Four Christmas Treats

CHAPTER FOUR

‘HERE is your room, darling. It’s lovely, isn’t it…?’

Annabelle had thrown open the door into a room on the second floor of the castle.

More because she wanted to make sure they weren’t overheard than because she was genuinely interested in her accommodation, Tilly stepped past her and into the room.

It was large, certainly. Large, and cold, and very obviously an attic room, decorated in faded cabbage rose wallpaper, and scented with the unmistakable odour of damp.

‘It’s got its own bathroom. With the most fabbie real Edwardian bath.’

The determined brightness in her mother’s voice made Tilly’s spirits plummet. Annabelle looked so vulnerable, getting angry with her felt like being unkind to a child.

Very gently Tilly took hold of her mother’s hands and led her across to the large double bed, pulling her down until they were both seated on it, facing one another.

‘Ma, what is going on?’ she asked, as calmly as she could. ‘You know that Silas and I aren’t really engaged. We don’t even know each other. He’s just someone I’ve hired to pretend to be my fiancé.You know that. We were supposed to have separate rooms. I’ve told him that we are having separate rooms.You assured me that we would be having separate rooms. So what’s gone wrong?’

Tears filled her mother’s eyes. ‘Oh, Tilly darling, please don’t be cross with me. It isn’t my fault. I had planned to put you and Silas—he is gorgeous, by the way, and he would be just perfect for you—in the most heavenly pair of interconnecting rooms. More like a suite, really, both with their own bathrooms and the most divine little sitting room, but then Art’s daughters arrived and everything went horribly wrong.’

Tilly waited while her mother paused to blow her nose and clear her throat. ‘You see, I hadn’t realised that Susan-Jane and Cissie-Rose would want to have their children sleeping on the same floor with them, or that they would expect to have connecting rooms. But of course once Susan-Jane had explained that she and Cissie-Rose need to be close by, and how it made much more sense for them to have the suite I’d earmarked for you and Silas…

‘She said that the children’s nannies, and the personal assistants to Dwight and Bill—that’s their husbands, of course—would also have to be on the same floor, because Dwight and Bill frequently work late at night. They have to be in touch with Head Office at all times, and having to come all this way has caused them so much disruption. I felt so guilty about that—especially when Cissie-Rose told me that the children had been upset because they wouldn’t be spending Christmas at home. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow or other it turned out so that they practically took up the whole of the first floor, apart from the suite Art and I are sharing, and that meant the only rooms left were up here on the second floor.’

Inwardly Tilly counted to ten. Something was telling her that her relationship with her new stepsisters-to-be was not going to be one made in heaven, she thought grimly.

‘Okay, but there must be more than one room up here, Ma. I mean, there’s only one bed in here—’

‘Darling, I know, and I am truly sorry. But I’m sure that Silas will behave like a perfect gentleman. I mean, a man like him doesn’t need to go around persuading women to have sex with him, does he? Do you know what I think?’ she said brightly. ‘I think that he’ll probably be glad of the opportunity to be with a woman who isn’t coming on to him.’

‘Ma, let’s stick to the point. How many rooms are there on this floor?’

‘Oodles,’ Annabelle told her promptly. ‘But there’s been a problem with the roof, apparently, and most of them are damp, and the ones that aren’t are already occupied by the staff. Strictly speaking we aren’t supposed to be using any of the rooms up here, according to the contract the Count’s legal people gave us, but when I spoke to the major-domo and explained the problem he was really sweet about it, and everyone has worked so hard to get this room ready for you. I’d hate for them to think that we aren’t grateful.’

Tilly wrapped her arms around her cold body. ‘Ma, it’s freezing in here.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry about that. The Count’s PA did explain to us how the heating system worked, and that we weren’t to turn up any of the radiators because if we did it would mean that some others wouldn’t work. And I did try to explain this to Art’s daughters, but I can see their point about the children needing to be kept warm.’

Tilly could hear a strange noise in her ears. It took her several seconds to realise that it was the sound of her teeth grinding in suppressed frustration.

‘Ma—’

‘Please don’t be difficult about this, darling. I so want everything to go well, and for all of you to get on. Art’s daughters have been so sweet—offering to help me once Art and I are married, explaining to me how their social circle works. They’ve even warned me that some of Art’s late wife’s friends will be hostile to me, and that some of the men might behave towards me in a flirtatious way because of the way that I look, and because I’ve been married before. It’s kind of them, really.’

‘Is it? It sounds more to me as though they’re trying to undermine you,’ Tilly told her mother shrewdly, and then wished that she hadn’t been so blunt when she saw the hurt look on her mother’s face.

‘Darling, don’t say that. You’re going to love them, I know. Now, why don’t I leave you to unpack, while I go down to the kitchen and organise evening meals for everyone?’

‘Some hot water bottles might be a good idea as well,’ Tilly suggested dryly.

After her mother had gone she examined the room and its adjoining bathroom. The bath was, as her mother had said, truly Edwardian. Of massive proportions, it stood in the middle of a linoleum-covered floor in a room that was so cold Tilly was shivering even though she was still wearing her coat. There was also a shower, and a separate lavatory.

She heard the outer door reopening, and hurried back into the bedroom, saying despairingly, ‘Ma. I don’t—Oh, it’s you.’ She came to an abrupt halt as she saw Silas standing just inside the door, holding it open for a young man carrying their luggage.

She had to wait for him to put it down and leave before she could speak. ‘I’m really sorry about this. My mother seems to have allowed Art’s daughters to bully her into letting them take the two-bedroom suite she had earmarked for us, and this appears to be the only room that’s left.’

‘And presumably the only bed?’ Silas asked silkily.

‘I don’t like this any more than you do,’Tilly assured him. ‘But there’s nothing I can do except offer to sleep on the floor.’

‘And of course you’re fully prepared to do that?’

‘Actually, yes, I am,’ Tilly said. She didn’t like the tone he was using, and she didn’t like the way he was looking at her either. If she had thought the bedroom and the icy-cold bathroom were cold enough to chill her blood, they were nothing compared to the coldness of the look Silas was giving her.

‘Do you make a habit of this?’ It infuriated Silas that she didn’t seem to think he had the intelligence to see through what she was doing.

‘Do I make a habit of what?’ Tilly demanded, perplexed.

‘Hiring men to have sex with you.’

Tilly was glad she had the bed behind her to sink down onto. His accusation hadn’t just shocked her, it had also blocked her chest with a huge lump of indigestible and unwanted emotional vulnerability—and pain. Pain? Because a man she didn’t know was misjudging her? Why should that cause her to feel like this? She had only just met Silas. He meant nothing whatsoever to her, and yet here she was reacting to his unpleasant remarks with the kind of hurt feelings and sense of betrayal that were more appropriate for a long-standing and far more intimate relationship. Was that it? Did she secretly want to have sex with him? Had he somehow sensed that, even though she hadn’t been aware of it herself? Was that the reason for his accusation, and her own emotional reaction to it?

This time when Tilly shivered it wasn’t just because she was cold. She didn’t like what was happening. She had never wanted to do any of this in the first place—not coming here, not hiring herself an escort, and most certainly not sharing a bed with Silas. She took a deep breath.

‘I do not hire men to have sex with me. I don’t need to.’Well, it was true, wasn’t it? ‘I’ve already made it perfectly clear to you why I need an escort, and if you thought I was lying or had some ulterior motive then surely it was up to you to refuse the commission. You don’t strike me as the kind of man who would allow himself to be put in a situation you don’t want,’ she told him shrewdly.

Her reaction wasn’t what Silas had been expecting. He had assumed that she would use his accusation as an excuse to lay her cards on the table. At which point he had intended to make it plain that, while he was prepared to act as her fiancé in public, making use of the intimacy provided by their shared accommodation was most definitely not on the agenda.

The nature of his profession meant that Silas was immediately and instinctively suspicious of everyone’s motives. As far as he was concerned, everyone had something to hide, something they were prepared to sell, and something they were prepared to buy. He himself wanted to hide the fact that he was using his position as a fake fiancé to get closer to Art, but he was only prepared to sell his time, not his body. He was also a man who hated being wrong-footed and forced to accept that he had made an error of judgement—especially by a woman he had no reason whatsoever to respect.

‘I thought your explanation owed more to imagination than truth,’ he told her uncompromisingly. ‘As far as I am concerned, and in view of what has transpired, I was right to question the validity of what you were telling me. Not, I must say, that I admire your taste in sexual boltholes,’ he added disparagingly. ‘Apart from anything else, it’s freezing. Are those radiators on?’ He walked over to one of them and put his hand against it.

‘Apparently Art’s daughters have messed up the delicate balance of radiator temperature and fair heating for all,’ Tilly told him tiredly. ‘Or at least I think that’s what my mother was trying to tell me.’

Somehow Tilly managed to answer his mundane question with an equally mundane answer, even though her heart was pumping so much blood through her veins she could actually feel the adrenaline surge. There was no way she was going to let his insults go unchallenged.

‘You don’t have to stay here, you know,’ she told him. ‘There’s nothing to stop you leaving if you want. I certainly won’t be trying.’ She tried to put as much withering scorn into her words as she could.

Silas gave her a derisory look. ‘We’ve only just arrived, and we’re supposed to be engaged. I can hardly walk out now.’

‘Why not?’ Tilly demanded, in a brittle voice that betrayed her tension. ‘Engaged couples do quarrel and break up. It happens all the time. In fact, I think it’s a very good idea.’

She could feel the comfort of her own relief at the thought of him leaving. He was having an effect on her she really did not like or want. It—he—had made her feel uncomfortable and on edge even before he had accused her of lying to him. There was no way she wanted to spend a week sharing a room with a man who thought she was gagging for sex with him and about to pounce on him at any minute. She might be being a tad old-fashioned, but the truth was that she much preferred the traditional scenario in which she was the one imagining that he might pounce on her. Not that she wanted him to do so, of course. Not for one minute.

‘In fact,’ she continued fiercely, ‘I think it would be an excellent idea if I went down right now to find my mother and tell her that the engagement is off.’

‘Wouldn’t that be somewhat counter-productive? I thought the whole idea of this was to help your mother.’ The conversation and Tilly’s behaviour were taking a direction Silas hadn’t expected, and one he did not want. Tilly was quite obviously working herself up into a mood of moral outrage and, worse, she was throwing out the kind of challenges he had no intention of taking up.

It wasn’t like him to misjudge a situation, and it irked him that he might have here. But Tilly was behaving in a way he considered out of character for the slot he had mentally fitted her into. He despised women who insisted on playing games, and normally he wouldn’t have tolerated an assumed ‘injured innocent’ act, but right now he had too much at stake to risk her carrying out her threat. Much as he disliked having to admit it, he recognised that it night have been wiser for him to have played along with her pretence for a bit longer before letting her know that he had guessed what she was planning. He couldn’t allow this new situation to accelerate.

He might not mind walking out on Tilly, but if he did he would also be walking out on his chance to talk to Art. He had already sown the seeds for what he hoped would become more informative confidences once Art had let down his guard a bit more.

He walked over to the bed and eyed it assessingly. At least it was large enough for him to ensure that Tilly kept her distance from him.

He was standing next to her when they both heard Annabelle calling out from the other side of the door. ‘It’s only us, darlings!’

‘That’s my mother now,’ Tilly told him unnecessarily. ‘I’ve made up my mind. There’s no way I want to continue with this charade now, after the accusations you’ve just made. I’m going to tell her that we’ve had a row, that our engagement is over and that you’re leaving.’

She was making to remove the ring he had given her as she spoke, and Silas could tell that she meant what she was saying. The door was already opening. He thought quickly, and then acted with even greater speed.

It shocked Tilly how silently and lethally fast Silas moved, dropping down onto the bed next to her and imprisoning her in his arms as he rolled her torso down under his own and then covered her mouth with his.

Tilly tried to push him away, but he was holding her too tightly, one muscular leg thrown over her in what was surely one of the most intimate embraces a fully clad couple could perform—even if he was only adopting it to keep her pinned beneath the weight of his body. Pinned in such a way that she was shockingly aware of the physical differences between them—his hardness pressed to her softness, his body dominating and unyielding, while, to her outraged horror, her own was soft and accommodating, as though her flesh welcomed the possessive maleness of his.

While she tried to grapple with her own confused reactions he started to kiss her. Not gently, but fiercely and possessively, and with an added edge of almost dangerous urgency, as though there was nothing he wanted more than to have her mouth under his, as though at any moment now he would strip the clothes from their bodies so that her only covering would be him, and then…Somehow or other his free hand was cupping her breast, the hard pad of his thumb resting against her hard nipple.

This couldn’t be happening. It certainly should not be happening. Incredulously she struggled to resist him, distantly aware of her mother’s amused, ‘Whoops! Sorree…’ and then the immediate closing of the bedroom door.

He could let Tilly go now. Silas knew that. The danger was over. No way could she tell her mother now that they had quarrelled and that he was leaving after what she had just witnessed. But the bedroom was bitingly cold, and the rounded warmth of Tilly’s breast fitted into his hand as though it had been made for him. It surprised him to discover just how much he wanted to go on cupping it, and just how strong his urge was to caress the hard thrust of her nipple slowly and thoroughly, until she responded to his touch with her own urgency, arching up into his hands, wanting him to peel back the layers of her clothing until they could both see her arousal. He could certainly feel his own. He slid his other hand up into Tilly’s hair, lifting his mouth briefly from hers, watching as her eyes opened, her gaze soft and clouded. He traced the shape of her mouth with small, teasingly light kisses that mirrored the delicate touch of his fingertips on her breast.

Tilly was hazily aware that what she was doing was very dangerous—that Silas was very dangerous. But the room was so cold that it seemed to be numbing her ability to respond and react in a normal way. And Silas felt so warm, lying on top of her, even if he was tormenting her with those tiny kisses that were compelling her to arch up to him, wanting something much more intimate. She shuddered with pleasure when he spread his fingers against her scalp and held her head while he plundered her mouth with the intimate thrust of his tongue, over and over again, until she was shuddering in the grip of the most intense physical longing she had ever experienced.

The shock of her own sexual arousal was enough to bring her to her senses and make her push Silas away. She was trembling from head to foot and felt foolishly close to tears. What she was feeling made her feel both vulnerable and confused. She didn’t even know how it had happened—or why.

‘You had no right to do that,’ she told him, almost tearfully.

‘I thought it was what you wanted.’

‘What? How could you think that? I’d just told you that I wanted you to leave.’

Silas looked into her flushed, mutinous face and a sensation, an emotion he couldn’t recognise, speared through the armour-plating of his cynicism. He lifted his hand to his chest, as though he could actually feel the sharp, unfamiliar pain as a physical reality, and then let it drop to his side as he pushed the feeling back out of the way.

‘And I’ve just shown you that I don’t want to,’ he responded softly. ‘In fact…right now I don’t even think I want to leave this room.’ A corrosive inner voice, no doubt prompted by his conscience, was demanding if not a retraction then at least an explanation of this outright lie. But he had a job to do, a truth to find, and he needed real, hard facts. As far as Silas was concerned it was his ethical duty to get those facts, and that came before any duty he might have to maintaining the same degree of truth within this current aspect of his personal life.

As ugly and unpleasant as it sounded, Tilly was using him—and he was using her. Both of them could claim that they were being forced into doing so in order to benefit others, of course. And that made it acceptable? Maybe not, but it certainly made it necessary, Silas told himself harshly.

Tilly’s mouth had gone dry. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Her heart was pounding so heavily she wanted to press her hand against her chest to calm it.

‘If you’re trying to imply that you…’ She picked her words as carefully as she could, but they still literally stuck it her throat. ‘That you want me, then I don’t believe you,’ she finally managed to say. ‘It’s less than ten minutes since you were warning me off and accusing me of hiring you for sex,’ she reminded him.

‘Ten minutes ago I hadn’t kissed you or touched you,’ Silas told her meaningfully. ‘Ten minutes ago I hadn’t been so turned on by the way your body was responding to my touch that right now I can’t think beyond taking that response to its natural conclusion—to our mutual benefit.’

To Silas’s chagrin his own words were conjuring up the most erotic images inside his head, and his body was responding powerfully to them. So powerfully that it was making it clear to him that, no matter what his brain might have to say, his body was more than willing to have sex with Tilly.

The room might still be icy cold, but suddenly Tilly felt far too hot. He had to be lying to her, and she had better remember that. Instead of…Instead of what? Wanting him to be telling the truth? Wanting him to mean what he was saying? Wanting him to want her? Was she crazy? This kind of thing was her mother’s emotional territory, not hers. She knew better. Didn’t she? She started to shiver. She didn’t want to stay here in this room with Silas any longer—a room that she could have sworn now smelled subtly of their mutual arousal, and his deceit, and her own foolish longing. She wanted to go back downstairs, where she would be safer—and warmer.

‘It’s your own fault that I kissed you, you know,’ Silas told her.

Tilly had had enough. ‘Look, I’ve already told you, I did not hire you to have sex with me,’she insisted fiercely.

‘I didn’t mean that.’ Silas was smiling so tenderly at her that her insides twisted with need. ‘I meant that it’s your fault because when you offered me the chance to leave I knew that I couldn’t, and that in turn told me how much I want you.’