Christmas At His Command
Autor
Helen Brooks
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CHAPTER ONE
‘OH, NO, please, please don’t do this to me.’ Marigold shut her eyes, thick dark lashes falling briefly on honey-smooth skin before she raised them again to glare at the dashboard in front of her. ‘What are you doing to me, Myrtle? We’re miles from anywhere and the weather’s foul. You can’t have a tantrum now. I didn’t mean it a mile or two back when I called you crabby.’
The ancient little car didn’t reply by so much as a cough or a splutter, but Marigold suspected there was a distinctly smug air of ‘You should think before you speak’ to Myrtle’s demeanour as the car’s four wheels settled themselves more comfortably into the two inches of snow coating the road in front of them. The old engine had been hiccuping for the last half an hour or so before dying completely.
Great. Just great. Marigold peered out into the driving snow that was already coating the windscreen now the wipers had ceased their labouring. In another hour it would be dark, and here she was, stuck in the middle of nowhere and with what looked like a very cold walk in front of her. She couldn’t stay in the car—she’d freeze to death out here if no one came along—and for the last little while there hadn’t been sight of a house or any dwelling place on the road.
She reached out and unhooked the piece of paper with the directions to Sugar Cottage off the dashboard, wondering if she had taken a wrong turning somewhere. But she hadn’t, she assured herself in the next moment. She knew she hadn’t. And Emma had warned her the cottage was remote, but that had been exactly what she wanted. It still was, if only she could get to the flipping place!
She studied the directions again, frowning slightly as she concentrated on working out how far she still had to go along the country track, her fine curved brows drawing together over eyes which were of a vivid violet-blue. The last building had been that ‘olde-worlde’ thatched pub she’d passed about ten miles back, and then she’d driven on for—she consulted the directions again—probably another mile or two before turning off the main road into a country lane. And then it had been just a rough track for the last few miles. Perhaps it wasn’t so far now to Sugar Cottage? Whatever, she had no choice but to start walking.
She allowed herself one last heartfelt sigh before turning and surveying the laden back seat. Right. Her wellington boots were in her old university knapsack along with an all-enveloping cagoule that nearly came down to her toes! She had packed her torch in there too after Emma had emphasised umpteen times how isolated and off the beaten track the cottage was. Mind you, Emma had been more concerned about the electricity failing—a common occurrence in winter apparently—or Marigold having to dig her way to the car from the front door. They’d both assumed she’d actually reach the cottage before any dramas reared their heads.
There was a large manor house across the other side of the valley, Emma had said, but basically the small cottage in Shropshire she had inherited from her grandmother in the spring was secluded enough for one to feel insulated from the outside world.
And right now, Marigold told herself firmly as she struggled into her thick, warm fleece before pulling on the cagoule, that was worth braving a snowstorm for. No telephone and no TV, Emma had continued when she’d offered Marigold the use of the cottage over Christmas—her grandmother had refused to allow any such suspect modern inventions over the threshold! And the old lady had baked all her own bread, kept chickens and a cow in the paddock next to the house, and after her husband died had remained by herself in her home until passing away peacefully in her sleep aged ninety-two. Marigold thought she’d have liked to meet Emma’s grandmother.
The cagoule and wellington boots on, Marigold quickly repacked the knapsack with a few necessary provisions from the bags of groceries piled high on the front passenger seat. She would have to leave her suitcase and everything else for now, she decided regretfully. If she could just reach the cottage tonight she’d sort everything out tomorrow somehow. Of course, it would have helped if she hadn’t left her mobile phone in the flat back in London, but she’d been three-quarters of the way here when she’d remembered it was still sitting by her bed at home and it had been far too late then to go back for it.
The last thing she did before leaving the warm sanctuary of Myrtle’s metal bosom was to stuff the directions to Sugar Cottage in her cagoule pocket. Then she climbed out of the car, locked the door and squared her shoulders.
Finding the cottage in a snowstorm was nothing, not after what she’d been through in the last few months, she told herself stoutly. And if nothing else it would be a different sort of Christmas, certainly different to the one she’d had planned with Dean. No doubt right now he and Tamara were sunning themselves on the Caribbean beach she’d chosen out of the glossy travel brochures they’d pored over for hours when they’d still been together. She couldn’t believe he was actually taking Tamara on the holiday which was to have been their honeymoon. On top of all the lies and deceit, that had been the ultimate betrayal, and when one of their mutual friends—awkward and embarrassed—had tipped her the wink about it she’d felt like going straight round to Dean’s flat and socking him on the jaw.
She hadn’t, of course. No, she had maintained the aloof, dignified silence she’d adopted since that first white-hot outburst when she’d found out about the other woman and told Dean what a low-down, slimy, no-good creep he was as she’d thrown her engagement ring in his blustering face.
The familiar welling of tears made itself felt deep in her chest and she gritted her teeth resolutely. No more crying. No more wailing after what was dead and finished. She had made herself that promise a couple of weeks ago and she’d die before she went back on it. She wanted nothing to do with the opposite sex for the foreseeable future, and if this cottage was really as far away in the backwoods as Emma had suggested she might just make her an offer for it now. Emma had confided she was thinking of putting it on the market in the new year.
Marigold began walking, hardly aware of the snowflakes swimming about her as her thoughts sped on. She’d been thinking for some time, ever since the split with Dean at the end of the summer, in fact, that she needed a complete change of direction and lifestyle.
She had been born and bred in London, gone to university there, where she’d started dating Dean in the last year of her art and design degree, and after her course ended had found a well-paid job in a small firm specialising in graphic design. She had worked mainly on posters and similar projects to start with, but when the firm had decided to diversify into all manner of greetings cards her extensive portfolio of work—accumulated throughout her training years—had come into its own, and she had found herself in the happy position of working solely on the new venture. Dean had proposed about the same time—twelve months ago now—and she had thought her future was all set. Until Tamara Jaimeson came on the scene.
‘Ow!’ As though the thought of the other girl had conjured up an evil genie, Marigold suddenly found herself falling full length as her foot caught in what was obviously a pothole in the rough road. The snow cushioned her landing to a certain extent but when she tried to stand again she found she’d wrenched her ankle enough to make her grimace with pain, and now all thoughts of a remote little studio, somewhere where she could freelance both to her present firm—who had already expressed interest in such a proposition—and others, couldn’t have been further from Marigold’s mind.
She could only have been limping along for ten minutes before she heard the magical sound of a car’s engine behind her, but it had seemed like ten hours, such was the pain in her foot.
It was still quite light but she dug into her knapsack and brought out the torch nevertheless, moving to the edge of the road by the snow-covered hedgerow. She couldn’t risk the driver of the approaching vehicle missing her in the atrocious weather conditions.
The massive 4x4 was cutting through the snow with an imperious regality which highlighted its noble birth and also underlined poor Myrtle’s less exalted beginnings, but the driver had already seen her and was slowing down, even before she switched on the torch and waved it frantically.
‘Oh, thank you, thank you.’ She almost went headlong again as she stumbled over to the open window on the driver’s side. ‘My car’s broken down and I don’t know how far I’ve got to go, and I fell over and I’ve twisted my ankle—’
‘OK, slow down, slow down.’
It wasn’t so much the cold, impatient tone of his voice which stopped Marigold in full flow, but her first sight of the big dark man sitting behind the steering wheel. He was handsome in a rather tough, rugged way, but it was the cool grey eyes which could have been formed in a block of hard granite that caused her to be momentarily lost for words.
‘I take it that’s your car back there, which means you could only be making for Sugar Cottage.’
‘Does it?’ Marigold stared at him stupidly. ‘Why?’
‘Because it’s the only other house in the valley apart from mine,’ he replied—obviously, Marigold’s mind emphasised a second too late.
‘So you must be Emma Jones; Maggie’s granddaughter,’ the chilly voice continued flatly. ‘I—’
‘I understand you came once before to look over the cottage when I was abroad. I was sorry to have missed you then.’
The words themselves could have been friendly, however, the tone in which they were spoken made them anything but, and Marigold blinked at the quiet enmity coming her way.
‘I promised myself after that occasion that if I ever had the chance to give you a piece of my mind, I would,’ he said with soft venom.
‘Look, Mr…?’
‘Moreau,’ he provided icily.
‘Look, Mr Moreau, I think I ought to explain—’
‘Explain?’
Marigold had heard of incidents where one person could freeze another into silence and she hadn’t actually experienced it until now, but in the last moment or two he had shifted slightly in his seat and now the grey eyes had taken on a silver hue which turned them into two flares of cold white light.
‘Explain what?’ he continued curtly. ‘The reason why not one of your family, you included, saw fit to visit an old lady in the last twelve months before her death? The odd letter or two, the occasional phone call to the village shop that delivered her groceries every week was supposed to suffice, was it? Messages delivered secondhand can’t compare to flesh and blood reality, Miss Jones. Oh, I know she could be difficult, recalcitrant and obstinate to a point where you could cheerfully have strangled her, but didn’t any of you understand the fierce plea for independence and the pride behind it? She was an old lady, for crying out loud. Ninety-two years old! Didn’t any of you have the imagination and the sensitivity to realise that behind her awkwardness and perversity she was crying out to be told she was still loved and wanted for the woman she was?’
‘Mr Moreau—’
‘But it was simpler and easier to write her off as bigoted and impossible,’ he bit out savagely. ‘That way you could all get on with your nice, orderly lives with your consciences clean and unsmirched.’
Anger was beginning to surface inside Marigold, not least because of this man’s arrogant refusal to allow her to get a word in edgeways. He had clearly been seething about what he saw as the neglect of Emma’s family towards the old lady for a long time, but he wasn’t giving her a chance to explain who she was or what she was doing here!
‘You don’t understand. I’m not—’
‘Responsible?’ Again he cut her off, his eyes like polished crystal. ‘That’s too easy a get-out clause, Miss Jones. It might suit you to give out the air of helpless femininity in the present situation in which you find yourself, but it doesn’t fool me. Not for a second! And while you are considering how much you can make on selling your grandmother’s home—a home she fought tooth and nail to keep going, I might add—you could consider the blood, sweat and tears that went into her remaining here all her life. And there were tears, don’t fool yourself about that. And caused by you and the rest of your miserable family.’
‘You have absolutely no right to talk to me like this.’ Marigold was at the point of hitting him.
‘No?’ His voice was softer now but curiously more deep and disturbing than its previous harsh tone. ‘So you aren’t looking to sell the old lady’s pride and joy, then? The home she fought so hard to keep?’
Marigold opened her mouth to fire back a rejoinder but then, in the next instant, it dawned on her that that was exactly what Emma was planning to do and for a moment the realisation floored her.
‘I thought so.’ She was at the receiving end of that deadly stare again. ‘How someone like you can have the same blood as that courageous old lady flowing through their veins beats me, I tell you straight. You and the rest of your family aren’t worthy to lick her boots.’
Marigold stared at him through the snowflakes that had settled on her eyelashes. She was about to tell him she didn’t have the same blood, that she was in fact no relation at all to Emma’s grandmother, when the hot rage which was bubbling checked her words. Let him think what he liked, the arrogant swine! She would rather struggle on all night than ask him for help or explain he’d got it all wrong. The man was a bully, whatever the facts behind all he had said. He knew she’d had to abandon her car and that she had hurt herself, yet he’d still been determined to browbeat her and have his say. Well, he could take a running jump! She wasn’t going to explain a thing and he could drive off in his nice warm car, knowing that he had had his pound of flesh. The rotten, stinking—
‘Lost for words, Miss Jones?’ he enquired softly, the tone of his voice making the icy air around Marigold strike warm.
‘Not at all.’ She drew herself up to her full five feet four inches and never had she wished so hard she was half a foot or so taller. ‘I was just wondering whether it was worth wasting any breath on such an unsavoury individual as you, that’s all.’
‘Really?’ He smiled, but it was just a twist of the hard carved lips. ‘And what have you decided?’
She glared at him for one moment more, her blue eyes sparking with the force of her emotion, and then turned and began walking up the road, trying not to limp in spite of the excruciating pain in her ankle, which seemed worse now she had rested it for a few moments.
She heard the engine rev behind her and fully expected the big vehicle to roar past her in a flurry of snow, so when it drew up beside her, keeping pace with her limping gait, she bit her lip hard but didn’t turn her head from the white landscape in front of her.
‘You said you fell over and twisted your ankle,’ the hateful voice said flatly at the side of her.
She ignored it, along with the urge to burst into tears as waves of self-pity made themselves known.
‘Get in.’ This time the touch of raw impatience was very obvious, but again Marigold ignored him, struggling on, her face set resolutely ahead.
‘Miss Jones, I think I ought to point out that you are extremely lucky I had an appointment elsewhere today which necessitated my leaving this morning. There is absolutely no chance of anyone else using this road and the cottage is at least another mile. Need I say more?’ he added condescendingly.
‘Get lost,’ she bit out through gritted teeth.
There was a moment’s pause and then his voice drawled, with disparaging amusement, ‘Out of the two of us I would say that’s a more likely occurrence for you. Get in the car, Miss Jones, and let’s cut out the drama. It might be unpleasant for you to be told the truth for once, but you are old enough, and I’m sure tough enough, to survive.’
‘I would rather freeze to death than accept a lift from you.’ She turned for just an instant to meet the silver-grey eyes and her face spoke for itself.
‘Now you are being ridiculous.’
‘Well, that’s just one more thing you can add to my list of crimes, then, isn’t it?’ she returned tartly.
‘Get in the car.’
At this point Marigold so far forgot herself as to come out with an expletive she had never used in her life before. He thought he could order her about, tell her what to do after he had spoken to her the way he had? OK, so he might think she was Emma, and Marigold had to admit she didn’t know all the ins and outs of this matter, but he had known she was asking for help and that she was hurt, and he had just left her standing in the snow while he’d given her a lecture on family responsibility. Nothing, but nothing would induce her to accept any form of assistance from this arrogant swine.
‘Don’t force me to make you get into the car, Miss Jones.’
‘You think you could?’ she spat derisively.
‘Oh, yes.’ It was cool and even and more than a little menacing, but the rage caused by his previous misplaced contempt and male arrogance was still hot enough to keep Marigold walking on, her head held high under its covering of wet plastic and the bottom of the cagoule flapping round her knees.
If he laid one finger on her, just one, he’d get a darn sight more than he’d bargained for, Marigold promised herself with silent fury as the vehicle drew level with her once again.
‘Your grandmother was a woman in a million.’
Marigold ignored him completely.
‘For her sake I don’t intend to leave the only child of her son to freeze out here, even if it is exactly what you deserve.’
‘How dare you?’ She glared at him again, her eyes narrowed and shooting blue sparks but her lips were bloodless with the pain she was trying to conceal and her face was as white as a sheet. He stared at her for a second, the piercing eyes taking everything in, and then he sighed irritably before springing out of the vehicle with an abruptness which took Marigold by surprise. One moment she was standing glowering at him, the next she found herself whisked right off her feet as he lifted her up into his arms as though she weighed nothing at all.
‘What on earth do you think you’re playing at? Put me down this instant!’ she hissed furiously, struggling violently as she pushed at the solid male chest.
‘Keep still,’ he muttered exasperatedly, striding round the vehicle and depositing her in the passenger seat none too gently. She immediately tried to scramble out again, catching her injured foot as she did so and crying out with pain before she could check the yelp.
‘Miss Jones, I have a length of rope in the back and I warn you I will have absolutely no compunction about securing you in your seat, all right?’ he ground out tightly. ‘You will sit there until we reach Maggie’s cottage and then as far as I am concerned it’ll be good riddance to bad rubbish, and I’ll have done my duty.’
‘You’re despicable!’ It was all she could manage with the pain now excruciating, but added to the physical discomfort was the shock which had gripped her in the last few moments. This man must be all of six feet four, and his tall, lean height and powerfully muscled body had convinced her she didn’t have a hope of fighting him, but close to—and she had been close, how close she didn’t dare dwell on right at this moment—he was aggressively and compellingly handsome with no sign of softness about him at all.
His face above the massive, thick oatmeal sweater he wore was darkly tanned and finely chiselled, his eyes of silver-grey ice set under black brows thrown into more startling prominence when taken with the jet-black hair falling over his forehead. He was…well, he was quite amazing, Marigold thought weakly after he had slammed the passenger door shut.
She watched him walk round the bonnet before he climbed in the open driver’s door, unconsciously shrinking away slightly as he slid into the vehicle. If he noticed the instinctive withdrawal he made no sign of it, merely easing the car forward—the engine of which he had kept running—as he said, his voice curt, ‘Did you arrange for food and fuel to be delivered to the cottage beforehand?’
No, because she hadn’t known she could. Emma hadn’t mentioned it when she’d offered her the use of the place over Christmas when Marigold had confided, a couple of weeks ago, that she was dreading the big family Christmas her parents always enjoyed. Their enormous, sprawling semi was always full of friends and relations over the holiday period right up until the new year—a kind of open house—which was great normally, but in view of her broken engagement and cancelled wedding was not so good. Everyone would be trying to be tactful and treading on eggshells. Poor, poor Marigold—that sort of thing.
‘Why don’t you tell them you’ve got the chance of a super little cottage with log fires and the full Christmas thing?’ Emma had suggested after she’d offered the cottage and Marigold had said her parents would expect her to go home. ‘I can understand they’d hate the thought of you staying in your flat by yourself, but if you say you and a friend are going away… And anyway, I’ll be coming up a couple of days after Boxing Day to make a list of the furniture and one or two things, so it won’t actually be a lie.’
Marigold thrust the reminder of her duplicity out of her thoughts as she answered the man at the side of her in as curt a tone as he had used, ‘No, I didn’t.’
‘And when was the cottage used last?’
She didn’t know that either. She thought quickly and then said airily, ‘Recently.’
‘Recently as in months or weeks?’ he persisted coldly.
She wanted to tell him to mind his own business but in view of the present circumstances it seemed somewhat inappropriate. She remembered Emma had said the cottage might strike a bit cold and damp in the winter because she had only ever visited it in the warmer months, and guessed, ‘Months.’
He nodded but said nothing more, concentrating on the road ahead, which was nothing but a cloud of whirling snowflakes in a landscape that was now a winter wonderland when viewed from the comforting warmth and security of the powerful car. Marigold privately admitted to a feeling of overpowering relief that she wasn’t still battling through what was fast becoming a blizzard, and along with the acknowledgement came a few pangs of guilt at her churlishness before she reminded herself that she shouldn’t feel guilty! He had been way, way out of line to talk to her as he had—even if he did believe she was Emma, and however much he had liked and respected the old lady. Rushing in and assuming this and that!
She risked a sidelong glance under her long lashes, aware she was dripping water all over the seat and that the melted snow from her boots had created a pool at her feet.
His face was hard, as though it had been carved from solid rock; he didn’t seem quite human. Marigold suddenly became aware she was completely at this fierce stranger’s mercy and she swallowed deeply. Somehow the idea of a noisy, crowded Christmas ensconced in the womb of her parents’ home didn’t seem so bad.
‘Don’t look so nervous; I wouldn’t touch Maggie’s granddaughter with a bargepole in case you’re harbouring thoughts of rape and pillage.’
The deep voice had a thread of amusement running through it and immediately it put steel in Marigold’s backbone. She reared up in her seat, her face, which had been pale a moment ago, now flushed with high colour, and her voice sharp as she lied, ‘Nothing was further from my thoughts.’
‘Hmm.’ It was just one low grunt but carried a wealth of disbelief.
Loathsome man! Marigold drew her usually soft, full lips into a tight line and warned herself not to respond to the taunt. In a little while she would be at the cottage and he would be gone. She could see about bathing her ankle and strapping it up, and then she would sort herself out for the night. This snowstorm wouldn’t last forever, and come morning she could make her way back to Myrtle and see if the little car could be persuaded to start. If not…well, she’d just have to carry everything to the cottage herself somehow. She didn’t dwell on the thought of how she was going to lug her suitcase and the bags of food, let alone the sack of coal and other things she’d brought with her, through deep snow with an ankle that was hurting more every minute and now so swollen she wondered how she was going to get her boot off.
Nor did she linger on the fact that if the snow continued to fall as it was doing, two inches could rapidly become two feet. Coping with this angry, aggressive individual at the side of her was more than enough for the moment.
The ground had been dipping downwards almost from the spot where she’d first heard the car, and now, as they turned a corner on the winding road, Marigold saw they were in a wooded valley and that to their left in the distance was what must be Emma’s cottage. It was set back some fifty yards from the track in its own garden, complete with neat picket fence and small gate. The cottage itself was painted white, from what Marigold could see, and it was the slate roof which was most clearly visible through the swirling snow.
She breathed a silent sigh of relief and gingerly flexed her injured ankle, knowing she had to climb out of the vehicle and walk to the cottage door in a few moments. The immediate stab of white-hot pain was worrying, but again she told herself it would be all right once she could strap it up.
‘Your inheritance.’ It was caustic.
She turned her head and looked at the granite profile. ‘What makes you think it might be put on the market?’ she asked evenly.
‘Well, apart from the fact that you and the rest of your family have already shown you have no soul, you were heard talking about it in the pub down the road when you came up before,’ he said shortly.
‘People eavesdropped on a private conversation and then had the gall to repeat it?’ Marigold asked with genuine disgust.
Her tone evidently rattled him. ‘From what I heard, this “private” conversation was all but yelled to the rafters after you and your partner had consumed a bottle of wine each. If you don’t want people to overhear what you say, don’t get drunk. You can perhaps moderate your voice better that way. And the comments about the “yokels” didn’t win you any friends in these parts either,’ he added scathingly.
Oh, Emma, Marigold winced inwardly. She’d known Emma for a little while, but since she had met her current boyfriend—a high-flier with a sports car and a big opinion of himself—she’d changed.
Fortunately the car had just pulled up outside the little garden gate and Marigold was saved the effort of having to think of a reply. She took a deep breath and prayed this could end right now and that she would never set eyes on this man again in the whole of her life. ‘Thank you for giving me a lift,’ she said stiffly, conscious of the drips of water trickling off the cagoule hood and hitting her nose.
‘A pleasure,’ he drawled with heavy sarcasm, un-hooking her knapsack, which had somehow managed to jam itself to one side of the controls, after which he opened his door and walked round the bonnet to open her door for her.
The courtesy surprised her, especially in view of the content of their conversation to date, and flustered her still more, highlighting, as it did, the dark attractiveness she had been trying to ignore for the last few minutes. She would have liked to ignore the outstretched hand, too, but in view of the pain in her ankle and the height of the car she decided to err on the side of caution as she rose, putting her weight onto her good foot.
She had stripped off her wet gloves in the car, stuffing them in her pocket, and now as she put one small naked paw into his large fingers the contact of skin on skin brought an unwelcome little tingle of awareness in her flesh. She hesitated for a second, wondering how she was going to land on her injured ankle and whether she should try and shift her weight onto it now so she could land on her good foot.
‘How bad is the ankle feeling?’ he asked flatly.
He had obviously noticed her uncertainty and guessed the reason for it, and, in her immediate desire to convince this brute of a man that she was perfectly all right and didn’t need his assistance a second longer, Marigold did what she later admitted to herself was a very silly thing. She stepped down from the vehicle, hoping her ankle would support her for the brief time it took for her to bring her other foot to bear. It didn’t, of course.
She lunged sideways, the pain unbearable for a few sickening moments, and because he still had hold of her hand she swung like a plastic-wrapped rag doll on the end of his arm, her hood falling off her hair as she twisted against him. He almost overbalanced, too, saving himself just in time and gathering her against him in seconds as he half lifted her against his hard male frame.
Marigold had always bewailed the straight, sleek silkiness of her hair, which utterly refused to allow itself to be curled or put up in elegant, sophisticated styles, but now as the rich chestnut veil swung over her hot face she was immensely glad of the thick, concealing screen. Her reluctant good Samaritan was swearing under his breath, but then, as the world steadied and righted itself and his voice died away, she nerved herself to flick back her tousled hair and look at him.
He was looking at her too and his face was just inches away. Close to, his lips appeared more sensuous than hard, she found herself thinking—totally inappropriately—and the lines carved into the tanned skin radiating from his eyes and his mouth added a depth to the good looks he wouldn’t have had in his teens and early manhood. And his eyelashes; she hadn’t realised how long and thick they were—utterly wasted on a man.
Marigold felt her nerve-ends begin to prickle and it was the subtle sexual warning that enabled her to draw back in his arms, forcing more space between them, as she said breathlessly, ‘I’m all right now, really. I’m sorry, I just lost my footing…’
‘Can you walk?’ His eyes had moved to her hair and then back to the wide violet eyes, and there was a smoky quality to his voice which hadn’t been there before. It caused the most peculiar sensations to flutter down every nerve and sinew.
‘Yes, yes…’ She tried to prove it by pulling free and hobbling a step, but found to her dismay that the brief period of inactivity in the car had made the ankle feel ten times worse, not better.
As her lips went white with the pain he swore again, lifting her right off her feet with the same effortless strength he had shown on the road. She was being held close to the broad masculine chest for the second time in as many minutes, and she found it more than a little surreal as he strode over to the gate, kicking it open with scant regard for Emma’s property and striding up the snow-covered path towards the front door.
He didn’t glance down at her again until they reached the door, and then he said crisply, ‘Key?’
‘What?’ She had seen his lips move and heard the sound but somehow the word hadn’t registered in her brain. She was conscious of being held by him, of the leashed power in the hard male frame next to her and the subtle and delicious smell of his aftershave, and everything else seemed to have faded to the perimeter of her awareness.
‘The key. For the door.’ It was said with a derisive patience that brought her out of the stupor more effectively than a bucket of cold water.
‘Oh, yes, of course.’ She knew she was as red as a beetroot. ‘You…you’ll have to put me down. It’s in my pocket and I can’t reach it.’
‘Stand on one foot; I’ll hold you. And don’t try to walk until we’ve taken a look at that ankle.’
We? We? If her pulse hadn’t been thudding so crazily and her throat hadn’t been so strangely dry she might have challenged him on the ‘we’, but as it was she assumed a pose she had seen the pink flamingos adopt in a recent wildlife documentary as he lowered her gently down, and fumbled for the key. She was horribly conscious of his hands round her waist, and although she told herself he was only steadying her it didn’t help.
The trouble was he was too male a man, she thought distractedly. It wasn’t just that he was big, very big, but he was larger than life somehow. Very tall, very hard and handsome and muscled, very everything in fact. In the most disturbing and unnerving way.
‘Here it is.’
He adjusted his stance slightly, sliding one arm round her, positioning her against his masculine thigh as he took the key from her nerveless fingers. It was ridiculous, truly ridiculous, she told herself feverishly, in view of all the layers of clothing between them, but it felt shatteringly intimate.
As the door swung open he picked her up again and stepped into a small square hall, clicking on a light switch to one side of the door as he did so. He obviously knew his way around the cottage, Marigold thought, and this was borne out in the next moment when he opened a door to their right and entered what was clearly the sitting room, turning on the light again as he did so. The room was crowded with old, heavy furniture, smelt fusty and damp and had an unlived-in air which was chilling in itself as he placed her on a sofa in front of an empty fireplace.
It was awful. Marigold cast despairing eyes over her temporary home. Absolutely awful. And so cold. And no doubt the bedroom was just as damp and chilly. Whatever was she going to do? She looked sideways at the man standing to one side of the sofa and saw he was looking at her in an uncomfortably speculative way.
‘Lovely,’ she said brightly. ‘Well, I think I can manage perfectly well now, thank you, and I’m sure you want to get home—’
‘Sit still while I light a fire; the place is like a damn fridge. We’ll attend to the ankle in a moment.’
He had disappeared out of the door before she could bring her startled mind to order, and as she heard another door open and close she called desperately, ‘Mr Moreau? Please, I can manage now. I would much prefer to be left alone. Mr Moreau? Can you hear me?’
It was a minute or two before he returned, and then with a face as black as thunder. ‘There’s no coal or wood in the storehouse,’ he said accusingly. ‘Did you know?’
She could have told him it was because Emma and Oliver had had coal fires every night when they’d been here—despite it having been high summer. ‘So romantic, darling,’ Emma had cooed. ‘And Oliver just loves to enter into the whole country thing.’
Instead she just nodded before saying, ‘There’s some in my car.’
‘But your car isn’t here,’ he ground out slowly.
‘I can see to it in the morning.’
He shut his eyes for a moment as though he couldn’t believe his ears, before opening them and pinning her with his gaze as he said, ‘Ye gods, woman! This isn’t the centre of London, you know. There’s not a garage on every other corner.’
‘I’m well aware of that,’ Marigold said as haughtily as she could; the effect being ruined somewhat by her chattering teeth. ‘I’m hoping Myrtle will be all right tomorrow.’
The eagle eyes narrowed, a slightly bemused expression coming over his dark face. ‘One of us is losing the plot here,’ he murmured in a rather self-derisory tone. ‘Who the hell is Myrtle?’
Marigold could feel her face flooding with colour. ‘My car.’
‘Your car. Right.’ He took a long, deep and very visible pull of air, letting it out slowly before he said, in an insultingly long-suffering voice, ‘And if…Myrtle decides not to fall in with your plans, what then? And how are you going to walk on that foot? And what are you going to do for heat tonight?’
Marigold decided to just answer the last question; of the three he’d posed it seemed the safest. ‘Tonight I’m just planning on a hot drink and then bed,’ she said stoutly.
‘I see.’ He was standing with his legs slightly apart and his arms crossed, a pose which emphasised his brooding masculinity, and from her perch on the sofa he seemed bigger than ever in the crowded little room. ‘Let me show you something.’
Before she could object he’d bent down and picked her up again—it was getting to be a habit to be in his arms, Marigold thought a trifle hysterically as he marched out of the sitting room and into the room next to it. This was clearly the bedroom and boasted its own share of clutter in the way of a huge old wardrobe, ancient dressing table and chest of drawers, two dilapidated large cane chairs with darned cushions and a stout and substantial bed with a carved wooden headboard. If anything this struck damper and chillier than the sitting room.
‘That mattress will need airing for hours even if you use your own sheets and blankets,’ he said grimly. ‘Did you bring your own?’
He looked down at her as he spoke and she felt the impact of the beautiful silver-grey eyes in a way that took her breath away.
This man was dangerous, she thought suddenly. Dangerous to any woman’s peace of mind. He had a sexual magnetism that was stronger than the earth’s magnetic field, and she’d sensed it even when he was being absolutely horrible on the road earlier. And he was ruthless; it was there in the harshly sculpted mouth and classic cheekbones, along with the square, determined thrust to his chin and the piercing intensity of his eyes. The sooner he left the more comfortable she’d feel.
‘Well?’
Too late Marigold realised she’d been staring up at him like a mesmerised rabbit, and now she shook her head quickly, her cheeks flushing. ‘No, Em—I mean, I didn’t think I’d need any with there being bedding here,’ she said quickly as he turned abruptly, striding through to the sitting room, whereupon he deposited her on the sofa again.
‘Your grandmother kept a fire burning in the sitting room and bedroom day and night from October to May,’ he said flatly, ‘and the cottage was always as warm as toast when she was alive. But this is an old place with solid walls; not a centrally heated, cavity-walled little city box.’
He was being nasty again; his tone was caustic. Marigold tried to summon up the requisite resentment and anger but it was hard with her body still registering the feel and smell of him. ‘Be that as it may, I’ll be fine, Mr Moreau,’ she managed fairly firmly. ‘I noticed one of those old stone bed warmers on the chest of drawers in the other room; I’ll air the bed with that tonight and—’
‘There’s nothing else for it. You’ll have to come back home with me.’ He didn’t seem to be aware she’d been talking.
As a gracious invitation it was a non-starter; his voice couldn’t have been more irritated, but it wasn’t his obvious distaste of the thought of having her as a guest which made Marigold say, and quickly, ‘Thank you but I wouldn’t dream of it,’ but the lingering, traitorous response of her body to his closeness.
‘This is not a polite social suggestion, Miss Jones, but a necessity,’ he bit out coldly. ‘Now personally I’d be happy to leave you here to freeze to death or worse, but I know Maggie wouldn’t have wanted that.’
‘I shan’t freeze to death,’ she snapped back.
‘You have no heat, no food—’
‘I’ve a couple of tins of baked beans and a loaf of bread in my knapsack,’ she interrupted triumphantly.
The expression in the crystal eyes spoke volumes. ‘No heat and no food,’ he repeated sternly, ‘and you can’t even walk on two feet. You’ve obviously damaged your ankle severely enough for it to be a problem for a few days, and without fuel and food your stay here is untenable.’
‘It is not untenable!’ She couldn’t believe the way he was riding roughshod over her. ‘I’ve told you—’
‘That you have two tins of baked beans and a loaf of bread. Yes, I know.’ It was the height of sarcasm and she could have cheerfully hit him. ‘Let me make one thing clear, Miss Jones. You are coming with me, willingly or unwillingly; of your own volition or tied up like a sack of potatoes. It’s all the same to me. I shall send someone to see to the car and also to start getting the cottage warm and aired; believe me, I have as little wish for your company as you seem to have for mine. Once we’ve ascertained the extent of the damage to your ankle we can consider when you can return here.’
And it couldn’t be soon enough for him. Marigold stared up into the cold, angry face in front of her, reminding herself it was Emma he was furious at—Emma and her family. And if they had neglected the old lady as he suggested he probably had good cause for his disgust, she admitted, but he was a hateful, hateful pig of a man and she loathed him. Oh, how she loathed him.
‘So, what’s it to be? With your consent or trussed up like a Christmas turkey?’ he asked in such a way she just knew he was hoping for the latter.
She glared at him, almost speechless. Almost. ‘You are easily the most unpleasant individual I have ever come across in my life,’ she said furiously.
Her smouldering expression seemed to amuse him if anything. ‘I repeat, Miss Jones, are you coming quietly and at least pretending to be a lady or—?’
‘I’ll come,’ she spat with soft venom.
‘And very gratefully accepted,’ he drawled pleasantly, his good humour apparently fully restored.
She eyed him balefully as she struggled to her feet, pushing aside his hand when he reached out to help her. ‘I can manage, thank you, and don’t you dare try and manhandle me again,’ she snapped testily.
‘Manhandle you? I thought I was assisting a…lady in distress,’ he said mockingly, the deliberate pause before the word ‘lady’ bringing new colour surging into Marigold’s cheeks. ‘How are you going to walk out to my car?’
‘I’ll hop,’ she determined darkly.
And she did.
