Her Christmas Fantasy & The Winter Bride (35 page)

Apparently, Leo had spent the night in the stables, appeared for breakfast at seven and then gone to bed. The foal had been delivered successfully. But Angie was deprived of even a view of Leo before she left the house.

It was the most frantic day. But Angie fell in love with a dress in the second shop they visited. It had a stand-up Elizabethan-style beaded collar, a tightly fitting bodice and a lowish neckline, and it was the most beautiful shade of ivory. Angie looked in the mirror and saw a medieval princess gazing romantically back at her, and that was that.

Buying Christmas presents was the greater challenge. A book on modern manners for her father, another book—but a humorous one—for Wallace. For Drew cigars and for Tally a silk scarf. She bought a blouse for Emily while her stepmother
was in a coffee shop. And then she came to Leo—Leo, a male who already had everything right down to a solid gold pocket knife and Turnbull and Asser shirts inscribed with his initials. She dragged her stepmother from shop to shop, and then daringly settled for another book—love poems. There was always the hope that inspiration might lead to change.

It was dark when they got back to the Court, but the great house sat with blazing, light-filled and welcoming windows of warmth, surrounded by the snow. A rather unusual snowman now adorned the lawn. He wore a black trilby, a false beard and sunglasses.

Angie, having been deprived of Leo for an entire day, was now indecently eager to see him again. She sped into the Great Hall, attention landing on Drew and Tally, who were standing by the log fire, both of them looking so embarrassingly flushed and tousled that she did the decent thing and pretended not to have noticed them.

‘Where's Leo?' she asked her father, who was coming down the stairs.

Samuel Brown frowned in surprise. ‘Do you know, I haven't a clue.'

‘He said he had some last-minute shopping to do,' Drew delivered surreptitiously, straightening his rumpled sweater.

‘Took the hump at you disappearing all day, I shouldn't wonder,' Wallace volunteered when Angie went into the drawing room. ‘He got up at lunchtime, built a snowman for Jake and then spent the rest of the afternoon pacing by the window like a great prat! I couldn't get a sensible word out of him.'

‘Oh…' Angie had extreme difficulty picturing Leo behaving like a ‘great prat', and could only assume that his grandfather was exaggerating. Wallace then went on to complain about Drew and Tally canoodling in every corner like demented turtle doves and, shaking his head, returned to his book. ‘Better company to be had between these pages.'

Her father was waiting for her when she emerged. ‘Emily and I would like you to spend this last night with us in the flat,' he told her hopefully. ‘It'll not be a chance we ever have again. Of course, if you have other plans…'

‘No, I haven't.' But Angie turned a deep, guilty pink because she had been ready to lurk in the neighbourhood of the front door to wait for Leo. She bit her lip. ‘That's a lovely idea…I'll come down as soon as Jake's settled for the night.'

Yes, you were going to play it cool with Leo, not behave like an adoring, desperate doormat, she scolded herself.

 

Eleven o'clock found her ensconced in the narrow bed in her father and stepmother's spare room. Even though it was unrecognisable as the room she had once slept in, it was rather touchingly adorned with the childhood mementos and books she had brought to the Court with her at thirteen. They had kept a place for her and that warmed her heart, but it didn't stop her tossing and turning and wishing she were with Leo. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve and her wedding day, and she really couldn't yet believe that. It was also her twenty-second birthday…but, it being so close to Christmas, nobody had ever paid much heed to it, so Angie never had either.

A soft knock sounded on the window-pane. As the bed was right up against the window, Angie almost jumped out of her skin. She rolled over onto her stomach and sat up, and saw Leo in the moonlight. She opened the window without hesitation.

‘Are you coming out…or am I coming in?'

Angie scrambled barefoot over the window-sill, only to give a stifled squeal when the soles of her feet hit snow. Leo whipped off his coat, wrapped her in it and lifted her into his arms. She didn't get the chance to ask where they were going because he was so busy kissing her. She clutched at him as if
they had been apart a month, head swirling and heat infiltrating every chilled inch of her responsive body.

Leo lowered her carefully down onto the window-ledge and lifted his head, breathing in deep and audibly.

It took Angie longer to recover. ‘Why were you pacing the floor when I was out today?' she gasped.

‘Because you were in a car…and it was in weather like this that Petrina and Jenny went off the road,' he divulged tautly.

‘Oh, hell, Leo…I never even
thought
,' Angie sighed, arms fastening even tighter round him as she hugged him close in consolation.

Broad shoulders shrugged beneath her arms. ‘It was stupid of me…but lightning can strike twice in the same place,
pethi mou
. That's why I went out. Waiting for you was driving me crazy.'

Angie rested her head on his shoulder, blissfully drawing in the reassuring scent of him. He had been worried sick about her. A wave of overpowering love engulfed her, and she recalled his miserable marriage and his disillusionment and she decided to be generous. ‘I'll sign that pre-nuptial whatsit if you like,' she offered.

Leo groaned in the circle of her arms. ‘That was a joke that rebounded on me…I had no intention of demanding that you sign any such agreement. I was simply paying you back for pretending that you were a gold-digger on the make two years ago.'

Angie jerked and lifted her head, eyes wide. ‘Paying me back?'

Leo studied her with rueful amusement. ‘That very first night I saw you again, you told me that you had been very much in love with your son's father…'

Angie's soft mouth dropped open.

‘And you said it with such fire…you threw it in my face
with relish. When I realised Jake was mine, I recalled that conversation and I finally got the answer to a question that had plagued me for a very long time.'

‘The problem plagued me even longer,' Angie confided. ‘I've had my eye on you since I was thirteen.'

‘Angie…Angie,' Leo framed with helpless amusement.

‘I set out to get you any way I could…I wanted to make up for Jenny,' she said chokily. ‘It was so stupid.'

‘No, it wasn't…and you've blessed me with a beautiful child who was conceived in love.' With a ragged sigh, Leo scooped her back off the ledge and planted her firmly back on the bed beyond. ‘And since I don't want our next child to be conceived outdoors I think I'll say goodnight,
pethi mou
.'

Dizzily, Angie watched the moonlight twirling little circles on the ceiling. She remembered him saying how tremendous he felt the day he'd asked her to marry him. Now she wondered if that had related to her as well as Jake. She went to sleep with a blitzed smile on her face. He might not be romantic but he was very sexy…

 

In the little country church in the village, Leo waited at the altar. Drew looked unusually serious in his role of best man, and Angie smiled because she hadn't expected to see Drew in that role. She drifted down the aisle on her father's arm, conscious with every step that Leo's dark golden eyes were welded to her with the most flattering degree of intensity.

Every word of the marriage service which followed seemed to have special meaning for her. When they exchanged rings, Leo retained a grip on her hand. Jake plonked himself between them as they drove back to the Court. Then the lure of the flowers in his mother's hair proved to be too much of a temptation and Leo had to distract him. Angie was incapable of anything other than studying her ring and her new husband.

A smart photographer and his assistant awaited them back
at the Court. After being made to pose just about everywhere but at the top of the Christmas tree alongside the angel, Angie gave Leo a pleading look of frustration.

‘I've never had a photograph of you…don't you realise that?' he countered.

‘He's going to sit in his big fancy office with lots of photos of you so that he can get through the day without you,' Drew mocked.

Angie's heart blossomed with hope.

‘I hope you won't mind that we're leaving you now,' Leo announced at the end of the indoor photographic session, entwining Angie's fingers with his and leading her to the door.

‘Where are we going?' Angie demanded.

A gleaming open-topped carriage complete with a coachman and two horses sat outside waiting. Poleaxed by the sight, Angie allowed herself to be hustled out and handed up. Leo curved her up against him. ‘Don't ask any more questions. Just wait and see.'

The horses trotted not down the drive but round to the back of the house, and stopped at the stable block. Leo helped her down from the carriage and swept her over to one of the stalls. ‘Happy birthday,' he said with quiet pride. ‘The mare's called Reba and the filly hasn't got a name yet. They're yours.'

Angie gazed, dumbstruck, at the silver-grey Arab mare and her long-legged, gawky but beautiful baby. ‘Nobody bothers about my birthday.'

‘I do,' Leo asserted. ‘What will you call the filly?'

‘Joy,' Angie told him dizzily.

From the stables, the carriage turned down one of the lanes which criss-crossed the estate, passing through the woods and then climbing. Angie was in a daze.

‘Close your eyes,' Leo told her.

The horses came to a halt a few minutes later, and this
time Leo simply lifted her up into his arms. Angie tried to peek. He kissed her, and she always closed her eyes when Leo kissed her. When he set her down, she wasn't quite sure she was still earthbound and, when her lashes lifted, she was even less sure because she appeared to be standing inside the Folly, and it had been transformed again.

Only this time the Folly had been transformed with striking warmth, colour and taste. Angie's stunned gaze slowly drifted over the crackling fire in the polished grate, the soft, deep carpet, sofas, rugs and throws, the wonderful little Christmas tree, and a giant lump formed in her throat.

‘This is what I didn't want you to suspect I was up to.'

‘Oh, Leo,' she gulped.

‘Marisa pulled off a miracle for me. This is why I insisted on taking you up to London. I wanted this to be a surprise.'

Marisa and her interior design consultancy. Setting up the Folly for their wedding night had been the subject of that conversation.

‘It is…' Angie said hoarsely. ‘It's the most wonderful surprise anybody has ever given me.'

Leo turned her slowly round. ‘It was the happiest weekend I ever had in my adult life,' he breathed tautly. ‘And yet I walked away from what we had shared because I was so damned scared of making another mistake!'

Angie was seeing him through a fog of tears. ‘I was only nineteen…I can't blame you for doubting that we could have a future.'

Leo drew her down onto the sofa by the fire. ‘I started looking for you three months after you left the Court.'

‘But why? At the time you thought I was expecting Drew's baby.'

‘And he hadn't looked after you. I wanted to be sure you were all right because I blamed myself for what had happened with him. I had rejected you after giving you every reason
to expect more of me,' Leo breathed with stark regret in his deep, dark voice. ‘But I couldn't find you. If there was a trail to follow, it had gone cold by then.'

More tears clouded her vision at the thought of Leo looking for her without success when she would have so rejoiced in being found. For a moment, he held her so close she could hardly breathe.

‘I kept the investigators at work, but more or less gave up hope,' Leo confessed grimly. ‘And then you registered to vote a couple of months ago and bingo—you were no longer lost.'

‘A couple of months ago?'

‘I asked for a full report on you before I informed Wallace. I knew everything down to your shoe size before I came knocking on that door. I even made sure that the Dicksons would be out,' Leo volunteered with raw discomfiture. ‘I worked very hard at telling myself that finding you didn't mean anything personal to me after so long, but…'

‘But?' Angie prodded anxiously.

‘
Theos
…I was kidding myself. One look and all I wanted to do was gather you up in my arms and take you home with me.'

‘But Jake stuck in your throat…'

‘At first—not by the time we arrived at the Court. And then Drew arrived and things went haywire…or possibly I was the one who went haywire. All of a sudden, I didn't know which of us you might want, and I was terrified of losing you.'

‘Leo…you could never lose me…you idiot,' she said shakily, rubbing one blunt cheekbone with caressing fingers. ‘I love you like mad; don't you know that?'

‘And did I wreck your self-esteem so much that you still can't tell when a man is wildly in love with you?' Leo enquired as he raised her upright, passed a long arm below her legs and carried her up the stone staircase.

‘You played games, Leo.'

‘You wouldn't admit that you loved me.'

‘Why wouldn't
you
?'

‘I tried to
show
you in every way I know,' he protested defensively. ‘Couldn't you see how happy I was the day I asked you to marry me?'

‘You told me, you didn't ask.'

‘We'd already wasted so much time apart, and I just couldn't wait to make you mine.'

Angie focused on the candlelit upper room, and, primarily, the most gorgeous bed festooned in lace. ‘Definitely big enough for two.'