Christmas Child

Mattie’s heart dropped down to the soles of her small bare feet. Why had she taken his departure for the work that would always come first with him so much for granted? And it was painfully obvious from the twinkle in the housekeeper’s faded brown eyes that she thought her new mistress had been sleeping off the effects of a night of steamy passion! Now she would have to face him, the thought made her feel decidedly uncomfortable.

Mattie managed the disguise of a smile, albeit a tight one as she reluctantly turned to do as she was bid. The older woman’s bewildered suspicions of the day before seemed to have been allayed so she should be feeling pleased with herself. But she wasn’t.

So, OK, last night she had told James that it was important that they nip possible speculation and gossip in the bud, that to the world at large they should appear as a deliriously happy newly-wedded couple.

This morning, though, she felt ashamed of herself. If they went down that road they would be living a lie, and she didn’t like the idea of that. No, more than that, she hated it.

Her slender body shuddered beneath the smothering folds of her positively frumpish nightwear. She was going to have to be completely honest with him.

Well, not completely honest. She couldn’t tell him how she really felt about him—it would humiliate her and embarrass him. But she could tell him he had been absolutely right. The way they conducted their marriage was no one’s business but their own. They didn’t have to pretend because it didn’t matter what other people thought.

A complete contradiction to what she’d said last night. But then, she hadn’t been herself, had she? She’d been a painted, perfumed, silly doll, pulled out of character by what Dawn had said and her own mysterious descent into stupidity.

This morning she was back to being herself. An ordinary—a very ordinary—woman, with enough brain power to recognise how stupid she’d been, and enough character to stiffen her backbone and get on with a way of life she’d allowed herself to be talked into accepting.

She could cope with being the paper wife of a man she had always adored, the only man she had ever wanted to make love with. Of course she could. She could do it because she had no other option.

But she wasn’t so sure when she pushed open the study door and saw him. He looked as fiercely, compellingly male as ever. He was wearing a beautifully cut hand-crafted dark suit, his austere features dangerously uncompromising, and his potent presence sent a shaft of shuddering sensation down the entire length of her body, making her bare toes curl into the deep pile of the carpet.

He ended the call he’d been making and stood up, the height and power of him overwhelming. ‘Good morning, Matts.’ His smile was perfunctory, as if her late rising irritated him. ‘I need to spend time at head office again today,’ he told her, ‘but I managed to get two tickets for The Haymarket tonight. We can go for supper.’ The tone of his voice was urbane, detached, chillingly smooth. ‘Breakfast?’

‘Yes, Mrs Briggs said she was bringing it through,’ Mattie mumbled, wishing she weren’t so aware of her unalluring attire, weren’t so tinglingly aware of him! ‘You really needn’t have waited; I overslept.’ She was scurrying ahead of him, stumbling over the hem of her bulky robe, her voice breathless because he was following closely, putting her in a tail-spin.

Flinging open the breakfast-room door, she gritted her teeth. Somehow she was going to have to get back to normal, cope with the effect he always had on her. She’d done it before, very successfully; she could do it again.

‘You could have eaten hours ago,’ she said thinly.

‘And missed the opportunity of breakfasting with my brand-new wife? I don’t think so. What would Mrs Briggs think?’

His voice was the rough-edged purr of a great jungle cat. Mattie shuddered. He had taken her misguided comments of last night on board and was acting on them. Hence this encounter and the theatre tickets. And how on earth he’d managed to get two seats for a production that was sold out for months to come was beyond her. Clout, she supposed glumly, and wondered what she thought she was doing, married but not wedded—in the strict sense of the word—to one of the world’s shakers and movers.

‘Here we are, then!’ the housekeeper cried, trundling her heated trolley into the quiet, wood-panelled room.

Mattie swallowed a gulp of shame. The wretched contraption Mrs Briggs was pushing reminded her far too clearly of the silly charade she’d played out over dinner last night.

‘Bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, juice, toast and coffee,’ Mrs Briggs recited happily, placing the offerings on the small oval table with the air of a conjurer pulling rabbits out of a hat. She beamed at them. ‘Will you both be in for lunch?’

James shook his head. ‘Working, I’m afraid,’ he said, managing to sound suitably regretful. ‘Darling?’

Mattie stared at the plate of food he’d put in front of her with shuddering distaste and felt her face flame. Calling her darling was taking things too far. He didn’t mean it, and it was unnecessary. She was going to have to tell him she’d changed her mind about the garbage she’d spouted last night.

‘I’ll be out, too, Mrs Briggs,’ she said in a squeaky voice she didn’t recognise as her own. ‘Shopping.’ For something suitable to wear. She should be hung, drawn and quartered for letting Dawn bully her into cramming all her old things into bags for the bin men to take away!

‘And we won’t be in this evening. I’m taking my wife to the theatre and we’ll grab something to eat later,’ James stated, pouring coffee for them both. ‘So I suggest you put your feet up, take things easy.’ His smile was pure charm. ‘You can run along now, we’re happy to look after ourselves.’

Mattie bit her lip as she caught the older woman’s look of flustered pleasure. Did he know how easily he could charm the female of the species—no matter what her age or situation? Did he use it like a weapon to get what he wanted?

Whatever, this morning he was well and truly back to normal. Smooth, urbane, but definitely detached. Very different from the obviously uncomfortable male who’d confronted her last night and as good as told her to get back into the sort of things she used to wear before he jumped on her!

Before she could work out whether the frisson of wicked delight at the idea that she could, if she kept flaunting herself at him, drive him to the point of doing just that was totally out of order and thoroughly despicable, he said levelly, ‘Matts, about what I said last night.’

‘Hmm?’ She dragged her unfocussed eyes from the view of the part of the winter-bare garden that could be seen from the tall sash window and unwillingly looked at him.

His dark brows were pulled down, his slightly hooded eyes steady. ‘I was wrong to tell you what you should or should not wear. I had no right.’

It was the last thing she’d expected to hear. Colour flooded her face. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she cut in quickly. She didn’t want to think about why he’d told her to revert to her sackcloth-and-ashes style of dress, and she didn’t want him to think about it, either. For either of them to think of sex in the context of their present relationship was far too intimate. It would make her resolve to cope with the situation even more difficult than it already was.

‘It does matter.’ He reached for toast and spread it with butter. ‘To my certain knowledge you’ve never given a thought to the way you look, simply pulled on the first lumpy old thing you found in the morning, tied your hair into a bunch and got on with your day.’ He smiled at her across the table, as if to rob his words of any insulting intent, and Mattie grabbed her coffee-cup, cradling it with both hands.