A Daughter For Christmas

by Cathy Williams

  ‘What do you mean?’ It was all she could do to get the words out with some semblance of nonchalance.

  ‘Bright colours.’ He shrugged and continued to look at her. ‘A little on the wild side, I suppose.’

  ‘Me? No, I don’t think so.’ She didn’t care for the turn in the conversation at all.

  ‘Shame. It would be interesting...’ He moved towards her and she felt a flare of panic, excitement and apprehension run through her like an electric current.

  It was a feeling she had never experienced before. It made every nerve in her body tingle.

  He stopped in front of her and looked at her upturned face. ‘To see whether your art is saying something that you’re afraid to say yourself.’ He didn’t lay a finger on her, but still her breath caught in her throat and her body was aching as though he had touched her. She wasn’t wearing a bra and she could feel her nipples push against her shirt, throbbing.

  Her mind toyed with images of his lips against hers, his hands pushing beneath the shirt to caress her breasts.

  ‘Lunch will be in half an hour,’ he said, and she blinked rapidly and returned to the present, shocked at her reaction to him—stunned at the treachery of her body, which had responded with such blatant arousal to a situation which had not even existed. ‘Edie—Mrs MacBride—is doing something light.’

  His voice was so normal that she wondered how on earth she could have leapfrogged into a scenario that had no grounding in reality.

  She drew back from him and folded her arms, which at least stopped them from trembling.

  ‘Something light’s fine.’

  ‘I don’t like salads,’ Amy said from the doorway, and they both turned to look at her.

  ‘I’m sure Mrs MacBride has seen fit to do something a little more than a couple of lettuce leaves, Ames,’ Leigh said, with a deep feeling of relief that her niece had appeared at precisely the right time.

  ‘You’ll have to fill her in on your likes and dislikes,’ Nicholas said. Was it her imagination or had he drawn away slightly as well?

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so!’ Leigh laughed. ‘Or else we’ll be having chicken nuggets and pizzas every night of the week.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ Amy grinned, and in the middle of this Nicholas headed off, pausing on the way out to inform his daughter that there was probably more nutrition in the packaging than there was in a plateful of chicken nuggets.

  ‘Not,’ he added, ‘that I’m entirely sure what a nugget is.’

  As soon as he had left the room Leigh could feel her breathing return to normal. She continued with her unpacking. She forfeited the shower until after lunch, chatting with Amy in a voice that was way too bright to be normal while her head frantically tried to grapple with her feelings.

  Had Mick ever made her feel that way? Produced that helpless, yearning sensation inside her? No. Theirs had been a relationship that they had somehow drifted into, but now, when she thought back to him, all she could remember with any clarity was his childish irresponsibility. When they had both been carefree students she had found that charming—a symbol of freedom, of someone who refused to conform. Later, when responsibilities had begun to pile on top of her, she had seen it as weakness.

  When she had needed a shoulder to cry on he had not been there because he simply did not possess the strength to give her. It was as if life within the art college had been life within a vacuum. Circumstances had forced her out of the vacuum, and she had had to take a deep breath and struggle out of the cocoon into reality.

  Mick, she had soon realised, would never undergo that struggle and nor had he wanted to. And wasn’t it just as well in the end? She couldn’t picture him in this sort of environment at all.

  She glanced around her at the accumulation of wealth—all the rewards of hard work and long hours and the powerful, clever mind of someone who never shied away from the responsibilities that life had had to offer.

  Wasn’t that why Nicholas Kendall had assumed the welfare of this unexpected daughter with such gusto?

  She and Amy headed down to the kitchen. She had managed to put those puzzling reactions to him to the back of her mind. She had a job to do, and do it she would without distraction, least of all distraction from a man who, essentially, belonged to a different world.

  He was standing by the dresser with a cup in his hand, and seated at the kitchen table, in the relaxed pose of someone who belonged there, was the most beautiful woman Leigh had ever seen in her life.

  She was easily into her thirties, possibly late thirties, but her skin was alabaster smooth and her blonde hair was swept back into something very clever at her nape.

  She had obviously been deep in conversation with Nicholas because as she turned to the door to look at Leigh her mouth was still slightly open, as though a sentence, half formed, was waiting to come out. It was a very photogenic pose, almost unnatural, but, then, Leigh thought beauty often appeared that way. Contrived, artificial, splendidly untouchable.

  ‘This is Fiona,’ Nicholas said, pushing himself away from the dresser to pour Amy a glass of orange juice. ‘My lodger.’

  Leigh gave her a perfunctory smile. His lodger? Surely not. His lodger, according to her imagination, was old and comfortable and grandmotherly.

  ‘So you’re Leigh Walker,’ Fiona stood up. She had a long, elegant body, the sort that complemented whatever happened to be thrown over it—designer outfit or dustbin bag. Either would look spectacular. ‘And you...’ She smiled at Amy who stared back at her with the intense, penetrating stare that only children could use without embarrassment. ‘You must be little Amy.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Leigh looked at Nicholas with some confusion, ‘I didn’t know that you had company.’

  ‘Oh, never mind me!’ Fiona said gaily. ‘Just pretend I’m not here, darling.’

  ‘Fiona’s just dropped in for a quick cup of coffee,’ Nicholas said to Leigh, and there was an undercurrent of amusement in his eyes as he took in her awkwardness.

  She knew why. No wonder he considered her young and infantile if he based his comparisons on Fiona, who was theatrically draining the remnants of her cup and attempting to win Amy over with another incandescent smile.

  ‘Oh, darling, she’s gorgeous.’ She walked gracefully over to Nicholas and placed her hand on his arm. ‘You’re an absolute doll, aren’t you?’ she said to Amy, who had finished her juice and was carefully putting the empty glass on the kitchen counter.

  ‘Thank you,’ Amy said politely, looking at Fiona with the quizzical expression of someone viewing a madman’s antics. Leigh stifled a laugh.

  ‘You ought to see her when she’s in her stunning floral ensemble,’ Leigh said, keeping a straight face with difficulty and trying to imagine her niece’s horrified reaction should she ever produce any such outfit for her to wear. ‘All bows and frills and matching hat with black patent shoes.’

  ‘Yuck!’ Amy burst out laughing, and Nicholas grinned at Fiona, who seemed piqued that her compliment had not found its target. ‘No one wears that sort of stuff at my age!’

  ‘Kids these days.’ Leigh shook her head with exaggerated regret, and received a scathing look of dislike from Fiona. ‘Leggings and jumpers and black Doc Martin boots.’

  ‘A bit like you, my dear?’ Fiona said, with a cool little smile.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Leigh replied flippantly, biting down hard on the hostility that was rising in her like bile.

  ‘Lunch is ready in the dining room,’ Nicholas said, moving towards the kitchen door and collecting Amy en route. He glanced over his shoulder at Fiona. ‘How long are you going to be in the country?’ he asked, almost as an afterthought.

  ‘Only a couple of days.’ She looked sideways at Leigh. ‘But after that who knows?’

  Leigh began to follow in the safer direction of the dining room, but before she could make it to the kitchen door Fiona stopped her. Nicholas and Amy had already vanished.

  ‘I do hope you don’t get an
y ideas into your head about Nicholas,’ she said softly, still smiling.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m talking about you living here under his roof. Nick can be a very charming man. From one woman to another, I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.’

  Leigh felt the blood rush to her face and she had to steady herself against the doorframe.

  ‘There’s no possibility of that happening,’ she muttered.

  ‘I’m so glad to hear that because, sweet as you no doubt are, Nicholas has never had much time for little girls. He prefers women.’ Like me, her voice said. She gave another quick, cold smile and then she walked off, and Leigh made her way slowly and thoughtfully into the dining room.

  CHAPTER SIX

  LEIGH didn’t know what she should expect by way of Fiona, popping up with more of her venomous warnings. She had visions of having to creep through the house and peer around corners but, as it turned out, over the next few weeks she only happened to see her in passing on a few occasions.

  She had tried to prise information subtly out of Nicholas, but all she knew for sure was that Fiona worked as a buyer for a fashion house and so spent a great deal of time out of the country.

  But what, she wondered, was she doing in his house? She surely must be able to afford somewhere of her own.

  Not that it matters one way or another, she told herself over and over again. So what if she and Nicholas were having some kind of affair? The few times she had spotted Fiona had certainly been at night. She’d been dressed to the nines and having a drink with Nicholas, and Leigh could only assume that these were preludes to dinner or the theatre or some other, more exotic destination.

  It preyed on her mind.

  She restlessly tossed around images of him with the elegant blonde, making elegant conversation followed by elegant love. Every time her mind travelled down that route she told herself, very firmly, that Nicholas Kendall could do as he pleased—she really couldn’t give a damn.

  She had other things to worry about. She had to make sure that Amy adapted to her new surroundings. She spent a great deal of time helping Amy with her homework, playing with her before bed in the small sitting room on the top floor and making her bedroom as warm and inviting as possible.

  Nicholas had bought her a poster of Winnie the Pooh, for which Amy thanked him profusely, and, having ascertained that it would be all right to stick a poster on the wall, promptly replaced it with one of a pop group, much to Nicholas’s amusement.

  Everything appeared to have settled into a pleasant routine.

  Nicholas came home in the evenings, generally just before Amy was ready to go to bed, and he would always spend some time with her, listening to her read a book or chatting. Occasionally he would read her a story, but Amy told him frankly that his stories were a bit too childish. She preferred the gory to the sugary.

  At those times Leigh would tactfully vanish after a few pleasantries, and there was usually no need to clap eyes on him again for the night as she ate an early supper with her niece.

  So she saw relatively little of Nicholas. A few times he had chatted with her after Amy had gone to bed about her school and how she was doing generally. She had managed to train herself not to react to his presence at times like these.

  But curiosity nagged at the back of her mind over his relationship with Fiona. Was she his personal life? Or did he have a personal life somewhere else? He went out a great deal at night, but where she had no idea.

  She had been doing some painting in the studio, which she now used regularly, practising her art before college began the following January, when, on the spur of the moment, she decided to hunt out Nicholas. She knew he was around. Somewhere. He had tucked Amy in for the night as usual and had informed her on his way out that he would be in if she wanted to have an evening out with her friends.

  The weather had turned bitterly cold in the past few days, from gold autumn to the grey white of winter. Even inside the house, with the radiators pumping out heat, it was still cool enough for Leigh to have flung on a jumper over her T-shirt earlier on when she had gone down to the studio to paint.

  If he’s in his bedroom, she told herself, it’ll wait.

  He wasn’t. She checked the kitchen first, which was in darkness, then the sitting room, which was lit but empty, and had already decided that he was in his bedroom when she noticed a thin strip of light under the study door and from inside the deep timbre of his voice.

  She stood, poised for instant flight, outside the door, listening to ascertain whether there was someone in the room with him. At times like this, she thought guiltily, a glass would come in handy.

  After a couple of minutes she knocked, and only realised how little she actually wanted to be there when she found herself in the study. There was no going back now, of course.

  He had been speaking into a dictating machine, which he now clicked off, swivelling around in his chair so that he could look at her. The computer terminal, which was on the desk in front of him, was turned on, and the screen showed what appeared to be financial data. How long had he been in here, working? It was already after nine-thirty. Did the man never stop?

  ‘Yes?’ he said, more in surprise than irritation.

  Leigh stood by the door with her hands behind her back, and tried to remember what she had come to say.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you.’

  He didn’t say anything. He pressed his thumbs against his eyes, stood, switched off the computer terminal and said, without looking at her, ‘Don’t be. I’ve had enough of these figures anyway.’

  ‘I thought we might have a quick chat about Amy.’

  ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked sharply, turning to face her, and she shook her head.

  ‘No. Just a couple of points.’

  ‘Let’s go into the sitting room. More comfortable there.’

  Leigh wasn’t quite sure whether she wanted comfort, but she followed him and accepted a gin and tonic when he poured one for himself.

  ‘Now,’ he said, sitting on the chair opposite her, ‘what’s the matter?’ He took a long, slow mouthful of his drink and stretched out his legs in front of him, crossing them at the ankles.

  ‘Just to let you know that I’ve spoken to her about changing schools.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘This evening,’ Leigh admitted.

  ‘And? Her reaction?’

  ‘She’s a little bit put out at the prospect of having to move, and make new friends.’

  ‘Did you explain why it was necessary?’

  ‘I told her that the school she’s going to now is a little too far. She seemed fine. She’s become a little scared of changes in her life, what with one thing and another.’

  ‘She seems to have settled down all right here, though.’

  ‘Yes. She has.’

  ‘No complaints that I don’t know about?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you tell me?’

  She hesitated. ‘I suppose so, yes.’

  ‘Good. Let’s not forget that I’m her father. I don’t expect you to keep anything from me.’ He finished his drink and regarded her steadily, with the glass still in his hand.

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she retorted quickly.

  ‘Which brings me to something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.’

  ‘Yes?’ Her stomach gave a little flip. Why did that have such an ominous ring to it?

  ‘We need to decide when would be the best time to tell her who I am.’

  ‘Not yet!’ Her reaction was automatic. She could not envisage any such possibility in the near future, even though she knew that he wouldn’t be prepared to continue with his farcical role of family friend for ever.

  ‘When?’ he asked. His voice was steely. He was asking a question to which he wanted an answer.

  ‘Well, it’s not the sort of thing I can pencil in for a date,’ Leigh prevaricated. ‘I’m just not sure whether she’s ready or not for tha
t kind of revelation. As far as she’s concerned, Roy was her father.’

  ‘But,’ Nicholas said smoothly, ‘he wasn’t her father. I’m her father and I don’t intend to remain in this role for the rest of my days.’

  ‘I know that!’ she told him, restlessly finishing her drink. She allowed him to take her glass to be refilled, even though she could feel the alcohol fizzing through her, making her even more jumpy and on edge.

  He strolled across to the bar, poured them both another drink and handed her the glass.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you do. I think you’re quite prepared to allow this situation to carry on indefinitely, by which time it’ll be doubly difficult to tell her.’

  ‘No, it won’t.’

  ‘She’ll wonder why nothing was mentioned sooner. Also, from my point of view, I’m obliged to take an interested back seat when it comes to making decisions about her future.’ He crossed his legs and looked at her steadily. ‘Then there’s the fact that as a family friend—’ his mouth twisted cynically when he said this ‘—I can neither guide nor reprimand her. I’m on the outside, looking in, and I don’t care for it.’

  ‘I get your point, but you’ll just have to bear with us for a bit longer.’ Two gin and tonics was definitely not a good idea. Her head was beginning to feel a little heavy and she had to concentrate on every word he was saying.

  ‘I would like your definition of “a bit longer”.’

  ‘A few months, maybe,’ Leigh told him vaguely.

  ‘Not good enough.’

  ‘What are you saying? I can’t be any more definite than that.’

  ‘Then I’ll fill in the gaps on your behalf, shall I?” He rested one hand along the arm of the chair and drummed on it steadily and softly with his finger. Leigh watched, mesmerised, until she forced herself to tear her attention away from the rhythmic movement back to his face. ‘The year is practically finished. Amy starts her new school at the beginning of next year. I intend to give her a while to settle in then I shall break the news to her, with or without your co-operation.’

  Leigh could feel colour rise to her face. ‘In other words, although you pay me to take care of your daughter, I have no final say in anything. Is that it? I could be anybody. My duties are simply to make sure that Amy is fed, looked after, clothed, dropped at school and collected.’