So very, very different to the kind of home and family Luke might have had with his father.
And Amy.
A messy, warm, volatile domestic mix.
Chaos versus order.
Crowds against solitude.
Making do instead of success.
The benefits of what he’d been given were obvious, so why did he feel so confused? Why did he feel the urge to grab his coat from the hook on the door, find that photograph and hold it under his grandmother’s nose? He was dangerously close to doing something as unspeakable as shouting at her. Telling her she had done something wicked to both his father and himself.
Something that could never be undone.
And perhaps that was the key. If it couldn’t be undone, what was the point in overreacting? And there was never any point in reacting to the extent that emotions overrode rational thinking. Luke pushed himself to his feet.
‘I must go. We’ll have to discuss this at another time.’
‘As you wish.’ If Prudence was disappointed in any way, she wasn’t about to show it. She put a hand on the arm of her chair and started to rise slowly. With another twinge at how frail she seemed, Luke helped her to her feet. He picked up her handbag and the silver-tipped cane she used and then held open the office door.
‘Are you all right? Do you need me to come down with you?’
‘I shall manage perfectly well, Luke. As I always do. I believe you’re needed elsewhere.’
That was true, but Luke walked as far as the lift with his grandmother. The doors opened as soon as he pushed the button and to his surprise a figure bustled forward. Luke had to catch his grandmother’s arm to prevent a collision.
‘Oh, I’m sorry!’
‘Amy!’
‘Oh…’ Amy’s eyes widened. She looked disconcerted. Then she looked at his companion. Prudence stared back.
‘This is my grandmother, Amy. Lady Prudence Harrington. Grandmother, this is Amy Phillips, a nurse on my ward.’
‘Indeed.’ Prudence inclined her head graciously. ‘Delighted to meet you, Miss Phillips.’
Amy smiled. ‘You, too,’ she said. Her eyes held a question as she looked back at Luke. ‘You wouldn’t have a minute, would you, Mr Harrington? There’s something I really wanted to talk to you about.’
‘One minute would definitely be the limit,’ Luke said. He kissed his grandmother. ‘We’ll talk later.’
‘Indeed,’ Prudence agreed as the lift doors slid shut.
Amy was staring at the doors even after they’d shut, a puzzled frown on her face.
‘Walk with me,’ Luke invited. ‘I really have to be in Theatre. We can talk on the way.’
‘OK.’ Amy gave a little skip as she caught up. Luke headed for the stairs that would take him to the theatre suite on the top floor. ‘I have an idea,’ she said a little breathlessly.
‘Oh?’
‘You’re planning to get rid of my house and then sell the land and donate all the money to charity, yes?’
Luke stopped. That had been the plan. Funny how it seemed a rather long time ago that he’d made it.
‘I know you think it’s dreadful.’ Amy’s words tumbled out. ‘Disorganised and messy and that maybe the children would be better off somewhere else, but I can prove that’s not true.’
‘Oh?’ Luke was still trying to remember why it had seemed the best course of action.
‘Give me a chance,’ Amy begged. ‘I can fix things in the house. Tidy everything up. Come and see what it’s like when Mamma and Rosa are back and it’s more…normal.’
He couldn’t miss the flush on her cheeks or the way her gaze slid sideways. Whatever was normal for the Phillips household was hardly likely to seem normal for a Harrington.
‘After Christmas?’ Amy added hopefully.
Christmas!
Luke turned abruptly. ‘Come with me,’ he commanded.
He was heading back to his office.
Walking so fast Amy had trouble keeping up. She hadn’t presented her plan very well, had she? It had been disconcerting, meeting his grandmother like that.
Prudence Harrington.
The old-fashioned given name was familiar but Amy couldn’t locate the memory and it made her feel unfocused.
So did being in Luke’s office. Especially when he closed the door behind them.
‘There,’ he said. ‘It’s for you.’
‘What?’ Amy could see a chair and a pair of gloves lying on the floor beside it, but surely he couldn’t mean them? She looked up at the framed diplomas on the wall. A bookshelf stacked with glossy medical textbooks arranged according to height. Piles of journals that were probably filed by exact issue numbers. Plastic models of hearts. Everything in its place. Tidy and precise.
Apart from the large, battered cardboard carton in the corner, with a frond of tinsel poking through where the flaps had been closed over the top of the box.
‘They were going to throw them out,’ Luke was saying just behind her shoulder. ‘I thought…’
He had rescued the old decorations from the ward. He was giving them to her.
For their Christmas tree.
For the children.
Amy turned slowly, to look up at the surgeon. This was the last thing she would have expected and she could see that it was out of character. Had he asked somebody for something that was considered rubbish?
Carried it himself, to his private office?
For her?
It was like a flash of lightning. A crack in the veneer of a man considered remote and unfeeling, and Amy could see clearly into that crack. She could see the lonely boy Margaret had told her about. She had met the cool woman, generations removed, who had raised him. She could see someone who didn’t know what it was like to be really loved.
Cherished.
She wanted to hold him. To cherish him.
But all she could do was smile through her tears. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome. Please, take them. I really have to go now.’
Except he didn’t move.
‘Would you…think about what I said? About my plan? I’ll do anything…’
He was standing close again. Close enough to kiss her. And he was staring at her mouth. Looking exactly like he had last night in the park. Like he wanted to kiss her. Like he wanted her.
‘Anything?’ His voice was husky.
The silent addition of ‘Even this?’ hung in the air as he bent his head to kiss her.
Oh, Lord, did he think she was offering herself? For the sake of saving her house?
She was offering herself, but not for that reason. Because he needed someone. He needed her.
And, yes, she would do anything for him.
Especially this.
Amy closed her eyes and gave herself up to the kiss, but it was a kiss barely begun when it was interrupted by a shocked voice.
‘Luke!’
He stepped back as if Amy had bitten him. Confused, Amy turned to see his grandmother standing in the doorway of the office.
‘I thought you were required in the operating theatre, Luke. Urgently.’
‘I am.’
‘I must have dropped my gloves. I came back.’ Prudence gave Amy a look that made her want to check that her blouse was still buttoned and then sink into the floor and vanish.
And then, before she could finish cringing, she was alone. The gloves had been snatched up and given back to their owner and both Luke and his grandmother had gone.
Amy stood there, bemused. She touched her lips with her tongue and she could still taste Luke.
She looked at the box of decorations and she could still see the crack in that veneer. The glimpse into the soul of the man she loved.
But, most of all, she felt reprimanded. Prudence had informed her, with a single glance, of just how completely unsuitable she was. Unacceptable.
Prudence. More than being careful. More like being surrounded by an impenetrable wall. The woman had no soul.
/> Where on earth had she heard that?
From Uncle Vanni.
He’d said it. About Caroline’s mother. Not to Amy, but she’d overheard and she’d known that she would not like this woman if she ever met her. Anyone that had made Uncle Vanni sound that miserable was not a nice person.
Luke was her grandson.
Harrington was the name he had chosen to use for the rest of his life.
It was getting a lot harder to hang on to the thought that Luke might not have known his father had been alive. That he might, in fact, have simply wished him to be dead.
And maybe that was why he really wanted to get rid of the house. How naïve had she been, thinking that she could offer to tidy it up and make everything all right?
Dazed, Amy eyed the box of decorations. She should leave it behind and pointedly refuse a gift from this man.
But that crumpled, messy box didn’t belong in this pristine office any more than she did.
Amy picked it up.
And left.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THOSE brave enough to be out in temperatures well below zero, beneath a sky heavy with snow that wasn’t ready to fall, turned their heads to watch the young woman, with long dark hair and an angry expression, stalking through the outskirts of Regent’s Park with a large cardboard box in her arms.
Amy was oblivious to the stares.
And, yes, she was angry.
Confused.
Horrified, even.
The strength of the feelings she had for Luke were providing the confusion. How could she feel like this about a man who was prepared to destroy the house his own father had lived in? The only remaining link to the life he had built? To break up the only family Giovanni Moretti had retained and to pose a threat to the children who had become his father’s life?
You’d have to really hate someone to be that vengeful.
Had he always hated his father? Why? Had Uncle Vanni known all along that it was hatred he had to get past? Had he stayed in London waiting until Luke was old enough to choose for himself whether he had anything to do with his father? Maybe Uncle Vanni had lived with the hope that something would change for all those years.
Lived with the background misery that he was being denied a relationship with his son. His only child. The thought made Amy angry. Very angry. And maybe Uncle Vanni had intended to give Luke his house and another will didn’t exist. A final plea for forgiveness? With the largest token he could have presented to tell his son how much it had mattered?
Luke was prepared to take that token and hurl it into oblivion.
How on earth could she have fallen in love with someone capable of doing that?
‘Zietta Amy!’ The twins had been watching for her return from the drawing-room window and they flung the front door open. ‘Is that a present? For us?’
‘It’s for all of you. Where’s Zoe? And Robert and Andrew and the girls?’
They were all in the kitchen, which seemed overly warm as she’d come in from the outside. Amy peeled off her coat and draped it over a chair and tried not to think about Luke’s coat hanging in exactly the same place. The children gathered to stare, wide-eyed, at the box, except for Robert, who stared at Amy.
‘How’s Summer doing?’ he asked gruffly.
‘She’s much better. She’s getting tired very quickly but she was awake and playing with her doll for a while. She’s excited about Christmas.’
‘Will she be coming home?’ Chantelle asked. ‘In time for Christmas?’
Amy had to shake her head. ‘I don’t think so, honey. She needs to be watched very carefully. We’re all hoping she might get a new heart very soon but until then she might have to stay in the hospital.’
‘He’s supposed to fix her,’ Robert muttered loudly.
‘Who?’ Chantelle and Kyra were edging closer to the mysterious box and the twins were climbing on chairs to see what was happening.
‘G Squared,’ Zoe supplied. ‘Amy, I’m making baked beans on toast for tea. Is that OK?’
‘Sounds good to me.’ Beans were vegetables, weren’t they?
‘What’s G Squared?’ Chantelle queried.
‘Gru—’
‘She means Mr Harrington,’ Amy interrupted hurriedly. ‘Summer’s doctor. Let’s do some eggs to go on top of the beans,’ she added to Zoe. ‘Have we got eggs?’
‘I’ll have a look.’ Zoe moved to the fridge and Monty sat up on his blanket, watching her hopefully.
Chantelle touched the box. ‘Is that a puppy in there?’
Amy caught Zoe’s gaze as her babysitter emerged from the fridge with a carton of eggs. Zoe grinned. ‘You’ve got a puppy already. You might hurt Monty’s feelings if you ask for another one.’
Monty obligingly pricked up his ears on hearing his name and did his best to look as appealing as a giant, scruffy dog could look. Marco and Angelo climbed down from their chairs to go and hug him.
Chantelle sighed philosophically and Robert and Kyra took advantage of everybody’s attention being on their new pet to move in and fold back the flaps of the box.
‘Oh!’ Kyra gasped. ‘Look!’
‘What? What?’ Monty was forgotten as the younger children crowded close.
Kyra reached out to lift a loop of tinsel. ‘It’s decorations,’ she said reverently. ‘For our tree.’
‘There’s a heap of stuff.’ Robert sounded impressed. ‘Where’s it come from?’
‘They’re old ones from the hospital.’ Amy watched as the first of dozens of coloured balls and stars were lifted from the box. Nobody seemed to notice that the balls were a little dull and that some were chipped. Or that the shiny cardboard stars had bent corners. ‘Actually, it was Mr Harrington that rescued them from being thrown out.’
Amy had no idea how difficult it might have been for Luke to find time in his busy schedule to do that but the fact that he had gone out of his way at all was amazing. And the way he had offered them to her with that oddly hopeful expression that begged for acceptance had been what had tipped the balance.
A moment that had been a pinpoint in time but one that Amy would always remember because that had been the moment she had fallen in love with Luke Harrington.
Head-over-heels stuff. A love as big as Africa. Bigger.
It didn’t make any difference that it might be inappropriate. Or unwise. It had happened, it was as simple as that.
‘Oh!’ Chantelle was teetering on the edge of a chair to reach further into the box. ‘Kyra! Look what I found!’
‘I’ll get it.’ Kyra’s arm was longer. ‘You’ll fall off in a minute.’ She lifted something out of the box.
‘It’s an angel.’ Chantelle’s eyes were shining. ‘For the top of our tree. Oh…it’s just what I always wanted.’
He should be here, Amy thought suddenly. Luke should be here to see this. A magic moment. A child’s pure joy. He should be seeing it because then he would understand how something so small and ordinary to most people could be so important to someone else.
To see the way the two girls hugged each other and how the older boys gathered up the decorations and led the way to their tree, with the twins babbling happily in Italian, the girls holding hands, Robert leading the way carrying the box, and Andrew keeping pace as his right-hand man. A disparate bunch of siblings, certainly, but right now—and for as long as they could remain living together—they were a family.
Amy was torn between wanting to help the children decorate the tree and needing to help Zoe get a meal on the table. She was saved having to make the choice by the telephone ringing and the relief of being able to connect with the missing members of this family.
‘Rosa! How are you?’
‘Totally exhausted but I’ve done it, Amy!’
‘What?’
‘I’ve managed to get tickets home. In time for Christmas. Almost.’
‘Almost?’
‘We fly in on Christmas morning. The plane lands at Heathrow really early…6:30 a.m. You wou
ldn’t believe how difficult it’s been and it’s cost an absolute fortune. I don’t know how much more the credit card will stand but we’ll try and get presents for all the kids on our way home.’
‘They’ll be thrilled to see you. How’s Nonna?’
‘Getting stroppy. I think the doctors were only too pleased to sign a form to say she’s fit to travel. Between her and Mamma, the staff have been pulling their hair out. How’s Summer?’
‘Holding her own, thank goodness.’
Amy told her sister about the faint possibility of a heart becoming available very soon. Inevitably, Luke’s name was mentioned, more than once, but Amy resisted asking the question on the tip of her tongue.
‘Where are my boys?’ Rosa asked. ‘Are they behaving?’
‘They’re wonderful. They’re all decorating the tree in the drawing room right now. I’ll get them for you in a tick.’
‘What are they decorating the tree with?’
‘There was a box of things that weren’t needed in the ward. Shiny balls and stars and tinsel. Usual sort of stuff but there’s an angel, too, for the top. You should have seen Chantelle’s face. She’s so happy!’
‘I wish I was there. How did you score treasure like that?’
‘They’re old.’
‘Doesn’t sound as if the kids mind.’
‘No. To tell the truth, Rosa, I didn’t even know they were being thrown out. It was Mr Harrington that got them for us.’
‘Mr Harrington? Summer’s surgeon?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How amazing! He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d do something like that when I met him last time Summer was in hospital.’
‘No.’
‘He must be nicer than he looks.’ Rosa laughed. ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with the way he looks, from what I remember.’ There was a heartbeat’s silence. ‘Ah! Is there something going on I should know about?’
Amy couldn’t deny it, but she could change the subject and ask the question that was still hovering. The one that might allow a window of hope that she was wrong about Luke.
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