Rebecca Winters - Christmas At His Chateau

She had the oddest feeling that she recognised him, although she couldn’t have explained just which of his features were familiar. It was all of them. All of him. And him being in this place.

Which was crazy, because she’d never been here before in her life—except maybe in her childish daydreams—and she’d certainly remember meeting a man like this…a man whose sudden appearance answered a question she wasn’t aware she’d asked.

Finally he spotted her, and his stride faltered for a moment, but then his spine lengthened and he carried on, his focus narrowing to her and only her. The look in his eyes reminded her of a hunting dog that had just picked up a scent.

‘Hey!’ he called out as came closer.

‘Hi…’ Faith tried to say, but the damp air muffled the word, and the noise that emerged from her mouth was hardly intelligible.

He was only a few feet away now, and Faith stuffed her gloved hands into her coat pockets as she tipped her head back to look him in the face. My, he was tall. But not burly with it. Long and lean. She could see why she’d had that dumb notion about him now. Black hair, slightly too long to be tidy, flopped over his forehead and curled at his collar. His bone structure and long, straight nose spoke of centuries of breeding and he addressed her now in a manner that left her in no doubt that he was used to having people do as he said.

‘The castle and grounds are closed to visitors today. You’ll have to turn round and go back the way you came.’

And he stood there, waiting for her to obey him.

Normally Faith didn’t have any problem being polite and accommodating, doing what she was asked—it was the path to a quiet and peaceful existence after all—but there was something about his tone, about the way he hadn’t even stopped to ask if she had a valid reason for being there, that just riled her up. Maybe it was the suggestion that once again she was somewhere she didn’t belong that made her temper rise.

‘I’m not trespassing. I’m supposed to—’

Before she could finish her sentence he took another step forward, cupped his hand under her elbow and started to walk her back in the direction she’d just come.

‘Hey!’ she said, and yanked her elbow out of his grip. ‘Hands off, buddy!’

‘Should have known it,’ he muttered, almost to himself. ‘American tourists are always the worst.’ Then he spoke louder, and more slowly, as if he were talking to a child. ‘Listen, you have to realise this isn’t just a visitor attraction like Disneyland. It’s a family home, too, and we have just as much right to our privacy as anyone else. Now, if you don’t leave quietly I will be forced to call the police.’

Faith was rapidly losing the urge even to be polite to this stuck-up…whoever he was. No matter how dashing he’d looked walking out of the mist.

‘No, you listen,’ she replied firmly. ‘I have every right to be here. I have an appointment with Bertie.’

He stopped herding her towards the exit and his eyes narrowed further. She had no doubt that a sharp mind went hand in hand with those aristocratic looks. ‘You mean Albert Huntington?’

Faith took a split second longer than she would have liked to reply. ‘Yes, of course.’ There couldn’t be more than one Albert—Bertie—around this place, could there? That had to be him.

Unfortunately Mr Tall, Dark and Full of Himself didn’t miss a trick. He spotted her hesitation and instantly grabbed her arm again, started marching her back towards the gate. ‘Nice try, but nobody but the family calls him Bertie—and you’re from the wrong continent entirely to be considered a close relation.’

Hah. That was all he knew.

‘Actually, my father is as English as you are,’ she added icily. ‘And my grandmother—’ the American one, but she didn’t mention that ‘—is an old friend of his. I’m here to give my professional opinion on a stained glass window!’

He let go of her arm and turned to look her up and down. ‘You’re the expert Bertie’s asked to look at the window?’

Close enough to the truth. She nodded. ‘I believe it might need some kind of repair.’

Okay, she didn’t actually know if any restoration work was needed, but why would Gram have sent her here otherwise? It was a pretty good guess, and she really, really wanted to sneak a look at that window at least once before this man frogmarched her off the estate. Not one of Crowbridge’s other windows—and there hadn’t been many—had survived the Blitz. This could be a significant discovery.

He stopped looking irritated and purposeful, closed his eyes and ran a hand through his dark hair before glancing back in the direction of the castle. ‘I hoped he’d given up on that idea.’ He gave her a weary look. ‘I suppose I’d better take you to meet him, then, Miss…?’

‘McKinnon. Faith McKinnon,’ she said, trying to get her voice to remain even.

‘I apologise, Miss McKinnon, if I’ve been a little abrupt…’

A little? And he didn’t look that sorry to her. If anything he’d clenched up further. Her younger sister would have described him as having a stick up his—

‘I’m sure you can understand how difficult it is to have your home invaded,’ he added, but Faith still wasn’t quite sure she was off the ‘invader’ list.

‘People think that because we open our home to them for a few days each week it is somehow public property.’

She nodded. She knew all about invading families, about being a cuckoo in the nest, but she wasn’t going to tell this man that. It certainly wouldn’t endear her to him any further.

‘Bertie isn’t in the best of health at the moment,’ he added gravely. ‘I’ve been trying to make sure he doesn’t get too upset.’ He led the way back through the thinning mist round the edge of the lake. ‘Difficult, though,’ he added, ‘when he’s obsessed with this damn window.’

He strode ahead, and Faith followed him up a short incline and onto the first, plainer stone bridge, through a large arch under the gatehouse and onto an oval lawn that filled more than half of the first castle island. She tried not to let her eyes pop out of her head.

Wow.

The castle was even better close up than it had been rising through the mist. A gravel pathway encircled the lawn and led up to a vast front door covered in iron studs.

This Bertie had his office in the castle itself? Nice.

As her guide opened the front door and stood aside to let her pass, he surprised her by allowing one side of his mouth to hitch up in the start of a smile as he checked his watch.

‘I imagine Bertie will be finished with his morning tea by now. I’ll take you through to the drawing room.’

Faith looked at him sharply. ‘You mean Bertie lives here?’

The almost-smile disappeared. ‘Of course he lives here. It’s his home.’ He shook his head. ‘You Americans really do have some funny ideas, you know…’

Faith held her breath. She would have liked to challenge him on that last comment, but two things stopped her. First, it would have given her lack of knowledge about this Bertie away. Second, she was too busy making sense of all the mismatched pieces of information running round her head.

Gram had left a heck of a lot out of her letter, hadn’t she?

She cleared her throat. ‘Does Bertie have a full title?’

He gave her the patronising kind of look that told her he thought she’d finally started asking sensible questions. ‘Albert Charles Baxter Huntington, seventh Duke of Hadsborough.’

Faith blinked slowly, trying to give nothing away.

Act like you knew that.

A duke? Gram had had a fling with a duke? She’d thought from the tone of the letter that he’d been a fellow academic or master craftsman working on a project. She hadn’t even considered that Bertie might own the window. And the building it inhabited. And this castle. And probably most of the land for miles around. Part of her was shocked at her conservative grandmother’s secret past. Another part wanted to punch the air and say, Go, Gram!