Jessica Hart - Four Christmas Treats

‘It is beautiful, Ma,’ Tilly agreed. ‘But rather cold.’

Immediately her mother gave small pout. ‘Darling, don’t be such a spoilsport. There is heating, but…With the children being used to living in a controlled-temperature environment they really do need to have the benefit of what heating there is in their suites, even if that means that some of the other rooms have to go without.’ Annabelle was heading for the stairs. ‘I’ve put you and Silas in the same room, just like you asked me to do.’

So he had been right, Silas decided grimly. So much for this just being an innocent, escort-duties-only commission! However, before he could say anything, Art had begun to study him, frowning.

‘You look familiar…Have we met somewhere before?’

Silas felt his stomach muscles clench. ‘Not so far as I know,’he responded truthfully.Art had turned down all his attempts to get an interview with him, but that didn’t mean Art hadn’t seen his photograph somewhere, or perhaps requested information about him. And if he had…

‘So what exactly is it you do?’ Art persisted.

‘Silas is an actor,’Tilly answered firmly for him, preempting the criticism she sensed was coming by adding determinedly, ‘And a very good one.’ She gave her mother a look which she hoped she would correctly interpret as I need to talk to you urgently about this bedroom situation , but to her dismay her mother was refusing to make eye contact. In fact, now that she looked at her mother more closely, Tilly could see how tense and on edge she was beneath her too-bright smile, how desperate she was for everyone’s approval of the castle. And of herself? Was it because of this insecurity within her mother that she had always kept the gates to her own emotions firmly padlocked? Because she was afraid of becoming like her mother?

As had happened so many times in the past when she sensed that her mother was unhappy, Tilly felt her protective instinct kick in. Leaving Silas’s side, she moved over to Annabelle, linking her arm with her mother’s in a gesture of daughter-to-mother solidarity.

‘An actor. How exciting!’ Annabelle exclaimed. ‘That’s probably why you think Silas’s face is familiar, Artie, you must have seen him in something.’

‘I doubt it. It don’t waste my time watching people play at make-believe.’ Art gave a snort of derision.

How could her mother be in love with a man like this? Tilly wondered despairingly. Her original misgivings about the marriage were growing by the second.

She gave her mother’s arm a small squeeze. ‘Why don’t you take me upstairs and show me the room?’ she suggested lightly, adding, ‘I’m sure that Silas and Art can entertain one another while we indulge in some mother-and-daughter gossip.’ She knew she was taking a risk, throwing Art and Silas together without being there herself to make sure Silas didn’t say the wrong thing, but right now her need to ensure they had separate rooms took precedence over everything else. ‘I haven’t even seen your dress yet,’ she reminded her mother.

‘Oh, darling, it’s so beautiful,’ Annabelle enthused, the tension immediately leaving her face to be replaced by a glow of excitement. ‘It’s Vera Wang. You know, she does all the celebrity wedding gowns. Her people swore at first that she couldn’t fit me in, but Art persuaded them to relent. It’s just such a pity that I didn’t think to get you to come to New York at the same time, so that we could have looked for something for you. Art’s grandchildren are going to be our attendants, of course. We’ve agreed that they’ll be wearing Southern Belles and Beaux outfits, so…sweet. And it would be lovely if your Silas would give me away…’

Suddenly Tilly wanted to cry—very badly. Here was her mother, trying desperately to put a brave face on the fact that while Art had his daughters and grandchildren to provide him with family support and fill the traditional wedding roles, Annabelle had to rely on her daughter and a man who was being paid to escort her.

Swallowing hard, Tilly sniffed back the tears that were threatening to fall.

‘Dad would probably have given you away if you’d asked him.’

Immediately her mother looked anxiously at Art. ‘I did think of your father,’ she admitted. ‘But Art’s daughters can’t see how it’s possible to maintain a platonic relationship with an ex-husband, and Art feels…well, he thinks…Well, Art agrees with them.’

The retort Tilly was longing to make had to be smothered in her throat when she saw her mother’s please don’t look.

What the hell had he got himself into? Silas wondered angrily as he watched the two women walk up the stairs arm-in-arm. Whatever was going on, mother and daughter were both in on it—and deep in it too, right up to their pretty little necks. He was being used, and not just for the escort duties he was being paid for. Annabelle had let the cat out of the bag with regard to Tilly’s sexual expectations. No woman asked to share a room with a man unless she expected sex to be on the agenda. Tilly had lied to him when she had claimed they would be having separate rooms, and if it wasn’t for the fact that he needed information from Art he would be calling a cab right now, to take him straight back down to the airport in Madrid. Because he didn’t want to have sex with a woman he had just spent the last few hours acknowledging had a mind-blowingly intense erotic effect on his body.

Who was he kidding? Okay, so he did want to have sex with her—but on his terms, not hers. And he certainly wasn’t going to let her get away with lying to him—even if she had surprised him with her determination to show Art she wasn’t going to let him put Silas down for being an actor. That had surprised him, Silas admitted. The last woman to protect him from someone’s unflattering opinion had been his mother, and he had been all of five.

Tilly was gutsy; he had to give her that. But that didn’t mean he was going to let her get away with manoeuvring him into her bed. There was no real danger to him in being plunged into this kind of situation. He could handle it. But what if it had been Joe she had tricked into sharing her bed? The young idiot was green enough to have had sex with her without any thought for the possible consequences: to his health, to the fate of any child that might be conceived, to anything other than giving in to a young heterosexual male’s natural reaction to being in bed with a sexually attractive woman who had invited him there.

Whereas he, of course, wouldn’t be facing any of those problems? Okay, he would be facing one of them, since he wasn’t in the habit of travelling everywhere with a packet of condoms. Would Tilly have thought to deal with that kind of necessity? She was certainly old enough and no doubt experienced enough to be as aware of the risks as he was himself, he decided cynically as he turned to follow his uncommunicative host into the bar.

‘HERE is your room, darling. It’s lovely, isn’t it…?’

Annabelle had thrown open the door into a room on the second floor of the castle.

More because she wanted to make sure they weren’t overheard than because she was genuinely interested in her accommodation, Tilly stepped past her and into the room.

It was large, certainly. Large, and cold, and very obviously an attic room, decorated in faded cabbage rose wallpaper, and scented with the unmistakable odour of damp.

‘It’s got its own bathroom. With the most fabbie real Edwardian bath.’

The determined brightness in her mother’s voice made Tilly’s spirits plummet. Annabelle looked so vulnerable, getting angry with her felt like being unkind to a child.