A Christmas Letter: Snowbound in the Earl's Castle

The tiniest lift of Marcus’s eyebrows was his only response.

‘The reason my dad left was because he found out he wasn’t really my dad at all. Mom had an affair years earlier, during one of their frequent bust-ups. She never told him, and when he found out it was the final straw.’

Marcus didn’t say anything, but the fierce compassion in his eyes was enough to make her throat clog. When she’d first met Marcus she’d thought he was uptight and superior, but it wasn’t that at all. He wasn’t mean; he just was fiercely protective of those he cared about. And, dammit, if that didn’t make him more appealing. She’d always been a sucker for loyalty.

The penny dropped, and she suddenly understood why those glowering looks of his got to her so. She’d always yearned for someone to look out for her that way, instead of feeling she was on her own, always having to look out for herself. One of her fathers had vanished before she’d even been born, and the other had left before she’d become a teenager. She couldn’t imagine Marcus vanishing on anybody. Oh, how she could have used a man like him in her life when she was younger.

She looked at her feet, dangling off the edge of the table. ‘They didn’t tell me until I was eighteen, but I’d always suspected something was wrong.’

‘He carried on being a father to you after he left the family home?’

She nodded. ‘He’s a good man, but very practical and structured—not really a good match for my mom. All three of us girls used to go and stay with him at weekends, but I could tell even then. There was something about the way he looked at me—’

She broke off, unable to continue for a moment.

‘There was always this…pain in his eyes.’ A giant breath deflated her ribcage. ‘He didn’t look at the other girls that way,’ she added as she looked up at him and tried to smile. ‘It was a relief to find out in some ways.’

Moisture fell hot and fast from her lashes. This was stupid. She never cried. And how selfish to cry for herself, when she really should be crying for him and all he’d had to face.

She sniffed and dragged the back of her hand across one cheek and then the other. ‘I finally understood why I’d always felt the odd one out, but it didn’t stop me feeling that way. If anything I felt even more of a fraud.’ She shook her head and looked up at him. ‘I’m glad you’ve still got your grandfather after all that’s happened to you, to give you that sense of balance and belonging. It’s a horrible thing to not know who you are and where you fit in.’

He reached for her hand. She saw his brain working behind his eyes, and his gaze sharpened and became more penetrating as his fingers covered hers. ‘You said the first time we met that your father was English?’

She nodded. ‘He ran a bookshop in Beckett’s Run for a few years. I don’t even remember what he looks like, apart from the fact he has dark hair like mine and that he always smiled at me when we visited the store. He gave me a book once. Fairytales, with a picture of Rapunzel on the cover. Inside it was full of castles, princesses and noble knights.’ She paused and gave a self-conscious shrug. ‘Kind of like this one.’

Marcus’s eyes warmed. ‘Castle, yes. The princesses and noble knights are long gone.’

Faith lowered her lids for a moment. She wasn’t so sure about the noble knights. She reckoned there was one sitting right next to her, his strong hand over hers as he patiently listened to her whine on about her family. Most men she knew would run a mile at the sight of female tears.

‘It was my favourite book,’ she whispered softly, ‘even before I knew who he was.’

‘He must be very proud of you,’ Marcus said, and another unexpected stab of pain got her in the gut.

‘He doesn’t know me.’

Marcus looked shocked. ‘He’s never tried to find you? Or you him?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not sure he even knows about me. And it was almost thirty years ago…He’s probably got a wife and other kids now. He doesn’t need me blasting in from the past and upturning everything.’

And she didn’t need to invade a family she had no place in. She’d tried that once—tried so hard—and it had all fallen apart around her. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

‘He’s your father. Of course he’ll want to see you. How could he not?’

The look in his eyes—as if he totally believed what he was saying, that it wouldn’t be just one more round of rejection—made something tiny and wavering flicker to life inside her.

And he saw it. Right deep inside her, he saw it.

Marcus was looking down at her, his jaw set, but there was a new and disarming softness in those clear blue eyes. Faith’s pulse began to thunder inside her veins. Everything was still. Even the ever-vocal geese outside were quiet.

Slowly Marcus lifted his hand to her face, brushed the tips of his fingers along her cheekbone. Her eyes slid closed and she breathed in a delicious little shiver as her head tipped back.

She knew what was coming. Had known it was coming ever since that first meeting more than a week ago, when she’d slid her hand into his on that misty morning. She just hadn’t realised how much she’d been waiting for it, or how badly she’d wanted it.

His lips touched hers, so gently, so softly, it made her want to cry all over again. She’d expected fierceness, but if anything this tenderness was more devastating. She met him, moved her lips against his, but she didn’t want to rush, didn’t want to hurry. This was too sweet, too perfect. She wanted to suspend this moment in time and make it last for ever.

His breath was warm against her mouth, and she couldn’t resist touching her tongue softly to his bottom lip, tasting him, drawing in that warmth. He shuddered in response, and something swelled within her even as she sensed him resist the urge to use his superior strength to pull her to him and lose himself in her.

Faith had never wanted to be thought of as fragile. She was tough. She could cope. She could batten down the hatches and make it through. But the way he held her, touched her, as if she was made of delicate glass, unravelled something inside her—something she hadn’t even been aware had been wound up tight.

He paused for a moment, pulled his lips gently from hers with exquisite softness. Just as he was about to kiss her again, just as sensitive skin was about to meet sensitive skin, there was an almighty crash on the other side of the room.

He jumped up, and Faith was left there sitting on the table, eyes closed, mouth more than ready. At first she thought one of the haphazard piles of stuff had finally given in to gravity, but when she opened her eyes and followed Marcus’s trail through the dust she realised what was going on.

It was the door. Someone was trying to ram it open from the other side. They were saved.

Faith slid off the table, hugged her arms around herself and watched. Marcus yelled instructions from their side, and more crashes against the sturdy old wooden door followed. She could see it moving, millimetre by millimetre.

Using the table to gain extra height, she retrieved Marcus’s phone from the window frame. The text had sent itself more than fifteen minutes ago.

Marcus stood back from the door as one final shove from the other side unjammed the slab of oak and a burly man stumbled into the room under the force of his own momentum. Marcus moved forward to check he was all right.

Faith didn’t move.

She couldn’t. A whole squadron of butterflies were doing aerial acrobatics in her stomach. She couldn’t do anything but watch Marcus, wait for his gaze to connect with hers again, to see if the look in his eyes confirmed that what had just happened between them had really happened, that it hadn’t all just been a dream.

Marcus thanked the man, shook his hand then picked the doorstop up with a flourish and wedged it under the open door. Only when that was done did he lift his head and look at her. The butterflies started dive-bombing.

It was real. It had been real.

Oh, jeepers. What was she going to do now?

Suddenly her feet were free and she found herself jogging towards the door. She grinned at the burly man, thanking him profusely, knowing she was overdoing it and sounding like a clown in a sideshow. She moved to pass him, to cross the threshold and escape.

‘Faith …’ A hand shot out and caught her wrist, but so lightly that she could pull away if she wanted to.

She wanted to.

Marcus’s words were left hanging in the air. She licked her lips and looked away, trying not to think about the feel of his mouth there, the soft promises he’d silently delivered. Promises that shouldn’t exist. Promises he couldn’t keep. She looked away.

‘I’ll see you at dinner,’ she muttered, sliding her wrist from his grasp. Then she placed his phone into his empty hand and ran up the spiral stone staircase to the ground floor.

CHAPTER SEVEN

DINNER was quiet. Faith had spent a lot of it looking in his direction without actually looking at him. She didn’t avoid his gaze entirely, but when she did meet his eyes her expression was blank, empty. Disconnected.

Marcus felt a tug of guilt deep down in his gut, even though in the moments before their lips had touched she’d tipped her head back and all but invited him to kiss her. He hadn’t meant to make her feel like this.

When instead of joining him and his grandfather in the drawing room after dinner she excused herself and headed upstairs, Marcus followed. His grandfather’s eyes glittered as he left the room. Sly old fox.

Marcus caught up with her on the wide stone staircase. ‘Faith!’ he called softly.

She stopped, but didn’t turn.

He closed the gap.

She started to move again, but he reached for her, hooking the ends of his curled fingers into hers, and that was all it took to stop her. She stared into the distance, even though the thick wall was only ten feet in front of her.

He gently moved the tips of his fingers, feeling the smaller, sensitive pads of hers beneath his own. Her head snapped round and she looked at him.

He saw it all, then—the tug of war happening behind her eyes. Something in her expression melted, met him.

‘We need to talk,’ he said.

She didn’t nod, didn’t say anything, but he saw the agreement in her eyes. However, now he had her where he wanted her he wasn’t sure what to say. Sorry? He realised he didn’t want to—because he wasn’t. Those few stolen moments in the cellar had tasted like freedom.

He took a leap, giving her more honesty than he’d planned to. ‘I’ve wanted to do that since almost the first moment I met you,’ he said.

Faith let out a heavy breath, her eyes still locked on his. Once again he felt that sense of accord, harmony—and a hint of wry acknowledgement.

She shook her head and looked at their linked fingers before returning her gaze to his face. ‘You? Me? I don’t know what this is …’ She pressed her free hand to her breastbone. ‘But it can’t go anywhere, even if we want it to.’

God, he wanted it to. The force of that realisation hit him like a thunderclap. It didn’t help that he knew she was right. Neither of them wanted this, were ready for this.

He let go of her hand. Her eyes shimmered with regret, and a little sadness. He breathed out hard.

‘It’s only a couple of weeks,’ she said, ‘and then I’ll be gone. Can we try to keep it professional until then—or at the very least platonic?’

He heard the hidden plea, knew she was balancing on a knife-edge, just as he was, torn between doing what was right and what felt right. Suddenly he had the overwhelming urge to protect her, save her. It washed over him in a warm wave, starting at his toes and ending at his ears, and then settled into a small hard rock inside his chest.

He nodded. ‘Goodnight, Faith,’ he said, his voice low.

Her eyes filled with silent gratitude. ‘Goodnight, Marcus.’

It was only as he watched her walk up the stairs that he realised he was protecting her from himself.

Faith did her best to keep busy the next day. She got to the studio early, determined to remove the last of the glass from the old lead. Each fragment she removed was placed on the carefully drawn template she’d made. It was slow work, but absorbing, and it kept her mind off things she didn’t want to think about. However, as the hand on the clock moved closer to four her heart-rate refused to settle into its normal rhythm.

Would he come?

At four-fifteen she had her answer. There was a rap on the door, but this time, instead of opening it a split-second later, he waited for her reply. Marcus was good with boundaries, she realised. He wouldn’t overstep their agreement, and she knew she wouldn’t have to remind him of it even once in the coming fortnight. So why didn’t that make her feel any happier?

‘Come in,’ she called, feeling her own boundaries crumble a little further, like the scattering of grit and pebbles just before a rock-fall. Mentally, she shored them up as best she could.

‘Hello,’ he said.

His expression was shuttered, wary. It was almost the way he’d looked at her on that first morning, except…She had the oddest feeling that although the walls were back it wasn’t that he was pushing her away, but holding himself back.

She cleared her throat. ‘Hi.’

Platonic, she’d said. And Marcus had wanted to be informed of any interesting developments regarding the window. She could do this. She could do platonic and professional. She’d never had any problems with it before.

‘Come and see.’ She indicated the half pulled apart window on the table in front of her.

He nodded and, just as he’d done for the whole of the previous week, asked thoughtful, intelligent questions. She answered him clearly, adding in interesting facts, which had also become her habit. Anyone watching them would have thought nothing had changed, that what had happened in the cellar had stayed in the cellar.

Faith knew better.

The whole time they talked there was an undercurrent that hadn’t been there before, pulsing away beneath the surface.

And they didn’t deny it—to themselves or each other—but by tacit agreement decided to leave it be. It was frustrating, but it was honest. She didn’t think she could have lied to him anyway. Somehow he could see inside her. It wasn’t that she’d let her barriers fall—they were still tightly in place—but that to him, and only him, they were like the glass on the table in front of her.

‘I’ve asked Shirley to rustle up some help with the cellar,’ he said. ‘She’s sending a couple of the part-time cleaning staff down. There should be waiting for us by the time we get there.’

She nodded, knowing this was a good idea—a fabulous idea—even as her heart sank. It was a good idea to give Basil some back-up.

‘Hope they like dust,’ she said as she grabbed her coat, ‘and badgers …’

Marcus’s father had always accused him of being a contrary child with an iron will, and now that resolve served him well. Even so, the cellar-cleaning crew became his safety net over the next few days, stopping him giving in to the urge to ‘lose’ the doorstop one evening and do something stupid.

It didn’t help him forget, though. He couldn’t erase the memory of that kiss, that sweet, soft, unfinished kiss.

From the way Faith’s gaze would snag with his, the way she’d colour and look away, he guessed she was suffering the same way. But she’d asked for friendship alone. They had an agreement and he was honouring it.

They were both back safely behind their respective walls of polite friendliness. That should have been enough, but it wasn’t helping. Walls that were three feet thick were a great idea, but if those walls were transparent …

It made the whole thing worse. Now he could see Technicolor Faith all the time, but he knew he couldn’t—shouldn’t—reach out and touch her. Even so, he could feel his resolve slipping a little more every day. It had started with his wanting to keep her safe, to protect her, and now he was starting to want to give her other things. Things he hadn’t realised he still had left to give. Maybe he didn’t. And they were things Faith McKinnon didn’t even want.

He just had to keep it all together for another ten days. That was all.

Late Friday morning he was passing the studio and decided to stick his head in. He found her not hunched over the table, as usual, but sitting back on her stool, hands on hips, staring at the last remaining pieces of dirty glass that she had been cleaning.

‘Problem?’ he said as he came and stood behind her, trying to see what was so perplexing.

She shook her head. ‘Not a problem…just some interesting irregularities.’

‘Not anything to do with a message?’ He shaved the words I hope off the end of that sentence.

‘No.’

He pulled up another stool and sat down next to her. ‘Talk me through it.’ This was safe enough territory.

She pushed her stool back, stood up and walked over to a second table, where she plucked a large photo of the window from a pile of papers and brought it back to show him. Marcus did his best to concentrate on what was in front of his eyes instead of the faint smell of rose gardens that always seemed to cling to her. What was it? Perfume? Shampoo? Whatever it was, he was finding it very distracting, even though he’d never really had a fondness for the blasted flowers.

She pointed to the top of the photograph. ‘See the lead there? It’s very fine and it was beautifully crafted. The work of a master glazier. No doubt about it.’

His gaze followed her slender finger down to the bottom of the picture.

‘But here…nowhere near the skill. It’s as if it’s been repaired by a local craftsman just trying to do his best.’

Marcus’s eyebrows drew together. ‘Maybe the workman wasn’t up to the job.’

She nodded. ‘Probably. But it’s not the fact that the window was repaired, but where and how that’s interesting. A breakage results in a certain pattern—either a crack in just one piece of glass, or a wider area of damage radiating out from the point of impact. See this bit down here …?’ She pointed to a long, wide section at the bottom of the pane. ‘It’s just the glass inside that border that’s been replaced. All of it. You can see it quite clearly now it’s been cleaned.’

She got up and looked at the disassembled window laid out on the end of the table. ‘The new glass is of much poorer quality.’

Faith carefully lifted two small pieces of dark green glass and held them up to the light. One was a beautiful clear emerald, the other was slightly muddier in colour, and the newer glass had a large ripple down the centre. She returned the fragments to the template. ‘It’s as if someone replaced that whole section—a long, thin rectangular section. Not the sort of shape that would come from usual damage.’

‘And that’s significant?’

She frowned and gave him a serious look, one that made him think he wasn’t going to like what she was about to say.

‘I can’t quite get it out of my head that someone has removed something from the window.’

He pulled in air through his teeth. ‘Something like a message?’

For a second she said nothing, but then she pushed out a breath, stood up and ran a hand through her hair. She smiled at him, a weary little twist of her lips. ‘Ignore me. I think I’m starting to let the magic and the mystery of this place seep into me.’

He stared at the window. Now she’d mentioned it he could see the long, thin rectangle, could imagine a phrase or word being in the place where there was now plain green glass.

‘I don’t think we should tell my grandfather about this.

Not yet.’

If ever.

She nodded her agreement. ‘There’s nothing to tell, anyway. Even if there had been something else in the window, we have no way of knowing what it was.’

That was that. He should feel relieved.

He tilted his head, trying to make it look very much as if he concurred, but he couldn’t quite get rid of the niggling worry that Faith had stumbled onto something.

Marcus was having an in-depth discussion with Oliver, his events manager, about preparations for the Christmas Ball when Faith came skidding into the long gallery. Her face was aglow and her eyes were shining. He knew she had something to tell him about the window. Even so, he couldn’t help but smile.

She grinned back.

Oliver coughed. ‘About the florist, My Lord?’

Marcus kept looking at Faith. He waved a hand in the other man’s direction. ‘I’m sure you’re more than capable of dealing with her,’ he said. He only half noticed the man’s raised eyebrows as he looked between Faith and himself.

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ Oliver’s low voice muttered beside him, but Marcus was focused on the laughter behind Faith’s eyes.

‘What?’ he said, walking towards her.

Her smile flashed wide, reminding him of how the night sky brightened after a firework exploded.

‘I found it!’

For a moment his stomach dropped.

‘The proof I need,’ she added, her expression dimming slightly in reaction to his non-reaction.

Proof?

It was as if she’d heard the question that had fired off inside his head. She stepped forward, her hand held up in a calming gesture. ‘Samuel Crowbridge proof,’ she explained.

He paused for a moment. While he was truly relieved her news had nothing to do with his grandfather’s wild goose chase, he realised he was a little disappointed, too.

‘How?’ he said.

She glanced over her shoulder, looked at the door that led to the main hall—the route out of the castle and back to the studio. ‘Have you got a minute?’

Marcus turned round to take his leave from Oliver and discovered the man had disappeared. Oh, well.

Faith looked about her as she headed for the door. ‘It’s looking awesome in here,’ she said.

‘I’m glad you like it,’ he replied.

And looking lovely it was. Christmas at Hadsborough had always been special when he was younger, but in recent years it had become a chore. Looking at it now, through Faith’s eyes, he realised she was right. There was a fourteen-foot Christmas tree in the hall. Crimson candles in all shapes and sizes were dotted around—some in wrought-iron stands, some in hurricane lamps—and greenery was everywhere: holly and ivy and fir branches, draped over mantelpieces, over the door frames, wound round the banister of the staircase and dripping from the minstrels’ gallery over the banqueting hall.

There was a noise in the hallway and a few moments later a walking display of red flowers entered the room. Underneath the foliage was a very human pair of legs: sturdy calves finished off with even sturdier shoes. Marcus recognised those shoes. And now he caught on to what Oliver had been trying to warn him about.

Janet Dixon. Florist and one-woman tornado.

Her severe salt-and-pepper hairdo appeared from behind the display and she looked around the room approvingly, as if she deemed it good enough for her arrangement.

Faith walked over and touched the papery petal of one of the fire-red poinsettia. ‘My grandmother loves these,’ she said thoughtfully.

‘Just right for the festive season, they are,’ Janet replied. ‘Bringing wishes for mirth and celebration.’

Faith smiled. ‘I’ll tell Gram. She’ll like that.’

‘Oliver is around somewhere if you need assistance,’ Marcus said, then cupped Faith’s elbow in his hand and steered her from the room. ‘Quick!’ he whispered in her ear. ‘She does all the flowers for the castle, and she’ll tell you about every petal in great detail if you stand still long enough.’

Faith chuckled softly and began to jog towards the exit. Marcus kept pace, grinning.

When they reached the oval lawn in front of the castle they slowed to a walk. The day was crisp and sunny and he breathed in the country air. It smelled like December. Like Christmas. And there was the perfect amount of snow for the ball that night—enough to cover the grassy areas and make the castle look magical, but the paths were clear and the roads gritted.