A Countess for Christmas Read online

  ‘Emma, are you okay?’ he asked, turning to check her face for bruises. But it seemed all that was bruised was her pride. At least that was what the flash of discomfiture in her eyes led him to believe.

  ‘I’m fine, thank you, Jack. I can handle this,’ she said, laying a gentle hand on his arm and giving him a supplicatory smile.

  Unnerved by the prickle of sensation that rushed across his skin where she touched him, he shook the feeling off, putting it down to his shock at seeing her again mixed in with the tension of the situation. Nodding, he took a couple of steps backwards, allowing Jolyon to push himself upright, and watched with bitter distaste as the man brushed himself down with shaking hands and rolled back his portly shoulders.

  ‘I’d like you both to leave,’ Fitzherbert said, his voice firm, even if it did resonate with a top note of panic.

  Jack turned to see Emma looking at Fitzherbert with a pleading expression, making him think that leaving was the last thing she wanted to do. Why on earth would she want to stay? Unless they were together as a couple?

  The thought of that made him shudder. Surely she couldn’t have stooped so low as to have attached herself to a playboy like Fitzherbert. He knew she’d been brought up living the high life, was used to being taken care of by other people, but this was beyond the pale.

  ‘Jolyon, please, this is just a misunderstanding. Can we talk about it—?’

  Fitzherbert held up a hand to halt her speech and shook his head slowly, his piggy eyes squinty and mean.

  ‘I don’t want to hear it, Emma. I want you to leave. Right now. The other girls can cover for you. From what I’ve seen tonight that’s already been happening anyway. Whenever I’ve looked for you, you’ve been skulking in the kitchen.’

  ‘I’ve been orchestrating the party from there, Jolyon—’

  He held up his hand higher, his palm only inches away from her face.

  Jack experienced a low throb of anger at the condescension of the act, but he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t think Emma would appreciate him butting in right now. He’d let her handle this.

  For now.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me, Emma? You’re fired!’ There was no mistaking Fitzherbert’s tone now. Even though he was drunk, his conviction was clear.

  Fired? So she was working for him? Jack found this revelation even more shocking than the idea that they’d been a couple.

  She went to argue, but Fitzherbert shouted over her.

  ‘I specifically requested the agency find me a housekeeper that wasn’t married so there wouldn’t be any difficulties with priorities. I need someone who can work late into the evening or on short notice without having to check with a partner first. I’ve been burned by problems like that before.’

  He glanced at Jack now, his expression full of reproach. ‘A decent chap doesn’t want his wife working for a bachelor such as myself.’

  By that, Jack assumed what Fitzherbert actually meant was that he’d wanted the option to pursue more than just housekeeping duties with his employees without the fear of a husband turning up to spoil his fun, or, worse, send him to the hospital.

  A prickle of pure disgust shot up his spine at the thought.

  ‘You said in your application that you were unmarried,’ Fitzherbert went on, apparently choosing to ignore Jack’s balled fists and tense stance now.

  ‘You lied. So I’m terminating our contract forthwith. I don’t want a liar as well as the daughter of a wastrel working in my house.’

  Shock clouded Emma’s face at this low jibe and Fitzherbert smiled and leaned closer to her, clearly relishing the fact that he’d hit a nerve. ‘Yes, that’s right, I know all about your father’s reputation for spending other people’s money. I make sure to look up everyone I employ in order to protect myself.’

  He jabbed a finger at her. ‘I gave you the benefit of the doubt because you’re a hard worker and easy on the eye...’ his snarl increased ‘...but who knows what could have gone missing in the time you’ve been here?’

  That did it.

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to her like that!’ Jack ground out.

  Emma turned to him with frustration in her eyes and held up a hand. ‘Jack, I said I can handle this. Please keep out of it!’

  ‘No wonder you’ve kept your marriage to her a secret if that’s the way she speaks to you,’ Fitzherbert muttered, slanting Jack a sly glance.

  ‘Oh, go to hell, Jolyon,’ Emma shot back, with a vehemence that both surprised and impressed Jack. ‘You know what, you can keep your measly job. I was going to leave at the end of the month anyway. Your wandering hands had got a bit too adventurous for my liking.’

  And with that, she pulled an apron that Jack had not noticed she was wearing before from around her middle and dropped it on the floor at Fitzherbert’s feet, then spun on her heel and strode towards the front door.

  Glancing back into the room, Jack saw that a large crowd of partygoers had gathered to watch their tawdry little show and every one of them was now staring at him in curious anticipation.

  It suddenly occurred to him that they were waiting for him to chase after his wife.

  Damn it.

  Now the secret was out, he was going to have to find a way to handle this situation without causing more problems for himself. The last thing he needed was to catch the attention of the gutter press when he was just finding his feet again here in England. Knowing Emma as he did, he was aware that it would be down to him to handle the fallout from this, which was fine, he was used to dealing with complex situations in his role as CEO so this shouldn’t be much of a stretch, but he could really do without an added complication like this right now.

  Throwing Fitzherbert one last disgusted glance, Jack turned his back on the man then went to grab his overcoat from the peg by the door. Following Emma out, he caught her up as she exited into the cold mid-November night air.

  She didn’t turn round as she hopped down the marble steps of the town house and out into the square.

  ‘Emma, wait!’ Jack shouted, worried she might jump into a cab and he’d lose her before he had a chance to figure out what he was going to do about all this.

  ‘Why did you have to get involved, Jack?’ she asked, swinging round to face him, her cheeks pink and her eyes wild with a mixture of embarrassment and anxiety.

  The sight of it stopped him in his tracks. Even in his state of agitation he was acutely aware that she was still a heart-stoppingly beautiful woman. If anything she was even more beautiful now than when he’d last seen her six years ago, with those full wide lips that used to haunt his dreams and those bright, intelligent green eyes that had always glowed with spirit and an innate joy of life.

  Not that she looked particularly joyful right now.

  Shaking off the unwelcome rush of feelings this brought, he folded his arms and raised an eyebrow at her.

  ‘I wasn’t going to just stand by and watch Fitzherbert manhandle you like that,’ he said, aiming for a cool, reasonable tone. There was no way he was going to have a public row in the middle of Sloane Square with her. What if there were paparazzi lurking behind one of the trees nearby?

  He shifted on the spot. ‘I would have done the same for any woman in that position.’

  There was a flash of hurt in her eyes. ‘Well, for future reference, I can take care of myself, thanks. It wasn’t your place to get involved, Jack.’

  The muscles in his shoulders tensed instinctively. ‘I’m your husband. Of course it was my place.’

  She sighed, kicking awkwardly at the ground. ‘Technically, maybe, but nobody knew that. I certainly haven’t told anyone.’

  He was annoyed by how riled he felt by her saying that, as if he was a dirty secret she’d been keeping.

  It was on the tip of his tongue to start demanding answers of her—
about what had happened in the intervening years to make it necessary for her to work for a man like Fitzherbert and why she hadn’t contacted him once in the six years they’d been estranged, even just to let him know that she was okay.

  But he didn’t, because this wasn’t the time or place to discuss things like that.

  ‘Why did you shout about us being married in front of all those people?’ she asked, her voice wobbling a little now.

  He took a deep breath, rubbing a hand over his forehead in agitation. ‘I reacted without thinking in the heat of the moment.’

  That had always been his problem when she was around. For some reason she shook him up, made him lose control, like no one else in the world could.

  To his surprise the corner of her mouth quirked into a reluctant smile. ‘Well, it’s going to be round Chelsea society like wildfire now. That crowd loves a bit of salacious gossip.’

  Sighing, he batted a hand at her. ‘Don’t worry, people will talk for a while, then it’ll become old news. I’ll handle it.’

  She looked at him for a moment, her eyes searching his face as if checking for reassurance.

  Jack stared back at her, trying not to let a sudden feeling of edginess get to him. As much as he’d love to be able to brush the problem of them still being married under the carpet he knew it would be a foolish thing to do. There was no point in letting it drag on any more now he was back. It needed to be faced head-on so they could resolve it quickly and with as little pain as possible.

  Because, inevitably, it would still be painful for them, even after all this time.

  Emma tore her gaze away from him, frowning down at the pavement now and letting out a growl of frustration. ‘I could have done with keeping that job. It paid really well,’ she muttered. ‘And who knows what the knock-on effect of embarrassing Jolyon like that is going to be?’

  He balled his fists, trying to keep a resurgence of temper under control at the memory of Fitzherbert’s treatment of her. ‘He won’t do anything—the man’s a coward.’

  ‘Jolyon’s an influential man around here,’ she pointed out, biting her lip. ‘He has the ear of a lot of 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 expr
ession 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.

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT WAS A blessing that Jack’s house was only two streets away because Emma didn’t think she’d be able to cope with wearing his heavy wool coat so close to her skin for much longer, having to breathe in the poignantly familiar scent of him and feel the residual warmth of his body against her own.

  It had been a huge struggle to maintain her act of upbeat nonchalance in front of him outside Jolyon’s house and she knew she’d lost her fight the moment she’d seen the look in his eyes when he’d realised how cold she was. It was the same look he used to give her when they were younger—a kind of intense concern for her well-being, which reached right into the heart of her and twisted her insides into knots.

  Gesturing for her to follow him, Jack led her up the stone steps of the elegant town house and in through a tall black front door that was so shiny she could see her reflection in it.

  The house was incredible, of course, but with a dated, rather rundown interior, overfilled with old-fashioned antique furniture in looming, dark mahogany and with a dull, oppressively dark colour scheme covering the walls and floors.

  Jack’s family had a huge amount of wealth behind them and owned a number of houses around the country, including the Cambridge town house overlooking Jesus Green and the River Cam that Jack and his sister, Clare, had grown up in. She’d never been to this property before though. They’d not been together long enough for her to see inside the entire portfolio of his life.