‘Please, Mummy. He asked—and he promised he wouldn’t be mean to you.’
Her eyes widened, then she shut them fast and counted to ten. What on earth had Edward been saying to him? She got to her feet and held out her arms to him, and he ran into them and hugged her hard.
‘It’ll be all right, Mummy,’ he said into her side. ‘It will.’
If only she could be so sure.
She let him go and made her way downstairs, down the beautiful old oak staircase she’d fallen so in love with, along the hall on the inches-thick carpet, and tapped on the open study door, her heart pounding out a tattoo against her ribs.
He was sitting with his back to her, and at her knock he swivelled the chair round and met her eyes. He’d taken off the coat that had been slung round his shoulders, and she could see now that he was wearing a cast on his left wrist. And, with the light now shining on his face, she could see the livid bruise on his left cheekbone, and the purple stain around his eye.
His hair was dark, soft and glossy, cut short round the sides but flopping forwards over his eyes. It looked rumpled, as if he’d run his fingers through it over and over again, and his jaw was deeply shadowed. He looks awful, she thought, and she wondered briefly what he’d done.
Not that it mattered. It was enough to have brought him home, and that was the only thing that affected her. His injuries were none of her business.
‘You wanted to see me,’ she said, and waited for the stinging insults to start again.
‘I owe you an apology,’ he said gruffly, and she felt her jaw drop and yanked it up again. ‘I was unforgivably rude to you, and I had no justification for it.’
‘I disagree. I’m in your house without your permission,’ she said, fairness overcoming her shock. ‘I would have been just as rude, I’m sure.’
‘I doubt it, somehow. The manners you’ve drilled into your son would blow that theory out of the water. He’s a credit to you.’
She swallowed hard and nodded. ‘Thank you. He’s a great kid, and he’s been through a lot.’
‘I’m sure. However, it’s not him I want to talk to you about, it’s you. You have nowhere to go, is this right?’
Her chin went up. ‘We’ll find somewhere,’ she lied, her pride rescuing her in the nick of time, and she thought she saw a smile flicker on that strong, sculpted mouth before he firmed it.
‘Do you or do you not have anywhere else suitable to go with your children for Christmas?’ he asked, a thread of steel underlying the softness of his voice, and she swallowed again and shook her head.
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But that’s not your problem.’
He inclined his head, accepting that, but went on, ‘Nevertheless, I do have a problem, and one you might be able to fix. As you can see, I’ve been stupid enough to get mixed up with an avalanche, and I’ve broken my wrist. Now, I can’t cook at the best of times, and I’m not getting my housekeeper back from her well-earned holiday to wait on me, but you, on the other hand, are here, have nowhere else to go and might therefore be interested in a proposition.’
For the first time, she felt a flicker of hope. ‘A proposition?’ she asked warily, not quite sure she liked the sound of that but prepared to listen because her options were somewhat limited. He nodded.
‘I have no intention of paying you—under the circumstances, I don’t think that’s unreasonable, considering you moved into my house without my knowledge or consent and made yourselves at home, but I am prepared to let you stay until such time as you find somewhere to go after the New Year, in exchange for certain duties. Can you cook?’
She felt the weight of fear lift from her shoulders, and nodded. ‘Yes, I can cook,’ she assured him, hoping she could still remember how. It was a while since she’d had anything lavish on her table, but cooking had once been her love and her forte.
‘Good. You can cook for me, and keep the housework under control, and help me do anything I can’t manage—can you drive?’
She nodded again. ‘Yes—but it will have to be my car, unless you’ve got a big one. I can’t go anywhere without the children, so if it’s some sexy little sports car it will have to be my hatchback.’
‘I’ve got an Audi A6 estate. It’s automatic. Is that a problem?’
‘No problem,’ she said confidently. ‘David had one.’ On a finance agreement that, like everything else, had gone belly-up in the last few years. ‘Anything else? Any rules?’
‘Yes. The children can use the playroom upstairs on the landing, and you can keep the attic bedrooms—I assume you’re in the three with the patchwork quilts?’
She felt her jaw sag. ‘How did you guess?’
His mouth twisted into a wry smile. ‘Let’s just say I’m usually a good judge of character, and you’re pretty easy to read,’ he told her drily. ‘So—you can have the top floor, and when you’re cooking the children can be down here in the breakfast room with you.’
‘Um … there’s the dog,’ she said, a little unnecessarily as Rufus was now sitting on her foot, and to her surprise Jake’s mouth softened into a genuine smile.
‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘The dog. My grandmother had one like him. What’s his name?’
‘Rufus,’ she said, and the little dog’s tail wagged hopefully. ‘Please don’t say he has to be outside in a kennel or anything awful, because he’s old and not very well and it’s so cold at the moment and he’s no trouble—’
‘Millie—what does that stand for, by the way?’
‘Amelia.’
He studied her for a second, then nodded. ‘Amelia,’ he said, his voice turning it into something that sounded almost like a caress. ‘Of course the dog doesn’t have to be outside—not if he’s housetrained.’
‘Oh, he is. Well, mostly. Sometimes he has the odd accident, but that’s only if he’s ill.’
‘Fine. Just don’t let him on the beds. Right, I’m done. If you could find me a glass, the malt whisky and my flight bag, I’d be very grateful. And then I’m going to lie down on my sofa and go to sleep.’
And, getting to his feet with a grunt of pain, he limped slowly towards her.
‘You really did mess yourself up, didn’t you?’ she said softly, and he paused just a foot away from her and stared down into her eyes for the longest moment.
‘Yes, Amelia. I really did—and I could do with those painkillers, so if you wouldn’t mind—?’
‘Right away,’ she said, trying to remember how to breathe. Slipping past him into the kitchen, she found a glass, filled it with water, put the kettle on, made a sandwich with the last of the cheese and two precious slices of bread, smeared some chutney she found in the fridge onto the cheese and took it through to him.
‘I thought you might be hungry,’ she said, ‘and there’s nothing much else in the house at the moment, but you shouldn’t take painkillers on an empty stomach.’
He sighed and looked up at her from the sofa where he was lying stretched out full length and looking not the slightest bit vulnerable despite the cast, the bruises and the swelling under his eye. ‘Is that right?’ he said drily. ‘Where’s the malt whisky?’
‘You shouldn’t have alcohol—’
‘—with