A Countess for Christmas

by Christy McKellen

  After saying goodbye to her mother, she made her way wearily up the stairs, turning onto the landing to find Jack standing outside the door of the bedroom she was meant to be staying in.

  She came to a stop and stared at him in confusion. Why was he waiting for her here?

  Unless...

  ‘Were you listening to my phone call?’ she asked, unable to keep the reproachful tone out of her voice.

  ‘I was waiting to show you which room was yours,’ he said, but she could tell from a slight falter in his voice that he was lying.

  ‘You were checking that I wasn’t calling a boyfriend, weren’t you?’ she said, narrowing her eyes.

  He raised an eyebrow, refusing to be intimidated by her pointed accusation. ‘I am still your husband, Emma.’

  She folded her arms. ‘Well, don’t worry, you don’t need to set the dogs on anyone. I haven’t had a boyfriend since you left.’

  There was a heavy pause where he looked at her with a muscle flicking in his clenched jaw. ‘Since you decided not to follow me, you mean,’ he corrected.

  She sighed, feeling the weight of his resentment pressing in on her. ‘I really don’t want to argue with you right now, Jack. Can we discuss my failings tomorrow? It’s been a very long day.’ She forced herself to smile at him and went to walk past him, but he put an arm out, barring her way.

  ‘Have you really not had another partner since we split up?’

  Taking a breath, she turned to face him, feeling a small shiver run up her spine at the dark intensity she saw in his gaze. ‘Well, my mother needed me for a long time after my father died and I’ve been working all the hours of the day to fit in both full-time work and night classes since then. So no. There hasn’t been a lot of space for romance in my life.’ She was aware of the bitter bite to her voice now and couldn’t stop herself from adding, ‘From what I’ve read in the press, it hasn’t been the same for you though.’

  When she’d first seen the articles about the high-profile relationship he’d had with the daughter of a famous hotelier six months after he’d moved to the States she’d had to rush to the toilet to be sick. She suspected it had been a deliberate move on his part to let her know that he’d moved on and that she hadn’t broken his heart.

  Even though she knew she had.

  She’d heard the pain in his voice the last time they’d spoken to each other. The desperation, the frustration. But she’d had to harden herself to it.

  They were never meant to be. The universe had made that very clear to her when it had killed her father.

  Jack’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘Our relationship was over by then, Emma. You’d made that perfectly clear when you decided to stay in England with your mother instead of joining me, your husband, in the States.’

  She took a calming breath, knowing that now wasn’t the time to have a conversation about this when they were both stressed and still in shock from seeing each other again. ‘I never meant to hurt you, Jack. Please believe that.’

  He leant in towards her, his expression hard. ‘I waited for you, Emma, like a fool, thinking you’d finally put us first once you’d had time to grieve for your father, but you never did.’

  His gaze burnt into hers, his eyes dark with frustration.

  ‘I know you took it all very personally, Jack, and I can’t blame you for that, but I promise you it wasn’t because I didn’t love you. It was just the wrong time for us.’

  He didn’t respond to that, just kept looking at her with that unsettling, intense gaze of his.

  ‘Goodnight, Jack,’ she forced herself to say, moderating her tone so he wouldn’t hear the pain this was causing her in her voice, and without waiting for his response she walked past him and shut the door.

  Staggering into the room, her legs suddenly weak and shaky, she flopped down onto the large four-poster bed, its heavy mahogany frame squeaking with the movement, and curled into a ball, taking deep, calming breaths through her nose to stop herself from crying.

  She understood why he was still upset with her. In his eyes she’d betrayed him, and Jack was not a man to easily forgive people who had hurt him. And she really couldn’t blame him for so publicly cutting off their association at the knees, instead of letting it limp on painfully when there had been nowhere left for it to go.

  Uncurling herself, she turned onto her back and stared up at the dark burgundy canopy above her.

  Seeing him again, after all these years apart, made her heart heavy with a sorrowful nostalgia for the past. She’d grieved for Jack the same way she’d mourned her father at the time, only it had been a different kind of pain—with a sharp edge that constantly sliced into her well-being, reminding her that it had been her decision to end things with him and that there could be no going back from it. The damage had been done.

  It had left a residual raw ache deep inside her that she’d never been able to shake.

  Too tired now to even get undressed, she crawled beneath the sheets and let her mind run over the events of the evening. Her heart beat forcefully in her chest as she finally accepted that Jack was back in her life, although for how long she had no idea. He was obviously keen to get their ‘situation’ resolved so he could cut her completely out of his life and become available to marry someone more fitting of his position when the need arose.

  She lay there with her thoughts spinning, suddenly wide awake.

  In the first year after they’d parted she’d regularly tossed and turned in her bed like this, feeling so painfully alone that she’d given in to the tears, physically aching for Jack to be there with her, to hold her and whisper that everything would be okay, that she was doing a good job of dealing with the fallout from her father’s death and that he was proud of her.

  That he was there for her.

  But he hadn’t been.

  Because she hadn’t let him be.

  A while after they’d split she’d considered moving on from him, finding someone new to love, but what with her intense working schedule and the mental rigor of taking care of her emotionally delicate mother there hadn’t been room for anyone else in her life.

  So she’d been on her own since Jack left for the States, and perhaps that had been for the best. She hadn’t wanted to rely on someone else for emotional support after her father had let her down so badly, because that would have left her exposed and vulnerable again, something she’d been careful to put up walls against over the last few years.

  At least on her own she felt some semblance of control. She was the one who would make things better.

  She turned over in bed and snuggled down further into the covers, hoping that fatigue would pull her under soon.

  She’d find a way to deal with having Jack back in her life again. It would all be okay.

  * * *

  Or so she thought.

  Waking early the next morning, her head fuzzy from a night of broken sleep and disturbingly intense dreams, Emma heaved herself groggily out of bed, wrinkling her nose at the smell of old booze on her crumpled clothes, and went to the window to see what sort of weather they had in store for them today, hoping for a bit of late autumn sunshine to give her the boost of optimism she needed before facing Jack again.

  But it seemed that bad weather was to be the least of her problems.

  Peering down at the street below her window, Emma realised with a sickening lurch that the pavement in front of Jack’s house was swarming with people, some of whom were gazing up at the window she was looking out of as if waiting to see something. When they spotted her, almost as one, they raised a bank of long-lens cameras to point right at her. Even from this distance she could see the press of their fingers on the shutter buttons and practically hear the ominous clicking of hundreds of pictures being taken of her standing at Jack’s window looking as if she’d just climbed out of h
is bed.

  Leaping away from the window, she hastily yanked the curtains together again.

  Someone at the party must have blabbed about what they saw and heard last night.

  The press had found out about them.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JACK HAD WOKEN EARLY, feeling uneasy about what he’d said to Emma the night before. He was annoyed with himself for losing his temper as he had, but hearing her practically accusing him of cheating on her had caused something to snap inside him.

  He’d waited for months after moving to the States for word from her to let him know she was finally going to join him there, months of loneliness and uncertainty, only to finally be told, in the most painful conversation of his life, that she wasn’t coming after all.

  She’d given up on their marriage before it had even started.

  He’d understood in theory that he’d been asking too much of her, expecting her to walk away from her life in England at such a difficult time, but he’d also been left with a niggling feeing that she’d chosen her mother over him and that she hadn’t loved him enough to put him first.

  After taking a quick shower and pulling on some clothes he strode down to the kitchen to set the coffee maker up, waiting impatiently for the liquid to filter through.

  He was determined to stay in control today. There was no point in rehashing the past. It was time to move on.

  Lifting a mug out of the cupboard, he banged it down on the counter. What was he thinking? He had moved on. Years ago.

  But seeing Emma again had apparently brought back those feelings of frustration and inadequacy that had haunted him after he’d finally accepted she wasn’t interested in being married to him any longer.

  Sighing, he rubbed a hand over his face. He needed to get a grip on himself if he was going to get through this unscathed. The last thing he needed right now was Emma’s reappearance in his life messing with his carefully constructed plan for the future.

  He’d just sat down at the kitchen table with a mug of very strong coffee when she came hurrying into the kitchen, her eyes wide with worry and her hair dishevelled.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, standing up on instinct, his heart racing in response to the sense of panic she brought in with her.

  ‘The press—they must have found out about you being married because they’re swarming around outside like a pack of locusts trying to get pictures.’ She frowned and shook her head vigorously, as if trying to shake out the words she needed. ‘They just got one of me peering out of my bedroom window at them—make that your bedroom window. I don’t know whether they’ll be able to tell exactly who I am, but their lenses were about a foot long, so they’ll probably be pretty sharp images.’

  He watched her start to pace the floor, adrenaline humming through his veins as he took in her distress.

  Damn it! This was his fault for announcing their marriage to the whole of Fitzherbert’s party last night. He’d been a fool to think they might get away with hiding from it. There was always going to be someone in a crowd like that that could be trusted to go to the papers for a bit of a backhander or the promise of future positive exposure for themselves.

  ‘Okay. Don’t panic, it might not be as bad as we think,’ he said, reaching for his laptop, which he’d left on the table. Opening it up, he typed a web address into the browser and brought up the biggest of the English gossip sites.

  He stared at the headline two down from the top of the list, feeling his spirits plummet.

  The Earl of Redminster’s Secret Waitress Wife! the link shouted back at him from the page.

  He scanned the article, but there was no mention of Emma’s name. ‘Well, it can’t have been Fitzherbert who tipped them off because they don’t seem to know who you are. I guess he’s kept his mouth shut out of embarrassment about the way he acted last night. Despite his drunken bluster, he won’t want to get on the wrong side of the Westwood family in the cold light of day.’

  He shut the laptop with a decisive click. ‘Still, it looks like neither of us are going anywhere today. We can’t risk going out there and having more photos taken of us until we’ve spoken to our parents and briefed them about what to say if any reporters contact them.’

  She flopped into the chair opposite and raised a teasing eyebrow. ‘What exactly do you intend to tell them, Jack? Funny story, Mum and Dad. You know how you thought your son was the most eligible bachelor in England? Well, guess what...?’

  He tried and failed to stop his lips from twitching, gratified to see she wasn’t going to let this beat her. Even so, he needed to keep this conversation on a practical level because this was a serious business they were dealing with.

  ‘We can’t hide from this, Emma, it’ll only make things worse.’

  She frowned at his admonishing tone. ‘You think I don’t know that? It took years for the papers to stop rehashing the story about my father’s debts. Any time high society or bankruptcy was mentioned in a story, they always seemed to find a way to drag his name and his “misdemeanours” into it.’

  She sighed and ran a hand through her rumpled hair, wincing as her fingers caught in the tangles.

  He stared at her in shock. ‘Really? I had no idea they’d gone after your family like that,’ he said, guilt tugging at his conscience. ‘I didn’t keep up with news in the UK once I’d moved to the States.’

  What he didn’t add was that after leaving England he’d shut himself off from anything that would remind him of her and embraced his new life in America instead. It seemed that by doing that he’d missed quite a lot more than he’d realised.

  ‘Look, why don’t you take a shower and I’ll go and find you some fresh clothes to put on,’ he suggested in an attempt to relieve the self-reproach now sinking through him. ‘I’m pretty sure Clare keeps a couple of outfits here for when she visits London—they’ll fit you, right? You were always a similar shape and height.’

  The grateful smile she gave him made his stomach twist. ‘That would be great. Yes, I’m sure Clare’s stuff would fit me fine. Don’t tell her I’ve borrowed it though, will you? She always hated me stealing her stuff.’ Her eyes glazed over as she seemed to recall something from the past. ‘I really do miss her, you know. I was an idiot to let our friendship fizzle out.’ She paused and took a breath. ‘But she reminded me too much of you,’ she blurted, her eyes glinting with tears.

  The painful honesty of her statement broke through the tension in his chest and he leant forward, making sure he had her full attention before he spoke. ‘You should tell her that yourself. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you, even after all this time.’

  Emma’s gaze flicked away and she nodded down at the table, clearly embarrassed that he’d seen her flash of weakness. ‘Yeah, maybe I’ll do that.’

  Standing up quickly, she clapped her hands together as if using the momentum to move herself. ‘Right. A shower.’

  He felt a sudden urge to do something to cheer her up. There was no need for them to be at each other’s throats after all—what was done was done. In fact, thinking about it practically, it would make the divorce proceedings easier to handle if they were on amicable terms.

  ‘When you come back down I’ll make you some breakfast. Bacon and eggs okay with you?’

  ‘You cook now?’ Her expression was so incredulous he couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘I’ve been known to dabble in the culinary arts.’

  She grinned back and he felt something lift a little in his chest.

  ‘Well, in that case, I’d love some artistic bacon and eggs.’

  ‘Great,’ he said, watching her walk away, exuding her usual elegance, despite her crumpled clothes.

  Out of nowhere, an acute awareness that she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever known—even with her hair a mess and a face clean of make
-up—hit him right in the solar plexus, stealing his breath away.

  He thumped the table in frustration. How did she do this to him? Shake him up and make him lose his cool? No one else could, not even the bullying business people he’d battled with on a daily basis for the last few years.

  Ever since the day he’d met her she’d been able to addle his brain like this, by simply smiling in his direction. As a teenager he’d been angry with her for it at first and to his enduring shame he’d treated her appallingly, picking at her life choices, her manners, the boyfriends she chose. Particularly her boyfriends.

  The way she used to glide through life had bothered him on a visceral level. She was poised and prepossessing, and, according to his sister, the girl most likely to be voted the winner of any popularity contest at the eminent private girls’ school they’d both attended in Cambridge. She’d seemed to him at the time to accept her charmed position in life as if it was her God-given right. He, on the other hand, had always prided himself on being subversive, bucking the trends and eschewing the norm and the fact she epitomised what others considered to be the perfect woman frustrated him. He hadn’t wanted to be attracted to her. But he had been. Intensely and without reprieve.

  What would it be like to hold her in his arms again, he wondered now, to feel her soft, pliant body pressed up against his just one more time, to kiss those sultry lips and taste that distinctive sweetness he remembered so well?

  He pushed the thoughts from his mind.

  The last thing they both needed now was to slip back into their old ways.

  It could only end in disaster.

  * * *

  Even after a bracingly cool shower, Emma still felt prickly and hot with nervous tension.

  Being here, in such close proximity to Jack, was playing havoc with her composure.

  She knew it was necessary and practical to stay here today, but she had no idea how she was going to get through the day without doing or saying something she might regret—just as she had a few minutes ago in the kitchen when she’d blurted out why she’d deliberately cut contact with his sister.