Читать книгу Maids Under The Mistletoe Collection - Christy McKellen - Страница 16

CHAPTER SEVEN

WHEN EMMA WOKE up the next morning she felt as if she hadn’t slept a wink.

The memory of the way Jack had looked at her with such warmth and understanding yesterday, after she’d opened up about what she’d gone through after her father died, had haunted her dreams.

Standing under that mistletoe outside the pub, she’d thought for one heart-stopping moment that he was going to kiss her. It had actually scared her how much she’d wanted him to, but judging by his swift withdrawal apparently she’d been crazy to imagine that he’d wanted it too.

But she could have sworn...

Ugh! This was all so confusing.

She was better off on her own anyway—at least that way she could keep full control over her life and keep her heart in one piece.

Rolling out of bed, she went over to the window and peered out at the street below, this time making sure to keep well hidden behind the curtain. There were still a few photographers lurking down on the street, but the majority of journalists seemed to have gone.

They must have grown bored with trying to get information about her. That was a relief.

After taking a quick shower and pulling on another one of the beautiful dresses that Sophie had brought over for her, this time in a flattering, draped soft green fabric that swished around her legs and clung gently to her torso, she clomped downstairs, steeling herself to face Jack again.

She had absolutely no idea what to expect from him today. What she did know was that she sure as heck wasn’t going to hide from whatever was going on between them.

Walking into the kitchen, she spotted him sitting at the table with his broad back to her looking at something on his laptop.

The worry about how they were going to be with each other this morning evaporated the moment he looked round and she saw the flash of panic on his face.

‘Emma, I didn’t hear you come in.’

‘What are you looking at?’ she asked, already knowing she wasn’t going to like the answer.

Snapping the laptop shut, he gave what she suspected was meant to be a diffident shrug. ‘Nothing of any consequence.’

Folding her arms, she gave him a hard stare. ‘Jack, there’s no point in trying to hide anything from me. I’ll see it sooner or later.’

He swallowed, then nodded towards the computer in front of him. ‘The press found out who you are,’ he said, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

Sitting down next to him, she slid the laptop towards her and opened it up to look at what he’d been reading.

All the blood seemed to drain from her head as she saw numerous links on the screen, all with her family name slashed across them with a variation on the theme of her family’s money scandal and their exile from high society as well as Jack’s name and title.

Gold-digger seemed to be the most commonly used term.

It was inevitable, she supposed. Once the press had that photo of her there must have been a race on to discover as much as they could about her in order to get their stories filed for this morning’s news. The public seemed to be captivated by the lives of the upper-class gentry and apparently theirs were no exception.

Feeling sick, she leant back against the chair and covered her face with her hands, letting out a long low breath and concentrating hard on getting her raging heartbeat back under control.

‘Are you okay?’ Jack asked gently.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, dismissing his concern with the flip of her hand. She wasn’t going to fall apart in front of him now. She still had her pride.

Getting up from the table, she smoothed her hands down her dress. ‘Well, I guess if I’m going to be living here for a while I’ll need to go to my flat to pick up some of my things,’ she managed to say, amazed at how calm she sounded when her heart was thumping so hard she thought it might explode in her chest.

Jack looked surprised for a moment, then smiled and nodded. ‘Take the car. In fact, I’ll give you John’s number now, then you can call him whenever you need to go somewhere.’

She frowned in surprise. ‘Won’t you need him?’

‘I have another driver I can use.’

She must have still looked a little uncertain because he said, ‘It’s fine, Emma, and it’s only until the press get bored and leave us alone. It’ll be much less stressful for both of us.’

‘Well, okay. If it’s not going to cause any trouble.’

‘No trouble,’ he said, giving her a reassuring smile, which made something flip in her tummy.

His phone rang then, and he turned away to answer it with a curt, ‘Westwood.’

She could tell from the look on his face that it wasn’t someone he was keen to speak to.

He confirmed this by mouthing, ‘It’s Perdita,’ and putting the phone on speaker so they could both hear the conversation.

‘I’m calling to set up a good time to come and do that “At home with the Earl and Countess of Redminster” piece for the magazine,’ came the journalist’s crooning tones down the line.

Emma’s heart sank. She’d hoped the woman would leave them alone for a little while, at least until they’d had a bit more time to practise playing the happily married couple, but apparently it was not to be.

‘I was thinking a week on Friday,’ Perdita continued, not giving either of them the chance to even draw breath, let alone answer. ‘I’ll pop over at about nine in the morning, which should mean we have plenty of light to get everything shot. Now the nights are drawing in, we have to start our days that bit earlier. Okay?’ she finished finally, the uplift in her voice making the word sound more like a command than a question.

‘Yes, fine,’ Jack bit out. ‘We’ll see you then, Perdita.’

‘Lovely!’ Perdita breathed, then cut the call.

Jack scowled at his phone, looking as though he’d quite like to fling it across the room.

When he turned to look at her with a raised brow she matched his frustrated expression. ‘So she’s set on doing that interview, then,’ she said, keenly aware of the tension in her voice.

‘Sounds like it. We ought to do it though, just to keep my parents off our back.’

‘I agree.’

He nodded. ‘Thank you for understanding, Em.’

‘No problem,’ she said, forcing herself to smile back, feeling a little panicky about what exactly they were going to say to Perdita that would satisfy her curiosity about their relationship. They didn’t even know what the state of it was themselves, for goodness’ sake.

She got up from the table and went into the living room to peek out at the photographers still milling about outside.

Jack had followed her in and he flopped onto one of the sagging armchairs near the fireplace, wincing as it gave a groan of protest.

She walked over to where he sat and perched on the edge of the arm. ‘You know, Perdita might think it’s strange that we’re living in a house like this,’ she said, sweeping her hand around to encompass the nineteen seventies throwback décor. ‘She’ll never buy that a young couple plan to live here, and the readers certainly won’t.’

He frowned. ‘Good point.’

‘Can you get it updated in time?’ she asked hesitantly.

He ran a hand through his hair, messing up the neat waves and making her long to smooth it back down for him. ‘I don’t have time to arrange it right now. I’m snowed under at work.’

‘I can do it,’ she said before she could check herself. ‘If you like,’ she added less forcefully, pulling her arms tightly across her middle. ‘I can’t work at the moment anyway, so I may as well make myself useful.’

He looked up at her with a smile of relief. ‘That would be great, if you wouldn’t mind. Spend whatever you think necessary—’

She gave an involuntary grimace at that and he frowned as if realising what a tactless thing that was to say to her.

‘I’ll transfer some money to you to get started and if you need any more, just let me know.’

‘Okay. Should I give you my account details now?’ she asked, feeling incredibly awkward about discussing money with him, especially with the word gold-digger still floating around her mind.

‘Sure. Go ahead,’ he said, opening up an app on his phone and tapping in the numbers she gave him. ‘I’ll do a transfer as soon as I get to my desk. ‘I’ve got a meeting in Belgravia now so I’ll get out of your way.’

Emma was frustrated that they were dancing so politely around each other like this, with neither of them making any mention of their moment under the mistletoe yesterday. But then what was there to say? Nothing had actually happened.

They’d not talked at all on the journey back from Cambridge because Jack had been on the phone to his colleagues in America the whole time dealing with a crisis that had arisen, then he’d excused himself the moment they’d walked into the house, citing the need to do more work. She suspected he’d actually been avoiding having to talk about what was hanging in the air between them.

She followed him into the hallway, where Jack grabbed his coat from the cloakroom.

It can’t have meant as much to him as it had to her, she decided with a sting of sadness.

It had probably just been a moment of camaraderie to him after a long and stressful day. But that was all. It hadn’t meant anything more than that.

Disappointment was doing something funny to her insides, but she squashed the feeling quickly.

‘Have a good day. I’ll see you later,’ Jack said, sliding his arms into his overcoat and giving her a tight smile.

She nodded solemnly, not wanting to give away how disconcerted she felt about being left alone with the press still hanging around the front of the building. Not that she’d ever admit that to Jack. She didn’t want him thinking he had to mollycoddle her.

‘Are you sure you trust me to redecorate your house?’ she blurted in a moment of nervousness, belatedly adding a twinkle of mirth to her expression so he’d see she was only joking. The idea of being let loose on this place—to have such a fun project to get immersed in—filled her with utter joy.

Flashing her a wry smile back, he leant his arm against the wall next to her and regarded her with a mock stern stare. ‘If I find you’ve kitted the whole house out in rubber and woodchip I will not be pleased. Other than that, go for your life. I’ll be interested to see what you do with the place. It’s crying out for a make over and you’ve always had great taste.’

‘You think so?’ she said, surprised by the out-of-left-field compliment.

He shot her a grin. ‘You married me, didn’t you?’

She couldn’t stop her mouth from twisting with amusement. ‘You just can’t help yourself, can you?’

‘I never could with you, my darling.’ He leaned in a bit closer to her, capturing her gaze, and the mood changed in a second, the air seeming to crackle between them, the quiet in the hallway suddenly sounding too loud, the colours around them too bright.

Clearing his throat with a rough cough, Jack stepped back, snapping the mood, and Emma found she was digging her nails into her palms.

‘I’ll see you later,’ he said, turning on the spot and striding away to pull the door open, then slamming it shut behind him.

The sound of him leaving reverberated around the hallway, making her suddenly feel very, very alone in the big empty house.

* * *

It took Emma a good twenty minutes to come down from her jittery high after Jack left.

Crikey, it was going to be hard, living here with him and having to get through those moments when they both became uncomfortably aware of how happy they’d once been together, but how much had come between them since.

Despite her body telling her she wanted him, more desperately than she could believe, she knew deep down that hoping things would get physical between them was foolish when their feelings about each other were so tangled. It would only make living together more problematic than it already was.

Sighing, she made her way to the kitchen to put the kettle on for a much-needed cup of tea.

At least throwing herself into redecorating the house would give her something to distract herself from thinking about him all the time.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing in her back pocket. Plucking it out, she was pleased to see Grace’s name flash up on the screen.

‘Hello, you, how’s it going?’

‘I was going to ask you the same thing. I hope you don’t mind, but Sophie filled me in on what happened after Jolyon’s party and I read about the rest of it in the papers. Nice photo of you and your husband on the Babbler website by the way.’

‘Er—thanks.’ Was the picture out already? She hadn’t expected it to appear for another few days. Thank goodness her mother never looked at the internet and was unlikely to see any of the news articles over in France.

‘Are you okay, Emma? You must be having a rough time with the press camped out on your doorstep,’ Grace asked in her usual no-nonsense manner.

There was a long pause where Emma tried to form a coherent sentence about how she felt about it all.

Where to begin?

‘Yes, I’m fine. It all feels like a dream, to be honest, but we’re handling it.’

‘So you really are married to an earl?’ There was a note of gleeful fascination in her friend’s voice now.

‘I am.’ She swallowed, feeling her earlier nervousness returning. ‘Although for how much longer I don’t know,’ she blurted.

There was a pause on the line. ‘Really? Are things difficult between you?’

Emma sighed, annoyed with herself for losing her cool like that. She didn’t want Grace to worry about her; her friend had enough on her plate. ‘No, no, it’s fine, ignore me. I’m just a bit stressed at the minute. I’m supposed to be interior designing the downstairs of the house we’re living in for a photo shoot a week on Friday and I have absolutely no idea where to start.’

There was another small pause on the line before Grace spoke again. ‘You know, I worked in a lovely boutique hotel in Chelsea called Daphne’s a while ago. It has every bedroom decorated in a style from a different time period and the communal rooms are done out in a really cool and quirky way. It would be a great place to get some inspiration.’

‘Ooh, I think I know it,’ Emma said, feeling excitement begin to bubble in her stomach. ‘I read an article about it a while ago. I’ve been meaning to go and have a peek at it. It looked like a fascinating place.’

‘You should,’ Grace said. ‘I’m sure the manager would jump at the chance to show you around if you suggested that you were thinking about hiring the place for your vow-renewal ceremony.’

Emma tried to ignore the twist of unease that the mention of renewing their vows provoked.

‘It would be great publicity for them if they could boast about having the famous Earl and Countess of Redminster as patrons,’ Grace added with a smile in her voice.

‘That’s a fantastic idea,’ Emma said, feeling a real buzz of excitement now. It was exactly what she needed today: a chance to escape from the house and take her mind off Jack for a while.

‘I don’t suppose you’re free today to come with me, are you?’ she asked her friend. ‘We could go for a coffee afterwards.’

It would be lovely to spend some time in Grace’s easy company. She desperately needed to do something normal feeling after the craziness of the last couple of days.

‘I’d love to,’ Grace said. ‘I’ve just finished work so I can meet you there in half an hour.’

‘Fantastic,’ Emma said with a grateful sigh. ‘I’ll see you there.’

* * *

They spent a happy half-hour looking around the hotel, with Emma making copious notes on things that inspired her, then chatting it all over with Grace over large mugs of cream-topped hot chocolate in a nearby café afterwards, sitting next to a large Scandinavian-style Christmas tree hung with silvery white snowflakes, quirky wooden reindeer and red felt hearts.

It was lovely spending time with just Grace on her own for once and they discovered to their delight just how much their tastes aligned. It turned out Grace wasn’t a fan of the pure white and chrome interior look that Emma had teased Jack about either.

‘That must be tough,’ she said, as her friend finished a diatribe about the hotel where she was currently working, which felt so clinical she was continually transported back to the months she’d spent visiting her grandmother in hospital before cancer finally took her from her.

‘Your house is going to look wonderful when you’re finished,’ Grace said, changing the subject and shaking off the air of sadness that had fallen over her at the mention of her beloved grandmother—the woman, Emma knew, who had been more like a mother to Grace.

She was perpetually impressed by the strength and tenacity that Grace showed to the world, despite having had such a tough start in life.

‘What a fantastic opportunity to showcase your skills as a designer too,’ her friend said. ‘Hey, do you think it’s something you’d be interested in pursuing as a career?’

Giving Grace a smile, she shrugged non-committally, but felt a tug of something akin to excitement deep in her belly. She’d always loved art and design at school and had done both a graphic design and business night class recently in the hope she’d be able to apply her artistic bent to a job in the future. Fortuitously, the classes had given her a set of skills to be able to make up mood boards on a computer, put together cost sheets and even do some technical drawing, which would no doubt prove very useful for this project.

While she’d been paying off her father’s debts she hadn’t allowed herself to think about what else she could be doing with her life, but now she was getting so close to reconciling them it really was time to think about the next steps. As much as she loved working for Clio at the Maids in Chelsea agency, she’d be very happy for her long-term career to take another direction. One that didn’t involve toadying to people who made an art form of peering down their noses at the hired help. She’d probably have to go to college and get proper qualifications if she wanted to pursue something like interior design, which she’d need to save up for, but it was a worthy goal to aim for.

It would be a good way to safeguard a more settled future for herself.

After losing everything she had once already, she never wanted to be in a position where she was at risk of that happening again. No way was she going to rely on someone else to keep her afloat.

Pushing away a concern about how this fed into her muddled feelings regarding her relationship with Jack, she turned her attention back to her friend.

‘Thanks so much for today, Grace, it’s been really useful. Now all I have to do is get out there and make it happen.’