The Christmas Marriage Mission

Kay raised her chin haughtily, two spots of bright colour still burning on her cheekbones. ‘If there were men like you around, very probably.’

‘Ow.’ He pretended to wince as he opened the door, turning on the threshold one last time as he surveyed her, rumpled and flushed, still sitting on the bed. ‘Don’t forget we’re building a snowman tomorrow,’ he said softly. ‘I want you up bright and early or else I’ll have to come and fetch you.’

How dared he talk in that sexy, smoky voice when he had just refused her? Kay asked herself furiously. She hated him; she really really hated him.

She was still trying to think of an adequately scathing retort when Mitchell closed the door.

CHAPTER NINE

BOXING DAY dawned crystal-bright, the blue sky and pearly cold sunlight turning the thick snow to a carpet of shimmering white and sending the twins mad with delight.

Leonora and Henry opted for staying in the warm, so it was left to Kay and Mitchell to build the snowman with the two little girls.

The acute embarrassment Kay had felt at breakfast when she had first set eyes on Mitchell faded somewhat in the general mayhem, which involved much shrieking and rolling in the snow by Georgia, a great deal of serious and careful building by Emily and a bit of both by Mitchell, much to the delight of the twins.

When Frosty—christened so by Georgia and Emily—was finally finished, Mitchell lifted both little girls in his arms so they could put the snowman’s hat and scarf in place along with his coal eyes, carrot nose and pebbled teeth.

‘He’s just lovely, isn’t he, Mummy?’ Georgia breathed reverently, turning in Mitchell’s arm to hold out her hand to Kay, which immediately prompted Emily to do the same. As Kay took the mittened paws in her hands she was aware of Mitchell’s eyes tight on her face, the four of them joined together in what could have been a family unit. It hurt. Unbearably.

‘He’s wonderful, darling,’ she said brightly, her smile brittle. ‘The best snowman in the world.’

Whether Mitchell had noticed the tell-tale glitter in her eyes Kay didn’t know, but she felt his gaze brush over her face before he said, ‘Now Frosty’s all wrapped up in his hat and scarf, how about we go and feed the ducks on the lake, eh? Why don’t you two go and ask Henry for some bread?’

‘Can we? Really?’ The twins didn’t need any prompting after Kay had nodded her permission, racing off as fast as their little red wellington boots would take them.

When they had disappeared into the house there was a vibrant silence for a moment or two, and then Mitchell said softly, ‘How were the dreams?’

Trust him not to pretend last night hadn’t happened! The dart of anger produced enough adrenalin for Kay to be able to answer stiffly, as though he had just made a polite enquiry, ‘I slept very well, thank you.’

‘I didn’t.’ He wasn’t smiling as he looked into her eyes.

Your fault. ‘Really?’ She raised superior eyebrows, refusing to meet his gaze as she turned to survey the winter wonderland in front of them. ‘You should try warm milk with a spot of honey. It always works for the twins.’

‘I know what the cure for my disturbed sleep pattern is, Kay,’ he said drily, ‘and it sure as hell isn’t warm milk.’

There were a hundred and one answers she could make to that, but, as she might betray herself with every one, Kay contented herself with turning her back on him and pretending to adjust Frosty’s nose until Georgia and Emily reappeared two seconds later.

‘Henry let us have a great big bag of bread, Mummy, and some cake too,’ Georgia shouted as she hurtled towards them, Emily in her wake. ‘Won’t the ducks be pleased?’

The little family of ducks on Mitchell’s small but charming lake were pleased, delighting the twins by coming up out of the water and taking the bread right out of the girls’ fingers.

‘They’re virtually tame,’ Mitchell said quietly, ‘thanks to Henry. He went to see his sister in Kent in the spring—she keeps a smallholding, nothing grand—and while he was there a fox took the mother. He brought the eggs home still in the nest but enclosed in a polystyrene box with a hot-water bottle, so the kitchen became a duckling nursery. They all hatched and he didn’t lose one of them. Would you believe the utility room off the kitchen had a paddling pool in it for weeks?’

‘Really?’ Kay was fascinated. She decided she thoroughly approved of Henry.

‘It was a bit difficult as they grew to convince them that Henry wasn’t their mother,’ Mitchell said with a wry smile. ‘For weeks there was the patter of tiny feet about the house if the utility-room door was left ajar. There would be Henry going to answer the door with a perfectly straight line of seven balls of fluff with webbed feet behind him.’

He grinned at her and her heart turned right over.

‘Do you know that ducks have got personalities?’ He turned to look at Georgia and Emily kneeling in the snow with the ducks all about them, bills opening and shutting. ‘That one there in the front, the little bruiser, is called Charlie and he’s the boss. And the little brown one hanging at the back is Matilda. She’s the most timid one among them and yet Ch

arlie and her are inseparable. It’s like he knows she needs looking after.’

He turned to look straight at her, his gaze intensifying and the silver eyes holding hers in such a way she couldn’t have spoken to save her life. Kay began to feel she were drowning in the mercurial blue orbs, which seemed to be reflecting the vivid azure of the sky; she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. There was just Mitchell in all the world.

‘Have…have the others got names?’ she managed at last, her voice breathless.

He smiled, a beautiful smile. ‘Oh, yes.’ He moved closer, taking her hand and slipping it through his arm as he pointed them out. ‘That’s Clarence, Lolita, Nessie, Percival and Agnes. Although Nessie might be Agnes and Agnes might be Lolita, if you get my meaning. Henry’s the one who can pick them out as though they’re his grandchildren.’