Yuletide Bride

She’d been very fond of the Reverend Warner, a rather austere and scholarly widower, who’d been the vicar of Elmbridge during the years when she had been growing up. However, it had been obvious that neither he nor the rapid succession of housekeepers at the vicarage had the first notion of how to cope with his motherless son, Max—who’d gained a considerable local reputation as a wild tearaway.

‘You’ll hardly recognise the town nowadays,’ Violet informed him. ‘The old Victorian theatre has been turned into a multiple cinema, and there’s a hideous new supermarket next to the railway station,’ she added, oblivious of her daughter’s tense figure as she turned to ask, ‘What do they call it, dear?’

‘Pick ‘n’ Pay,’ Amber muttered, staring fixedly down at the cup in her trembling hands.

This is absolutely ridiculous! What am I doing, making polite conversation as if I’ve never met this man before...? she asked herself with mounting hysteria, convinced that she’d somehow strayed into a completely mad, unreal world. And why was Max here? Surely he couldn’t be seriously interested in buying the Hall—not when Sally had said he was based in London?

For the first time since she’d clapped eyes on him, Amber realised that she knew nothing about Max—or what had happened to him during the past eight years. But obviously, such an attractive man was bound to be married by now, she told herself grimly.

‘...isn’t that right, dear?’

‘What?’ Jerked out of her depressing thoughts, Amber gazed at her mother in confusion.

‘I was just talking about some of your old friends who are still living in the town,’ the older woman murmured, frowning in puzzlement at her daughter, who for some reason was looking strangely pale and nervous, before turning back to their visitor. ‘There’s Rose Thomas, of course. As it happens, Rose’s daughter, Emily, is playing here with Lucy this afternoon, and...’

‘I’m sure Max would like another cup of tea,’ Amber said quickly.

‘No, I’m fine, thank you,’ he drawled, lifting the cup to his lips.

Luckily, it seemed as though her swift, hasty interruption had succeeded in turning her mother’s thoughts in a new direction as she asked, ‘Are you now thinking of coming back to live here in Elmbridge?’

‘Well...’ he murmured, pausing for a moment as he turned his dark head to gaze at her daughter’s suddenly stiff, rigid figure. ‘John Fraser and I are still trying to sort out the affairs of my grandmother, who died over a year ago. Unfortunately, following the fire, there’s no longer a large house on the estate. So, I’m not entirely sure about my future plans.’

Violet Grant looked at him blankly for a moment before exclaiming, ‘Goodness me! I’d quite forgotten that old Lady Parker was your grandmother. She must have been well over ninety.’

‘Ninety-two, I believe,’ he agreed with a dry smile.

‘I hadn’t seen anything of her for the past ten years. But it was a shock to hear that she’d died in that terrible fire,’ she told him sorrowfully. ‘Such a lovely house—what a shame that it’s now nothing but a burnt-out ruin. Is it really true that Lady Parker cut your mother off without a penny?’ Violet added, unable to resist a juicy piece of gossip. ‘That she refused to either see or speak to her daughter after she ran away to marry your father?’

Max shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Who knows? I certainly never met my grandmother,’ he said briefly, before changing the subject and encouraging the older woman to relate all the changes that had taken place in the town over the past few years.

Once her mother was launched upon the safe, harmless topic of the recent development of Elmbridge, Amber could feel some of her nervous tension draining away. And it gave her a chance to covertly study the man she hadn’t seen for such a long time.

Although they’d grown up together, the six-year difference in their ages had seemed the most enormous gap when she’d first entered her teens. Especially as Max had always appeared to be older and more mature than his true age. There had been something about the determined set of his mouth and the glittering blue eyes that had never been young. And, while she’d been too dazed by his sudden reappearance to register more than an instant recognition, she was now able to see that Max appeared to have hardly changed at all.

Although that wasn’t strictly true, of course. There was now an austere, almost stern cast to the youthful features she had once known and an unfamiliar bleak and steely glint in his startlingly clear blue eyes. However, it seemed so unfair that, in all other respects, he should still appear to be the same devastatingly attractive man that she remembered only too well.

And then, as he shifted slightly in his seat, the movement of his broad shoulder and the quick, fleeting smile with which he greeted something her mother was saying to him sent a sudden sharp quiver of sexual awareness rippling through her body.

Gritting her teeth, Amber desperately tried to think of something—anything—to prevent herself from recalling the firmly muscled chest, slim hips and hard thighs lying beneath the dark formal suit he was wearing with such effortless poise and assurance.

Maybe it was a sense of the total injustice of life that lent an extra sharpness to her voice as she found herself saying, ‘It’s been very nice to see you again, Max. However, I’m sure you must be a busy man, and we really shouldn’t take up any more of your valuable time.’

‘Really, Amber!’ her mother protested with a quick, nervous laugh as her daughter glanced pointedly down at her watch. ‘Besides,’ she added with a puzzled frown, ‘surely dear Max is staying the night with us?’

‘Nonsense!’ Amber snapped, feeling as though her temper—already on a very short fuse—was about to erupt at any moment. ‘Of course he isn’t. He...er...he just happened to be in the area, and...’

‘No, dear, you’re quite wrong. Because, now I come to think about it, it must have been Max’s name, which I wrote down this morning.’

‘What?’ Amber’s green eyes widened in horror as the older woman vigorously nodded her head. ‘But I checked on the note pad in the hall, and there’s nothing there—only something about a call from the grocer.’

Violet Grant gave her daughter a slightly guilty, shamefaced smile. ‘Yes, well...it looks as if I might have made a slight error,’ she admitted airily. ‘But I thought the man mentioned Mr Warnock. So, I naturally assumed it was something to do with our local grocer. I didn’t realise the call was about Max Warner wanting to spend the night with us.’

You idiot—he’s only here to view the house! Amber wanted to scream at her mother. But she couldn’t. Not when she hadn’t yet told the older woman about the proposed sale of the Hall. Oh, Lord! What on earth was she going to do about this increasingly perilous situation?

Unfortunately, Violet Grant—now with the bit firmly between her teeth—appeared to be virtually unstoppable.

‘It will be so nice having an old friend staying here with us, here at the Hall,’ she told Max. ‘I still haven’t got used to complete strangers marching through the house. Although our paying guests always say that it’s so much nicer and more comfortable than an impersonal hotel,’ she confided before turning to Amber. ‘There’s no problem, dear. After all, we have plenty of rooms available.’

Amber knew that she ought to be thoroughly ashamed of a sudden, overwhelming urge to place her clenched hands tightly about her mother’s neck. ‘We’re...um...we’re all booked up,’ she lied wildly.

‘How can we be?’ Violet frowned. ‘Only this morning, you were saying that you wished we had some guests for the weekend.’

Amber gritted her teeth. She was just trying to think of some of their regular visitors, who might have arranged to stay at very little notice, when she caught sight of the chilly, mocking gleam in Max’s glittering blue eyes.

Her heart sank like a stone as she suddenly realised that he was actually enjoying her discomfiture. Although, what she’d done to deserve his enmity, she had no idea. After all, he was the one who’d abandoned her.

‘I’d be delighted to stay here at the Hall,’ Max drawled, his mouth twisting with sardonic amusement at the expression of consternation and dismay clearly visible on Amber’s face. ‘Unfortunately...’ he added after a long pause, ‘I have to return to London tonight. But I’d be very interested to see over this house.’ He turned to smile at Violet. ‘I understand that it dates from Tudor times, and is one of the oldest houses in Elmbridge.’

The older woman nodded her head. ‘Yes, you’re quite right, it is. I’m sure Amber would be delighted to show you around.’

Oh, God—he’s positively enjoying this! Amber realised, her body almost shaking with tension. Far from being prepared to accept that he wasn’t wanted, Max was clearly getting the maximum amount of grim enjoyment from this fraught situation. And time was running out. She had to get rid of him—as quickly as possible. But how on earth was she going to do it?

Just as she was coming to the conclusion that the sooner she showed him around the house—keeping well away from the attic, of course—the sooner he’d be gone, her desperate thoughts were interrupted by a loud knock.

‘Hello...?’ Rose Thomas put her head around the sitting-room door. ‘I’ve just come to fetch Emily. I hope she’s been behaving herself?’

‘Of course she has.’ Amber turned to smile at her friend, momentarily overcome with relief and euphoria at the welcome interruption. But, as she heard the sound of childish laughter only a second or two later, she realised there was nothing she could do to avoid a catastrophic disaster.

‘Mummy...Mummy! We’ve had a really stupendous time dressing up in Granny’s old clothes!’ Lucy called out as she ran full tilt into the sitting room, quickly followed by Emily. ‘We looked absolutely terrific!’

‘I’m sure you did,’ Amber managed to gasp, almost frozen with terror as she watched the little girls running excitedly around the room. She had no hope of being able to fool a clever, perceptive man like Max. But Rose, who’d known Lucy since she was a baby...? Would she notice the startling similarity between the two heads of dark, curly hair and sparkling blue eyes?

But her friend clearly hadn’t noted anything amiss as she gazed across the room at the tall, dark stranger who was rising to his feet.

‘Surely, it can’t be...?’ Rose exclaimed as the man gave her a broad smile. ‘Good Heavens—it really is Max Warner!’ she laughed, her cheeks pink with excitement as he crossed the room towards her. ‘I’d heard that you were now back in the country, but never expected to see you quite so soon. You hardly seem to have changed at all.’

‘Since I shudder at the memory of myself as a wild teenager, I sincerely hope that I have, my dear Rose,’ Max grinned, taking her hand and lifting it gallantly to his lips.

Despite her fright and panic, Amber felt a flash of indignation at this piece of quite outrageous flattery. Surely plain, calm, sensible Rose couldn’t be so silly as to fall for such a line? However, as they chattered together, with her friend sparkling beneath the awful man’s quite overwhelming charm, it really did seem as if she’d become momentarily transformed into a lovely woman.

You had to hand it to Max—he was a real con artist! she acknowledged grimly as Rose very reluctantly took her leave.

‘Well...!’ she exclaimed as Amber accompanied her and Emily across the hall towards the front door. ‘When I arrived and saw that glamorous car, it never occurred to me that it might be Max Warner. What a surprise!’

‘Yes, it certainly is,’ Amber agreed bleakly.

‘I don’t understand.’ Rose frowned. ‘If you weren’t expecting him—what on earth is he doing here?’