Christmas At Pemberley

After all ‒ why would a man like Colm have anything as modern as a telephone?

‘It’s late.’ He found another blanket and a pillow and tossed them on the sofa, then turned away. ‘Take that aspirin now, the tea should be cooled enough, and try and get some sleep. If there’s naught else, I’ll say goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, and thank you for this—’

But he’d already turned and trudged upstairs, where he went into his room, and shut the door.

And as he did, it occurred to Helen that he never had told her who lived in that castle up on the hill.

Chapter 5

‘Oh, look, down there!’ Natalie exclaimed, and pressed her face to the car window. ‘Someone’s wrecked their car.’

Rhys followed her pointing finger. A car had indeed slid down an embankment and lay half buried in a snowdrift.

‘I do hope whoever was inside is all right,’ she said, her eyes anxious. ‘Should we check and see, do you think?’

Rhys shook his head. ‘It’s too far down the embankment, and it’s much too dark to investigate now. I’ll tell them up at the house. We’re nearly there.’

Sure enough, the lights of the castle’s turrets shone through the snowy darkness, beckoning them onward. Trees marched thickly along the edges of the road; the blackness beyond was impenetrable.

‘About bloody time,’ Dominic muttered.

He and Gemma had been unable to get a room in the tiny village of Loch Draemar, as no one had booked them in at the hotel. There was only a bed and breakfast down the road, and, the proprietor informed them in a thick Scottish accent, it was fully booked.

‘Thanks for letting us come along with you to Tarquin’s, Nat,’ Gemma offered, and cast Dominic a dark look. ‘It’s a good thing you waited.’

Rhys negotiated a curve in the drive and kept his attention on the road. ‘I didn’t expect there’d be anything available at such short notice. It is nearly Christmas, after all.’ He glanced in the rear-view mirror at Dominic. ‘Didn’t you arrange for a room beforehand?’ You wally, he almost added, but didn’t.

‘Of course I did!’ Dominic snapped. ‘Well, my agent did, anyway. Max said he took care of all of that. Bastard.’

Ten minutes later, Rhys stopped the Mondeo in front of quite the most impressive castle Natalie had ever seen outside of a fairy tale.

It had all the requisite things a proper castle should have – battlements, turrets, multi-paned windows, and a wooden door with metal hinges...even, it appeared, a moat – frozen now – and a drawbridge.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ Nat breathed as she leant forward in her seat, entranced. ‘Like a princess’s castle.’

They’d scarcely flung open the car doors and stepped out cautiously onto the snow-covered drive when the front door swung open. Light spilled out in a warm, welcoming path across the snow.

‘Fàilte! Welcome to Draemar,’ Tarquin called out, standing in the doorway with his arm around his petite wife, the aptly named Wren. ‘We were worried you wouldn’t make it through this blizzard.’

‘Tark!’ Natalie exclaimed, and catapulted herself into his and Wren’s arms. ‘It’s so good to see you both again, you have no idea!’

‘Aye, you too. It’s a nasty night for traveling.’

‘It was a dicey trip,’ Rhys admitted as he shook hands with Tarquin and Wren, ‘but somehow, we made it.’

Wren smiled warmly as she leant forward to kiss his cheek. ‘And we’re very glad you did.’ She turned with a quizzical but welcoming smile to Dominic and Gemma, hovering uncertainly in the darkness behind Nat and Rhys. ‘And who is this? Oh, my goodness ‒ isn’t that Dominic Heath? The rock star?’

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Natalie apologised, ‘where are my manners?! Yes, it’s Dominic, and Gemma, his fiancée. They ran into a bit of trouble at Heathrow. It seems Dom’s agent forgot to book them a hire car, or rooms in the village hotel, and so they’ve no place to stay tonight.’

‘Oh! How awful.’ Wren eyed them in sympathy. ‘Then you must stay here, of course.’ She glanced over her shoulder at the enormous face of the castle. ‘It’s not as if we haven’t plenty of room to spare,’ she added wryly.

‘Thank you,’ Gemma said. ‘That’s very kind.’ Dominic mumbled his thanks and thrust out a hand to Tarquin and Wren.

‘Please, all of you, come inside,’ Tark urged. ‘You must be tired, and cold, and famished.’

‘I wouldn’t say no to a sausage roll and a cup of Builders,’ Dom muttered.

The main hall was enormous, with a sweeping staircase and a minstrel’s gallery overlooking the entranceway. An ancient carpet in faded shades of green and blue and red silenced their footsteps as they came inside. Overhead, a chandelier glimmered like a magnificent, jewelled bauble.

‘Ooh, what a gorgeous chandelier,’ Gemma breathed, awed.

Rhys glanced up, then back at Natalie. His eyes narrowed. ‘It ought to be. It cost £11,000. Plus shipping.’

Natalie blushed. ‘I’ll never hear the end of that, will I?’ She cast Rhys a reproving look and went to link her arm through Wren’s and glanced round in awe. ‘How on earth do you manage a place this size?’ Nat asked, curious. ‘It’s simply...enormous!’

‘Oh, we’ve a full staff,’ Wren explained as she and Tarquin led them into an elegantly appointed drawing room. ‘Draemar employs thirty-nine people.’

‘Thirty-eight,’ Tarquin corrected her. ‘One of the kitchen maids was sacked this morning.’

‘Not Lucy, I hope?’

‘No. It was the new girl. Betty, I think.’

‘Shit, this place is a regular Downtown Abbey,’ Dom observed, impressed despite himself. Draemar Castle made his own estate in Inverness look like a bloody Wendy house.

A fire blazed in the great black throat of the massive fireplace as they entered the drawing room, and sofas and chairs were arranged in small groups throughout the room. A serving cart set out with an assortment of Scotch whisky stood under one of the tall, multi-paned windows.

After inviting them to sit down and pouring them each a generous measure of the amber liquid, Tarquin rang for refreshments and settled himself on a sofa next to his wife. ‘I’ve arranged for smoked salmon and sandwiches. Will that suffice, do you think?’ he asked anxiously. ‘Or would you all prefer something a bit more substantial?’

‘That sounds perfect,’ Natalie assured him from the depths of a massive wing chair. ‘With cheddar, and that lovely brown granary bread...?’

Wren smiled. ‘Of course! You can’t have a decent Scottish meal without it.’

‘Where are your father and mother, Tark?’ Natalie asked. ‘Will they be joining us?’

‘Alas, no. They’ve gone to the Greek islands for the holidays. Said they’d had enough of cold, snowy weather and wanted to spend Christmas slathered in sun cream, drinking ouzo.’

‘I can’t say I blame them.’

‘That’s why we invited you and Rhys to spend Christmas here with us. And Dominic and Gemma, now, of course.’ He slid his arm around Wren’s shoulders. ‘It gets a bit lonely rattling around this old place when it’s just the two of us.’

‘I can imagine,’ Nat agreed. ‘I could get lost for days just trying to find the loo.’

Tarquin laughed. ‘You only need to tug on the nearest bell-pull,’ he advised, ‘and someone will come along to fetch you back to civilization.’

‘How many rooms in this place?’ Dominic asked, glancing around in curiosity.

‘About 150, at last count, and twenty or so bedrooms.’

‘And have they all been christened?’

Tarquin looked at him blankly. ‘Christened?’

‘Yeah, you know,’ Dominic said, and raised his brow suggestively. ‘Christened.’

He reddened. ‘Oh. Erm...I’m sure I don’t know.’

Gemma rolled her eyes. ‘Really, Dom! What a stupid question. Is sex all you ever think about?’

‘Are weddings all you ever think about?’ he shot back.

‘Wren,’ Natalie said quickly, ‘have you and Tark any plans to start a family? You always said you wanted lots of children.’

She shrugged, and a flash of sadness crossed her face. ‘We’ve been trying for two years, Nat, but so far, no luck.’

‘Oh, it’ll happen,’ Natalie assured her. ‘All in good time, that’s what they say.’

‘That’s what Dominic says,’ Gemma said, and cast the rock star a dark look. ‘Isn’t it, Dom?’

‘I told you, babes, we’ll have whatever kind of wedding you want. Just don’t drag me into it until it’s time to say ‘I do.’’

‘Oh, are you getting married?’ Wren said, and leant forward. ‘How exciting!’

‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ Rhys muttered.

‘Yes, in Northton Grange,’ Gemma replied. ‘Dom has a place there. We want to have a nice, quiet wedding in secret.’

‘Yeah,’ Dominic said, and snorted. ‘A ‘nice, quiet wedding’ with twelve bridesmaids, six groomsmen in kilts, a horse-drawn sleigh, and 500 of our closest friends.’

“And a Prada wedding gown,” Gemma added, her expression smug. “I found the perfect dress online.”

“Prada?” Natalie breathed. “Ooh, you have to let me see it, please!”

“I want to see it, too,” Wren said. “May I?”

As the three women clustered around Gemma’s mobile phone and bowed their heads to worship at the altar of Prada, Rhys turned to Tarquin. ‘So tell me, Laird Campbell,’ he ventured, ‘how does one celebrate Christmas in a Scottish castle? Do you roast an entire pig in that enormous fireplace? Fell a sixty-foot tree and drape it in swathes of tartan?’

Tarquin laughed. ‘Nothing so grandiose as that. We eat a lot and drink too much whisky and take long walks on the heath with the dogs afterwards to burn it all off.’

‘Just like we do at home,’ Natalie said.

‘Exactly.’ He glanced over at Rhys curiously. ‘I thought you were born here. Have you never spent a Christmas in Scotland?’

‘A few, when I was a kid.’ He cast a glance around the vast drawing room. ‘But I didn’t exactly grow up in a castle.’

‘Where did you grow up?’ Wren asked as she resumed her seat. ‘If you don’t mind my asking,’ she hastened to add.

‘Edinburgh, in a tower block in Wester Hailes.’ He drained his glass. ‘It was difficult, but Mum did her best. I made up my mind to get out of there just as soon as I could.’

‘Well, I must say ‒ you’ve done very well for yourself in the interim,’ Tark observed. ‘Well done, you. More whisky, gentlemen?’ he offered, and at their nods, leant forward to pour Rhys and Dominic each another generous measure.

Later, after they’d gone upstairs to their gorgeous – but cold – room in the west wing, Natalie twined her arms around Rhys and snuggled next to him in the enormous canopied bed.

‘Isn’t this lovely?’ she murmured against his chest as she gazed into the flames leaping in the fireplace.

‘Ummm.’

‘And aren’t Tark and Wren the sweetest couple? I just adore them both.’

‘Ummm hmmm...’

Natalie took her fingertip and drew it tentatively across Rhys’s chest. ‘Rhys, darling—?’

‘Hmmm?’

‘I’m feeling a bit...amorous. Are you?’

There was no answer.

‘Are you?’

Silence.

‘Rhys,’ she exclaimed, indignant, ‘are you even listening to me?’

She lifted her head and looked over at him enquiringly in the flickering firelight. He was sound asleep.

‘Poor man.’ She leant down and tenderly kissed his forehead. ‘All that driving in the blizzard did you in, didn’t it?’ she whispered. She snuggled up behind him, breathing in his reassuring male scent, and fell at once into a dreamless, untroubled sleep.

Chapter 6

Helen woke to sunlight streaming into her eyes. She stretched and sat up, blinking. She was on a sofa, in a tiny living room. For a moment she was disoriented and couldn’t work out where she was; but the banging of pots and pans in the kitchen and a man’s muttered cursing brought everything back – the snow, the embankment, getting locked out of her car, her aching ankle – and she realized that her reluctant host must be fixing breakfast.

He returned a moment later with a tray and thumped it down on the coffee table before her.

‘Good morning,’ she ventured.

‘There’s toast, a boiled egg, and tea, if you’ve a mind to eat.’

‘Thank you, that’s very kind—’

‘I’ve work to be doing, paths to shovel and fallen branches to clear off the drive. After you eat, you’ll have to go.’ His eyes – hazel, she noted irrelevantly – met hers without apology.

‘Go?’ she echoed, disconcerted. ‘But my car—’

‘It’s still in the ravine, where it’ll stay until it’s towed out. In the meantime,’ he reached for his parka, hanging on a peg by the door ‘I’ll start the truck. I’ll take you up when you’ve finished.’

His peremptory manner irritated her. ‘Take me up where, exactly? Can you tell me that much?’

‘To the castle. You can call for a towing truck from there. Not that anyone’ll be out to get your car anytime soon,’ he added.

‘Right,’ Helen said tightly, and swung her legs – still clad in yesterday’s trousers – over the side of the sofa. ‘Would it be possible to have a shower before I go? Or is that asking too much?’

He jerked his head towards the narrow staircase. ‘There’s a bathroom at the top of the stairs. Mind you don’t use all the hot water.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ she snapped.

Colm cast her an unreadable look and slammed out of the back door without reply.

Natalie dreamt she was Snow White, walking through a thickly treed Scottish wood as birds twittered and swooped around her. She was hopelessly lost.

Suddenly a bluebird flew down from a branch and landed on her shoulder.

‘Have you seen the castle?’ she asked the bluebird. ‘I can’t seem to find it, and I really need the loo.’

In answer the bird twittered into her ear, and the soft tickle of its tiny beak and feathers made her giggle.

‘Such a funny little creature,’ she murmured, and rolled over in bed.

‘Little? I’ve been called a lot of things, darling,’ Rhys said against her skin as his lips moved along her neck to the slope of her shoulder, ‘but little’s not one of them.’

‘Rhys!’

She sat up on her elbow, clutching the blankets to her chest.

He raised his brow. ‘Who else would it be?’

‘I was just dreaming about the sweetest little bluebird,’ she began as he pulled her back down next to him and nuzzled the skin behind her ear. ‘I was lost, and it was dark, and I really needed to find a loo...ooh,’ she sighed, ‘that’s nice...’

‘I thought,’ Rhys said as he began to unbutton Natalie’s nightgown with leisurely motions, ‘that we might christen this room, you and I.’

‘Christen it?’ she echoed, and giggled. ‘Rhys! You mean…?’

He gave her a lazy smile and lowered his mouth to kiss her. ‘Yes. That’s exactly what I mean.’

‘Good thing there’s lots of blankets on this bed,’ Dominic grumbled as he burrowed under the duvets and pulled Gemma closer, ‘otherwise we’d be a pair of effin’ icicles by now.’

Gemma, still half asleep, mumbled something incoherent. She’d been dreaming that she’d just topped 300,000 followers on Tweeper...

‘Babes.’

‘Hmmm.’

‘Babes...’

‘Ahrm.’ She snuggled deeper into her pillow. She desperately wanted that blue celebrity checkmark on her Tweeper page, and she was close, so very close to getting it...

‘Babes!’ Dominic hissed.

Gemma’s eyes flew open. ‘What?’ she snapped. ‘I’m trying to sleep, Dom!’

He slung an arm around her and kissed her bare shoulder. ‘Don’t you want to start trying for that baby, then?’ he asked.

She levered herself up on one elbow and stared at him. ‘You mean…you mean you’re ready for us to have a baby?’

Dominic slid his hand along the warm curve of her hip and nodded. ‘Yeah. Yeah, Gems, that’s exactly what I mean.’

Fifteen minutes later, Helen emerged from the cottage and made her way cautiously – her ankle still twinged a bit, despite the aspirin she’d gulped with her morning tea ‒ to the waiting truck, an ancient Range Rover.

Although Colm had started the engine earlier, the interior was still frigid, and Helen could see her breath as she climbed inside.

Bloody cold. Bloody man. Bloody Scotland.

Colm, who was looking at something under the bonnet, slammed it shut and opened the driver’s-side door. As he slid behind the wheel, his shoulders filled the cab’s interior.

Without a word – not that Helen had expected him to make anything like conversation, God forbid ‒ he shifted into gear, and the Range Rover lurched forward as he drove them up the snow-covered road to the castle perched at the top of the hill.

Chapter 7

‘Crikey!’ Natalie exclaimed the next morning as she and Rhys stood in the dining room doorway. ‘You could land a plane on that table.’

As he followed her gaze, Rhys realized that for once, his wife wasn’t exaggerating. The dining table, its polished mahogany expanse stretching half the length of a football pitch, could easily accommodate fifty.

The sideboard was laid out with a generous assortment of eggs, kippers, stacks of toasted brown bread, baskets of scones, a fruit platter, and silver urns of coffee and juice and pots of jam and marmalade.

‘Looks like quite a spread,’ Dominic announced as he scanned the plates and platters of food with satisfaction. ‘Time to tie on the old feed bag, eh?’

Natalie eyed him quizzically as she slid into the seat Rhys held out for her. ‘I thought you stayed away from carbs and calories, Dom. You’re always watching your weight.’

He took a seat across from her, next to Gemma. ‘I’m on holiday, Nat. Besides,’ he glanced over at Gemma and leant over to kiss her ‘I’ve worked up a right appetite since we got here.’

Gemma blushed. ‘Shut up, Dominic.’

‘Yes,’ Rhys said as he cast a dark glance at the rock star, ‘please do.’

‘Good morning, everyone,’ Tarquin said as he entered the dining room with Wren. ‘I trust you all slept well?’

‘Fabulously,’ Natalie confirmed.

‘Never better,’ Rhys agreed.

‘Not at all,’ Dom said smugly as he eyed Rhys.

Tarquin turned behind him with a smile and added, ‘We have another stranded traveller on our doorstep this morning. This is Helen Thomas, everyone.’

Curious, they focused their attention on the woman who hovered just behind Tarquin. She had short-cropped brown hair and a hesitant smile and she looked a bit ill-at-ease.

‘Hello, everyone,’ she said, and waggled her fingers. ‘Sorry to interrupt your breakfast, but my car slid down an embankment last night. I’ve come to use the telephone, to see if someone can come and tow it out—’

She broke off as she caught sight of Dominic Heath and Gemma, and her eyes widened. ‘Oh. Oh, my. Isn’t that—?’

‘I’m sorry, Miss Thomas,’ Tarquin said quickly. ‘Let me introduce everyone.’ He went around the table, starting with Natalie and Rhys, and finished with the rock star and his fiancée.

Dominic barely glanced up from his toast. ‘Yeah, hello,’ he mumbled through a mouthful of crumbs. ‘Could someone pass the butter, please?’

‘But how awful!’ Natalie exclaimed, and eyed Helen with sympathy. ‘You must have been petrified. Are you all right—?’ She broke off with a frown. ‘Wait...I remember you! We spoke in the lounge at Heathrow.’

‘Oh...yes! So we did,’ the newcomer said, with equal surprise. ‘You’re Natalie Dashwood. I mean Natalie Dashwood-Gordon,’ she added hastily. ‘How very nice to see you again.’

‘This is the lady I wanted to introduce to you at the airport,’ Natalie explained to Rhys. ‘But she disappeared.’

‘Sorry about that,’ Helen apologized, ‘but nature called. As it does, especially just before one plans to board a flight.’

‘Won’t you join us for breakfast?’ Tarquin enquired. ‘You’re more than welcome, and there’s plenty on hand.’

‘Oh, no thank you,’ Helen said. ‘I won’t intrude. I’m not hungry, at any rate. The gatekeeper was kind enough to fix me a cup of tea and a boiled egg.’

‘Kind? That’s not a word one usually associates with Colm Mackenzie,’ Wren observed, and exchanged an amused glance with Tarquin. ‘He’s avowedly antisocial.’

‘Yes,’ Tarquin agreed. ‘Not a very friendly chap, and he keeps to himself; but he’s a hard worker, for all that.’

‘He wasn’t very forthcoming,’ Helen agreed, ‘but he let me in last night after I got lost. I was wandering out in the blizzard, terrified and half frozen. I locked myself out of my hire car, you see,’ she added ruefully.

‘What rotten luck,’ Tarquin observed.

‘At least you got a hire car,’ Dominic muttered. ‘Bloody Max. I’m giving him the sack when we get back to London.’

‘Well,’ Tark observed, ‘if it had to happen, I’m glad it happened here, with Draemar castle near at hand.’

‘Not half so glad as I am,’ Helen murmured as she cast Dominic and Gemma a thoughtful glance, ‘believe me.’

‘If I can’t persuade you to join us for breakfast, then let me show you to the telephone, so you can make your call,’ he offered, and with another bright smile and a nod, Helen followed him out of the dining room.

‘What shall we do today?’ Natalie wondered a few minutes later, and glanced around the dining room table as she took up her napkin and spread it on her lap.

‘I thought I’d give you the grand tour,’ Tarquin offered as he returned to take his place at the head of the table beside Wren. ‘If you like.’

‘Can’t wait,’ Rhys said, and helped himself to scrambled eggs from the platter the footman held out. ‘I imagine it must take all day to show the entire castle.’

‘Nearly,’ Tark agreed. ‘Especially if we visit the dungeons.’

‘Dungeons!’ Gemma exclaimed, wide eyed. ‘Really?’

‘Yes. Many a prisoner was held captive here. The stories these walls could tell...’ his voice trailed off. ‘Afterwards,’ he added, ‘we’ll have lunch, and the gentlemen can indulge in a smoke and play a few hands of cards, or shoot billiards.’

‘Whilst us ladies adjourn to the drawing room for tea and gossip?’ Natalie teased.

‘How boring!’ Wren said, and grimaced. ‘No. We’ll go up to the screening room and drink wine and munch on popcorn and watch – what is it you call them? ‒ chick flicks all afternoon.’

‘Now that sounds more like it,’ Gemma approved.

Chapter 8

In the entrance hallway, Helen perched on a loveseat next to the telephone table and placed her call.

As she waited for Top Towing to answer, she studied her surroundings with curiosity. Portraits of Campbell family forebears, most dressed in tartan, lined the walls and marched along the length of the gallery above; a few were hung at intervals along the curved wall of the staircase.

Like Tarquin, they had long noses, reddish-brown hair, and serious expressions. But then, Helen supposed, sitting for one’s portrait in the Campbell clan tartan was a very big deal. How strange, she mused, to think that Tarquin’s predecessors, all long dead, were on view on these castle walls, and that his own portrait would one day join them...

The requisite castle décor, consisting of suits of armour and medieval implements of war, held pride of place in the odd nook and cranny – maces, battle-axes, halberds, pikes, and swords, among other unnamed but equally menacing weapons. It was a gruesome yet fascinating display.

‘You want it towed out today, you say?’ the voice on the other end of the telephone asked doubtfully.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m that sorry, but we’ve dozens of calls already. It’ll be tomorrow at the soonest afore we can send a truck out to Draemar.’

‘Tomorrow!’ Helen echoed, dismayed. The prospect of spending another night at the gatehouse with Colm was too much to bear.

‘Aye, and it might be even later,’ the despatcher informed her cheerfully. ‘They’re sayin’ another foot of snow’s headed our way tonight.’

She glanced out the window. With the sun currently sparkling on the drifts of snow outside, and birds darting back and forth in flashes of brown and blue, the prospect of more snow seemed unlikely.