Читать книгу Her Christmas Fantasy - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 7

LISA STOOD IN FRONT of the guest-bedroom window of Henry’s parents’ large Victorian house looking out across the wintry countryside.

They had arrived considerably later than expected the previous evening, due, in the main, to the fact that Henry’s car had been so badly damaged whilst parked in a client’s car park that their departure had been delayed and they had had to use her small—much smaller—model, much to Henry’s disgust.

They had arrived shortly after eleven o’clock, and whilst Henry had been greeted with a good deal of maternal anxiety and concern Lisa had received a considerably more frosty reception, Henry’s mother giving her a chilly smile and presenting a cool cheek for her to kiss before commenting, ‘I’m afraid we couldn’t put back supper any longer. You know what your father’s like about meal times, Henry.’

‘It was Lisa’s fault,’ Henry had grumbled untruthfully, adding to Lisa, ‘You really should get a decent car, you know. Oh, and by the way, you need petrol.’

Lisa had gritted her teeth and smiled, reminding herself that she had already guessed from Henry’s comments about his family that, as an only child and a son, he was the apple of his mother’s eye.

Whilst Henry had been despatched to his father’s study, Lisa had been quizzed by Henry’s mother about her family and background. It had subtly been made plain to Lisa that so far as Henry’s mother was concerned the jury was still out on the subject of her suitability as Henry’s intended wife.

Normally she would have enjoyed the chance to visit the Yorkshire Dales, Lisa acknowledged—especially at this time of the year. Last night she had been enchanted to discover that snow was expected on the high ground.

Henry had been less impressed. In fact, he had been in an edgy, difficult mood throughout the entire journey—and not just, Lisa suspected, because of the damage to his precious car.

It had struck her, over the previous weekend, when they’d been doing the last of their Christmas shopping together, that he was obviously having doubts about her ability to make the right impression on his parents. There had been several small lectures and clumsy hints on what his family would expect, and one particularly embarrassing moment when Alison had called round to the flat just as Henry had been explaining that he wasn’t sure that the Armani trouser suit was going to be quite the thing for his parents’ annual pre-Christmas supper party.

‘What century are Henry’s parents living in?’ Alison had exploded after Henry had left the room. ‘Honestly, Lisa, I can’t—’

She had stopped when Lisa had shaken her head, changing the subject to ask instead, ‘Any more repercussions about the clothes you bought from Second Time Around, by the way?’

Lisa had told Alison all about her run-in with Oliver Davenport, asking her friend’s advice as to what she ought to do.

‘Ring the shop and find out what they’ve got to say,’ had been Alison’s prompt response.

‘I’ve already done that,’ Lisa had told her. ‘And there was just a message on the answering machine saying that the owner has had to close the shop down indefinitely because her father has been taken seriously ill.’

‘Well, if you want my opinion, you bought those clothes in all good faith, and I feel that their original owner deserves to know exactly what kind of miserable rat her boyfriend is… I mean…selling her clothes… It’s…it’s… Well, I’d certainly never forgive any man who tried to pull that one on me. I think you did exactly the right thing in refusing to give them back,’ Alison had said comfortingly.

‘No. No further repercussions,’ Lisa had told her in response to her latest question. ‘Which I find surprising. I suppose I did overreact a little bit, but when he virtually accused me of trying to blackmail him into paying almost more for them than they had originally cost…’

Her voice had quivered with remembered indignation as she recalled how shocked and insulted she had felt to be confronted with such a contemptuous assessment of her character.

‘You overreacting—and to a man… Now that’s something I would like to see,’ Alison had told her.

‘Who are you discussing?’ Henry had asked, coming back into the room.

‘Oh, no one special,’ Lisa had told him, hastily and untruthfully, hoping that he wouldn’t question the sudden surge of hot, guilty colour flooding her face as she remembered the shocking unexpectedness and intimacy of the way Oliver Davenport had reached out and touched her, and her even more shocking and intimate reaction to his touch.

The whole incident was something that was best forgotten she told herself firmly now as she craned her neck to watch a shepherd manoeuvring his flock on the distant hillside. She felt very sorry for Emma, of course, in the loss of her clothes, but hopefully it would teach Oliver Davenport not to behave so arrogantly in future. It was certainly a lesson he needed to learn.

Lisa glanced at her watch.

Henry’s mother had announced last night that they sat down for breakfast at eight o’clock sharp, the implication being that she suspected that Lisa lived too decadent and lazy a lifestyle to manage to get up early enough to join them.

She couldn’t have been more wrong, Lisa acknowledged. She was normally a very early riser.

The build-up to Christmas, and most especially the week before it, was normally one of her favourite times of the year. Her parents might live a rather unconventional lifestyle by Henry’s parents’ standards, but wherever they had lived when she’d been a child they had always made a point of following as many Christmas traditions as they could—buying and dressing a specially chosen Christmas tree, cooking certain favourite Christmas treats, shopping for presents and wrapping them. But Lisa had always yearned for the trappings of a real British Christmas. She had been looking forward to seeing such a traditional scenario of events taking place in Henry’s childhood home, but it had become apparent to her the previous evening that Henry’s parents, and more specifically Henry’s mother, did not view Christmas in the same way she did herself.

‘The whole thing has become so dreadfully commercialised that I simply don’t see the point nowadays,’ she had commented when Lisa had been describing the fun she had had shopping for gifts for the several small and not so small children who featured on her Christmas present list.

Her father in particular delighted in receiving anything toy-like, and had a special weakness for magic tricks. Lisa had posted her gifts to her parents to Japan weeks ago, and had, in turn, received hers from them. She had brought the presents north with her, intending to add them to the pile she had assumed would accumulate beneath the Christmas tree, which in her imagination she had visualised as tall and wonderfully bushy, dominating the large hallway that Henry had described to her, warmed by the firelight of its open hearth and scenting the whole room with the delicious aroma of fresh pine needles.

Alas for her imaginings. Henry’s mother did not, apparently, like real Christmas trees. They caused too much mess with their needles. And as for an open fire! They had had that boarded up years ago, she had informed Lisa, adding that it had caused far too much mess and nuisance.

So much for her hazy thoughts of establishing the beginnings of their own family traditions, her plans of one day telling her own children how she and their father had spent their first Christmas together, going out to choose the family Christmas tree.

‘You’re far too romantic and impractical,’ Henry had criticised her. ‘I agree with Mother. Real Christmas trees are nothing but a nuisance.’

As she turned away from the window Lisa was uncomfortably aware not only of Henry’s mother’s reluctance to accept her, but also of her own unexpectedly rebellious feeling that Henry was letting her down in not being more supportive of her.

She hadn’t spent one full day with Henry’s family yet, and already she was beginning to regret the extended length of their Christmas stay with them.

Reluctantly she walked towards the bedroom door. It was ten to eight, and the last thing she wanted to do now was arrive late for breakfast.

‘Off-white wool… Don’t you think that’s rather impractical?’ Henry’s mother asked Lisa critically.

Taking a deep breath and counting to ten, Lisa forced herself to smile as she responded politely to Mary Hanford’s criticism.

‘Perhaps a little, but then—’

‘I never wear cream or white. I think they can be so draining to the pale English complexion,’ her prospective mother-in-law continued. ‘Navy is always so much more serviceable, I think.’

Lisa had arrived downstairs half an hour ago, all her offers to help with the preparation of the pre-Christmas buffet supper having been firmly refused.

So much for creating the right impression on Henry’s parents with her new clothes, Lisa reflected wryly, wishing that Alison was with her to appreciate the ironic humour of the situation.

She could, of course, have shared the joke with Henry, but somehow she doubted that he would have found it funny… He had, no doubt, inherited his sense of humour, or rather his lack of it, from his mother, she decided sourly, and was immediately ashamed of her own mean-spiritedness.

Of course, it was only natural that Henry’s mother should be slightly distant with her. Naturally she was protective of Henry—he was her only son, her only child…

He was also a man of thirty-one, a sharp inner voice reminded Lisa, and surely capable of making his own mind up about who he wanted to marry? Or was he?

It hadn’t escaped Lisa’s notice during the day how Henry consistently and illuminatingly agreed with whatever opinion his mother chose to voice, but she dismissed the tiny niggling doubts that were beginning to undermine her confidence in her belief that she and Henry had a future together as natural uncertainties raised by seeing him in an unfamiliar setting and with people, moreover, who knew him far better than she did.

In the hallway the grandfather clock chimed the hour. In a few minutes the Hanfords’ supper guests would be arriving.

Henry had already explained to her that his family had lived in the area for several generations and that they had a large extended family, most of whom would be at the supper party, along with a handful of his parents’ friends.

Lisa was slightly apprehensive, aware that she would be very much on show, which was one of the reasons why she had chosen to wear the cream trouser suit.

Henry, however, hadn’t been any more approving of her outfit than his mother, telling her severely that he thought that a skirt would have been more appropriate than trousers.

Lisa had no doubt that Oliver Davenport would have been both highly amused and contemptuous of her failure to achieve the desired effect with her acquired plumage.

Oliver Davenport. Now what on earth was she doing thinking about such a disagreeable subject, such a contentious person, when by rights she ought to be concentrating on the evening ahead of her?

‘Ah, Lisa, there you are!’ she heard Henry exclaiming. ‘Everyone will be arriving soon, and Mother likes us all to be in the hall to welcome them when they do.

‘I see you didn’t change after all,’ he added, frowning at her.

‘An Armani suit is a perfectly acceptable outfit to wear for a supper party, Henry,’ Lisa pointed out mildly, and couldn’t help adding a touch more robustly, ‘And, to be honest, I think I would have felt rather cold in a skirt. Your parents—’

‘Mother doesn’t think an overheated house is healthy,’ Henry interrupted her quickly—so quickly that Lisa suspected that she wasn’t the first person to comment on the chilliness of his parents’ house.

‘I expect I’m feeling the cold because we’re so much further north here,’ she offered diplomatically as she followed him into the hallway.

Cars could be heard pulling up outside, their doors opening and closing.

‘That’s good!’ Henry exclaimed. ‘Mother likes everyone to be on time.’

Mother would, Lisa thought rebelliously, but wisely she kept the words to herself.

Henry’s aunt and her family were the first to arrive. A smaller, quieter edition of her elder sister, she was, nevertheless, far warmer in her manner towards Lisa than Henry’s mother had been, and Lisa didn’t miss the looks exchanged by her three teenage children as they were subjected to Mary Hanford’s critical inspection.

Fifteen minutes later the hallway was virtually full, and Lisa was beginning to lose track of just who everyone was. The doorbell rang again and Henry went to answer it. As Lisa turned to look at the newcomers her heart suddenly stood still and then gave a single shocked bound followed by a flurry of too fast, disbelieving, nervous beats.

Oliver Davenport! What on earth was he doing here? He couldn’t have followed her here to pursue his demand for her to return Emma’s clothes, could he?

At the thought of what Henry’s mother was likely to say if Oliver Davenport caused the same kind of scene here in public as he had staged in the privacy of her own flat, Lisa closed her eyes in helpless dismay, and then heard Henry saying tensely to her, ‘Lisa, I’d like to introduce you to one of my parents’ neighbours. Oliver—’

‘Lisa and I already know one another.’

Lisa’s eyes widened in bemused incomprehension.

Oliver Davenport was a neighbour of Henry’s parents! And what did he mean by implying that they knew one another…by saying her name in that grossly deceptive, softly sensual way, which seemed to imply that he…that she…?

‘You do? You never said anything about knowing Oliver to me, Lisa,’ Henry said almost hectoringly.

But before Lisa could make any attempt to defend herself or explain, Oliver Davenport was doing it for her, addressing Henry in a tone that left Lisa in no doubt as to just what kind of opinion the other man had of her husband-to-be, as he announced cuttingly, ‘No doubt she had more important things on her mind. Or perhaps she simply didn’t think it was important…’

‘I…I…I didn’t realise you two knew one another,’ was the only response Lisa could come up with, and she saw from Henry’s face that it was not really one that satisfied him.

She nibbled worriedly at her bottom lip, cast Oliver Davenport a bitter look and then was forced to listen helplessly whilst Oliver, who still quite obviously bore her a grudge over the clothes, commented judiciously, ‘I like the outfit… It suits you… But then I thought so the first time I saw you wearing it, didn’t I?’

Lisa knew that she was blushing. Blushing…? She was turning a vivid and unconcealable shade of deep scarlet, she acknowledged miserably as she saw the suspicious look that Henry was giving her and recognised from the narrow, pursed-lip glare that Henry’s mother must have also overheard Oliver’s comment.

‘Oliver, let me get you a drink,’ Henry’s father offered, thankfully coming up to usher him away, but not before Oliver managed to murmur softly to Lisa,

‘Saved by the cavalry…’

‘How on earth do you come to know Oliver Davenport?’ Henry demanded angrily as soon as Oliver was out of earshot. ‘I don’t know him,’ Lisa admitted wearily. ‘At least not—’

‘What do you mean? Of course you know him…and well enough for him to be able to comment on your clothes…’

‘He’s… Henry…this isn’t the time for me to explain…’ Lisa told him quietly.

‘So there is something to explain, then.’ Henry was refusing to be appeased. ‘Where did you meet him? In London, I suppose. His business might be based up here at the Hall, but he still spends quite a considerable amount of time in London… His cousin works for him down there—’

‘His cousin…?’ Lisa couldn’t quite keep the note of nervous apprehension out of her voice.

‘Yes, Piers Davenport, Oliver’s cousin. He’s several years younger than Oliver and he lives in London with his girlfriend—some model or other…Emily…or Emma…I can’t remember which…’

‘Emma,’ Lisa supplied hollowly.

So Oliver hadn’t been lying, after all, when he had told her that he was acting on behalf of his cousin. She glanced uneasily over her shoulder, remembering just exactly how scathingly she had denounced him, practically accusing him of being a liar and worse.

No wonder he had given her that look this evening which had said that he hadn’t finished with her and that he fully intended to make her pay for her angry insults, to exact retribution on her.

Apprehensively she wondered exactly what form that silently promised retribution was going to take. What was he going to do? Reveal to Henry and his parents that she had bought her clothes second-hand? She could just imagine how Mary Hanford would react to that information. At the thought of her impending humiliation, Lisa felt her stomach muscles tighten defensively.

It wasn’t all her fault. Hers had been a natural enough mistake to make, she reminded herself. Alison had agreed with her. And Oliver had to share some of the blame for her error himself. If he had only been a little more conciliatory in his manner towards her, a little less arrogant in demanding that she return the clothes back to him…

‘I do wish you had told me that you knew Oliver,’ Henry was continuing fussily. ‘Especially in view of his position locally.’

‘What position locally?’ Lisa asked him warily, but she suspected she could guess the answer. To judge from Mary Hanford’s deferential manner towards him, Oliver Davenport was quite obviously someone of importance in the area. Her heart started to sink even further as Henry explained in a hushed, almost awed voice.

‘Oliver is an extremely wealthy man. He owns and runs one of the north of England’s largest financial consultancy businesses and he recently took over another firm based in London, giving him a countrywide network. But why are you asking me? Surely if you know him you must—?’

‘I don’t know him,’ Lisa protested tiredly. ‘Henry, there’s something I have to tell you.’ She took a deep breath. There was nothing else for it; she was going to have to tell Henry the truth.

‘But you evidently do know him,’ Henry protested, ignoring her and cutting across what she was trying to say. ‘And rather well by the sound of it… Lisa, what exactly’s going on?’

Henry could look remarkably like his mother when he pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes like that, Lisa decided. She suddenly had a mental image of the children they might have together—little replicas of their grandmother. Quickly she banished the unwelcome vision.

‘Henry, nothing is going on. If you would just let me explain—’ Lisa began.

But once again she was interrupted, this time by Henry’s mother, who bore down on them, placing a proprietorial hand on Henry’s arm as she told him, ‘Henry, dear, Aunt Elspeth wants to talk to you. She’s over there by the French windows. She’s brought her god-daughter with her. You remember Louise. You used to play together when you were children—such a sweet girl…’

To Lisa’s chagrin, Henry was borne off by his mother, leaving her standing alone, nursing an unwanted glass of too sweet sherry.

What should have been the happiest Christmas Eve of her adult life was turning out to be anything but, she admitted gloomily as she watched a petite, doe-eyed brunette, presumably Aunt Elspeth’s god-daughter, simpering up at a Henry who was quite plainly wallowing in her dewy-eyed, fascinated attention.

It was a good thirty minutes before Henry returned to her side, during which time she had had ample opportunity to watch Oliver’s progress amongst the guests and to wonder why on earth he had accepted the Hanfords’ invitation, since he was quite obviously both bored and irritated by the almost fawning attention of Henry’s mother.

He really was the most arrogantly supercilious man she had ever had the misfortune to meet, Lisa decided critically as he caught her watching him and lifted one derogatory, darkly interrogative eyebrow in her direction.

Flushing, she turned away, but not, she noticed, before Henry’s mother had seen the brief, silent exchange between them.

‘You still haven’t explained to us just how you come to know… You really should have told us that you know Oliver,’ she told Lisa, arriving at her side virtually at the same time as Henry, so that Lisa was once again prevented from explaining to him what had happened.

What was it about some people that made everything they said sound like either a reproach or a criticism? Lisa wondered grimly, but before she could answer she heard Mary Hanford adding, in an unfamiliar, almost arch and flattering voice, ‘Ah, Oliver, we were just talking about you.’

‘Really.’

He was looking at them contemptuously, as though they were creatures from another planet—some kind of subspecies provided for his entertainment, Lisa decided resentfully as he looked from Mary to Henry and then to her.

‘Yes,’ Mary continued, undeterred. ‘I was just asking Lisa how she comes to know you…’

‘Well, I think that’s probably best left for Lisa herself to explain to you,’ he responded smoothly. ‘I should hate to embarrass her by making any unwelcome revelations…’

Lisa glared angrily at him.

‘That suit looks good on you,’ he added softly.

‘So you’ve already said,’ she reminded him through gritted teeth, all too aware of Henry’s and his mother’s silently suspicious watchfulness at her side.

‘Yes,’ Oliver continued, as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘You can always tell when a woman’s wearing an outfit bought by a man for his lover.’ As he spoke he reached out and touched her jacket-clad arm—a brief touch, nothing more, but it made the hot colour burn in Lisa’s face, and she was not at all surprised to hear Henry’s mother’s outraged indrawn breath or to see the fury in Henry’s eyes.

This was retribution with a vengeance. This wasn’t just victory, she acknowledged helplessly; it was total annihilation.

‘Have you worn any of the other things yet?’ he added casually.

‘Lisa…’ she heard Henry demanding ominously at her side, but she couldn’t answer him. She was too mortified, too furiously angry to dare to risk saying anything whilst Oliver Davenport was still standing there listening.

To her relief, he didn’t linger long. Aunt Elspeth’s god-daughter, the same one who had so determinedly flirted with Henry half an hour earlier, came up and very professionally broke up their quartet, insisting that Oliver had promised to get her a fresh drink.

He was barely out of earshot before Henry was insisting, ‘I want to know what’s going on, Lisa… What was all that about your clothes…?’

‘I think we know exactly what’s going on, Henry,’ Lisa heard his mother answering coolly for him as she gave Lisa a look of virulent hostility edged with triumph. So much for pretending to welcome her into the family, Lisa thought tiredly.

‘I can see what you’re both thinking,’ she announced. ‘But you are wrong.’

‘Wrong? How can we be wrong when Oliver more or less announced openly that the pair of you have been lovers?’ Mary intoned.

‘He did not announce that we had been lovers,’ Lisa defended herself. ‘And if you would just let me explain—’

‘Henry, it’s almost time for supper. You know how hopeless your father is at getting people organised. I’m going to need you to help me…’

‘Henry, we need to talk.’ Lisa tried to override his mother, but Henry was already turning away from her and going obediently to his mother’s side.

If they married it would always be like this, Lisa suddenly recognised on a wave of helpless anger. He would always place his mother’s needs and wants above her own, and presumably above those of their children. They would always come a very poor second best to his loyalty to his mother. Was that really what she wanted for herself…for her children?

Lisa knew it wasn’t.

It was as though the scales had suddenly fallen from her eyes, as though she were looking at a picture of exactly how and what her life with Henry would be—and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like it one little bit.

In the handful of seconds it took her to recognise the fact, she knew irrevocably that she couldn’t marry him, but she still owed him an explanation of what had happened, and from her own point of view. For the sake of her pride and self-respect she wanted to make sure that he and his precious mother knew exactly how she had come to meet Oliver and exactly how he had manipulated them into believing his deliberately skewed view of the situation.

Still seething with anger against Oliver, she refused Henry’s father’s offer of another drink and some supper. She would choke rather than eat any of Mary Hanford’s food, she decided angrily.

Just the thought of the kind of life she would have had as Henry’s wife made her shudder and acknowledge that she had had a lucky escape, but knowing that did not lessen her overwhelming fury at the man who had accidently brought it about.

How would she have been feeling right now had she been deeply in love with Henry and he with her? Instead of stalking angrily around the Hanfords’ drawing room like an angry tigress, she would probably have been upstairs in her bedroom sobbing her heart out.

Some Christmas this was going to be.

She had been so looking forward to being here, to being part of the family, to sharing the simple, traditional pleasures of Christmas with the man she intended to marry, and now it was all spoiled, ruined… And why? Why? Because Oliver Davenport was too arrogant, too proud…too…too devious and hateful to allow someone whom he obviously saw as way, way beneath him to get the better of him.

Well, she didn’t care. She didn’t care what he did or what he said. He could tell the whole room, the whole house, the whole world that she had bought her clothes second-hand and that they had belonged to his cousin’s girlfriend for all she cared now. In fact, she almost wished he would. That way at least she would be vindicated. That way she could walk away from here…from Henry and his precious mother…with her head held high.

‘An outfit bought by a man for his lover…’ How dared he…? Oh, how dared he…? She was, she suddenly realised, almost audibly grinding her teeth. Hastily she stopped. Dental fees were notoriously, hideously expensive.

She couldn’t leave matters as they were, she decided fiercely. She would have to say something to Oliver Davenport—even if it was to challenge him over the implications he had made.

She got her chance ten minutes later, when she saw Oliver leaving the drawing room alone.

Quickly, before she could change her mind, she followed him. As he heard her footsteps crossing the hallway, he stopped and turned round.

‘Ah, the blushing bride-to-be and her borrowed raiment,’ he commented sardonically.

‘I bought in good faith my second-hand raiment,’ Lisa corrected him bitingly, adding, ‘You do realise what impression you gave Henry and his mother back there, don’t you?’ she challenged him, adding scornfully before he could answer, ‘Of course you knew. You knew perfectly well what you were doing, what you were implying…’

‘Did I?’ he responded calmly.

‘Yes, you did,’ Lisa responded, her anger intensifying. ‘You knew they would assume that you meant that you and I had been lovers…that you had bought my clothes—’

‘Surely Henry knows you far better than that?’ Oliver interrupted her smoothly. ‘After all, according to the local grapevine, the pair of you are intending to marry—’

‘Of course Henry knows me…’ Lisa began, and then stopped, her face flushing in angry mortification. But it was too late.

Swift as a hawk to the lure, her tormentor responded softly, ‘Ah, I see. It’s because he knows you so well that he made the unfortunate and mistaken assumption that—’

‘No… He doesn’t… I don’t…’ Lisa tried to fight back gamely, but it was still too late, and infuriatingly she knew it and, even worse, so did Oliver.

He wasn’t smirking precisely—he was far too arrogant for that, Lisa decided bitterly—but there was certainly mockery in his eyes, and if she hadn’t known better she could almost have sworn that his mouth was about to curl into a smile. But how could it? She was sure that he was incapable of doing anything so human. He was the kind of man who just didn’t know what human emotions were, she decided savagely—who had no idea what it meant to suffer insecurity or…or any of the things that made people like herself feel so vulnerable.

‘Have you any idea what you’ve done?’ she challenged him, changing tack, her voice shaking under the weight of her suppressed emotion. ‘I came here—’

‘I know why you came here,’ he interrupted her with unexpected sternness. ‘You came to be looked over as a potential wife for Mary Hanford’s precious son.

‘Where’s your pride?’ he demanded scornfully. ‘However, a potential bride is all you will ever be. Mary Hanford knows quite well who she wants Henry to marry, and I’m afraid it isn’t going to be you…’

‘Not now,’ Lisa agreed shortly. ‘Not—’

‘Not ever,’ Oliver told her. ‘Mary won’t allow Henry to marry any woman who she thinks might have the slightest chance of threatening her own superior position in Henry’s life. His wife will not only have to take second place to her but to covertly acknowledge and accept that fact before she’s allowed to marry him. And besides, the two of you are so obviously unsuited to one another that the whole thing’s almost a farce. You’re far too emotionally turbulent and uncontrolled for Henry… He wouldn’t have a clue how to handle you…’

Lisa couldn’t believe her ears.

‘You, of course, would,’ she challenged him with acid sweetness, too carried away by her anger and the heat of the moment to realise what she was doing, the challenge she was issuing him, the risks she was taking.

Then it was too late and he was cutting the ground from beneath her feet and making a shock as icy-cold as the snow melting on the tops of the Yorkshire hills that were his home run down her spine as he told her silkily, ‘Certainly,’ and then added before she could draw breath to speak, ‘And, for openers, there are two things I most certainly would do that Henry obviously has not.’

‘Oh, yes, and what exactly would they be?’ Lisa demanded furiously.

‘Well, I certainly wouldn’t have the kind of relationship with you—or with any woman who I had the slightest degree of mild affection for, never mind being on the point of contemplating marrying—which would necessitate you feeling that you had to conceal anything about yourself from me, or that you needed to impress my family and friends with borrowed plumes, with the contents of another woman’s wardrobe. And the second…’ he continued, ignoring Lisa’s quick, indrawn breath of mingled chagrin and rage.

He paused and looked at her whilst Lisa, driven well beyond the point of no return by the whole farce of her ruined Christmas in general and his part in it in particular, prompted wildly, ‘Yes, the second is…?’

‘This,’ he told her softly, taking the breath from her lungs, the strength from her muscles and, along with them, the will-power from her brain as he stepped forward and took her in his arms and then bent his head and kissed her as Henry had never kissed her in all the eight months of their relationship—as no man had ever kissed her in the whole history of her admittedly modest sexual experience, she recognised dizzily as his mouth moved with unbelievable, unbeatable, unbearable sensual expertise on hers.

Ordinary mortal men did not kiss like this. Ordinary mortal men did not behave like this. Ordinary mortal men did not have the power, did not cup one’s face with such tender mastery. They did not look deep into your eyes whilst they caressed your mouth with their own. They did not compel you, by some mastery you could not understand, to look back at them. They did not, by some unspoken command, cause you to open your mouth beneath theirs on a whispered ecstatic sigh of pure female pleasure. They did not lift their mouths from yours and look from your eyes to your half-parted lips and then back to your eyes again, their own warming in a smile of complicit understanding before starting to kiss you all over again.

Film stars in impossibly extravagant and highly acclaimed, Oscar-winning romantic movies might mimic such behaviour. Heroes in stomach-churning, body-aching, romantically sensual novels might sweep their heroines off their feet with similar embraces. God-like creatures from Greek mythology might come down to earth and wantonly seduce frolicking nymphs with such devastating experience and sensuality, but mere mortal men…? Never!

Lisa gave a small, blissful sigh and closed her eyes, only to open them again as she heard Henry exclaiming wrathfully, ‘Lisa…what on earth do you think you’re doing?’

Guiltily she watched him approaching as Oliver released her.

‘Henry, I can explain,’ she told him urgently, but he obviously didn’t intend to let her speak.

Ignoring Oliver’s quiet voice mocking, ‘To Henry, maybe, but to Mary, never,’ she flushed defensively as his taunting comment was borne out by Henry’s furious declaration.

‘Mother was right about you all along. She warned me that you weren’t—’

‘Henry, you don’t understand.’ She managed to interrupt him, turning to appeal to Oliver, who was standing watching them in contemptuous amusement.

‘Tell him what really happened… Tell him…’

‘Do you really expect me to give you my help?’ he goaded her softly. ‘I don’t recall you being similarly sympathetic when I asked you for yours.’

Whilst Lisa stood and stared at him in disbelief he started to walk towards the door, pausing only to tell Henry, ‘Your mother is quite right, Henry. She wouldn’t be the right wife for you at all… If I were you I should heed her advice—now, before it’s too late.’

‘Henry,’ Lisa began to protest, but she could see from the way that he was refusing to meet her eyes that she had lost what little chance she might have had of persuading him to listen to her.

‘It’s too late now for us to change our plans for Christmas,’ he told her stiffly, still avoiding looking directly at her. ‘It is, after all, Christmas Eve, and we can hardly ask you to… However, once we return to London I feel that it would be as well if we didn’t see one another any more…’

Lisa could scarcely believe her ears. Was this really the man she had thought she loved, or had at least liked and admired enough to be her husband…the man she had wanted as the father of her children? This pompous, stuffy creature who preferred to take his mother’s advice on whom he should and should not marry than to listen to her, the woman he had proclaimed he loved?

Only he had not—not really, had he? Lisa made herself admit honestly. Neither of them had really truly been in love. Oh, they had liked one another well enough. But liking wasn’t love, and if she was honest with herself there was a strong chord of relief mixed up in the turbulent anger and resentment churning her insides.

Stay here now, over Christmas, after what had happened…? No way.

Without trusting herself to speak to Henry, she turned on her heel and headed for the stairs and her bedroom, where she threw open the wardrobe doors and started to remove her clothes—her borrowed clothes, not her clothes, she acknowledged grimly as she opened her suitcase; they hadn’t been hers when she had bought them and they certainly weren’t hers now.

Eyeing them with loathing, her attention was momentarily distracted by the damp chilliness of her bedroom. Thank goodness they had driven north in her car. At least she wasn’t going to have the added humiliation of depending on Henry to get her back to London.

The temperature seemed to have dropped since she had left the bedroom earlier, even taking into account Mary Hanford’s parsimony.

There had been another warning of snow on high ground locally earlier in the evening, and Lisa had been enchanted by it, wondering out loud if they might actually have a white Christmas—a long-held childhood wish of hers which she had so far never had fulfilled. Mary Hanford had been scornful of her excitement.

As she gathered up her belongings Lisa suddenly paused; the clothes she had bought with such pleasure and which she had held onto with such determination lay on the bed in an untidy heap.

Beautiful though they were, she suddenly felt that she knew now that she could never wear them. They were tainted. Some things were just not meant to be, she decided regretfully as she stroked the silk fabric of one of the shirts with tender fingers.

She might have paid for them, bought them in all good faith, but somehow she had never actually felt as though they were hers.

But it was her borrowed clothes, like the borrowed persona she had perhaps unwittingly tried to assume to impress Henry’s family, which had proved her downfall, and she was, she decided firmly, better off without both of them.

Ten minutes later, wearing her own jeans, she lifted the carefully folded clothes into her suitcase. Once the Christmas holiday was over she would telephone the dress agency and explain that she no longer had any use for the clothes. Hopefully they would be prepared to take them back and refund most, if not all of her money.

It was too late to regret now that she had not accepted Alison’s suggestion that she join her and some other friends on a Christmas holiday and skiing trip to Colorado. Christmas was going to be very lonely for her alone in her flat with all her friends and her parents away. A sadly wistful smile curved the generous softness of her mouth as she contemplated how very different from her rosy daydreams the reality of her Christmas was going to be.

‘You’re going to the north of England—Yorkshire. I know it has a reputation for being much colder up there than it is here in London, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get snow,’ Alison had warned her, adding more gently, ‘Don’t invest too much in this visit to Henry’s family, Lisa. I know how important it is to you but things don’t always work out the way you plan. The Yorkshire Dales are a beautiful part of the world, but people are still people and—well, let’s face it, from what Henry has said about his family, especially his mother, it’s obvious that she’s inclined to be a little on the possessive side.’