Her Guardian's Christmas Seduction

“A fleet of lovely little cars at your disposal, and I still can’t believe this is the car you choose to drive,” Elizabeth teased as Marianne climbed into the beast of a thing.

“If it’s good enough for Her Royal Highness, it’s certainly fine for me.”

Elizabeth’s grin changed her whole face, making it seem lit with a thousand bulbs somehow. “Yes, it’s just so very big, and you’re so very… neat.”

Marianne shrugged her slender shoulders. “I like it. You should see the way people get out of my way on the Motorway.”

Elizabeth shook her head with a rueful laugh. “You’re turning into a hoon, I know it. The next thing you’ll be telling me, you’ve lined up to watch a filming of Top Gear.”

“Top what, darling?”

Elizabeth shook her head, distractedly. “Just a show.” But now, her attention was firmly elsewhere. Elizabeth could have saddled up a multi-coloured unicorn for all she cared. In the distance, she could see dark plumes of smoke rising. There was only one other house for miles; perhaps the only house grander than Bashir House. In fact, its proportions and lineage had made Bashir House look like a servants’ hall, at times.

“Marianne, didn’t you tell me cranky old whatsisface had sold Ravens Manor?”

Marianne cast her eyes towards the palatial home. “Yes. About a year ago.”

Elizabeth leaned through the window, her eyes earnest. “Who to?”

Marianne pressed her lips together in a gesture Elizabeth knew meant she disapproved. “An Italian chap, I believe. Hell bent on destroying the grounds, and himself, by all accounts. He’s turned the old horse paddocks into a race track for his Italian speed cars. You can imagine how the locals view him.” She shrugged. “I can’t quite bring his name to mind, darling, but you’d know him, of course. He’s one of those stinking rich old-money types. I think the family business is shipping, or real estate, or something. Darn it, why can’t I recall?”

“His name doesn’t matter,” Elizabeth breathed on a whoosh of excited realisation. “Don’t you see? Ravens Manor could accommodate our affair. It’s gorgeous, grand and enormous. It’s near enough that none of the guests and suppliers will be too inconvenienced by the transfer. It’s perfect!”

“You’re forgetting that it belongs to someone else. What if he doesn’t want five hundred strangers trampling through his gardens and home on Christmas Eve? Most people don’t, you know, Bess.”

Elizabeth waved her hand through the air, causing her diamond bangle to make a tinkling noise. “That’s not important. I’m sure he’ll come around once he understands the importance of the work we do.”

Marianne scanned her daughter in law’s face dubiously. She really was incredibly beautiful, even more stunning than she knew, for Elizabeth didn’t have a vain bone in her perfectly honed body. At twenty-six, she was older now, and wiser, than the joyous twenty year old Alastair had brought home. Life had given her some hard knocks, as it had done them all, but there was an irrepressible sweetness in her nature that conveyed itself through her sparkling eyes, and full, pink lips that were always quick to turn up at the edges in a captivating hint of a smile.

“I’m sure you’ll persuade him, Bess. Only take care. The word around the village is that he’s quite a prickly sort. Not at all well-tempered. You might have your work cut out for you.”

“I don’t care. It’s important. I’ll make it work.”

And, as Marianne watched Elizabeth slip into her bright red sports car, waving her slender hand out the window in a gesture of farewell, she was absolutely sure that the young woman would achieve it. Her tenacity was never in doubt, particularly when it came to honouring Alastair’s memory. Marianne just hoped remembering wasn’t all the living that Elizabeth was capable of doing these days.

A young woman of twenty-six needed more in life than the grief and tragedy of burying a spouse.

/> *

The housekeeper at Ravens Manor was every bit as imposing as such a house deserved. The woman was tall and wiry, with round-rimmed spectacles perched on the tip of her autocratic nose. Her skin, so pale it was luminescent, was covered in a road map of spidery veins, and her grey hair was dragged up into a severe top knot. Her eyes, dark brown and suspicious, raked over Elizabeth in a style that was clearly designed to intimidate.

She got the message. Intruders were not expected, and certainly not welcome.

Despite having grown up in a perfectly ordinary middle-class family, marriage to dear Alastair, or Lord Sanderson to the rest of the world, had given her five years of pretending to fit in with these hoity toity snobs. She dressed the part, not because she particularly liked getting around in expensive suits and dresses, but because it aided her charity work if she seemed able to parry on a level with the country’s elite. Besides, Alastair had left her with a disgusting fortune in a Swiss bank account. Only the thought of Rosie’s future kept her from giving it all to his foundation.

Elizabeth returned the housekeeper’s impertinent inspection, slowly moving her stormy blue eyes from the tip of the woman’s lacquered, flat shoes, up her stockinged legs, so slender they were almost skin and bone, to the drab house coat and apron, finally arresting on the older woman’s face.

“I’m here to see the owner.”

The housekeeper’s lips twisted in a small, sceptical smile. “The Signore does not like to be disturbed.”

Elizabeth knew how he felt. She loathed unexpected company. Her home life and time with Rose were sacrosanct. She felt a pang of compunction, and might have backed off, but the ball was just around the corner and she needed to discover an alternative venue.

“It is important. Please go and advise him that Lady Sanderson would like a moment of his time.”

The Sandersons had held a country seat in the area for centuries, and the name engendered great respect in the local community. Elizabeth did not mind invoking it now. The effect was immediate. Cranky Housekeeper actually forced a smile through her thin lips, making a small hiss of approval at the same time. “Lady Sanderson, of course. Won’t you come in and wait? It’s frightfully cold this afternoon.”

Elizabeth didn’t lower her defences. Lady Sanderson was the part she had assumed, and she needed to maintain her character. Though her feet were pinched in the slim Louboutin heels she’d slipped on that morning, she didn’t so much as wince as she strode confidently into the magnificent entrance hall.