Holiday for Two (a duet of Christmas novellas)

by Maggie Robinson, Elyssa Patrick

  The car was rather spiffy, a Range Rover Evoque. Not the most expensive in the line, but nothing to sneeze at. She patted the dashboard. “Yours?” she asked when Lord Archer climbed into the car.

  “I’m leasing it while I’m in the States. Do you have another of those things for glasses?” His had fogged up again in the luxurious warmth of his luxurious car. Carrie got another wipe out of her coat pocket.

  “I’ll use it after you. How long are you staying?”

  “It depends.” He polished his lenses and gave her back the wipe. “Where to, Miss Moore?”

  Well, he remembered her name—that was something. And he was depending on her to save the day, or night, as it were. It was pretty damn dark already. Edna’s red taillights were barely visible as she fishtailed out of the parking lot.

  “There’s a B and B on the corner of Ferry Road and Route 1.” Carrie peered through the windshield in the inn’s general direction with her cleaned glasses but realized she saw no glowing windows or festive decorations. Not even the spotlight that usually illuminated the sign was lit. The power wasn’t out here as well—the terminal parking lot was bright and the shuttered business had security lights on. “Damn,” she muttered. “We may have to break in.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Carrie’s spine shivered, and not from cold. Those four words were uttered in such haughty disbelief, she immediately thought of Mr. Darcy. Ultimate umbrage.

  She’d always been a sucker for Mr. Darcy, the Colin Firth version, preferably.

  “Um, don’t get your knickers in a twist,” she tried to joke, but Lord Archer was having none of it. The overhead light had not extinguished yet and his look of horror was evident. Was it because she proposed they committing a felony—or was it a misdemeanor?—or because she’d mentioned underwear. Hey, he’d used the word condom first!

  “What I mean is, let’s drive across the road and see what’s what. We can’t stay in your car all night—we’ll get carbon monoxide poisoning if the engine’s running or freeze to death if it’s not. At least we won’t starve. I’ve got olives and wine and some munchies in the bag.” Carrie would not mention the turkey—it couldn’t be cooked over a running engine, could it? She read somewhere you could do fish that way in an aluminum foil packet. It was very odd what you wound up knowing as a personal assistant, but she really should know where penguins lived.

  “How close is it to the next town or village or whatever one calls it here?”

  “Over ten miles, and you should not be driving in this weather. The road winds around like crazy and it will be super-dangerous. You could slide right into the ocean.” An exaggeration. You could probably slide onto someone’s lawn though, and if you were very unlucky, hit their barn, and then go in the water.

  Lord Archer pulled off his orange cap and attempted to smooth his fair hair down. He still looked electrocuted. The interior light powered down and they were left in a thick blanket of sideways snow. “This car handles beautifully in all kinds of conditions. It’s won awards.”

  “I’m sure it’s great. I’m a big fan of English cars.” And English men. There was Harry, Colin and a host of others on Masterpiece Theatre. Jeez, she was just like a character out of Austenland. “But I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

  “And I’d rather not spend time in jail! Damn—er—drat that ferry woman. She might have helped us make some arrangements.” He pulled out a cellphone, punched at it viciously and tossed it on the dashboard in disgust.

  “Reception’s iffy even in good weather. Some people move here for the privacy and poor reception,” Carrie said. “Writers. Recluses. Millionaires.”

  “They won’t stay millionaires for long if they cannot contact their brokers.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Carrie said lightly. And really wouldn’t want to know. Her experience with the rich and famous so far made her grateful for her middle-class parents. There had been lots of rules and limits, annoying at the time. But from her current vantage point at the ripe old age of twenty-eight, she was rooted in reality and had a pretty good head on her shoulders, even if she was uncertain about her cutting edge haircut.

  And the reality was they needed to find shelter. “The inn is just over there. Maybe they’ve just gone to bed early.” Before four o’clock?

  Lord Archer gave her an un-lordlike snort which the comment deserved and the car crept forward.

  “Watch out—” Too late. They bumped over the snow-buried curb and there was an unpleasant scraping sound. Carrie thought he whispered the f-bomb, but was too polite to ask him to repeat himself.

  They made it safely across the road and up the driveway, their tires marking virgin territory.

  “There’s no one here,” Lord Archer ground out. “The place must be closed. I’ll just back out—”

  “No! Let me check. I won’t be a moment.”

  Before he could object, Carrie sprang out of the car and ran up the wide front porch. Her phone might not have bars, but the light on it was good enough to read the neatly-typed sign on the glass and mahogany front door.

  Merry Christmas! We’ve gone to Portland to spend the holiday with our children and grandchildren. We’ll reopen December 30 for the annual New Year’s retreat. See you then!

  Carrie dropped the f-bomb quite loudly. She’d jiggle the front door handle, but there was one of those alarm company shields beneath the doorbell. Not that anyone would come right away.

  A jail cell would be warm, right? Three hots and a cot. Somehow she couldn’t picture Lord Archer behind bars.

  “What does it say?”

  Carrie jumped a mile. The man had snuck up the steps behind her, and she never heard a thing with the roar of the wind and that odd clicking sound that heavy snow made when it fell.

  “They’re closed.”

  “I told you so. We’ll go back to Camden.” Lord Archer sounded smug and very Darcy-ish.

  “Oh, no! Really, I’ve had enough—I just came from there and so have you. It was a harrowing drive, wasn’t it? It will be worse now that the snow is falling harder.”

  “Belfast, then.”

  “The road that way is even more awful. What about the carriage house?”

  He blinked.

  She pointed to a building over to the left. In the summer on sunny days, a jaunty red Jaguar convertible was parked in front of it, attracting the tourists’ attention. “The barn, the garage, whatever it is. Maybe it’s not locked. Grab my boat bag from your car, please.”

  Carrie knew she was not being logical. If the carriage house held a valuable vintage car, then it was probably wired and locked too.

  It was locked, but there wasn’t any sign of an alarm system panel through the door’s window as she shone her phone light in. Careless. Carrie had some experience jimmying doors—that pop singer she used to work for was forever locking himself out of his house before Carrie organized an intervention and got him into rehab—so she took out her special tools from her handbag that she’d tucked inside the canvas tote.

  “Here. Hold my phone. I’ll need some light.”

  “Tell me those aren’t what I think they are.”

  “I won’t tell you then. If it makes you feel any better, reach up around the doorframe for a spare key—I don’t think there’s a doormat.”

  She stood patiently while Lord Archer made his futile effort, raining clumps of snow down on his own bare head and shoulders. Satisfied that there was no easy way in, she crouched over the lock for a few minutes, turned the doorknob easy as pie, and switched on the light.

  The car sat in isolated splendor, its canvas top still down, not going anywhere today. The concrete floor was swept clean enough to eat from, the workbench immaculate, the shelves lining the walls looking alphabetically neat with all the paraphernalia you’d need to keep an old inn going.

  And it was warm! For the delicate car, presumably. Carrie felt like kissing its shiny fender.

  “I’ll lose my work visa and be deported,” Lor
d Archer said with a certain sad grimness.

  “Nonsense. The owners will understand. They’re in the hospitality business.”

  He stared up at the rafters as if expecting them to fall down and crush them as punishment. Carrie noted there were a couple of kayaks and bicycles stored above for the non-winter guests, along with a whole bunch of other stuff.

  “Where did you learn to pick locks? Secretarial school?” He unwound the plaid scarf from his neck and stuffed it in a pocket.

  “I’m not a secretary—I was an art history major at UConn. But there’s not much of a demand for art historians, so I worked as a temp when I got out of school. One thing led to another and all of a sudden I was baby-sitting for the president of a music company. He loaned me out to one of his artists during a difficult time, and then I worked for several other difficult people. Your aunt is a dream by comparison.”

  Since college, Carrie had worked with various creative crazy people, and so far Mrs. Stephens had been less crazy than most. She was particular, of course, being an internationally famous writer and related to Archer viscounts down through the ages. Nice, mostly. But the woman was going to have a conniption fit when she realized Carrie was not coming home tonight with the troublesome turkey.

  Lord Archer was keeping his distance from the Jaguar, but it was obvious he wanted to look at it more closely—anyone would. “How long have you been doing this sort of thing?” he asked.

  Carrie grinned. “House-breaking?”

  Lord Archer rolled his eyes. Gosh, they were blue.

  “Oh. My job. Six years. It’s been interesting to say the least. What kind of car is that anyhow?”

  She knew perfectly well it was a sixty-something XK-E. Her question prompted Lord Archer to bound over to it rather like an exuberant Labrador puppy, his damp golden hair flopping onto his forehead. “It’s a Series 1 Jaguar E-type.” He pronounced it “jag-u-ar” instead of “jagwar” and Carrie was instantly smitten. He touched the pouncing cat on the hood—bonnet?—with a gloved fingertip. “My father had one for a time. Lovely ride.”

  “Too bad we won’t be going anywhere in it.” Wouldn’t Lord Archer look dishy behind the steering wheel, his wavy blond hair blown back by the wind? Carrie mentally gave him a light tan and Ray-Bans. Wayfarers, since he seemed to be a classic kind of guy.

  “Certainly not. I’m not going to add grand theft auto to the list of charges against us.” He turned to her. “Surely you realize we cannot spend the night here.”

  “I can’t see why not. I can sleep in a bucket seat—it’ll be like being on a transatlantic flight without the hot towels and customs forms.”

  Lord Archer scowled at her. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

  “Usually. I get paid to find solutions to things. I was a Girl Scout, you know—I’m very resourceful.” While her friends were wearing belly-baring shirts to the mall and getting extra ear piercings, Carrie was earning her merit badges and reading to old people in nursing homes. Damn, but she’d been a good girl.

  Looking at the lanky, luscious man before her, Carrie itched to be bad. It had been a very long time since she’d even been kissed, and Lord Archer’s lips were seriously kissable. But that wouldn’t be prudent—he was related to her employer. Carrie was much too smart to act on her impulses, no matter how tempting a twenty-first century viscount was. She liked her job, and wouldn’t want to get mixed up in some sordid upstairs/downstairs debacle, even if Lord Archer was not her direct supervisor.

  Plus, he was engaged.

  “We call them Girl Guides in Britain.”

  “I know. Isn’t it interesting how Americans and the English use two different words to mean the same thing? Like biscuit and cookie. Boot and trunk.”

  Lord Archer was giving her the look now. She was babbling in an attempt to banish a Jane Eyre/Rochester scenario from her mind. In Carrie’s opinion, there had been more hanky-panky going on in that book than was on the page. Why else would Jane go insane on the moors if not lamenting the lack of her prized virginity? Such nonsense over a bit of membrane, though. Carrie had read there was surgery where you could re-virginize, unavailable in poor Jane’s time.

  Lord Archer was not anything like dark, brooding Mr. Rochester. He was blond and bespectacled and incredibly proper. She would bet her life he’d never had a French mistress or a bastard daughter, or taken a virgin, for that matter.

  “How are you adjusting to the states?” she asked, unzipping her coat. She was finally defrosting.

  “As Shaw might have said but probably didn’t, we are two countries divided by a common language. Terminology’s a bit different in my field, but I’m a quick study.”

  “Just what is it exactly that you do?”

  He took off his gloves and combed his hair back over his forehead with long fingers, though his jacket was still resolutely zipped up. “The company renovates existing office space, mostly, with a bit of new construction on the side. We are committed to insuring our buildings are sympathetic to their historic neighborhoods, yet have first-rate amenities. ”

  “You’re an architect?”

  “Project manager. I suppose you’d call me more of a go-between between the design team, contractors, financiers and the commercial clients. It’s my job to make sure all the suites are leased before construction, determine the clients’ requirements, and make sure everyone is happy during and after.”

  And Carrie bet everyone was. Just listening to him speak made her purr inside. He could be talking absolute rubbish but she wouldn’t care.

  Carrie, Carrie, she chided herself. She was not in the middle of a romance novel, but in a barn on Christmas Eve with an uncomfortable stranger. Lord Archer looked ready to bolt out into the storm any minute. Perhaps she should divest him of his car keys. Stumble into him, rub against him, reach into his pocket.

  Mrs. Stephens had interviewed an actual pick-pocket this summer for The Book That Would Not End. It had been very educational. Add one more skill to Carrie’s PA repertoire.

  However, cooking wasn’t really one of them.

  “Are you hungry? We can have a picnic.”

  He glanced down at the wet dial of his watch. “At home, it would be tea-time.”

  “We’ll just call it the cocktail hour instead.” Suddenly she remembered the twenty-five pound turkey. She bent and wrestled it out of the bag. “I’ll just stick this in a snowbank before it starts to smell.”

  “Allow me.”

  Ever the gentleman, Lord Archer took the unwieldy object from her and got as far as the door. The turkey proved impossible to juggle as he tried to turn the knob, and Carrie sprinted to open the door. She was impressed as he bowled it quite a ways into a drift.

  “Good riddance,” Carrie said. Though if it hadn’t been for the turkey, she wouldn’t be here right now looking up into Lord Archer’s blue, blue eyes and thinking about rubbing against him to steal his keys.

  Or a kiss.

  Chapter 2

  WHAT WAS THAT hideous Tim Burton movie about Christmas that had given him nightmares when he was a boy? Griffin felt as if he’d been dropped into it.

  He hated Christmas anyway. When he was six, his mother had run away with an Argentinian polo player—such a cliché—and Griffin’s father had drunk his holiday dinner every ensuing year and usually forgot (or was too broke) to buy decent presents. For the last two Christmases, Griffin had gone skiing with Alice. Her family was just as dysfunctional as his, and it was a delight to stay in a well-regulated Swiss resort where only the clocks were cuckoo.

  But here he was stranded in Maine, standing in a late nineteenth century carriage house, snowflakes sliding down the windows. Cool blond sophisticated Alice was not here. Instead a disheveled pixie of a girl, choppy mahogany hair standing on end, was offering him a plastic tub of olives.

  “No thank you,” he said as repressively as he knew how.

  “I didn’t have lunch. Sorry, but I’m just starving.” She skipped across the co
ncrete floor and ripped open plastic packages of cups and plates that were on the well-stocked shelves. Griffin mentally began to tally an expense list up. He may as well leave his American Express card down on the bare workbench and hope for the best. Could one put one’s bail money on a charge card?

  “Can you reach that plaid blanket? We can lay it on the floor.”

  At least she wasn’t proposing to eat in the Jaguar. Griffin would have forbidden that.

  He pulled the blanket down, shook it out, and spread it near the door. They would see the police coming from that vantage point.

  Griffin felt the beginnings of a headache. The drive up Route 1 through the blizzard had been stressful to say the very least, and he hadn’t slept well for days. Weeks. Months really. Not since—

  No. He wasn’t going to think about it. One didn’t cry over spilt milk, after all. There was nothing to be done but soldier on and try to resuscitate the Archer name and fortune.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a corkscrew on you, would you?”

  Of course he did. Griffin had a rather magnificent Victorinox Swiss Army knife, a souvenir of all those ski vacations. Knowing it was pointless to withhold it from the pixie, he took it out of his pocket.

  “Brilliant! Will you do the honors? I always get the cork stuck if I’m not using one of those plunger thingies with the handles.” Miss Moore handed him a bottle of wine from her bottomless bag. Griffin read the label. Expensive. But then Aunt Rosemary could afford the best.

  Griffin hadn’t seen the old girl since she’d ended her last European book tour at Archer Hall last year. She complained of chilblains the whole week she spent there and it was in the middle of the hottest August on record. The house was always cold, but Griffin had big plans to remedy that.

  Plans that required money. Plans that had included an earl’s daughter.

  He opened the wine. How many bottles did Miss Moore have? Not enough.

  She plunked herself and the bag down on the blanket and shimmied out of her fake-fur trimmed down coat. The building really was sufficiently warm, but for some stubborn reason he didn’t follow suit. If he took his jacket off, he’d be acknowledging that he was staying with this maddeningly upbeat girl. If he sat and swallowed even one sip of wine, Miss Moore would win.