A Countess For Christmas. Christy McKellen

powerful people.’

      She stared off into the distance, her breath coming rapidly now, streaking the dark night air with clouds of white. ‘Hopefully Clio at the agency will believe my side of the story and still put me forward for other jobs, but people might not want to take me on if Jolyon gets to them first.’

      ‘Surely you don’t need a job that badly?’ he asked, completely bemused by her anxiety about not being able to land another waitressing role. What had happened to her plans to go to university? She couldn’t have been working in the service industry all this time, could she?

      The rueful smile she flashed him made something twang in his chest.

      ‘Unfortunately I do, Jack. We can’t all be CEO of our own company,’ she said with a teasing glint in her eye now.

      He huffed out a mirthless laugh and shook his head, recalling how it had been through Emma’s encouragement that he’d accepted the prodigious offer for a highly sought-after job at an electronics company in the States right after graduating from university, which had enabled him to chase his dream of setting up his own company.

      It had been an incredible opportunity and one he’d been required to act on quickly. Emma had understood how important it had been to him to become financially independent on his own merits, rather than trading on his family name as his father had, and had urged him to go. In a burst of youthful optimism, he’d asked her to marry him so she could go with him. She’d been all he could think about when he was twenty-one. He’d been obsessed with her—every second away from her had felt empty—and the mere suggestion of leaving her behind in England had filled him with dismay.

      In retrospect it had been ridiculous for them to tie the knot so young; with him only just graduated from Cambridge University and she only eighteen years old.

      They’d practically been children then: closeted and naïve.

      She coughed and took an awkward step backwards and he realised with a start that he’d been scowling at her while these unsettling memories had flitted through his mind.

      ‘It’s good to see you again, Jack, despite the less than ideal circumstances,’ she said softly, her expression guarded and her voice holding a slight tremor now, ‘but I guess I should get going.’

      She seemed to fold in on herself and he realised with a jolt that she was shivering.

      ‘Where’s your coat?’ he asked, perhaps a little more sharply than was necessary.

      ‘It’s back in the house, along with my handbag,’ she muttered. ‘I can’t go back in there for them now though. I’ll give one of the girls a ring when I get home and ask her to drop them over to me tomorrow.’ She paused as a sheepish look crossed her face. ‘I don’t suppose you could lend me a couple of pounds for my bus fare, could you?’

      The tension in her voice touched something deep inside him, making him suddenly conscious of what a rough night she was having.

      ‘Yes, of course.’ Taking off his overcoat, he wrapped it around her shoulders. ‘Here, take my coat. There’s money in the pocket.’

      She looked up at him with wide, grateful eyes. ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Yes,’ he clipped out, a little unnerved by how his body was responding to the way she was looking at him.

      He cleared his throat. ‘Will you be able to get into your—er—flat?’ he asked. He wasn’t sure where she was living now. He’d heard that she’d moved to London after they’d sold the family home in Cambridge, but other than that his information about her was a black hole. He’d deliberately kept it that way, needing to emotionally distance himself from her after what had happened between them.

      He’d told himself he’d find out where she was once he’d had time to get settled in London but he’d had a lot on his plate up till now. His business back in the States still needed a close eye kept on it until the chap he’d chosen to take over the CEO role in his absence was up to speed and he was keenly aware of his new familial duties here.

      ‘My mother’s staying with me at the moment so she’ll be able to let me in,’ Emma replied with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

      He nodded slowly, his brain whirring now. It occurred to him with a jolt of unease that he couldn’t let her just skip off home. If she disappeared on him he’d end up looking a fool if the press came to call and he said something about their relationship that she contradicted later when they caught up with her. Which they would eventually.

      And after not having seen her for nearly six years he had a thousand and one questions he wanted to ask her, which would continue to haunt him if she vanished on him again.

      No, he couldn’t let her leave.

      ‘Look, why don’t we go back to my house to talk? It’s only a couple of streets away,’ he said, wishing he hadn’t dismissed his driver for the night. He hadn’t intended to go out this evening but had been chivvied along at the last minute by an old friend from his university days who was a business acquaintance of Fitzherbert’s.

      ‘We need to figure out what we’re going to do about this,’ he said, registering her slight hesitation. ‘You know what the gutter press are like in this country. We need to be able to give them a plausible answer if they come calling. If they think there’s any kind of mystery about it they’ll hound us for ever. I don’t know about you, but I’m not prepared to have the red tops digging into my past.’

      That seemed to get through to her and he saw a chink of acceptance in her expression. And trepidation.

      He moved closer to her, then regretted it when he caught the sweet, intoxicating scent of her in the air. ‘All I’m asking is that you come back to my house for an hour so we can talk. It’s been a long time. I want to know how you are, Em.’

      She looked at him steadily, her expression closed now, giving nothing away. He recognised it as a look she’d perfected after the news of her father’s sudden death. He’d been a victim of it before, right after the tragedy had struck, and then repeatedly in the time that had followed—the longest and most painful days of his life.

      ‘Okay,’ she said finally, letting out a rush of breath.

      Nodding stiffly, he pointed in the direction they needed to go. ‘It’s this way,’ he said, steeling himself to endure the tense walk home with his wife at his side for the first time in six years.