didn’t make any attempt to touch
her more intimately, and, despite the way he had aroused her, irrationally she was glad… glad of the fact that already he liked her enough, cared enough not to want to rush things, to gobble down the pleasure she knew instinctively the two of them could share.

  ‘I have to go away tomorrow,’ he whispered to her as he held her face and kissed her gently on the mouth a final time. ‘Business in Europe. But once I get back I’ll be in touch…’

  But of course he hadn’t been, she mused now. She hadn’t been there for him to get in touch with. The storm had broken two days later, and she had gone to ground, with Louisa accusing her of having an affair with her husband and him having admitted it. Refusing to listen to Heaven’s denials, Louisa had left her husband, taking their two children with her.

  Although he had strenuously denied it Heaven had had a pretty shrewd suspicion that it had been Harold himself who had leaked the story to the press. The initial story had quickly turned into a nationally covered media debate on Heaven’s supposed treachery in having an affair with Harold—a debate which had left her reputation in tatters and her self-esteem so low that she had been more than grateful to accept her parents’ suggestion that she leave London and stay with them until the fuss had died down.

  She had no idea just when Jon had returned from abroad but she had not been surprised when he had not got in touch with her, and, even though on a chance meeting in the street Louisa had apologised for not listening to her when she had originally tried to explain that Harold had been lying about the supposed relationship between them, no mention had been made of her brother and Heaven had not felt able to ask about him.

  Over the last few months she had had the scales so well and truly ripped from her eyes where the male sex was concerned that she had few illusions left, and besides, right now she had far more important and immediate concerns to deal with.

  Things like making sure that Harold Lewis paid for what he had done to her. Oh, not in money. No, something far more satisfactory… Something that would damage his reputation, his self-esteem, his standing in the eyes of the world, just as he had damaged hers.

  ‘The proof of the pudding,’ she reminded herself, muttering the words under her breath so that Janet shook her head slightly.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She apologised again to her friend. ‘It just makes me so mad, that’s all. He gets away scot-free with what he’s done and I’m left not just without a job but also without a reputation. What sane woman is going to employ me now when the whole world knows the risk she’d be taking? When everyone thinks I’m a cook from hell, the kind of employee who is more interested in making the man of the house than in making the dinner? Well, it’s my turn now and fate has given me an opportunity to well and truly butter his bread for him. It’s almost too good to be true…’

  ‘Mmm…’ Janet agreed doubtfully. ‘Tell me in more detail what you plan to do.’

  ‘Just let me get these puddings on,’ Heaven said. ‘I’ve got an order for fifty to fill and get sent off by tomorrow.’

  ‘Fifty…’ Janet groaned, watching as Heaven moved deftly around the kitchen.

  ‘Right,’ Heaven announced when she had finished. ‘As you know I’ve been advertising in the classified ads as Mrs Tiggywinkle, selling figgy puddings, but saying that I can cater for private functions as well. Well, I got a phone call three days ago from someone who introduced herself to me as Tiffany Simons. She said that she was desperate to find someone to cook a special celebration pre-Christmas dinner for her fiancé who was returning from the States with a couple of important business clients who he wanted her to entertain along with some close friends and business associates. None of the agencies could supply her with a cook so close to Christmas and at such short notice—so she was literally ringing round every number she could find in the hope of getting a cook from somewhere.

  ‘To add to her problems, as well as dropping this dinner on her it transpired that her fiancé had also left her with full responsibility for getting the work completed on a house he was having renovated for them both.

  ‘We arranged to meet to have lunch and discuss everything. And that was when I knew…’

  ‘When you knew what?’ Janet questioned her.

  ‘When I knew that she—Tiffany—must be engaged to Harold… She was wearing Louisa’s old engagement ring,’ Heaven told her simply. ‘I recognised it straight away. Louisa threw it back at him the day she walked out. Later she told me that she’d never liked it and had always considered it too vulgar. It was a huge brilliant-cut solitaire. Very flashy.’

  ‘Louisa’s engagement ring and now this Tiffany’s wearing it?’ Janet gasped.

  ‘Yes, but I doubt that she knows it was Louisa’s. She’s very young—I feel quite sorry for her. She’s obviously terrified of doing anything to annoy or upset Harold and it’s typical of him that he should have sprung this dinner thing on her—and typical as well that the fee he’s willing to pay the cook he’s told her to hire is nowhere near enough—not for the type of meal he’s ordered her to organise.

  ‘She’s panicking like mad that the guest bedrooms aren’t going to be finished on time. She confided to me that Harold’s refusing to pay the interim payments he promised the designers and suppliers unless they get everything ready ahead of schedule. I don’t know who these people are he’s so keen to impress but they must be pretty important to him…’

  ‘More important than his new fiancée,’ Janet suggested shrewdly.

  ‘Oh, much more important,’ Heaven agreed. ‘I could tell from the way she was talking about him that she hardly knows him at all. There’s some kind of distant business connection between Harold and her father, apparently, and that’s how they met.

  ‘Anyway, once she told me what was happening, I realised that if I took on the job of cooking this dinner for her it would give me the ideal opportunity to get my own back on Harold. He always did have a sweet tooth,’ she added inconsequentially, a wide, cat-like smile curling her mouth as her eyes danced.

  ‘Heaven…’ Janet said uncertainly. ‘You’re not thinking of doing anything too over the top, are you?’

  She was suddenly remembering the scrapes her friend’s irrepressible sense of humour had got them into as schoolgirls and remembering too just how much reason Heaven had to want to punish Harold for the damage he had done to her.

  ‘That depends,’ Heaven answered soberly, but Janet could see that her eyes were still gleaming with amusement.

  ‘On what?’ she asked warily.

  ‘On what one considers to be too over the top,’ Heaven replied promptly, but unsatisfactorily—at least so far as Janet was concerned.

  Janet tried again.

  ‘What I meant was, you’re not planning on doing something illegal…?’

  ‘Illegal?’ Heaven’s eyebrows rose. ‘Certainly not,’ she denied emphatically. ‘What I have in mind is designed quite simply to hurt Harold’s pride, to damage it just as he damaged mine. Poisoning him and ending up in prison for it—if that’s what that anxious mother-hen look in your eyes means you’re worrying about—is the last thing I’d want to do, although…’ A thoughtful far-away look in her eyes made Janet’s anxiety increase. ‘There are certain hallucinogenic mushrooms which I could—’

  ‘No, no, you mustn’t do anything like that,’ Janet intervened quickly.

  ‘No, I mustn’t,’ Heaven agreed, adding with mock primness, ‘It would be quite unethical.

  ‘No, what I’ve got in mind will teach Harold a much more salutary lesson than anything like that…’

  ‘If he doesn’t recognise you and throw you out,’ Janet warned her.

  ‘He won’t recognise me,’ Heaven assured her positively. ‘For a start Tiffany only knows me by my new professional name of Mrs Tiggywinkle and she obviously hadn’t a clue who I was when we met. She was at great pains and rather embarrassed to ask me if I would mind keeping a very low profile—apparently Harold wants his guests to think that she cooked their meal.

 
‘He would, of course, since he’s obviously being too mean to take them out to an expensive restaurant or pay the fees charged by the kind of frantically up-market caterers he’d enjoy boasting about hiring. He’s decided it will give him more kudos to have his victims—sorry, his guests—believe that poor Tiffany has cooked their dinner, so I’m to lie low in the kitchen whilst she serves the meal.

  ‘Knowing Harold as I do, I very much doubt he’ll come anywhere near the kitchen—for a start he’d think he was demeaning himself and no doubt he’ll try his best to get away with delaying paying me for as long as he can—I’ve asked to be paid cash on the night. No, Harold won’t see me to recognise me.

  ‘It won’t matter, not so long as they eat their dinner—and they will.

  ‘Revenge is sweet, so they say, and, as I’ve already told you, Harold has an extremely sweet tooth, so he shall have an extremely generous portion of revenge,’ Heaven told her, giving Janet a kind smile when she saw that she was still looking anxious.

  ‘I wish you weren’t doing this,’ Janet told her.

  ‘I don’t,’ Heaven responded cheerfully. ‘You can’t imagine how much better I’ve felt these last few days knowing that at last Harold is going to get his comeuppance, or rather his just deserts! Do you know, I think I’m going to enjoy Christmas this year after all?’ she added conversationally as the timer on her oven pinged and she went to attend to the puddings she had made earlier.

  ‘All alone here?’ Janet asked her doubtfully. ‘I wish you would change your mind and come with us to Lloyd’s parents’. I know they’d make you welcome.’

  ‘No… I want to be alone… Next year is going to be my year and I want to be ready for it.’