‘Pure maths at Luc’s level requires a devotion and commitment which is almost on a par with that once required by the priesthood,’ Luc’s mentor told Belle severely when she gave in to Luc’s quiet insistence and accompanied him to Professor Lind’s pre-Christmas drinks party—a sedate affair, held in the chilly monastic starkness of his college rooms, the only food and drink on offer his housekeeper’s home-made and deeply unpleasant mince pies and a sherry which made Belle grit her teeth.
‘You know I only drink champagne,’ she told Luc plaintively. After the luxury of vintage champagne and the delicious nibbles provided by her wealthy clients, Mrs Oakes’ mince pies and the professor’s sherry, like the high-minded academic conversation, were not to Belle’s taste at all.
She did notice, though, how one of the professor’s other students, a quiet, demure young woman with unexpectedly critically cool blue eyes, reacted in a way that was a good ten degrees less frosty when it was Luc who was addressing her and not Belle herself.
Not that Belle felt remotely threatened by or jealous of Harriet’s obvious attraction to her husband. Why should she? Luc loved her, and would love her even more when they were cosily tucked up together in their lovely new bed with its wonderful headboard, she promised herself, and she happily contemplated writing a cheque to pay for it.
It had taken bribery and cajolery on a heroic scale to get her boss to agree that she could skip the firm’s Christmas Eve get-together so that she could be at home with Luc when the bed was delivered. She had hardly seen anything of him over the previous month, or so it seemed, and she was looking forward to spending her few precious days off with him.
They were going to his parents for dinner on Christmas Day, and hers on Boxing Day, but they would have at least one night together in their new bed.
When she woke up on Christmas Eve morning Belle was so excited that she couldn’t eat her breakfast. The house they had bought, their home, was everything that she wanted. It had the potential to make a wonderful home, and there was even the prospect of converting the loft above the garage into a self-contained bedsit, should the day arrive when they needed the services of a nanny.
Certainly, they both wanted children, but they had agreed that they were too young for them as yet. Luc wanted to wait until he had finished his studies, and from the tone of his conversation Belle had guessed that he would want her to give up her own job once they did have a family. She was not so sure that was something she would want to do, but there was plenty of time for her to talk Luc round to her point of view.
It was a pity that the bed had been so expensive, otherwise she might have been able to treat them to a visit to the January sales…
They desperately needed a decent sofa, and Belle rather liked the idea of them having two instead of the traditional one and a couple of armchairs. The cottage had a good-sized sitting room-cum-family room, as well as its large kitchen-cum-dining room, and on the other side of the entrance hall there was, much to her delight, a very respectably sized and pretty drawing room which ran the full length of the house. Plenty of scope for her home-making talents there. And the fact that the previous owners had been elderly meant that none of the attractive original features had been removed.
‘You’re looking very pleased with yourself,’ Luc commented as he bent to kiss the top of her head and reach past her for the coffee pot.
‘Mmm…’ she agreed lazily, arching her neck and inviting him without a word to nuzzle the soft warm skin there.
‘What have you got me for Christmas? I hope it’s something very special,’ she teased him, knowing full well that the only thing she really wanted from him, the gift she valued above everything else, was the one she already had: the gift of his love for her, his commitment to her.
‘Well, I might just…’ he began, and then stopped theatrically, his eyes sparkling with love and happiness as he teased her back. ‘No guessing, though. You’re just going to have to wait until tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow.’ Belle pouted. ‘But I thought we’d… I’m going to give you my present today. Tomorrow we’re going to your parents…’
‘Not until lunchtime,’ Luc reminded her.
‘It’s going to be a very busy time,’ Belle sighed. ‘First dinner with your family, and then we’re going to my parents on Boxing Day.’
The two families, who had not known one another before Luc and Belle had met, had become firm friends, and they lived close enough to make visiting one another quite easy, often sharing their homes with each other’s families at special times like Christmas. On Christmas Day night Belle’s parents, her elder sister and her husband and their two young children were joining Luc’s parents and other members of his family. As a country vicar, Luc’s father lived in a vicarage more than large enough to house everyone overnight, even if his small stipend meant that he could never afford to comfortably heat the vast Victorian church property.
Belle liked Luc’s family, even if she sometimes found them a trifle unworldly compared with the people she mixed with in her working life. Certainly their values and beliefs were very much in tune with those of her own parents, and she particularly liked Luc’s uncle and his wife, and their thirteen-year-old son who shared so much of a family resemblance with Luc that Belle had not been surprised when Luc’s mother had told her that Andy looked just the same as Luc had done at his age.
Luc’s father had studied theology at Cambridge, and there was a tradition in the family of its male members being Cambridge men.
Because they were spending so much time away from home over Christmas, Luc and Belle had agreed that it would be a waste to have a real Christmas tree, and one of Belle’s clients had presented her with an artistic and very expensive Christmas arrangement from one of London’s top florists, made up of bare twigs and glass baubles, which had caused Luc to raise his eyebrows a little.
‘Don’t you like it?’ Belle had asked him.
‘It’s…it’s very artistic,’ Luc had replied cautiously, and then had added a rueful admission, ‘At home we always have a huge tree loaded with masses of stuff. Not very arty, I suppose, but it always seems…right. Vicars’ wives always have to recycle everything, and Ma used to encourage me to make my own decorations when I was small… Not very aesthetic, I know, but for me the real spirit of Christmas is the thought behind the gift, not its material value.’
He was right, of course, and Belle knew it, shared his sentiments, but somehow he had made her feel that her values were glossy and worthless and even, in some belittling way, that she was glossy and worthless too.
Today, though, was Christmas Eve, and very soon their own special Christmas present was going to arrive. And every Christmas from now on, when they woke up in their special bed, when they made love in it, they would remember this, their first Christmas in their new home. Belle couldn’t wait to see the bed with its special headboard in situ, to polish and admire it.
It was almost lunchtime when the van finally arrived in the narrow country lane outside their house.
‘What’s this?’ Luc frowned as the driver got out. ‘They must be looking for somewhere else. We haven’t ordered anything…’
‘Yes, we have,’ Belle corrected him excitedly, craning her neck so that she could see out of the window as the men went to the rear of the van. ‘Well, I have. It’s our Christmas present…well, mine to you…to us…to the house. It’s the bed, Luc, the one I told you about…with the wonderful headboard,’ she hurried on.
‘The one we agreed we wouldn’t have because it was too expensive?’ Luc asked her quietly.
But Belle was oblivious to the cold undertone to his voice, too busy watching what was going on outside the window to be aware of the hurt look in his eyes as she agreed