12 Stocking Stuffers

by Beverly Barton

  Frowning, she tried to empty her mind of thoughts of him. There had been far too many of them. Deeply disturbing thoughts, hinging on the way her body still responded to him, the singing of her pulses, the weakening of her bones, the aching desire to touch and be touched.

  It couldn’t be love, not after all this time. It simply wasn’t feasible. She had long since outgrown the moonstruck state she’d inhabited all through her teens. Of course she had. Lying awake last night, she’d finally managed to convince herself that it was just an inconvenient chemical thing—hormones.

  Seeing the only man she’d ever made love with had made her celibate body react alarmingly. Regrettable, but quite natural.

  She wouldn’t think of him, or his sleek and suitable American wife.

  And she’d do her level best to forget the way he’d stood his ground last night. She’d wanted to physically push him right out of that door and bang it shut behind him. But he’d simply stood there, watching as the boys had entered the brightly lit kitchen, saying nothing, his darkening eyes narrowed on James as if he’d been committing the boy’s features to memory. It had been a truly frightening situation.

  Then, after what had seemed like for ever, he’d turned his attention to her, smoky eyes unveiled by the enviable sweep of thick dark lashes and fixed on hers for several heart-stopping moments, before he’d swung on his heels and walked out.

  She’d felt like screaming, her nerves in shreds. Instead she’d lectured the boys on their bad behaviour, explaining that entering someone else’s property without their permission was against the law of the land, not to mention the laws of polite behaviour, and had firmly withheld their usual bedtime story session.

  And then spent the rest of the evening wondering if Carl suspected that James was his son.

  And what he would do if he did.

  Nothing, she assured herself now, shepherding the boys along the narrow lane in the teeth of an increasingly bitter wind. He wouldn’t want to publicly acknowledge his son. It would mean having to confess to his wife that while he’d been getting engaged to her an eighteen-year-old, back in England, had been giving birth to his child.

  He might have his suspicions, strong ones, but she’d bet her bottom dollar that was as far as it would go.

  The thought reassured her. She really didn’t know what she’d been worrying about. Carl had married his pedigreed American beauty; he wouldn’t want to dredge up a spectre from his past in the shape of the humble granddaughter of his uncle’s gardener.

  Besides, in all probability he had already left the area, heading back to spend Christmas in some highly sophisticated environment with his perfect wife. His visit to the Hall, the childhood home he had once loved but which was now apparently surplus to his adult and more blasé requirements, would have been a flying one—checking up that there was nothing personal left behind before the public auction of the house and its contents.

  Their paths would never cross again.

  Good, she thought staunchly, ignoring the sharp pang of loss she hadn’t the remotest right to experience as a shriek of delight from James caught her attention.

  ‘Mum—it’s snowing! Look!’

  Beth lifted her face. A few flakes were falling from a sky that looked heavy with the stuff. She’d been too enmeshed in the tangled web of her thoughts to notice how the clouds had rolled in.

  A white Christmas would be story-book perfect, of course. The children would love it. And so would she. All she could hope for was that it would hold off awhile—allow her to drive down to the village after lunch to buy a tree—if any were left. She wouldn’t want to risk the car Angela had lent her by making the journey to Bewley.

  Then the warning note of an engine approaching from behind focused the whole of her attention on the two small boys. ‘Car coming. Keep well into the side.’ Her back to the oncoming vehicle, she heard it slowing down. Well, it would have to; the lane was very narrow and full of sharp bends. Drawing level, the car stopped, and only then did she turn to look at it.

  ‘Carl!’ She spoke his name without even thinking about it, her stomach turning a series of utterly sickening loops. So much for telling herself he would have already left the area!

  Opening the driver’s door of the sleek Jaguar, he unfolded all six feet two inches of lean masculinity, planting his feet wide as he instructed, ‘Hop in. I’ll give you a lift back.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ Beth countered, feeling the heat in her face and wishing she didn’t blush so easily. There was something very different about him this morning. He looked every inch the forceful, intimidating male, and his eyes were as cold as an arctic sea—completely different from the man who had walked back into her life last night.

  He looked formidable.

  Glancing down at the boys, she saw wide apprehension in both pairs of eyes. They had trespassed on this large and daunting man’s property, and although she’d given them both a stern ticking-off they probably thought they were in for more of the same from him. Only worse, judging by his frozen expression.

  ‘We don’t have far to go.’

  She stated the obvious as firmly as she knew how, only to watch him open the rear door and tell the boys, ‘In you get.’ Then he turned cold eyes on her. ‘You have at least another half-mile to walk and the weather’s turning atrocious.’

  She’d rather walk a dozen miles than endure his company, Beth thought numbly, her feet dragging reluctantly as she obeyed the imperious movement of his head and joined him at the rear of the car. Lifting the boot, he took the bundle of holly and laid it beside a carton of groceries.

  Her heart sank. He wouldn’t be stocking up on fresh provisions if he intended to leave the Hall within the next day or two. And this new, bleakly angry mood could only mean one thing: he strongly suspected that James was his son.

  Was he about to confront her with his suspicions? And how could she possibly justify what she’d done? she thought guiltily as she slid into the passenger seat and Carl checked that the boys were safely strapped in the rear.

  Her stomach was tying itself in knots. She felt nauseous as the worst-case scenario punched itself into her brain: Carl, with his wealth, power and influence, fighting for custody, painting her as feckless and sneaky for denying him the basic right of knowing he had a child, denying that same child all the material and social advantages his father could give him.

  But she wouldn’t think of that. She would not!

  Maybe the sense of guilt she had tried to quash over the years was making her see problems where there weren’t any? Perhaps his dark mood was down to something else entirely? A quarrel with his wife? Or having to face a longer stay at the Hall than he’d anticipated? Hence this morning’s drive down to the village to collect extra provisions? And the long, searching look he’d given James last night might have been his way of impressing upon him his displeasure at childish naughtiness.

  Reacting to his mood wouldn’t set her mind at rest, she decided as he slid in beside her and turned the key in the ignition. The only way to discover whether he was angry with her or with some other situation in his life was to pretend everything was normal—do a bit more of the catching up he had expressed an interest in last night.

  ‘I heard through the village grapevine that you intend selling the Hall,’ she ventured for starters, wishing her voice hadn’t emerged sounding so thin and squeaky. Swallowing hastily, she lowered her tone. ‘Marcus might be turning in his grave!’

  Not a nice comment, she admitted with immediate regret as she glanced at the harsh perfection of his classical profile and saw his long mouth tighten, a muscle clench at the side of his jaw. But, against the grain of her nature, she’d wanted to hurt him because the way he’d so obviously changed made her heart ache.

  The Carl Forsythe she had grown to love with an intensity that had been inversely proportionate to any hope that he might love her in return would never have contemplated disposing of the home that had been in his family for countless ge
nerations. Bewley Hall had been in his blood. He’d been so proud of the lovely house and the generations of family history wrapped up within its walls. Now he couldn’t wait to get rid of it.

  The tough, angular line of his jaw tightened further, and the lean fingers on the steering wheel flexed until his knuckles grew white, but he offered nothing in his own defence.

  Her remark had hit home; she could see that very clearly. But the arrogant banker who could trace his ancestry back to the fifteenth century saw no need to explain himself to a nobody like her, Beth thought with deep inner misery, mourning the Carl she had practically grown up around, learned to worship.

  The car’s wipers were only just coping with the amount of snow that was falling now, but in a thankfully short space of time they drew up in front of her cottage, pulling up behind the car Angela had lent her for the journey.

  After helping the two boys out from the rear, Beth walked stiffly to the back of the Jaguar and held out her hands for the bundle of holly Carl had already taken from the boot.

  ‘Thank you for the lift.’ She didn’t mean it, and the patently insincere words were difficult to frame because her breath was so tight in her throat. She wanted him to go away, yet she wanted to look at him for the rest of her life. Snowflakes were dusting the dark sheen of his hair, settling on the expanse of black leather that sheathed his wide shoulders. She wanted to look away, walk away, but she couldn’t.

  Pulling herself together took a monumental effort of will, but she did manage it. The holly clutched tightly against her chest, she took an unsteady step away. She couldn’t afford to have him around James for one moment longer; it was far too dangerous.

  She could have groaned with frustration when James himself prolonged that moment, sliding along the snow-covered ground and thumping to a standstill against the side of Angela’s car, piping up, ‘Can we go down for the Christmas tree now, Mum? Can we?’

  Beth’s eyes clouded as she tugged her lower lip between her teeth. She hated to disappoint her son, but taking the car on the three-mile return journey down to the village would be asking for trouble in the worsening weather conditions. And doing the journey on foot with two small boys in tow was out of the question.

  Surprisingly, it was Carl who came to her rescue. More surprising still, he had obviously read the situation completely. She was sure she wasn’t imagining it—the man who had been positively simmering with some dark internal anger was actually smiling down at James, his eyes soft, his honeyed voice warm and gentle as he vetoed the trip to the village.

  ‘The roads are too slippy to drive on, and in any case I’d guess the best trees have already been sold. How about if I cut one from the estate and bring it round later this evening? I think I can find a box of lights and stuff. I’ll bring those too, and maybe we can decorate the tree together in the morning.’

  He looked and sounded supremely relaxed, Beth thought on a shiver of bleak anxiety. As if such a toing and froing between their two very different households was as natural as breathing.

  James said nothing. He just stood there, a huge grin splitting his attractive, boyish features, until he gave a whoop of joy and turned and wrestled Guy to the ground.

  And Beth just stood there too, watching the boys roll around in the snow like a pair of young puppies, squealing and giggling. A release for the excitement that was spiraling as Christmas Day approached.

  Crazily, she wished she could join them. Anything to release the dreadful tension that was building inside her.

  It was a tension that was in danger of exploding all over the place when Carl, the tightness of banked-down anger back in his face, sharpening his voice, said, ‘I need to talk to you, Beth. This evening. About nine. Make sure the boys are in bed. I don’t want their holiday spoiled.’

  And on that ominous statement he swung abruptly away, getting into the Jaguar without a backward glance and reversing down the track onto the lane that would take him to the Hall—and the wife who would be waiting for the groceries she’d sent him to collect.

  He knows!

  The thought sent a river of panic through her veins as she stared at the tracks his car had made in the steadily falling snow.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AS SOON as the boys were tucked up in bed Beth put a match to the fire she had laid in the small cluttered room Gran had always referred to as ‘the parlour’ and had only used on rare special occasions, such as when the minister came to tea.

  Crammed with an overstuffed three-piece suite of undoubted antiquity, which was starchily protected by stiff linen antimacassars, a forest of Victorian side-tables and whatnots, its walls festooned with gloomy framed prints of dour-looking Highland cattle set in landscapes of ferocious dreariness, the room had a musty, claustrophobic, unused atmosphere.

  But if she kept a good fire burning and draped the brightly berried holly all over those depressing pictures then the room would be really cosy and cute, in a quirky kind of way. And the boys could open their presents here on Christmas morning and have fun.

  Making plans was a way of taking her mind off what was to come. She’d made no special concessions in preparation for her dreaded confrontation with Carl. She was still wearing the same jeans and comfortable darker blue sweatshirt she’d worn all day, and instead of piling her long hair haphazardly on top of her head to keep it out of the way as she normally did she had scraped it severely back in a ponytail and secured it tightly with a no-nonsense rubber band.

  No prinking and preening. Not like that other fateful night, eight years ago, when she’d pulled out all the stops and then some.

  Remembering how she’d saved every penny she’d earned helping her grandfather in the gardens of the Hall out of school hours with the precise intention of buying something special for that longed-for evening opened the floodgates, releasing the memories that were as sharp as if they’d happened yesterday.

  She didn’t need this! She didn’t want to relive that night again. But, sitting cross-legged on the hearthrug, watching the flames leap and crackle, she was powerless to hold back the memories she’d hidden away for such a long time.

  Early in June, eight years ago. That was when it had really started. Her grandfather had put her to weed the long double herbaceous borders that were such a feature of the Hall’s extensive grounds. Hot, back-breaking work, but necessary if she was to pay her way through college after taking her A levels.

  If she closed her eyes and concentrated she could still feel the sun burning her bare arms and legs, the way her sleeveless T-shirt and old cotton shorts had stuck to her overheated body, still hear Carl’s laughter as she’d almost run him down with the loaded wheelbarrow on her way to the compost heap.

  Still feel the punch of sexual awareness that had made her heart tremble and her legs turn to jelly and then almost give way altogether as she’d registered the same awareness in the smouldering charcoal eyes that had held hers with an intensity that had opened up a bone-deep yearning, made her fear she was about to pass out.

  There’d been something different about him. She hadn’t been able to put her finger on it. For ages he’d seemed to avoid her, had seemed uncomfortable in her company whenever they’d run into each other when he’d been home from boarding school.

  She’d really mourned the loss of their earlier close friendship and had sometimes woken at night with tears running down her cheeks, just aching to hear his voice, see his smile, be admitted to the magic circle of his friendship again.

  But that day he’d looked delighted to be in her company. He had led her to a bench in the old courtyard, left her in the shade of the walnut tree while he’d fetched iced lemonade from the kitchens in long tall glasses, and their fingers had touched as he’d transferred one of the glasses to her.

  Something had shuddered inside her and their eyes had met. Then his had dropped to her mouth and lingered and she’d known he wanted to kiss her. But he hadn’t; he’d talked to her instead. And that day, precisely then, she’d falle
n headlong in love with him. Looking back, she realised that she had always loved him and falling in love, as a girl on the brink of adulthood, had been a natural progression.

  Swamped by an emotion that had transcended anything she had ever experienced in her seventeen years of living, she had barely heard a word of what he was telling her, her huge eyes drinking him in, the sensation of exhilaration making her head spin.

  ‘So you’ll be there?’

  ‘Sorry?’ She shook her head so hard her hair whipped across her face. She hadn’t taken in what he’d been saying. He would think she’d turned into an idiot. But he smiled that gorgeous, heart-stopping smile of his and reached out to sweep her bedraggled hair away from her face. She wanted to capture his wrist, put a kiss in his palm, but didn’t have the nerve.

  Her eyes widened and her own mouth trembled into a radiant smile as he repeated, ‘I’ll be back at the end of the summer. You will come to my uncle’s party this year, won’t you? I’ll be looking for you. If you don’t turn up I’ll come and get you!’

  ‘I wouldn’t miss it for worlds!’ she vowed, meaning every single word with a vehement passion.

  And she spent every waking minute of those waiting months going over every detail of that last meeting. The way he’d looked at her, the way she’d felt. Holding tightly to the sudden, shattering ecstasy of falling in love for the very first time.

  And planning.

  At the end of every summer all the household staff, estate workers and their families received an invitation to attend the party Marcus gave for them at the Hall. And every year her grandparents politely declined. They didn’t hold with such wasteful and unnecessary goings-on. They would never give her permission to attend, and while she lived under their roof she would do exactly as she was told. That had been drummed into her more times than she cared to remember.