Christmas Angel for the Billionaire

Maybe.

Her hat, a rich green velvet and feather folly perched at a saucy angle over her right eye would probably garner more column inches than the charity she was here to support.

She was doing more for magazine and newspaper circulation than she was for the medical teams, the search units, pilots, drivers, communications people who dropped everything at a moment’s notice, risking their lives to help victims of war, famine, disaster—a point she’d made to her grandfather more than once.

A pragmatist, he had dismissed her concerns, reminding her that it was a symbiotic relationship and everyone would benefit from her appearance, including the British fashion industry.

It didn’t help that he was right.

She wanted to do more, be more than a cover girl, a fashion icon. Her parents had been out there, on the front line, picking up the pieces of ruined lives and she had planned to follow in their footsteps.

She stopped the thought. Publicity was the only gift she had and she had better do it right but, as she took her place at the lectern and a wave of applause hit her, a long silent scream invaded the emptiness inside her head.

Noooooo…

‘Friends…’ she began when the noise subsided. She paused, looked around her, found faces in the audience she recognised, people her parents had known. Took a breath, dug deep, smiled. ‘I hope I’ve earned the right to call you that…’

She had been just eighteen years old when, at her grandfather’s urging, she’d accepted an invitation to become patron of Susie’s Friends. A small consolation for the loss of her dream of following her mother into medicine.

All that had ended when, at the age of sixteen, a photograph of her holding the hand of a dying child had turned her, overnight, from a sheltered, protected teen into an iconic image and her grandfather had laid out the bald facts for her.

How impossible it was. How her fellow students, patients even, would be harassed, bribed by the press for gossip about her because she was now public property. Then he’d consoled her with the fact that this way she could do so much more for the causes her mother had espoused.

Ten years on, more than fifty charities had claimed her as a patron. How many smiles, handshakes? Charity galas, first nights?

How many children’s hands had she held, how many babies had she cradled?

None of them her own.

She had seen herself described as the ‘most loved woman in Britain’, but living in an isolation bubble, sheltered, protected from suffering the same fate as her parents, it was a love that never came close enough to touch.

But the media was a hungry beast that had to be fed and it was, apparently, time to move the story on. Time for a husband and children to round out the image. And, being her grandfather, he wasn’t prepared to leave anything that important to chance.

Or to her.

Heaven forbid there should be anything as messy as her own father’s passionate romance with a totally unsuitable woman, one whose ideals had ended up getting them both killed.

Instead, he’d found the perfect candidate in Rupert Devenish, Viscount Earley, easing him into her life so subtly that she’d barely noticed. Titled, rich and almost too good-looking to be true, he was so eligible that if she’d gone to the ‘ideal husband’ store and picked him off the shelf he couldn’t be more perfect.

So perfect, in fact, that unless she was extremely careful, six months from now she’d find herself with a ring on her finger and in a year she’d be on every front page, every magazine cover, wearing the ‘fairy-tale’ dress. The very thought of it weighed like a lump of lead somewhere in the region of her heart. Trapped, with nowhere to turn, she felt as if the glittering chandeliers were slowly descending to crush her.

She dug her nails into her palm to concentrate her mind, took a sip of water, looked around at all the familiar faces and, ignoring the carefully worded speech that had been written for her, she talked to them about her parents, about ideals, about sacrifice, her words coming straight from the heart.

An hour later it was over and she turned to the hotel manager as he escorted her to the door. ‘Another wonderful lunch, Mr Gordon. How is your little girl?’

‘Much improved, thank you, Lady Rose. She was so thrilled with the books you sent her.’

‘She wrote me the sweetest note.’ She glanced at the single blush-pink rose she was holding.

She yearned to be offered, just once, something outrageous in purple or orange, but this variety of rose had been named for her and part of the proceeds of every sale went to Susanne House. To have offered her anything else would have been unthinkable.

‘Will you give her this from me?’ she said, offering him the rose.

‘Madam,’ he said, pink with pleasure as he took it and Annie felt a sudden urge to hug the man. Instead, she let her hand rest briefly on his arm before she turned to join Rupert, who was already at the door, impatient to be away.

Turned and came face to face with herself.

Or at least a very close facsimile.

A look in one of the mirrors that lined the walls would have shown two tall, slender young women, each with pale gold hair worn up in the same elegant twist, each with harebell-blue eyes.

Annie had been aware of her double’s existence for years. Had seen photographs in magazines and newspapers, courtesy of the cuttings agency that supplied clippings of any print article that contained her name. She’d assumed that the amazing likeness had been aided by photographic manipulation but it wasn’t so. It was almost like looking in the mirror.

For a moment they both froze. Annie, more experienced in dealing with the awkward moment, putting people at their ease, was the first to move.

‘I know the face,’ she said, feeling for the woman—it wasn’t often a professional ‘lookalike’ came face to face with the real thing. With a smile, she added, ‘But I’m afraid the name escapes me.’

Her double, doing a remarkable job of holding her poise under the circumstances, said, ‘Lydia, madam. Lydia Young.’ But, as she took her hand, Annie felt it shaking. ‘I’m s-so sorry. I promise this wasn’t planned. I had no idea you’d be here.’

‘Please, it’s not a problem.’ Then, intrigued, ‘Do you—or do I mean I?—have an engagement here?’

‘Had. A product launch.’ Lydia gave an awkward little shrug as she coloured up. ‘A new variety of tea.’

‘I do hope it’s good,’ Annie replied, ‘if I’m endorsing it.’

‘Well, it’s expensive,’ Lydia said, relaxing sufficiently to smile back. Then, ‘I’ll just go and sit down behind that pillar for ten minutes, shall I? While I’m sure the photographers out there would enjoy it if we left together, my clients didn’t pay me anywhere near enough to give them that kind of publicity.’

‘It would rather spoil the illusion if we were seen together,’ Annie agreed. About to walk on, something stopped her. ‘As a matter of interest, Lydia, how much do you charge for being me?’ she asked. ‘Just in case I ever decide to take a day off.’

‘No charge for you, Lady Rose,’ she replied, handing her the rose that she was, inevitably, carrying as she sank into a very brief curtsey. ‘Just give me a call. Any time.’

For a moment they looked at one another, then Annie sniffed the rose and said, ‘They don’t have much character, do they? No scent, no thorns…’

‘Well, it’s November. I imagine they’ve been forced under glass.’

Something they had in common, Annie thought.

She didn’t have much character either, just a carefully manufactured image as the nation’s ‘angel’, ‘sweetheart’.

Rupert, already through the door, looked back to see what was keeping her and, apparently confident enough to display a little impatience, said, ‘Rose, we’re running late…’

They both glanced in his direction, then Lydia looked at her and lifted a brow in a ‘dump the jerk’ look that exactly mirrored her own thoughts.

‘I don’t suppose you fancy three hours of Wagner this evening?’ she asked but, even before Lydia could reply, she shook her head. ‘Just kidding. I wouldn’t wish that on you.’

‘I meant what I said.’ And Lydia, taking a card from the small clutch bag she was carrying, offered it to her. ‘Call me. Any time.’

Three weeks later, as speculation in the press that she was about to announce her engagement reached fever-pitch, Annie took out Lydia’s card and dialled the number.