Holiday for Two (a duet of Christmas novellas) (5 page)

“You went to good schools, though.”

“Aunt Rosemary paid the fees. I am, you might say, a well-educated poor relation. Archer Hall is falling down around my ears. The National Trust doesn’t want anything to do with it. The house has nothing distinctive left for tourists to see, even if it was safe enough to open up for tours. I live in two rooms when I’m at home. Three, if you count one of the loos.”

Griffin hadn’t planned to confess or complain, but there was something about Carrie’s open face that made him spill his guts, as the Americans would say. He was regretting every word already. Lord, he sounded like a complete whinging wanker.

“Is it entailed?”

Griffin started in surprise.

“I watched Downton Abbey and read historicals. In those, there’s always some impoverished lord who has to marry a rich girl and keep pouring all his resources into a money pit. For family honor and the tenants. Do you have tenants?”

Griffin grinned ruefully. “I notice you don’t ask if the family has any honor left. Yes, I do have tenants, actually. Two farming families who are financially much better off than I am.” Good God, would he never shut up? It was déclassé to talk about money. Tedious too, when one didn’t have any.

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out. Can your aunt help?”

“She’s done enough.” He had not come up to Maine to beg for more money. If his luck held, his firm stood to make a handsome profit on their current projects in the U.S. and he could go back to London a fair-haired boy in a year or so.

His salary and expected bonus if he brought everything in on time would not make a dent in Archer Hall’s difficulties, but they’d be a start.

“How does your fiancée feel about camping out in three rooms?”

Griffin’s heart dropped. “My what?”

“Lady Alice. She must miss you.”

Griffin opened his mouth but nothing would come out. Good. Carrie already knew he was poor and had been neglected. The only thing to make this revolting situation worse would be for him to tell her about Alice.

Chapter 3

H
E SHRUGGED. “THERE
are things called planes.”

For a second, he’d looked kind of hunted. Carrie was overstepping her bounds asking personal questions. Being too American. Jeez, people on grocery lines here told her their deepest, darkest secrets, sometimes worse than the tabloid headlines they were surrounded by. She had that affect with strangers—she was a TMI magnet. But Griffin Archer had unburdened himself only a little, and was now regretting it.

“Sorry to be a snoop. Your aunt has talked about you a lot, so I almost feel I know you. There are pictures of you all over the house, you know. Lady Alice is really beautiful.”

“It must be a chore to look at us every day.” He didn’t sound like he was fishing for compliments, but she couldn’t help but flirt a little.

Just a little, since he was engaged.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You’re very attractive yourself.”

Griffin made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a bark.

Really, he could have said something back. She might not be looking her best at the moment, but she wasn’t a total gargoyle. She’d been in such a rush to make the first boat this morning that she’d skipped the mascara and lipstick, but she’d brushed her hair recently.

“So, is there any chance of getting into that chocolate?” Carrie asked when the conversation lagged.

“Not a one. I’d say we were in enough trouble drinking the wine.”

“We haven’t drunk it
all
. In fact, there’s still some left in the bottle, and a couple of bottles still to go in the bag. I’ll just go get—”

“We are
not
drinking red wine in this car. The interior, in case you haven’t noticed, is white.”

Goodness, he was fierce. And white? Cream was more like it.

“You’ve got a point.” Carrie got out of the car with some reluctance and returned to the blanket. Griffin had packed up the perishables while she was in the bathroom lamenting the state of her hair, but the wine and cups were still on there.

Back to the cement floor. Carrie was glad she was wearing leggings so she could get comfortable. A quick glance at her watch told her it wasn’t even six o’clock. How was she going to get through the next fourteen hours before they boarded the ferry tomorrow? They’d eaten. They’d talked, but had run up against a wall of reticence. She poured the rest of the wine into the Solo cups.

Carrie perked up when Griffin unzipped his bag. Chocolate after all! Her hopes were dashed when he pulled a laptop and a thick manila file out.

“What are you doing?”

He settled himself cross-legged on the blanket. “I have to review some contracts.”

“Now?”

“Why not? It’s not as if there’s anything else to do.”

He might as well have told her she was boring.

Two could play that game. She reached into
her
bag for her Kindle, but remembered it was on the passenger seat of her car. She’d read on the way to the mainland this morning and hadn’t put it back in her purse.

Crap. She wasn’t going to walk across the street to the ferry parking lot and get it without a team of sled dogs.

He was riffling through the folder.

“I thought everything was electronic now.”

“I believe in paper back-up. Good thing, because it’s extremely unlikely there’s working wi-fi.” He turned on the laptop anyway. “For notes,” he said, not looking up. Within a minute he was typing with one hand and turning pages with another.

“C-can I help you?”

“It’s ‘May I help you,’ not ‘can.’ I’m sure your skills are adequate, but I don’t require any assistance.”

He was Darcy at his absolute worst. Why had Carrie ever thought him attractive? He was just a cold, over-bred Englishman who was too proud for his own good. And blond—she’d never liked blond guys, and had only made a gingery exception for Harry because he was, well, Harry.

Carrie took a sip of wine, but it tasted sour now. She could play a game on her phone if she knew how—generally, she didn’t have time for stuff like that, and her fingertips were too fat to hit whatever needed to be hit anyway.

“How long does your laptop battery last before you need to recharge?” He probably had a cable to plug it in in his chocolate-infested bag.

He sighed with obvious annoyance at the interruption. “Six hours.”

“You can work until midnight, then.”

Griffin gave her a nod and continued to type and turn.

It wasn’t as if she wanted to sit around and sing Christmas carols, but it
was
Christmas Eve. She stood up, dusted off her bottom and opened the door a crack. A tiny crack, just to see how fast the snow was falling. A tiny crack big enough to let a gust of wind blow some of Griffin’s papers out from under his fingers and scutter across the floor.

“Oops.” Carrie slammed the door shut and gathered up the flyaway papers.

Griffin threw the file on the blanket. “You don’t want me to work, do you?”

“I don’t care what you do.”

He shoved the file back into his cracked leather duffle. “You, Miss Moore, are a liar. Huffing and puffing and prancing about.”

She sat back down and kept herself still. “I was not prancing.”

“
‘You know Huffer and Puffer and Prancer and Vixen.’
I forget the rest. Rather like naming all the Seven Dwarfs. I’d never make it on your
Jeopardy
.”

He had a lovely singing voice. Carrie had always identified with Rudolph. He looked silly, but was capable just the same.

“Ha. Very funny.”

“I can be amusing if the occasion calls for it. You think I’m being rude.”

What she was thinking is that he’d turned off some internal tap and had used those flimsy papers as a barrier to stop talking and keep her away. Carrie wished Lady Alice luck. The strong silent type was very much over-rated in Carrie’s not-so humble opinion.

“I hope you’re not going to bury yourself in work when you get to the island. Your aunt is really looking forward to your visit.”

“I know my duty.”

Duty sounded like a four-letter word. Joyless. Required. Dull.

“Nobody likes thinking they’re somebody’s
duty
, especially Rosemary Stephens. She’s still fiercely independent.” And possessed of more marbles than most teenagers.

“I know my aunt quite well. She’s always spent any time she could at Archer Hall. You know her too, it appears. What I meant is I shall be the very life and soul of the holiday. I shall cheer Diana in her divorce-induced melancholy and hide the gin bottles from Aunt Rosemary. Carve the turkey. Set the plum pudding on fire without burning down the house. Hang the stockings. Flap the jacks. Ring the bells. Etcetera.” He had that hunted look on his face again.

Some people hated Christmas. He must be one of them.

“You sound tired already.”

Griffin raked his hair back. “I
am
tired. The past few months have been very draining. Things are going well, but only because I’m right on top of them. I haven’t had time for family or friends.”

“Or transatlantic phone calls? You should have invited Lady Alice to come. Mrs. Stephens adores her.”

“Bully for her,” he grumbled.

“Well, it helps if your relatives like the girl you’re going to marry.”

“Do you have a fiancé stashed away somewhere your parents adore?”

Carrie shook her head. “Not anymore. Things didn’t work out.” They’d never gone quite as far as ring shopping. She and Matt had tried a long-distance relationship after college, but they’d both been busy finding and then hanging onto their jobs. Carrie’s constant relocations hadn’t helped, either.

Maybe Griffin was having trouble with Lady Alice. A whole ocean was between them, not just a couple of states.

Carrie wondered if Lady Alice was sporting an Archer family heirloom, some eighteenth century million-carat ring that popped out of the vault for coronations. An emerald. A ruby. She herself had misgivings about diamonds after watching Leonardo DiCaprio in
Blood Diamond
.

No. If the Archer fortunes had declined, then the vault would have been emptied.

“Ah, hell. Things can’t get much worse,” he muttered. He took a deep breath. “Join the club.”

Carrie looked up from twisting the fringe on the blanket. “Excuse me?”

He sighed. “I didn’t tell Aunt Rosemary, but I planned to once I got here. Alice and I have parted ways. As you said, things didn’t work out.”

That explained a lot. Mr. Doom and Gloom had every reason to be grumpy.

“Gosh. Haven’t you known each other since you were children?”

“Familiarity has apparently bred contempt. Alice decided we didn’t suit after all. She wasn’t crazy about my firm sending me to Boston. Turns out there were a few other things she wasn’t crazy about.”

“Like living in three rooms?”

“Certainly that influenced her. Her father is an earl. She decided she could do better.”

“Weren’t you pledged to each other from the cradle?”

Griffin made a face. “Oh, now you
have
been reading too many romance novels. That sort of thing isn’t done anymore, if it ever was. Her parents are our neighbors in the country. Naturally we became close. School holidays and such. When we bumped into each other in London a few years ago, it just seemed . . . comfortable. And then it wasn’t. She found someone else and here I am.”

It looked like it was costing him to say every word. Poor Griffin. But she mustn’t let him think she was feeling sorry for him—men hated that.

“You’ll find someone else too,” she said brightly. “Maybe a rich American girl who wants to be lady of the manor. She’ll buy swans for the moat.”

Griffin shook his head. “Doubtful. The moat’s dry, and swans are mean birds, you know. I wouldn’t allow them anywhere on the grounds, such as they are. Perhaps a peacock or two on the unmanicured lawn.
You
don’t have any money, do you?”

He was just teasing. “Me? Sorry, no. I mean I have a 401K, and my grandmother left me twenty thousand dollars and some bedroom furniture my parents have in storage for me, but I’m still paying off my student loans.” She’d be doing that forever, even if she did attend an in-state school.

“No hidden panels in the dresser drawer holding bags of gold and priceless gems?”

Carrie giggled, thinking about her practical grandmother. The woman had clipped coupons and played poker with matchsticks. “Not to my knowledge.”

“Blast. How convenient it would have been for me if you were a secret heiress. Here we are, trapped all night in a compromising situation. If I could recollect my seduction skills, you wouldn’t stand a chance.” He waggled his eyebrows like a cartoon villain.

“Oh, really? I bet I could. I’m not at all seduce-able. Is that a word?”

“See, already you’re losing your facility with the English language. I could make you witless were I to try.”

Carrie’s heart skipped a beat.
It skipped a beat.
Just like in a book! “Oh, yeah?”

Oh, yeah?
What a comeback. She was witless already.

“Yeah. Definitely.” He folded his arms across his chest. He was built like a rower. A swimmer. She knew he’d played rugby, but he definitely wasn’t very beefy. He had a neck and everything.

Darcy Darcy Darcy
. Carrie would like to take him down a notch or two, but that might not be very good for his morale. Lady Alice had hurt him, the snotty English bitch.

Carrie wouldn’t mind living in three rooms with Lord Griffin Archer. She wouldn’t mind living right here in the carriage house, except they’d have to put in a fridge and a shower.

What would be the harm if they carried out a little flirtation? She’d stop at a kiss. After all, it was Christmas. Everyone kissed at Christmas, with or without mistletoe.

“Why don’t you try then?” she asked. Maybe he wouldn’t notice the squeak in her voice.

He blinked. “Try?”

“You know, dust off your manly powers. You can practice on me.” He would think she was insane.

“Practice? You want me to chat you up?” His lips remained pursed even after he said the “p.”

“For when you meet some rich girl in a bar in Boston. She could be the answer to your prayers.”