‘Are you happy, Sonia?’ She looked closely at her sister. ‘Are you happy with Jeremy?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Sonia replied without hesitation. ‘Oh, I know that people look at us and see summer and autumn.’ Her mouth twisted ruefully. ‘That people think I must have married him for his money and social standing, that he married me to have a young and beautiful trophy on his arm, but they’re all wrong, Meg.’ She smiled. ‘I love Jeremy very much. And he loves me. We have a good life together.’
Meg nodded. ‘Then that’s really all that matters, isn’t—?’ She broke off, her eyes wide with incredulity as Jed strolled in from the adjoining room, hadn’t she told him to knock the next time he came in here?
He raised dark brows as he looked at the two women, a rueful twist to his mouth. ‘Ho, ho, ho.’ He looked at the bag of presents he had over one shoulder.
Meg and Sonia continued to look at him for several seconds, and then at each other, and then they both began to laugh.
‘Well, I guess I know what you’re getting in your stocking this year, Meg,’ Sonia finally sobered enough to tease.
It was an intriguing thought, but, no, somehow Meg didn’t think so.
Sonia moved gracefully, a glittering green butterfly. ‘Happy Christmas, Jed.’ She reached up to kiss him on the cheek.
For longer than Meg thought necessary. Oh, she knew Sonia loved to flirt, that it came as easily to her as breathing, but nevertheless Meg couldn’t help the shaft of jealousy that ripped through her at this platonic kiss.
‘Happy Christmas, Meg.’ Sonia moved to hug and kiss her now. ‘I’m really happy for you, Meg,’ she murmured so that only Meg could hear her. ‘I’ll see you both in the morning.’ And with one last tantalizing waft of her perfume she left Meg and Jed alone in the bedroom.
Not a happy occurrence for Meg after the conversation they’d had before dinner. She watched him warily as he slowly swung the sack of presents down onto the carpeted floor.
‘I heard voices in here,’ he explained with a grimace. ‘And from your reaction earlier to Sonia’s suggestion that she would come back later, I thought you might need rescuing.’
Jed Cole to the rescue.
Once again. Except this time she didn’t think she had needed rescuing.
She still felt emotional from that conversation with Sonia. It had been the last thing she had expected. Although their shared laughter at Jed’s attempt at being Father Christmas was more like the two of them used to be together, so maybe, just maybe, they could start to heal this breach, after all.
‘Obviously I guessed wrong—’ Jed took her silence for rebuke ‘—but you needed these presents, anyway, right?’
Yes, she needed them, no longer had to sneak into his bedroom to get them.
‘Will you for goodness’ sake say something, woman?’ Jed burst out impatiently.
She returned his gaze steadily. ‘Thank you. I can manage from here.’
‘That’s it?’ he rasped, thrusting his hands into his jeans pockets.
‘You’ve barely spoken a word to me all evening and now you’re dismissing me like the hired help.’
She gave him a perplexed frown. ‘The only hired help I ever have dealings with is Mrs Sykes, the cook here, and as Scott and I spent a very enjoyable hour down in the kitchen with her earlier, I don’t accept your accusation. She’s more like one of the family.’
‘Which I, obviously, am not,’ he snapped.
Meg gave an irritated shake of her head. ‘I thought this distance between us was what you wanted?’
He scowled darker than ever. ‘You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?’ he accused tersely. ‘To pay me back for being so bluntly honest with you earlier.’
Her cheeks flamed with colour at this reminder of earlier. ‘I think you’ve had too much wine and brandy.’
‘Well, of course I have,’ he rejoined irritably. ‘What else was I supposed to do when you barely acknowledged I was sitting next to you at dinner?’
‘I’m not aware that I did anything.’
‘You’re driving me insane, is what you’re doing.’ He reached out to grasp her arms, shaking her slightly. ‘You look wonderful in this dress.’ His gaze moved over her as impatiently as he sounded. ‘I don’t know how I managed to keep my hands off you during dinner. I wanted to just clear the table and make love to you there.’
She gave a mischievous smile. ‘I’m sure my family would have enjoyed the spectacle.’
Jed gave a self-mocking smile. ‘I’m not sure I would have cared at the time.’
She didn’t understand this man. One minute he was pushing her away with talk of his nomadic lifestyle, and the next he was telling her how much he wanted to make love to her. But maybe he didn’t understand himself, either.
‘It’s late, Jed.’ She gave a shake of her head. ‘I’m sure that everything will look different in the morning.’ Once he had sobered up a little.
His hands dropped away from her arms. ‘If the snow thaws then I’m out of here tomorrow,’ he told her flatly. ‘How are you going to explain that to your family?’
Why was it her responsibility? He was the one who had given her family the impression they were a couple, not her.
Her mouth firmed. ‘I’m sure you’ll think of something to tell them by tomorrow. Now would you please go?’ she urged, lowering her voice as Scott moved restlessly in his bed, not surprising after the amount of conversations he had been a sleeping witness to this evening.
Scott was a heavy sleeper, and not much disturbed him once he was asleep, but her visitors had been excessive this evening.
Besides, she needed some time to herself to be able to think. Oh, not about Jed—all the thinking in the world wouldn’t give her the answers she wanted, or change the fact that he couldn’t wait to get away from here.
But she needed to digest and mull over that conversation with Sonia, to decide what to do about it, if anything. Her instinct was to do nothing, knowing that allowing herself to be close to Sonia again would change everything. She had to decide whether she wanted that change before she made any decision. And she needed time and space away from people to make it.
‘Yeah, I’ll go,’ Jed agreed heavily once Scott had settled down again. ‘But you are driving me nuts, Meg,’ he paused in the doorway to murmur.
‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed.
He nodded abruptly, Meg only starting to breathe again once he had returned to the adjoining room and closed the door behind him.
Really, her bedroom was starting to take on the appearance of a railway station with all these comings and goings.
Although, of course, this wasn’t her bedroom, only one of a number of guest rooms. Because that was what she was now: a guest.
Her own childhood bedroom, the room that had remained hers until she’d gone to live in London, was on the other side of the house. It had remained the same since she was in her teens, her cups and rosettes won at gymkhanas along one wall, some of her own drawings on another, the large bookcase full of books she had read as a child and refused to part with.
No doubt they were gone now, along with everything else in that room that had proclaimed it her room.
She blinked back the sudden tears, a part of her longing for the simplicity of those carefree days, when the biggest decision she had had to make had been the colour of her riding jacket for the day.
Jed was right: the sooner the snow thawed, and she could leave, the better she would start to feel. Jed had no idea what the time was, or indeed where he was, totally engrossed in what he was writing.
He didn’t know how or why it had happened, but at one o’clock in the morning, in the midst of a family with so many emotional problems they were too complicated for him to fathom, the storyline for a book had suddenly hit him as he’d moved restlessly about his bedroom unable to sleep. Not the storyline he had been working on so half-heartedly the last six months, either, but a totally new one, complete, entire, and urgently needing to be written down.
It hadn’t taken too much effort to find David Hamilton’s library, sitting down at the desk there to begin writing page after page, his own inner excitement telling him that this book was going to be as good, if not better, than The Puzzle.
Maybe physical frustration was exactly what he had needed to make his mind fertile again.
Because he was frustrated. Wanted Meg. Wanted her more than he had ever wanted a woman in his life before.
But he wasn’t going to get her, knew that as surely as there was no thaw predicted for tomorrow.
Think positive, he told himself firmly. At least he was writing again.
He looked up as the library light was suddenly switched off, throwing him into instant darkness. ‘What?’ The light came on again as abruptly as it had been switched off.
David’s smile was apologetic as he entered the room. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Jed. I didn’t know there was anyone in here. I thought someone must have forgotten to switch the light off earlier.’ He stood beside the desk now, wearing a Paisley dressing gown over wine-coloured pyjamas. ‘I’m sorry, have I interrupted you?’ He looked down interestedly at the pile of papers covered in Jed’s scrawled handwriting.