The Christmas Marriage Mission

by Helen Brooks

  ‘Who says he’s planning not to be on the scene any more?’ her mother asked, reasonably enough, Kay supposed.

  ‘Me. Him. Oh…’ Kay gazed at her mother irritably. ‘He’s made it clear his intentions are strictly dishonourable, okay? A few weeks or months or whatever of warming his sheets and having ‘fun’—’ she was beginning to really loathe that word ‘—and then bye-bye with no regrets on either side. That’s how he operates. He spelled it out to me when we first started seeing each other, if you want to know.’

  ‘And you still agreed to see him?’ Leonora asked expressionlessly.

  ‘Not exactly.’ Kay bit on her lower lip. ‘It wasn’t like that. He just wouldn’t take no for an answer and insisted we could date as friends. I said it was a mad idea, but—’

  ‘He talked you round.’

  ‘Yes.’ Kay shrugged her shoulders helplessly.

  ‘Are you sleeping with him?’

  It wasn’t like Leonora to ask personal questions of such a nature. Kay stared at her mother for a few moments before she said, ‘No, I am not sleeping with him.’

  ‘But you want to,’ Leonora blithely stated.

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘It’s a perfectly natural desire, Kay, and you are a grown woman of twenty-six.’

  ‘I know how old I am, Mum.’ She didn’t believe this!

  Leonora looked at her daughter’s troubled face and her own softened as she put a hand on Kay’s arm. ‘Come into my room a moment, love. I want to talk to you properly.’

  For a second it was on Kay’s lips to refuse. She felt so battered and bruised emotionally she didn’t feel like talking, and especially not on the Mitchell subject with his most ardent fan.

  ‘Please, Kay?’

  She nodded grumpily, and once inside Leonora’s bedroom walked across to one of the two easy chairs positioned under the window and sat down. ‘Well?’ Her tone wasn’t conducive to a heart-to-heart and she knew it. She just hoped her mother would take the hint.

  Leonora seated herself in the other chair before she spoke, and then her voice was more matter-of-fact than persuasive when she said, ‘Speaking as a third party, this is how I see it. You meet, he chases after you—’ as Kay went to interrupt, Leonora held up her hand ‘—let me finish, Kay, please. I repeat, he chases after you, even after he discovered you have a family. He makes it clear he wants you and then, when you don’t want to see him, he suggests you date as friends.’ Her mother arched her eyebrow at this point. ‘Kissing-cousin type of friends, I’m sure, but, nevertheless, he doesn’t press his cause. Right?’

  Kay nodded. She didn’t need this. She really, really didn’t need this.

  ‘You get ill and he removes the whole lot of us to his home for Christmas, and, I might add, makes an enormous effort to give the children as good a Christmas as is possible in the circumstances. Right again?’

  Her mother could be the most irritating person on planet earth when she wanted to be. ‘So, what’s your point?’

  ‘My point is, whatever he said to you in the beginning, I think he’s a different man to the one you think he is.’

  ‘Oh, Mother. For goodness’ sake.’ Kay shut her eyes, putting a hand to her brow. ‘It’s your most endearing quality, but also one that makes me want to scream at times like this, that you always insist on seeing the best in someone you like. Look, I know you mean well, but I think I know Mitchell better than you.’

  ‘Has he told you how Henry came to be working for him?’

  ‘Henry? No—no, he hasn’t. I did ask once but he said it was Henry’s story to tell,’ Kay said flatly, wondering why on earth her mother had brought it up now.

  ‘Well, Henry told me his story,’ Leonora said, ‘and I know he wouldn’t mind me telling you.’

  Kay wasn’t so sure about this but with her mother in full flow there was no stopping her. Besides which, she admitted contritely, she was curious.

  ‘Henry used to be one of the best-paid chefs in the country,’ Leonora said with such pride that it made Kay wonder again how deeply her mother liked the tall, aristocratic housekeeper. ‘He has worked in Italy, France, America—all over the world, in fact, and because he remained single he indulged in a lavish lifestyle: wine, women and song. Twelve years ago he was contacted by one of his old girlfriends. It appeared she’d had a child, a son. Henry’s son. She’d never told him, they had only been together a few weeks and it was just one of those things that burnt out very quickly. She was wealthy in her own right and hadn’t seen the need to inform him he was a father because she didn’t need anything from him.’

  Leonora sniffed here, one of her more eloquent sniffs, and Kay surmised her mother hadn’t agreed with the girlfriend’s decision.

  ‘Only she did need something,’ Leonora continued. ‘Something it appeared only Henry might be able to give. The child was ill, very ill, and needed a bone-marrow transplant, but in spite of this woman and her family’s wealth no matching donor had been found. Henry agreed to see if he could help and in so doing met the child, his son. He was a lovely boy apparently, eight years old and the image of his father. Henry’s bone marrow matched but before they could do the operation the boy died.’

  ‘Oh, Mum.’ Kay was horrified, her mother’s heart instantly putting herself and one of the twins in that position.

  ‘It broke him, Kay.’ Leonora stared at her daughter and they both had tears in their eyes. ‘He came back to England from America where the boy had been and resumed his life, but he felt it was like his spring had snapped. He started to drink, had days off work, generally fell apart. He lost his job; got another and then lost that, and then the word went out and he was unemployable. His so-called friends didn’t want to know. He’d got as low as he could go, when Mitchell saw him one day and recognised him as a chef he’d once known. Mitchell picked him up out of the gutter—literally—and took him home.’

  Kay was sitting forward in her seat now, hardly breathing, transfixed as she was by the unfolding drama.

  ‘Henry said Mitchell gave him shelter, clothes, food, but most of all friendship, even when he was at his worst. Mitchell’s doctor diagnosed a breakdown and the recovery was slow, but one day Henry found he wanted to live instead of wanting to die.’

  ‘Like Mitchell,’ Kay breathed softly. And then, as her mother raised questioning eyebrows, she said, ‘It doesn’t matter. Go on.’

  ‘There’s not much more to tell. Henry didn’t want to go back to his old life—even if he could have found places to hire him, which he probably could have done with Mitchell backing him—and as his recovery coincided with the purchase of this place Mitchell offered him a home and a job for as long as he wanted to stay.’

  ‘You’ve fallen for Henry, haven’t you?’ Kay said gently.

  Leonora blushed, an answer in itself. ‘He’s a good man at heart, Kay. Like Mitchell.’

  They were back to Mitchell again. Kay sat back in her seat, trying to assess what was nagging at her now Henry’s heartbreaking story had come to a conclusion. And then it dawned on her.

  ‘I’m not denying he has the capacity to be amazingly kind on occasions,’ she said very slowly, trying to formulate her thoughts as she spoke. ‘Like he was with Henry, and with us this Christmas. But don’t you see? The fact that he was so good to Henry negates your argument that I’m in some way special to him, different to the rest, and that was what you were trying to say, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Kay—’

  ‘No, it’s my turn now,’ Kay said firmly. ‘What he did for Henry was great, it really was, and for all we know he might have done a million and one good Samaritan deeds in his time, but that still doesn’t change the way he looks at women and commitment. There are things in his past that have shaped him, things that happened when he was a boy, and it would take someone very special to help him get rid of his hang-ups. I’m—’

  ‘Lovely,’ Leonora put in quickly.

  ‘Ordinary,’ Kay said, smiling faintly. ‘Face it, Mum. I am.’
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  ‘You care about him, though.’

  If her mother’s voice hadn’t been so sad Kay might have been able to bluff her way out of it. As it was she swallowed hard, tears pricking at the back of her eyes as she fiercely told herself she couldn’t cry. ‘Then that’s my misfortune, isn’t it? I walked into this with my eyes open and I suppose I was hoping…’

  ‘Hoping?’ Leonora prompted gently.

  ‘Hoping he might fall madly in love with me, like I have with him, the more time we’ve spent together over the last couple of months. Stupid.’

  ‘Not stupid, just human.’ They sat together in silence for a few moments, Leonora taking Kay’s cold hands in her own warm ones. ‘What will you do?’

  Kay didn’t answer for a little while, and then she roused herself, straightening her shoulders. ‘End it. Not in a big, dramatic way because, Mitchell being Mitchell, he’ll look on that as a challenge. I think that’s why he was interested in the first place, because I didn’t fall at his feet and worship like most women. I was different, that’s all it was,’ she added with a shred of bitterness. ‘No, I’ll do it carefully. Cut down on the dates I can keep, put up obstacles, that kind of thing.’

  ‘And you think that will work?’ Leonora asked doubtfully.

  ‘Eventually. He’s a proud man, Mum.’

  They talked for a few more minutes and then Kay kissed her mother, hugging her tight for a moment before she left. Once outside on the landing she stood listening but she could hear nothing from downstairs. She walked along to the twins’ room, opening the door very quietly and tiptoeing across to the little girls asleep in their beds. She stood there for some time and it wasn’t until she felt the salt at the edges of her mouth that she realised she was crying. After rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand she tucked the duvets more securely around the two tiny figures, positioning their teddy bears under their arms, before leaving as silently as she had come.

  On opening the door to her room Kay nearly jumped out of her skin, smothering her yelp of alarm with the palm of her hand as she realised the big dark figure sitting in one of the easy chairs was Mitchell. ‘Where was the party?’ he asked sarcastically, not moving a muscle as she closed the door before taking one or two steps into the room.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You’ve been—’ he consulted the Rolex on his tanned wrist ‘—thirty-five minutes, and this from a woman who was allegedly so tired she couldn’t keep her eyes open downstairs.’

  The shock of seeing him sitting there had died and healthy anger was taking its place. ‘I was tired,’ she said shortly, ‘but I had a chat with my mother. That isn’t a crime, is it? I looked in on the twins too,’ she added crisply. ‘That’s what I do, Mitchell. I’m a mother.’

  ‘So you reminded me today—exhaustively.’ The crystal eyes in the handsome face were cold. ‘Which brings me on to why I’m here.’

  ‘Which you shouldn’t be.’ She glared at him. ‘It’s twenty to twelve. I’m tired.’

  ‘Tough.’ He spoke with a softness that carried true menace.

  ‘Charming,’ Kay said sharply. ‘Very host-like.’

  ‘And you needn’t take that tone. You’ve frozen me out all this afternoon and evening and I want to know why. Is it still this “two different worlds” thing? Because if it is that’s bull. Half the world’s population wouldn’t be with their partner right now if their past and present had to match perfectly, and you know it.’

  ‘It’s not a question of being the same in that sense, of course it’s not,’ she snapped hotly, the tension of the afternoon and the emotionally wearing chat with her mother stretching her nerves to breaking-point.

  ‘Then what?’ He levered himself up from the chair and Kay forced herself not to move or react as he walked across to her, her eyes wide and steady as she met his angry gaze. ‘What is it? All this talk of you being a mother? Damn it, Kay, you’ve been a mother since I met you; Georgia and Emily haven’t suddenly arrived on the scene. You must know I wouldn’t ask you to upset them in any way, disrupt their routine or security. Don’t make me out to be some sort of self-centred, mercenary dictator because I don’t like it.’

  ‘I didn’t say you were a monster,’ she fired back quickly, her heart thumping.

  ‘Well, that’s the way you’ve made me feel all afternoon.’ He raked a hand through his short hair, the gesture one of extreme frustration and fury. ‘Damn it, I’ve trodden on eggshells with you for the last couple of months. I’ve had so many cold showers it’s not true, cautioned myself to go slowly until I’m half out of my mind, and for what? To be looked at as thought you’re scared stiff of me one minute or that I’m something that’s just crawled out of the slime the next.’

  ‘That is so unfair! Hugely unfair.’

  ‘No, it is not, Kay.’ He was standing so close she could see where he’d nicked himself shaving, the warm, faintly delicious smell of him teasing her nostrils.

  ‘Well, if you feel like that why have you bothered?’ she said feverishly. ‘Us dating was your idea, if you remember.’

  ‘Oh, I remember, all right,’ he said with more than a touch of sarcasm. ‘I remember everything about that first lunch with you, believe me. It will be engrained on my memory till my dying day.’ He pulled her towards him suddenly, wrapping his arms round her as if to bind her to him. ‘A defiant scrap of nothing with flashing eyes and a skirt so short I was rock-hard for a week just thinking about it.’ He shook her slightly, his voice holding a faint note of self-derision. ‘I knew when they came and told me you’d flown the coop I should cut my losses. I didn’t need aggravation in the form of a red-haired siren who was intent on telling me to go to blazes. But you’d got under my skin, even then.’

  She stared up at him, unable to say a word. His eyes were very silvery in the light of the one bedside lamp he had clicked on, the blue almost non-existent. She knew what was happening; the dark magnetism that was at the heart of his charm had reached out yet again to convince her black was white and white was black. She knew the sensible thing would be to end this right now, but standing here locked in his arms, with his anger dying and being replaced by something very different, logic and reason went out of the window.

  But she had to try. She tensed, pulling back a little. ‘This is crazy,’ she whispered. ‘It can’t work, you must see that. We’re too different, Mitchell.’

  ‘I’m getting too close. That’s the real problem, isn’t it?’ he said softly.

  She took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ she said bravely, ‘in a way. It…it wasn’t part of the deal that you’d get to know my family. And I am grateful, really,’ she rushed on, ‘for all you’ve done, but…’

  Anything else she might have said was swallowed up as his mouth descended on hers, his kiss fierce and hungry. Kay found herself clinging to him with desperate urgency, pressing closer into the hard male body as he kissed her with a raging passion that sent the blood rushing through her veins more warmly than the hot mulled wine they’d had earlier.

  The thought came that she had to stop this, that it went against everything she had been thinking and talking about, but she couldn’t bear to move away. She wanted him, she needed him, and if it had to finish soon, so be it, but she could have this one night in his arms, couldn’t she?

  She felt weightless and light-headed, enchanted and quivering with the sensations spiralling through her body. She was barely aware he had moved them over to the bed, but then she was lying down on the soft covers and he was bent over her, his hands and his mouth creating a yearning she felt she’d die from if it wasn’t properly assuaged.

  ‘You’re so beautiful, Kay. Far more beautiful than you realise, my darling.’ He was kissing her eyelids, her cheeks, her lips, her throat, his mouth moving over the delicate freckled skin at the swell of her breasts and then lower. She was lost in whirling desire, the ache in her body needing his to appease it.

  She hadn’t felt her blouse being undone, and even when his mouth and touch re
gistered on bare skin the sensation was too sweet to stop. Right from when she’d met him her nights had been invaded by torturous longings and wild dreams, too erotic to dwell on in the cold light of day. But now her imaginings were coming true and he was everything she’d known he would be, knowing exactly where to touch, to kiss…

  Why hadn’t she known it was possible to feel like this, that the mediocre sex life she had experienced with Perry wasn’t the real thing? She had read in novels about a woman’s body becoming a warm, pulsating, mindless energy but she had thought that it was fiction, clever writing to titillate. But this wasn’t fiction, this was real.

  He was stroking the silky skin of her abdomen and as her hands clasped him to her, her fingers moving under his shirt and finding the hard range of planes and muscles beneath, he groaned softly. She could feel the hard pulse of his desire and it created such a fierce excitement she didn’t recognise herself.

  She opened drugged eyes to see him bending over her, his face harsh and dark with passion and different from the Mitchell she knew. There was no trace of the cool, controlled entrepreneur or wry, mordacious man about town now. He wanted her, badly. She reached out to fumble with the belt in his jeans, desire making her all fingers and thumbs, and it came as a drenching shock when his hands moved over hers, stilling them.

  ‘No, Kay.’

  ‘No?’ It was the barest of whispers, all she could manage.

  He groaned, the sound wrenched from the depths of him. ‘Don’t look like that,’ he growled huskily. ‘Don’t you think I want to? Hell, I’m going insane and it gets worse every time we’re together, but I don’t want it to be like this. That bozo you were married to; I only had to touch you once to know he had never awakened you. You responded to me like a virgin, unsure, overwhelmed by your feelings—’