to make pastry for mince pies here. I just wish Mrs Flax hadn’t decided to take her annual leave right now!’
When their housekeeper had announced she wanted a winter break in the sun with her sister she had had their blessing. Mattie’s dad had never liked the festive season—not after his wife, Mattie’s mother, had walked out on them all those years ago—so they tended to treat Christmas as just another ordinary day. But with James expected she was going to produce all the trimmings. Even if it killed her!
‘Consider it done.’ Dawn unwound herself and wandered over to the table, casting her eyes over the recipe Mattie was so laboriously following. ‘It says add water, but you’ll get a much nicer result if you use beaten egg instead,’ she advised. ‘Want me to take over? I’ve been helping Mum with the cooking practically since I was born and you’re nothing but an academic. Brainy but a total fluff-head when it comes to anything practical.’
‘Then it’s time I mended my ways,’ Mattie responded lightly, resisting the impulse to clutch the mixing bowl jealously to her under-endowed chest. She couldn’t do much for James—she had enough common sense to be fully aware of that—but she could and she would, and with her own hands, make a proper Christmas for him.
‘On your own head be it—or should I say on your guest’s stomach lie it!’
Mattie grimaced wryly as her friend swung away to fill the kettle. Although only a couple of weeks separated them in age, she sometimes felt a thousand years old around the ebullient Dawn. A point reinforced when the other girl tossed over her shoulder, ‘Play your cards right, Matts, and you could catch him on the rebound.’
Mattie dropped the rolling-pin on the floured board as a savage pain thrust its jagged way through her. Closely followed by a searing anger that made her voice dagger-sharp. ‘Sometimes, Dawn, you talk like a particularly stupid ten-year-old!’
James Carter wouldn’t look twice at the plain, insignificant Matilda Trent. He went for the beautiful ones, the stylishly elegant ones. Women like his ex-fiancée. Women who stood out in a crowd, not ones who faded into the wallpaper. Dawn had to know that; how could she not?
‘If you say so.’ Unfazed by the rebuke, Dawn brewed coffee. ‘But think about it. Before I went to work in Richmond the two of us were practically joined at the hip, which means, of course, that I saw him almost as often as you did.’ She reached for mugs from the dresser, found the milk and sugar. ‘Around you, he always seemed sort of—protective, gentle. It’s difficult to put a finger on it, but there’s definitely a healthy dollop of affection there. And after being dumped by that high-class, empty-headed trollop he’s going to appreciate someone who’s intelligent, loyal, nice to know, calm. You fell in love with him eleven whole years ago when you were fourteen, you know you did, so go for it, Matts.’
Calm! She was seething! Dawn had stuck a knife between her ribs and was blithely twisting it—too insensitive to imagine how much it was hurting!
Golden eyes narrowing behind her lenses, Mattie snapped, ‘I got a crush on James around the same time you “fell in love” with our science master, remember? I grew out of it before you switched your eternal devotion to some mangy pop star or other! So drop it, will you?’
Only the trouble was, she was lying—she hadn’t grown out of it at all. She’d tried to, heaven knew she had. But her feelings for James, kept secret for so long now, had stubbornly refused to do anything but grow until they were positively awesome.
James slid from behind the wheel of the Jaguar, locked it and pocketed the key. A million stars patterned the winter night sky and the frosty air bit into his lungs as he pulled in a deep breath and felt himself begin to relax. Despite the turmoil going on in his life he could still recognise the magic of Christmas Eve. Strange, that.
Lights glowed dimly from a couple of curtained windows, but otherwise the stately bulk of Berrington House was in darkness. On the drive out from London he’d been having second thoughts about the wisdom of spending the festive season with the Trents. But standing here, in the silence, he knew he’d been right to invite himself to stay for two or three days.
After the messy drama of the past week it was what he needed. The flavour of that final scene with the woman he’d decided to marry was a sour taste in his mouth. And as for what had happened—unconsciously, he shrugged wide, hard-boned shoulders, the twist of his mouth cynical—he could understand why Fiona had gone to the press even though he deplored the way she’d made the breakup so damned public.
He needed to put the whole humiliating and painful episode behind him, and he could do it here.
Over the years, this house had come to represent a second home to him, both he, and his father before him, preferring to talk business over a civilised dinner or long weekend with Edward Trent, co-partner in their now huge construction empire.
It wasn’t the house itself—Berrington was a touch too severe for his taste, more like a showcase for traditional perfection than a lived-in home. Neither was it his partner’s company that had drawn him here, at this time.
It was Mattie, he recognised now. Her undemanding presence was exactly what he needed.
His frown darkened. That admission wasn’t something he was happy with. He’d learned to be self-sufficient at an early age. He didn’t want to need what another living soul could give him.
But her impressive intelligence stimulated him, her serenity soothed him, and her foibles—such as her complete inability to master anything vaguely practical—gently amused him. It had taken her months to learn how to use the word processor he’d finally persuaded her to install and eight failed attempts to pass her driving test. Even now, she was the worst driver he knew.
Then there was her refreshing lack of female vanity—she had to be the least clothes-conscious woman born, the least sexually aware. She didn’t suffer from fluttering eyelashes, siren pouts, come-bed-me glints seductively shafted from sultry eyes.
That, he worked out with a surge of relief, was what he really needed: the company of a woman who didn’t throw out sexual challenges, who didn’t attract him physically, and didn’t want to.
Mouse. The hard slash of his mouth softened fractionally. Dear old Mouse.
Tightening his grip on his overnight bag, he strode over the perfectly raked gravel, heading for the main door, wondering, apropos of nothing in particular, whether she was still struggling with the intricasies of translating that bulky scientific tome from the original German to Italian or whether it was done and dusted, back with the publisher, put safely to bed.
He was confident it would be the latter; he knew his Mattie. Financially, she had no need to work, but once she had a project on the go she tended not to surface until it was completed. Perfectly. As soon as she answered to his ring, he’d ask.
But it was his partner who opened the door. For a man nearing his sixties his face was relatively unlined, personable, only his iron-grey hair and thickening waistline betraying his age. And his eyes were betraying his embarrassment.
Edward Trent wasn’t comfortable with emotions. If he had any he kept them firmly locked away and expected everyone he came in contact with to do likewise. James was the same in that respect, which was probably why they worked so well together.
Best get it out of the way.
‘Good of you to give me houseroom for a day or two,’ James stated, walking over the threshold. ‘I felt the need to go to ground for
