She tutted. ‘You’ll be crediting me with witchcraft skills next.’
He let go of her hand and put his arms around her. ‘Well, you’ve thoroughly bewitched me.’ He groaned. ‘Geez, forget I said that. That was real bargain basement corn.’
‘I’m beginning to think it’s your default setting.’
‘Only when I’m around you.’
‘Is that so?’ she said with a smile and tilting her head back so she could look into his eyes.
‘Good God, do you have to do that?’
‘What? What have I done?’
‘Look so bloody gorgeous.’
‘It’s the snow, it would make a warthog look gorgeous.’
He lowered his hands to encircle her waist. ‘Accept the compliment or pay the consequences.’
‘I’m intrigued to know what the consequences might be.’
‘You like to live dangerously, don’t you?’
‘Always.’
‘Okay, here goes, and don’t say I didn’t warn you. You remember the day we met?’
‘Of course. You kept me waiting for an age.’
‘Are you never going to let me forget that?’
‘I doubt it.’
He smiled. ‘Be that as it might be, when I saw you sitting there in the garden of the restaurant, it was as if the tectonic plates had shifted. Before I’d even exchanged a word with you, I knew life was never going to be the same again. I fought it though. Boy, did I ever fight it! Especially when later I realised you could see through my every move. That was what pained me most and drove me to be so rude, your ability to know a fraud when you saw one.’
‘You’re no more of a fraud than the rest of us. We all have our weak spots which we try to protect.’
‘Do you?’
‘Of course. Why would I be any different?’
‘Because you are, Romily. It’s like there is this golden aura around you that makes you—’
‘Enough,’ she interrupted him. ‘You warned me that the cold would start making you say things that would embarrass us, and you’ve gone well beyond that point.’
He smiled and with his hands still around her waist, he drew her close. ‘In that case we’d better go inside and warm ourselves by the fire.’
‘Good idea.’
‘And then what shall we do?’ No sooner had he asked the question, then he yawned hugely.
‘Then you’re going to go to bed,’ she said firmly.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Melstead Hall, Melstead St Mary
December 1962
Ralph
His speed greatly reduced because of the snow, the journey was taking Ralph longer than usual. He hadn’t expected it to snow tonight. That was the reason he had set off for Suffolk this evening – the day before Christmas Eve – to avoid the very thing he was now battling through: a blizzard. In places, where the snow was compacted down and already freezing, the roads were lethal.
Some might say it was masochistic of him to want to spend Christmas in Suffolk with his father, but with nowhere else to spend the holiday, Melstead Hall was the only option available to him. That, or be on his own. Which he didn’t fancy. Still, it looked like they were in for a white Christmas, which oddly cheered him. Maybe because snow had a tendency to bring out the child in them all. Until one grew bored of the stuff and it turned to piles of dirty grey mush. A metaphor, if ever there was, for the relationship between him and his father. Where once Ralph had been the apple of his father’s eye, now he was nothing but a thorn in his side.
Despite the hazardous nature of his journey, he was in a strangely mellow and repentant frame of mind. Christmas was, after all, a time of goodwill, and a host of other festive sentiment. Well, he wasn’t exactly awash with goodwill, but like Scrooge, he did have a number of regrets. Chiefly his behaviour towards Isabella.
He hadn’t received a response to the letter he had sent her in which he had apologised for his appalling behaviour. He just hoped they would be able to smoothe things out over Christmas. Thinking about it, he really should have contacted Isabella to offer her a lift home for the holiday. That would have been a good olive branch on his part.
Since the evening he’d dined with his father in his club, and the revelatory moment when he realised how abhorrent it would be to go through life as unpopular as Arthur Devereux, Ralph had taken a long, hard look at himself. Changes were required, he’d concluded. Big changes. It was quite an epiphany, realising that he could actually reinvent himself.
The first thing he had vowed to do was to be a better brother to young Charlie-Boy. God knew the little nipper needed somebody to take an interest in him when he was home from school. Somebody who could stand up to his father for a start. Because there was no chance of Julia being brave enough to do that. Not when one wrong step from her would have her locked in her room!
And that was another thing he would put right. He wouldn’t stand by and let his stepmother be treated no better than a slave.
As he drove through the entrance to Melstead Hall and travelled the length of the tree-lined driveway, he was relieved to see there was no sign of his father’s Rolls.
He’d come prepared with presents and hauling them out of the car, along with his luggage, Ralph carried everything up the steps to the front door. He didn’t bother pulling on the bell, he just tugged on the handle and let himself in.
The vast house was as quiet as the grave. And cold. It had all the makings of a horror-film set. His footsteps echoing on the black-and-white marble floor, he dumped his stuff on top of an oak chest and called to his stepmother. There was no reply. He called again, and this time he heard a sound coming from the other side of the door that led to the kitchen and to what had been the servants’ quarters. Nowadays there was just Miss Casey and whichever girls from the village were desperate enough for money to work there.
The door opened and Miss Casey appeared. She looked as stern-faced as she always did, and not at all pleased to see him.
‘Hello, Miss Casey,’ he said cheerily. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m very well, Mr Devereux. Are you expected?’
The supercilious tone to her voice thoroughly riled him. ‘It’s Christmas,’ he said, tossing her his coat to hang up, ‘of course I’m expected! I’ll have a whisky to warm me up, please. Make it a large one, that way I won’t have to ring for you to bring me a second.’
The woman hesitated before saying, ‘Where will you be?’