Loe raamatut: «Newborn Under The Christmas Tree»

CHAPTER ONE

LIAM JENKINS SQUINTED against the low winter sun as he looked up at Thornwood Castle in the distance and tried to imagine it as home.

He failed.

The dark grey of the stone walls, the rise and fall of the crenellations, the brooding shadow it set over the English countryside...none of them were exactly friendly. When he’d dared to dream about the idea of home over the years, he’d pictured himself somewhere warm and bright and welcoming. Somewhere near the beach and rolling surf of his country of birth, Australia. A house he’d designed and built himself, one that was purely his, with no bad memories attached.

Instead, he had a centuries-old British castle full of other people’s history and furniture and baggage.

And it was starting to rain.

With a deep sigh, Liam leant back against his hire car and ignored the icy droplets dripping past his collar. Instead he wondered, not for the first time, what on earth his great-aunt Rose had been thinking. He hadn’t seen her at all in the fifteen years before her death, and before their disastrous meeting in London he’d only ever visited Thornwood once. Two encounters in twenty-five years didn’t make them family, not really. As far as he was concerned, she was just another in a long line of relatives who didn’t have the time or the space in their lives or homes for him.

Even that first time he’d visited her, he’d known instantly that Thornwood Castle would never be where he belonged. Thornwood, with its buttresses and echoing stone walls, lined with rusting suits of armour, was a world away from the small home he’d lived in with his mother on the Gold Coast. Possibly a few hundred years away too. As a ten-year-old orphan, still grieving for the mother he’d thought was invincible until she wasn’t, the prospect of staying at Thornwood had been terrifying. And that was before he’d even met Great-Aunt Rose in all her intimidating glory.

Thinking of it now, he shivered, remembering the chill of her presence. The way she’d loomed over him, steel-grey hair fixed in place, her dark blue eyes too like his for it to be a coincidence. He had the family eyes—no one had ever truly doubted whose son he was. Even if they didn’t want to acknowledge the fact in public.

Liam shook off the memories and slipped back behind the steering wheel of his hire car.

Thornwood was his—a bequest he’d never expected, or wanted. The very idea of it filled him with a heavy apprehension. Thornwood Castle came with more than just history—it came with a legacy. An acceptance into a society that had cast him out before he was even born. People said that the class wars were over, that nobody cared about legitimacy or status of birth any more. Maybe that was true in some places, but Liam knew that those prejudices were still alive and well in Thornwood.

Or they had been when Rose was alive. Now she was gone...

Could Thornwood be a home? All he remembered of it was cold, unwelcoming halls and the obvious disapproval of his great-aunt’s butler as he’d met him at the door.

But then there was the letter. The spidery, wavering handwriting on thick creamy paper that had come with the lawyer who’d explained the bequest. The letter from Rose, written just days before she’d died, asking him to make Thornwood Castle his home, at last. To finally take on the family legacy.

You may find it rather different than you recall...

That was what she’d written. But from this distance it looked exactly like his memories of the place. Grey, forbidding, unwelcoming.

Liam was pretty sure that wasn’t what home was supposed to look like.

Although, in fairness, he could be wrong. He could barely remember having a real home at all. Since his mother died, he’d ricocheted among his reluctant relatives—first his mother’s, out in Australia, then later a brief trip over to the UK to be rejected by his long departed father’s odd, unknown family—and foster care, never finding anywhere to settle for long. And since he’d been out in the world on his own he’d been far too busy building the life he’d craved for himself—one based on his own merits, not who he was related to—to worry about building that home of his own he’d dreamt of as a child.

He had the success he’d wanted. No one in his world knew him as the bastard son of the heir to an earldom, or even as Marie’s poor little orphaned boy. These days he was known as his own man—a renowned and respected architect, owner of his own company, with turnover doubling every year. He was his own success story.

Maybe he could bring some of that success to Thornwood.

That was the plan, at least. The time for old-fashioned stately homes was over; nobody needed that much space any more. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t make Thornwood work for him. Tourists still had a fascination with the old British aristocracy—Liam’s ex-girlfriend had watched enough period dramas for Liam to be sure of that. So if Thornwood was his it had to earn its keep—just like any other building he’d ever designed or renovated. Thornwood just had more potential than a lot of them.

And he couldn’t help but smile out into the rain, just a little, at the thought of Great-Aunt Rose’s face watching from above—or below, probably—seeing Thornwood turned into the sort of aristocratic theme park she’d always hated. He might not have known Rose well, but she’d made her feelings about the hoi polloi roaming around her ancestral grounds very clear. As clear as the fact she included him in that number, whoever his father was.

She’d hate everything he had planned. And that was pretty much reason enough to do it. Call it closure, maybe. Finally taking over the world that had rejected him as a child.

Then he could move on, find his own home instead of one that had been left to him because there was no one else. Preferably somewhere it didn’t rain so damn much.

Liam stared up once more at the shadows of the crenellations in the grey and hazy light, the narrow windows and the aged stonework, and knew that he would stay, just as Rose had asked. But only long enough to close that chapter of his life for ever. To finally slam the door on the family who’d never wanted him.

Then he could return to his real life.

Liam started up the engine of the hire car again and, checking his mirrors, pulled back onto the road to drive the last half a mile up the long, winding driveway to the castle itself, smiling out through the windscreen at the rain as it started to fall in sheets.

He was nearly home, for now.

* * *

Alice Walters stared at the scene in front of her with dismay. ‘What happened?’ she asked as a couple of holly berries floated past on a stream that definitely didn’t belong in the main hall of Thornwood Castle.

‘Penelope was filling vases with water to add some of the greenery we collected from the woods,’ Heather explained, arms folded tight across her chest. The frown that seemed to have taken up permanent residence on her forehead since Rose died looked even deeper than usual. ‘Apparently she got distracted.’

‘And forgot to turn off the tap.’ It wasn’t the first time that Penelope had got distracted. Alice supposed she should be used to it by now. ‘Where’s Danielle?’

‘No idea,’ Heather said, the words clipped. ‘You know, for an assistant she doesn’t seem to be very much help.’

Alice sighed. She’d noticed the same thing recently too. When she’d first hired the teenager to give her a hand with the admin and such at Thornwood, mostly to help her earn a part-time income after her mother died, Danielle had seemed bright and happy to be there. But over the last few months she’d barely even bothered showing up. ‘Right, well, we’d better get the mops out. He’ll be here any minute.’

‘Our new lord and master,’ Heather said, distaste obvious in her tone. ‘I can’t wait.’

‘He might not be that bad.’ Alice headed towards the nearest store cupboard and pulled out a mop and bucket. Given the number of leaks the castle roof had sprung over the last few years, they always tried to keep supplies close at hand. For a once grand house, the place leaked like a sieve and was impossible to keep warm. She wondered if the newest owner knew what he was letting himself in for. ‘Rose wouldn’t have left him the castle if he was.’

‘Wouldn’t she?’ Heather took the mop from her and attempted to soak up some of the impromptu river, while Alice hunted for more rags and cloths to absorb the worst of it. ‘He’s the last of the line—illegitimate or not. It wouldn’t matter what Rose thought about him. She’d leave him the castle because that’s what tradition said she had to do. And you know how she felt about tradition—at least you should. You spent enough time arguing with her about it.’

‘I did,’ Alice said, sighing again. As if an indoor river wasn’t bad enough, she had the prospect of spending her morning showing the new owner of Thornwood Castle around the wreck he’d inherited.

Rose might not have always been the easiest woman to get along with, but she’d been pragmatic, in the way that people who’d seen everything the world had to throw at them come and go, and leave them standing, often were. She might not have liked the suggestions that Alice put forward about how to keep the castle alive and running, but she’d been willing to grit her teeth and bear it, if it meant that her home, her family estate, would survive to be useful to another generation, as something more than a historical show-and-tell. More than anything, Alice was sure, Rose just hadn’t wanted to be the one to let it go.

But what about her great-nephew? He was the unknown quantity. Would he care enough about Thornwood to work with them to keep it going? Or would he sell it to the first Russian oligarch who offered him seven figures for it?

Alice supposed she’d find out soon enough.

Not that it mattered to her. Not really. There was always work for a woman who could be organised, inventive, effective and productive—and Alice made sure that she was all those things. Rose had written her a glowing reference before she died, just in case she needed it. Alice would have no problem finding a new job—a new project to dive into and find a way to make it work. And it was getting time to move on—she’d already been at Thornwood longer than she’d planned. Normally she’d be looking forward to it. Except...

‘Alice?’ Penelope stuck her head around the door, her eyes huge and wide in her thin, pale face. Sixteen and already so disillusioned by life, Penelope—and all the other girls and women like her—was the only reason Alice was reluctant to leave Thornwood. The castle might not be her home, but it was the only place some of the women she helped had—and it was the best shot Alice had at doing something that mattered. Sure, she could get a job organising someone’s office, or arranging meetings and scheduling flights. But here at Thornwood she was making a difference. And that counted for a lot.

‘What is it, Penelope?’ Alice asked when the girl didn’t say anything further.

Slipping into the hall, Penelope wrapped her oversized grey cardigan around herself, her arms crossing over her middle. ‘There’s a car just pulled up. A big black four-by-four.’ Her eyes slid away from Alice’s as she spoke.

Alice and Heather exchanged a quick glance.

‘That’ll be him, then,’ Heather said with a nod. ‘Penelope, grab those cloths from Alice and do your best to mop up this mess, yeah? God knows where Danielle has got to.’

Penelope did as she was told, just like she always did—without question, without complaint, without a word. One day, Alice hoped that she might just look up and say, ‘No.’ One day.

Hopefully not today, though, as they really did need to clear up the mini flood.

Alice wiped her damp hands on her jeans. ‘Right then. I’d better...’ She flapped a hand towards the entrance hall.

Heather nodded. ‘You go. Go meet the beast.’

Alice rolled her eyes. ‘He might be lovely!’

‘You keep telling yourself that,’ Heather said, turning away to help Penelope with the remaining puddles. ‘Just because I’ve never met a man yet who was, doesn’t mean that this Liam bloke might not be the one who broke the mould.’

‘Exactly,’ Alice said, hoping she sounded more certain than she felt. ‘And, at the very least, we have to give him a chance.’

She just hoped that he gave her—and Heather, and Penelope, and all the others—a chance too.

* * *

Grabbing his bag from the back seat, Liam pressed the button to lock the car and turned to face Thornwood Castle in the flesh for the first time in twenty-five years.

‘Yeah, still imposing as all hell,’ he murmured, eyeing the arrow slits.

As far as he’d been able to tell from the notes his assistant had put together on the castle, it had never really been built for battle. In fact, it was constructed about two hundred years too late for the medieval sieges and warfare it looked like it was built to withstand. It was more or less a folly—one of those weird English quirks of history. Some ancestor of his—by blood if not name or marriage—had got it into his head that he wanted to live in a medieval castle, even if it was the seventeen-hundreds. So he’d designed one and had it built. And then that castle had been passed down through generations of family members until it reached him, in the twenty-first century, when all those arrow slits and murder holes were even less necessary than ever.

Well, hopefully. He hadn’t been back to Britain in a couple of years. Who knew what might have changed...?

Normally, Liam would happily mock the folly as typical aristocratic ridiculous behaviour. But as his assistant, Daisy, had pointed out to him drily as she’d handed him his plane tickets, building follies and vanity projects was basically what he did for a living these days. And he supposed she had a point. How was designing and building a hotel in the shape of a lily out in the Middle East any different to a medieval castle in the seventeen-hundreds?

Except he didn’t keep the buildings he designed, or force them on future generations. He did an outstanding job, basked in the praise, got paid and moved on.

Much simpler.

As he jogged up the stone steps to the imposing front door, Liam tried to find that desert warmth again inside himself, and the glow of a good job well done. He was renowned these days, and in great demand as an architect. He’d built structures others couldn’t conceive of, ones that every other architect he knew said was impossible.

There was no reason at all that he should still feel this intimidated by a fake English castle.

Straightening his shoulders, he reached out for the door handle—only to have it disappear inwards as the door opened by itself.

No, not by itself.

Liam blinked into the shadows of the entrance hall and made out one, two, three—five women standing there, blinking back at him.

For a moment he wondered if this was his staff—all lining up to meet him, as the new master. Even if he couldn’t inherit the title that would have been his father’s, if he’d lived long enough, he had the estate now.

Then he realised that the women were all wearing jeans and woolly jumpers—and that, somehow, inside the castle felt even colder than outside.

‘You must be Liam!’ the woman holding the door said, beaming. ‘I mean, Mr Howlett.’

‘Jenkins,’ he corrected her automatically. ‘Liam Jenkins. I use my mother’s name.’ No need to explain that he’d never been offered his father’s.

From the colour that flooded her cheeks, the woman knew that. ‘Of course. I’m so sorry. Mr Jenkins.’

She looked so distraught at the slip-up, Liam shrugged, falling back into his usual pattern of making others feel comfortable. ‘Call me Liam.’

‘Liam. Right. Thank you.’ The pink started to fade, which was a shame. Without it, she looked pale and cautious, her honey-blonde hair made dull by the grey light and shadows of the castle. But for that brief moment she’d looked...alive. Vibrant, in a way Liam hadn’t expected to find at Thornwood.

Which still told him nothing about who she was or why she was in his castle. ‘And you are...?’

‘Oh! I’m Alice Walters. Your great-aunt hired me to, well, to make Thornwood Castle useful again.’

‘Useful?’ Liam frowned. ‘It’s a medieval castle in the twenty-first century. How useful can it really be?’ Interesting, he could understand. Profitable, even more so. He’d half expected to find a guided tour in progress when he arrived—all the people who’d been kept out for so long coming to gawk at everything Rose had left behind. Nothing compared to what he had planned for the place. He had so many ideas for what to do to Thornwood—things he knew Great-Aunt Rose never would have even considered—to make the place into a proper tourist attraction. One he didn’t have to visit, but still paid him handsomely.

He’d considered all sorts of options since he’d first got the phone call telling him that Thornwood Castle was his.

He just hadn’t considered useful, beyond his own financial purposes.

‘Rose wanted to make sure that the castle fulfilled its traditional role in the community,’ Alice said vaguely. ‘She hired me to make that happen.’

‘Its traditional role?’ He was starting to sound like a bad echo. But really, Alice’s explanations weren’t explaining anything at all.

Perhaps it was time for some non-English bluntness. After all, he was more Aussie than English when it came down to it—whatever Rose’s will said.

‘Look,’ he said, taking care to sound more bored than annoyed, ‘I’ll make this really easy for you. Just a simple answer to a very simple question. What the hell are you all doing in my home?’