Christmas at His Command Read online

  ‘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.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘SO, MISS JONES, or can I call you Emma, as you have so graciously consented to be a house guest?’ They had just driven away from the cottage and the snow was coming down thicker than ever, Marigold noted despairingly. She nodded abruptly to his enquiry, earning herself a wry sidelong glance. ‘And you must call me Flynn.’

  Must she? She didn’t think so. And there was a perverse satisfaction in knowing he didn’t have a clue who she really was.

  ‘So why, Emma, have you decided to spend Christmas at your grandmother’s cottage and all alone by the look of it? From what I’ve heard from your grandmother and more especially from the “yokels” after your last visit, it just isn’t your style. What’s happened to the yuppie boyfriend?’

  Oliver was a yuppie, and Marigold couldn’t stand him, but hearing Flynn Moreau refer to the other man in a supercilious tone suddenly made Oliver a dear friend!

  Marigold forced a disdainful shrug. ‘My reasons are my own, surely?’ she said coolly.

  He nodded cheerfully, not at all taken aback by the none-too subtle rebuke. ‘Sure, and hey, there’ll be no objections from anyone hereabouts that lover boy’s not with you,’ he added with charming malice. ‘He didn’t exactly win any friends when he swore at the land
lord and then argued about the bill for your meal.’

  Oh, wonderful. Emma and Oliver had certainly made an impression all right, a bad one! Marigold sighed inwardly. Her ankle was throbbing unbearably, she didn’t have so much as a nightie with her, and it was Christmas Eve the day after tomorrow; a Christmas Eve which Dean and Tamara would spend under a hot Caribbean sky, locked in each other’s arms most likely.

  She wasn’t aware her mouth had drooped, or that she appeared very small and very vulnerable, buried in the enormous cagoule with her shoulder-length hair slightly damp and her hands tightly clasped in her lap, so it came as something of a surprise when a quiet voice said, ‘Don’t worry. My housekeeper will look after you once we reach Oaklands and her husband can take a load of logs and coal to the cottage tonight and begin drying it out. He’s something of an expert with cars, too, so Myrtle might respond to his tender touch.’

  Marigold glanced at Flynn warily. The sudden transformation from avenging angel breathing fire and brimstone to understanding human being was suspect, and her face must have spoken for itself because he gave a small laugh, low in his throat. ‘I don’t bite,’ he said softly. ‘Well, not little girls anyway.’

  ‘I’m a grown woman of twenty-five, thank you,’ she responded quickly, although her voice wasn’t as sharp as she would have liked. Hateful and argumentative he had been disturbing; quiet and comforting he was doubly so. When she had been fighting him she had felt safer; now she was on shifting ground and the chemical reaction he had started in her body before was even stronger.

  ‘Twenty-five?’ Dark brows frowned. ‘I thought Maggie sent you a present for your twenty-first just before she died?’

  Oops. Marigold decided to bluff it out. ‘I can assure you, I know how old I am,’ she answered tartly, and then, seeing he was about to say more, she added quickly, ‘Is Oaklands your house?’

  He didn’t reply for a moment, and then he nodded. ‘I bought it from a friend of mine who decided to emigrate to Canada a couple of years ago,’ he said shortly. ‘Your grandmother might have spoken of him; apparently they were great friends. Peter Lyndon?’

  Marigold nodded vaguely and hoped that would do.

  ‘She missed him when he left,’ Flynn continued quietly. ‘His children used to come across the valley and visit her often and they were a substitute for her real family, I suppose.’ The accusing note was back but Marigold chose to ignore it. ‘Certainly when I called to see her it was photographs of Peter’s family that she showed me. She never showed me any of yours—too painful probably.’

  Marigold felt she ought to object here. ‘How can you say that when you have just admitted you didn’t know her very long?’ she asked in as piqued a voice as she could manage, considering all her sympathies—had he but known it—were with Emma’s poor grandmother. The family seemed to have behaved appallingly to the old woman, and although as a work acquaintance Emma was perfectly pleasant it wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility to imagine her disregarding the fact she’d got a grandmother if it suited her to do so.

  ‘Peter was a good deal older than me and he’d known Maggie for a long time,’ Flynn said evenly. ‘I think he knew your father, too. They didn’t get on.’ There was a pregnant pause.

  Again Marigold felt she ought to say something. ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ she said truthfully, and then she stopped abruptly, aware they were passing through large open gates set in a six-foot dry-stone wall which had appeared suddenly out of the thick cloud of snow in front of them. This must be the grounds of his home.

  The car was travelling along a drive flanked by enormous oak trees, stark and beautiful in their winter mantle of feathery white, and she could just make out a house in the distance. A very large, very grand house. Marigold swallowed hard as Emma’s casual comment about the other dwelling in the valley came back to her—a manor house. And this was a manor house all right.

  She glanced speculatively at Flynn under her eyelashes; the expensive and clearly nearly new vehicle, the thick, beautifully cut leather jacket she’d noticed slung in the back seat, the overall quality of his clothes suddenly making an impression on her buzzing senses. Her eyes moved to the large tanned hands on the steering wheel—was that a designer watch on one wrist? It was. A beauty. Oh, boy… Marigold stifled a groan. This guy was loaded.

  A couple of enormous long-haired German shepherd dogs suddenly appeared from nowhere, barking madly and making Marigold jump. ‘Sorry, I should have warned you.’ Flynn was looking straight ahead but he must have noticed her involuntary movement. ‘That’s Jake and Max; they pretend to be guard dogs.’

  ‘Pretend?’ Marigold looked out of the window at the enormous faces with even more enormous teeth staring up at her, and shivered. ‘They’ve convinced me.’

  Flynn turned and grinned at her as he brought the car to a halt, the dogs still leaping about the vehicle. ‘Don’t tell anyone but they sleep in front of the range in the kitchen,’ he said softly, ‘and they’re scared stiff of my housekeeper’s cats.’

  Marigold managed a smile of her own but it was a weak one. Did he know what sort of effect the softening of the hard planes and angles of his face produced? she asked herself silently. It was dynamite. Sheer dynamite. ‘I…I’ve never had much to do with dogs,’ she said weakly.

  And then his face changed. ‘I’d gathered that,’ he said shortly.

  Now what had she said? Marigold stared at him uncomprehendingly. ‘I’m sorry…?’

  ‘It was made plain through the solicitors that any animals Maggie had were to be got rid of, but then you’re aware of that,’ Flynn said coldly, ‘aren’t you? Sold if anything could be got for them; put down if not. Of course, there weren’t too many buyers for a few scruffy chickens and an ancient cow, nor for her dog and cat.’

  Oh, no. Emma hadn’t…

  ‘Don’t tell me that was something else your father kept from you?’ Flynn asked flatly, his eyes smoky dark now in the muted twilight.

  ‘I…I didn’t know.’

  ‘No?’ His eyes were holding hers and she couldn’t look away. ‘I don’t know if I believe that.’

  Marigold had suddenly decided she didn’t like Emma’s family at all and was heartily wishing she hadn’t taken the cottage for Christmas, even if she was paying Emma well for the privilege. ‘I didn’t know,’ she repeated weakly, her tone unconvincing even to herself, but she was still thinking of poor Maggie’s pets.

  He surveyed her for a moment more, and Marigold was just about to tell him everything—that she wasn’t Emma, that she had taken the cottage on impulse when it was offered and only knew the barest facts about Emma and her grandmother and the family—when he shrugged coolly. ‘It’s history now,’ he said evenly. ‘Let’s get you inside.’

  As she watched him walk round the bonnet of the car the fate of the animals was lost in the panic that he was going to hold her again. She’d felt faintness wash over her a couple of times when she had hopped out to the car, the movement jarring her injured ankle unbearably, but right now that was preferable to being held next to that muscled body again. Being nestled close to his chest had caused a reaction inside she still couldn’t come to terms with.

  She had never responded to a man’s body or presence like this before, not with Dean, not with anyone, and her brain was still reeling from the unwelcome knowledge that underneath the panic and alarm was forbidden pleasure. Pleasure and excitement.

  She would tell him she could hop into the house, she decided as he came towards the door. It wasn’t quite the entrance she would have wished for, what with his housekeeper and her husband watching—not to mention the two dogs with their slavering jaws—but it couldn’t be helped. What did it matter about a little lost dignity or the dogs thinking her dangling leg was a new toy?

  As it happened, Flynn didn’t give her the chance to make her feelings known one way or the other. The car door was pulled open and she was in his arms in the next moment and being carried towards the front do
or of the house, which was now open, the dogs gambolling about them and barking madly at this new game and Flynn swearing at them under his breath.

  The lady who had opened the front door met them on the second step, her plump, plain face concerned as she said, ‘Oh, Mr Moreau, whatever’s happened?’

  ‘I’ll explain inside.’

  And what an inside. As the warmth of the house hit Marigold, so did the opulence of the surroundings. The entrance hall was all wooden floors and expensive rugs and a wide, gracious staircase that went up and up into infinity, passing galleried landings as it did so.

  However, she only had time for one bemused glance before she was carried into what was obviously the drawing room, and placed on a deep, soft sofa which had been pulled close to the blazing log fire. One arm had been round Flynn’s neck, and although he had held her quite impersonally every nerve in her body was vitally and painfully alive and for a crazy second—a ridiculous, insane second—she had wondered what he’d do if she’d tightened her hold on him and pulled his mouth down to hers. It had been enough to keep her as rigid as a plank of wood when he’d lowered her carefully onto the sofa.

  ‘This is Miss Jones, Bertha.’ Flynn turned to the housekeeper, who had been right behind them. ‘Maggie’s granddaughter. Her car broke down a mile or so from the cottage and she’s hurt her ankle. Take care of her, would you, while I find Wilf and tell him to go and take a look at the car? He can take John with him; I’d like them to get it back here if possible. And we’ve got a few spare electric heaters dotted about the place, haven’t we? They can take those and start warming the cottage. And get John to deliver a load of logs and a few sacks of coal tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Please, it’s not necessary…’ She had to tell them she wasn’t Emma. She didn’t know now why she hadn’t told Flynn before, except that it had suited something deep inside to let him make a fool of himself when he had been so obnoxious on the road at first. And then she’d felt backed into a corner somehow, and there had never seemed to be a suitable moment to confess the truth. But this was getting more embarrassing, more awful, by the minute.