Kaitlin pulled a chair up to the desk. ‘So, the first thing is the media launch party. May I...?’
Alex nodded permission and the younger woman manipulated the mouse on the PC Alex had been allocated and brought up the appropriate file.
‘Here are the notes and the event plan. It’s on Thursday night, and the party is for journalists, local dignitaries and VIPs. The castle will then have a soft opening for two weeks and will officially celebrate with a second, bigger party on the twenty-fourth of December. That party will include locals, colleagues, suppliers, partners...everyone, really.’
Alex inhaled as she read the timeline.
The official opening of the castle and grounds will be marked with a traditional Christmas Eve party.
‘Christmas Eve?’ Somehow she kept her voice calm.
‘Apparently it’s a real tradition at Blakeley. I hear the parties here used to be wild. Full of every kind of celebrity from pop stars to princes.’
‘Right. Then we need to make sure we publicise that angle.’
Her heart began to thump; her hands felt damp. Christmas Eve. Her birthday. More than that, the day Blakeley had always celebrated Christmas.
For generations, friends and lovers, enemies and rivals had descended on Blakeley on Christmas Eve to feast and dance, intrigue and plot.
As a child Alex would spend the afternoon hosting a sumptuously over-the-top party for her friends—and then spend the evening darting through the dancing, flirting adults, sipping champagne from discarded glasses and sneaking canapés. No one had ever told her to go to bed. Instead she had been the spoilt princess of the house, petted and indulged, falling asleep on a chair or a sofa, where she would wake on Christmas morning to find herself covered with some discarded jacket.
In her mid-teens the two parties had been combined, with lithe, knowing teenagers far too at home amidst the glamour and heady atmosphere of the adult affair. At least they’d pretended they were at home. Alex had been very good at pretending. Until the night of her eighteenth birthday, that was, when her world had become real for the first time—for a few blissful hours, until the moment when it had stilled and stopped for ever.
She tried to inhale again, to take those sweet, calming breaths that kept her pulse even, her heart still, her head clear. But her breath caught in her throat.
I can’t do this, she thought, panic threatening to flood through the walls she had built so carefully, so painstakingly, solid walls, covered in ivy and thorns, ready to repel all invaders. I can’t.
But she could. She had no choice. Stay and deal with it or leave and run the risk of exposure.
She was stronger than this. Nothing and no one could hurt her now. Blakeley was just a place, Christmas Eve was just a date, her birthday would go unremarked. She would show Finn that he hadn’t won. Not then, not now. And she would do so by making sure his planned launch ran absolutely perfectly.
Gradually her pulse returned to normal, her emotions stilled, and she calmly made another note.
Check the invite list for the Christmas party.
‘Okay,’ she said, her voice as steady as ever. ‘What’s next?’
The conversation with Kaitlin was illuminating in several ways, taking up the rest of the morning and lunch. It had been a long time since her airline breakfast, and Alex had had no chance to get anything to eat, but Kaitlin ordered a working lunch, which the two ate at the desk as they finished going through the notes. Alex’s to-do list was getting satisfactorily ever longer.
At some point in the afternoon the younger woman finally returned to her own desk and Alex sank thankfully into work. There she could forget that Christmas Eve had once meant something, meant everything, deep in the absorption that working out how to craft and manipulate a story gave her.
As always, she lost track of time, and when she finally stretched and looked up she realised it was now dark outside, the office lights bright against the gloom. The room was almost deserted. Just a few people were left at their desks and they seemed to be packing up. Alex leaned back and stretched again, glad that the weeks ahead looked interesting but achievable.
She would give Finn no reason, no excuse to find fault with a single thing she did. He had the power and the influence now. With one word he could tell everyone who she was—who she’d used to be—and trash her fledgling agency’s reputation. She wouldn’t have thought him capable once. She knew better now.
‘Alex?’ Kaitlin hovered by her desk, her bag already on her shoulder. ‘I’m off now. Is there anything you need before I leave?’
‘No, I’m fine. Thank you. You’ve been so helpful.’
‘I hope so.’ The younger woman looked pleased, brushing her thick dark hair away from her face as her cheeks turned a little pink.
Alex looked around at the gleaming new office. ‘I guess you haven’t been based here very long?’
‘No, Finn’s been here since the summer, but the rest of us moved in October. There’s still a London office, but the plan is to scale it right back. For now some people are splitting their time between there and here. It’s easier for those of us without families, I guess. Finn has converted an old mill into flats and a few rent there. One or two rent in the village and quite a lot of us are in Reading—we’re not ready for a totally rural life just yet!’
‘It’s impressive that so many of you were ready to uproot yourselves.’
‘Finn’s so inspiring...his whole ethos. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.’
‘That’s reassuring to hear. I hope I’ll feel the same way.’
‘I hope so too.’
The deep masculine tones made both Alex and Kaitlin jump, the latter’s cheeks going even redder as Finn sauntered towards them.
‘Loyalty is very important here at Hawk.’
But it wasn’t Finn’s unexpected appearance that made Alex’s pulse speed up, and nor was it the sardonic gleam in his eye as he looked at her. It was the two small girls holding on to his hands. Finn had children? He had security, money, her old home and a family? Everything she had lost. Everything she would never have.
The oldest girl looked, to Alex’s inexperienced eye, to be about nine, the other around five. They were both in school uniform, their dark hair so like Finn’s own in messy plaits, and the same dark, dark eyes fixed on Alex.
‘It’s the Sleeping Princess,’ the younger one said, pointing at Alex. ‘Look, Saffy, it’s the Princess from the painting.’
* * *
Finn suppressed a grin as Alexandra’s startled gaze flew to his. Turned out the lady could show surprise after all.
‘Alex...’ The name felt clumsy on his tongue. ‘I’d like you to meet my nieces. Saffron, Scarlett, this is Alex. She’s working here for a little while.’
‘No, Uncle Finn.’ Scarlett tugged at his hand. ‘She’s a princess in disguise.’
Wasn’t that the truth?
‘Nice to meet you.’ Alex smiled uncertainly at the girls. ‘But I’m afraid it’s a case of mistaken identity. I’m not a princess, although it’s lovely to be thought one.’
‘You are,’ Scarlett insisted.
Kaitlin nodded. ‘I see what you mean, Scarlett. You’re thinking of that painting, aren’t you? The one of Blakeley Castle and the Sleeping Beauty? She does look a little like Alex.’
Alex’s cheeks reddened, just slightly. Finn was certain she knew exactly which painting Scarlett was referring to; it was a Rossetti, part of the castle’s famed Pre-Raphaelite collection. Alex’s great-great-grandmother was the model: a woman who in her youth had been as scandalous as her granddaughter several times removed.
What would the Pre-Raphaelite muse and late-Victorian It Girl think of her descendant? Would she recognise this poised, apparently emotion-free woman sitting in an office chair as if she were made for it, the very model of efficiency? Finn barely recognised her himself. It was al
l too easy to think her who she claimed to be.
‘If you say so, but I can’t see it myself,’ he said, taking pity on Alex, even though her resemblance to the woman in the painting had been notable when she was younger and was still remarkable, despite her decidedly un-Pre-Raphaelite appearance. ‘I’ll take it from here, Kaitlin.’ He nodded at the dark-haired girl. ‘You get off now or you’ll miss the last bus.’
‘Bus?’ Alex watched Kaitlin leave before swivelling back to face him. ‘Since when was there a bus?’
‘If I want my employees to come and bury themselves in the depths of the Chilterns then I have to make it manageable for them,’ Finn pointed out. ‘Some live on the estate in the Old Corn Mill, but that didn’t suit everyone, so a mini-bus goes between here and Reading several times a day. It picks up at the train station too. Not everyone is ready to leave London just yet. And when the employees don’t use it, the villagers do.’
‘How very Sir Galahad of you...riding to the rescue with your jobs and renovations and buses.’
Alex’s voice and face were bland, but Finn felt the barb, hidden as it was. The situation was getting to her more than she was letting on, and he had to admit he was relieved. It didn’t seem normal for anyone to be so serene when confronted with their past in the way she had been.
‘The village must be very grateful.’
He shrugged. ‘Relieved more than grateful. Goodness knows it needed a Sir Galahad to swoop in after the Beaumonts’ reign of benign neglect, followed by a decade of an indifferent and absent landlord.’
His barb wasn’t hidden at all, and he saw her flinch with some satisfaction. The Beaumonts had adored being the Lord and Lady of the Manor but they hadn’t been so interested in the people who lived and worked on the estate.
Blakeley might be situated in a wealthy commuter county, but the village itself was very rural, its twisty roads and the Chiltern Hills making even a short journey as the crow flew lengthy. Plus, it was a place where more than half the houses were owned by the castle, but where the jobs that had used to come with the houses had disappeared over the years.
Picturesque as Blakeley village was, not everyone wanted to rent a home where the colour of their front door and guttering was prescribed by the estate, public transport was non-existent and the nearest town a long, windy ten miles away.
‘The locals are just happy to see new life breathed into the place, and enough staff are renting to make the local businesses and the school viable. My village is breathing again.’
‘Your village? You wear Lord of the Manor pretty well.’
Another barb. Interesting.
Finn didn’t react, simply nodded towards the door. ‘Are you done here? The girls are ready for their dinner and I need to show you where you’re staying.’
‘There’s a lot to do, but I can work in my room.’ Alex folded her laptop closed and slipped it into its case. ‘Look, if there’s a bus to the train station I might as well go back to London. The train’s only half an hour or so, right? Save you the problem of putting me up.’
‘It’s no problem. Besides, it’s not just the train. You need to factor in the half-hour journey to Reading—and that’s assuming you haven’t missed the bus, which you have. Then say another fifteen minutes through traffic to get to the train station. Half an hour to Paddington and then your journey at the other end. You’d rather endure a four-hour return journey than stay here?’
Her gaze flickered away. ‘I don’t want to put anyone out.’
She didn’t want to spend the night surrounded by her past, no doubt.
‘You’re needed evenings and weekends until Christmas. The contract says we expect you to be on site and that’s exactly where you’ll be. Unless you still want to walk away.’
He allowed the hint of a threat to linger in his voice, hiding the doubt he’d spent the afternoon trying to dispel. Would it be better, after all, to take her advice and let her choose a consultant to come and work here? She could still advise from London. He’d wanted her here to resolve the past, but this woman wasn’t Lola. She was a stranger.
Finn hardened his heart. He needed to give his nieces a place where they belonged, the security they hadn’t had until now. He’d earnt a fortune, but a lot of his profits were ploughed back into the company and the foundation he’d set up. For the reopening of Blakeley he needed the best. And everyone agreed that Alexandra Davenport was the best. Her expertise and inside knowledge of the castle and estate meant she was exactly what he needed—whether she liked it or not.
Alex stood up decisively. ‘I never walk away from a job, Finn, not until the client is happy. I’m fine staying here if that’s what you want. Whatever’s easiest. You’re the client.’
Finn rubbed his chin, feeling the rasp of stubble under his fingertips, suddenly weary. ‘Come on, then,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’ll show you where you’re staying.’
He rounded up the girls and made his way down the stairs, all too aware of Alex following behind, the tapping of her heels on the wooden treads. He’d called the last of the Beaumonts home to Blakeley. It was up to him to control the situation. He was the boss now, and the sooner Alex accepted that, the better.
CHAPTER FOUR
NEITHER SPOKE AS Finn led Alexandra out of the stable and onto the dimly lit path. The castle reared up, lit up against the winter dark sky, and he noticed Alex turn away from it. So she wasn’t as impervious to coming home as she seemed. The girls skipped ahead, oblivious to the chilly atmosphere, which was colder than the rapidly lowering evening temperature.
‘Do you think it might snow?’ Alex said, looking up at the clouds overhead.
‘It’s early yet.’
‘But it has snowed this early. Remember that year—’ She broke off, sentence unfinished.
But he did remember. Snowball fights and sledging, hot chocolate in the kitchen and the skiing lesson she’d given him. They’d been children, no older than Saffy, still mesmerised by the wonder of snow.
A minute went by before Alex made another attempt to break the increasingly charged silence. ‘Kaitlin mentioned that you’d converted the old Corn Mill into apartments. Is that where I’m staying? Or does the village pub still have rooms?’
‘Yes, no and yes.’
Now it came to it, Finn felt profoundly uncomfortable. His decision on where to house her had seemed purely pragmatic at the time. Now he wasn’t so sure that his thinking had been as rational as he’d told himself, with every step provoking memories.
‘The Corn Mill doesn’t have any space, but it isn’t the only building we’ve renovated. For instance, we’ve turned the barns at the bottom of the estate into bunkhouses. Places where inner city school kids can come so they can get a chance at the outdoor life. Hiking in the Chilterns, orienteering around the estate, building shelters, that kind of thing.’
Her mouth quirked into a half-smile. A real half-smile, like the girl he’d used to know had had, and his pulse jumped at the sight.
‘You’re putting me in a bunkhouse?’
‘No, that’s just an example. We’ve also renovated some of the old estate cottages for holiday lets. As you know, we’ll be running outdoor activities throughout most of the year, so it made sense to give people the chance to stay here.’
‘Estate cottages? Not the ones in the village? The ones in the grounds? The Lodge, I suppose, and the Dower House, and...’ Her voice trailed off.
‘And the Gardener’s Cottage. Yes.’
‘I’m sleeping in the Gardener’s Cottage.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘It’s the smallest so it made sense. Four of us lived there for years, Alex. I’m sure you won’t find it too much of a squeeze. And don’t worry. It’s been done up since you last saw it. You won’t have to endure my mother’s taste in wallpaper or the sofa my father used to pass out on.’
‘That’s not what I...�
�� She paused and then, voice bright, said, ‘It sounds very charming. I can maybe do some short videos for all the social media accounts about staying there. One weekend I’ll do a full day’s story—fresh eggs for breakfast in the café, a walk in the woods, that kind of thing. You’re right; it makes complete sense for me to stay in a holiday cottage and I’d rattle around in the Dower House. Are the others booked yet?’
‘The others?’
‘The Dower House and the Lodge? I guess the Foreman’s Cottage and the Blacksmith’s Cottage are also holiday lets? Because if they’re not let out yet then it might be worth offering them to journalists the night of the press party. And then to some influencers in the run-up to Christmas, maybe over Christmas Eve, with invitations for the party. I know the perfect people.’
For a moment, when she had said the words ‘Christmas Eve’ he could have sworn her voice wobbled. Just a little.
‘They are all free; letting starts in the New Year. Invite whoever you’d like. Kaitlin can put you in touch with the letting team. Girls! It’s getting dark. Stay close.’
Alex shot him a quick glance and he suspected she was curious about the girls’ presence. But before she had a chance to ask any questions his nieces ran back, chattering on about a rabbit Scarlett was sure she’d seen in the wood, and they hadn’t exhausted the topic by the time they reached the gate to the cottage.
As they neared the gate a security light was triggered, and Alex stopped just outside the fence and stared. ‘It’s exactly the same,’ she said softly.
Finn inhaled. From the outside nothing much had changed. His father had always kept it immaculate, even at his worst—on the surface respectable, behind the perfectly painted front door a secret drinker and despot.
‘Not quite the same, I hope.’
The first sight of the house still gave Finn a sucker punch to the chest every time he walked through the gate. He’d thought buying Blakeley Castle and turning it into the place he had dreamed it could be would put some of his ghosts to rest, but sometimes they haunted him even more.
Reawakened by His Christmas Kiss Page 4
