Chapter 32
Something was scratching at the back of Sebastian’s thigh, irritating him into consciousness even though the world was still bathed in darkness. A glance at the eery blue glow of the bedside clock told him it was way too early to be awake; the slow, rhythmical breathing of a still-sleeping Jess beside him reassured him the previous evening had panned out exactly as he remembered.
He allowed himself a slow smile, a recognition that what he’d decided had been the best sex of his life had happened exactly as he recalled. It had been real. Jess was real, not a figment of his imagination. She was real, she was here, and she was possibly the most attractive woman he’d ever met.
Shuffling across the mattress, Sebastian closed his eyes and breathed her in. There was a strong waft of lemon shampoo alongside the scent of her skin, the heat of their lovemaking evident in the sweet remnants of perspiration. There was something else, too. The merest hint of Marie Rose sauce.
His movement made her stir, as well as shifting his buttock closer to whatever it was he was lying on. Brushing at the sheet with a hand, his fingers found what, at a guess, he would assume to be flaky pastry from one of the savoury snacks they’d teased one another with the previous evening. Some of the food had even made it into their mouths. Checking for more crumbs, his movements were enough to wake Jess.
‘What are you doing?’ she murmured, her voice muted from sleep.
‘Had a piece of vol-au-vent up my arse,’ he said.
‘Need to be in the fridge, or they’ll be ruined,’ she muttered.
Sebastian smiled in the darkness, listening to the pattern of her breathing changing as she became fully conscious.
‘What was it doing up your arse?’ she said, confusion uppermost in her tone.
He stifled a laugh, shifting his arm to make it easier for her to fold herself against him. ‘It was just a crumb.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Half three or something,’ he said, kissing the top of her head.
‘Oh, that’s good,’ she said, tilting her face for a proper kiss. ‘Plenty of time until we have to get up.’
Just being close to her was enough to turn him on, so this kind of naked contact was only going to have one outcome. As he felt himself harden, their kisses became increasingly fervent. There was only one place he wanted to be and as Jess urged him on top of her and pulled him close it was all he could do to hang on, to give her what she needed. To not whisper how heavily he thought he was falling for her.
Afterwards, the drift back to sleep was rapid, and it was Jess who had the final word.
‘Happy Christmas, Sebastian,’ she whispered.
It felt like it was no more than a few minutes before an alarm was sounding, dragging Sebastian back to reality, Jess stirring beside him.
‘Where’s that coming from?’ He hadn’t set an alarm, was confused by it until Jess reached for her phone and prodded at it.
‘Sorry. I need to go and put the turkey in,’ she whispered. ‘And sort out the world’s largest plum pudding. Dorathy Keel insisted I have to reheat it in the traditional way, or it’ll be ruined, but it’ll take hours to do it in a saucepan, and I need the hobs later for the vegetables.’
‘But it’s still the middle of the night,’ he said.
‘Half five, to be accurate,’ Jess said, pulling on her pyjamas and then a woolly jumper.
Sebastian levered himself onto his elbows. ‘You don’t need any help in the kitchen?’
Jess stifled a laugh. ‘After your exhibition of culinary expertise last night?’
‘No, fair enough. That’s a good point.’
She leant over to kiss him. ‘It wasn’t a total bust, though, was it?’
‘Best night of my life,’ he said, frowning at his own words as he gazed at her.
Jess wasn’t sure how she stopped herself from saying ‘me too’, or why she stopped herself, except that a question was pricking at the back of her thoughts. It was a question she should ignore, but now it had made its presence felt Jess knew she just had to come out and say it.
‘That’s a bold statement,’ she said, shimmying closer to him. ‘Are you sure you mean it?’
‘Of course I do.’ His hands strayed across her body again. ‘Best. Night. Ever.’
Jess should take the compliment and run with it; now was absolutely not the time to allow anyone else to invade her thoughts.
‘But there must have been plenty of others,’ she said, before she could stop herself. ‘Like Catriona, for example?’
She was looking for reassurance, she knew there was nothing more to it than that, but all she’d managed to do was muddy the previously clear waters of a fantastic night with Sebastian. He pushed away from her and sat up against a pillow.
‘Why would you want to talk about past relationships right now? That’s ancient history.’ He shook his head. ‘Last thing I want to think about is the past, Jess, when what I really want to do is live in the present.’ He gave her cheeky grin full of innuendo.
It should have been a good-enough answer. He tried to pull her close again, and as she gently extracted herself from his eager grasp and padded from her room, she knew it was a decent reply. It had been ten years. There must have been others in the meantime – why wasn’t she worried about them? Surely, if he was going to rekindle a relationship with Catriona, he would have done so by now – logic suggested as much. Jess took a breath, understanding in that moment why it was niggling at her so much. She had thought it was Kirkshield which had managed to steal her heart over the past few weeks, but last night with Sebastian had been magical in a way Jess couldn’t put into words.
They had tag-teamed her, or at least that was how it felt. If it wasn’t the place softening her up, squeezing its way into her heart, it was the man. It was as though they’d taken it in turns, working in tandem to create a perfect storm, an environment in which Jess felt everything in technicolour, with an intensity she’d never experienced before.
She thought she’d known what falling in love felt like. But she couldn’t have. Because she hadn’t ever felt like this: like everything could either work out perfectly, or her life would end, and it all hung on the crash of a wave. The sensation was terrifying and incredible, all at the same time.
Footsteps pattered in the opposite direction and Jess froze, heart rate spiking at the unexpected noise. A rustling sound preceded Freddie and Karl, both dragging pillowcases half-filled with lumpy shapes as they tiptoed into the corridor.
‘Jess!’ Karl’s stage-whisper was enough to wake the house.
Freddie hushed him, then studied her. Eventually, he pointed at the bags. ‘The Christkind managed to find us, Jess. We were going to tell Mummy and Daddy the letters worked. Even though we sent them up the chimney at home, the Christkind brought our presents all the way here for us.’
Jess presumed they were talking about Father Christmas – or at least the Austrian version – and so she smiled and nodded.
‘But then we saw the clock was still only the number five and so we thought we’d tell you instead.’
Jess laughed. ‘Happy Christmas, boys. Do you want an early-morning snack before you go to your parents’ room?’ she said, leading the way into the kitchen as they nodded, thumping and thudding their Christmas hauls behind them.
Dee emerged from her room early, well before Christmas daylight had any intention of peeking from between snow-heavy clouds, and was surprised to see Sebastian climbing the final few treads of the staircase. Even more surprising was the fact he was dressed as though he’d returned from a ball: carriages at three, bow-tie askew and hair mussed after an exhausting night of partying. But that didn’t make any sense, because Sebastian had chosen to remain behind, in the castle, when the rest of the family had gone out for supper.
As he noticed her, colour flushed his cheeks, and she saw the buttons on his shirt were misaligned. He looked tired – no, it was more than that – he looked contently exhausted, like he hadn’t had enough sleep but couldn’t care less.
‘Did you go out after all, last night?’ she asked, although the answer hit her between the eyes even as she asked the question.
‘No. Felt like dressing up a bit, for …’ He swallowed. ‘Um, anyway – Happy Christmas, Mother. I’d better go and …’
He might be her only son, but Dee knew enough about boys to recognise the expression. Her son had spent the night with a woman. Dee frowned, her early-morning brain taking a while to wrap itself around the obvious conclusion. He’d spent the night with Jess. There wasn’t anyone else.
Dee took in a breath as Sebastian tried to sidle past her. His bow-tie slid from his fingers, dropping like a discarded ribbon and, as he stooped to pick it up, she shook her head. It was almost impossible for her not to be reminded of Henry, the same expression she’d seen so many times on her husband’s face writ large across her son’s. It was too much.
‘With the housekeeper?’ she said, her words as spiky as cactus thorns.
‘With Jess, yes. She’s … I think she’s very special.’
‘Special.’ Dee had to bite back the scorn in her voice. ‘So is the Chippendale sideboard in the drawing room, but it doesn’t mean you need to take it to bed. What are you thinking, Sebastian? With everything else going on, the last thing you need is a complication like this. And with her aunt staying in the village, too? Are you mad?’
‘You think I’m using her?’
‘History does have a way of repeating itself. And your father was very, very good at using people. Specifically, the female employees in this house. So, yes. I think you might be using her.’
Another door opened, and Freya poked her head out. ‘What’s going on out here? Oh, it’s you two – I thought it might be the boys. Is everything OK?’
Sebastian furrowed his brows, his earlier expression of contentment had gone, replaced instead by a weighted, heavy gaze. ‘Yes, Freya. Everything’s fine. Happy Christmas.’
‘And to you.’ Freya joined them in the corridor, her gaze on her brother. ‘You look tired. Did you go out after all?’
‘Not exactly.’ He sighed, heading for his room. ‘Doesn’t matter. I’ll see you for breakfast.’
Dee pressed her lips together. She felt disorientated, shaken up by how the relationship between Sebastian and Jess had accelerated. She’d assumed it to be nothing more than harmless flirting – but now, with confirmation that things between them had become intimate, it was almost impossible for Dee to ignore the way it dug at old wounds. Her wounds. And what about the castle? If Sebastian was sufficiently distracted, how would he be able to fulfil his obligations to the estate?
Freya watched him go, her features blighted by a gentle frown. ‘Acceptance flows both ways, Mummy. As does trust.’
Dee sighed. ‘Does it?’
‘If you let it. I’m going to check on the boys – I expect their room is wall-to-wall wrapping paper by now, but I did want to see them open at least some of their stocking gifts,’ Freya said, squeezing Dee’s shoulder gently as she walked past her.
Downstairs, Dee wrapped her favourite scarf around her neck, then zipped her coat. Peering into the kitchen, she saw her grandsons were already downstairs, zooming around the kitchen, each one holding aloft a toy plane, while Jess was tending to something on the Aga. Dee wanted to go and cuddle the boys, but she didn’t have the first clue what she would say to Jess. So instead she withdrew and left the castle via the garden door. She needed to be alone, to have some time to think.
But by the time Dee reached the gate to Robbie’s cottage, she had changed her mind. Solitude wasn’t going to cut it. Not today. She headed through his garden, the dogs setting up a furious barking at her early-morning intrusion, and lights flicking on inside before she’d had a chance to knock on the door. When Robbie opened it, hastily clad in a jumper and loose-fitting trousers, his first action was to perform a rapid scan of the outdoor area. Dee supposed he must have thought there were intruders. It took him a moment or two to focus on her, for his expression to soften.
The softness didn’t last, though. Its place was taken by confusion, then caution.
‘Is everything all right?’ he said, flicking the cuff of his jumper to check his watch.
‘I’m sorry to come here so early. I was going to take myself off for a walk. I thought I wanted some time alone, but now I’m not so sure.’ She was hoping he might throw his door wide, invite her in. But she supposed there was no reason why he would want to do so, especially after she’d treated him so poorly.
‘Aye, well, I suppose I should wish you a Happy Christmas,’ he said, hand still firm against the edge of the door.
‘Happy Christmas, Robbie.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘I wanted to say, for the record, I don’t think we made a mistake.’
His eyebrows arched. ‘But you’ve been all but ignoring me. I thought …’
‘Yes. I know. It’s been … I’ve been a bit all over the place. And none of it is on you, it’s all my fault.’ She swallowed. ‘I wanted to ask – are you planning to come to the castle to listen to the choir?’
‘I wasn’t sure I should.’
‘Please come. And – if you like – you could stay for lunch, too.’
His frown deepened. ‘I don’t know …’
‘Well, I do. I’d like you there, as my guest. And it will give us time to talk, too. I think we need to talk, Robbie.’
‘Can I think about it? Mam and Dad are expecting me to go there,’ he said. ‘And I don’t want to miss out on my Keel Christmas pudding, do I?’
At last, the glimmer of a smile. Dee reciprocated.
‘Don’t worry about that – your mother made us one the size of a watermelon. You won’t miss out on a thing.’ Dee stuck her hands in her pockets. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to your morning – sorry to have disturbed you so early.’ She turned to leave, then doubled back on herself. ‘Please come.’
She wasn’t sure he would, but at least he was smiling as he closed the door.