Helen Brooks - Christmas At His Command

‘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.

‘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 landlord 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?’