Christmas at His Command Read Free Page B

shouldn’t feel guilty! He had been way, way out of line to talk to her as he had—even if he did believe she was Emma, and however much he had liked and respected the old lady. Rushing in and assuming this and that!
    She risked a sidelong glance under her long lashes, aware she was dripping water all over the seat and that the melted snow from her boots had created a pool at her feet.
    His face was hard, as though it had been carved from solid rock; he didn’t seem quite human. Marigold suddenly became aware she was completely at this fierce stranger’s mercy and she swallowed deeply. Somehow the idea of a noisy, crowded Christmas ensconced in the womb of her parents’ home didn’t seem so bad.
    â€˜Don’t look so nervous; I wouldn’t touch Maggie’s granddaughter with a bargepole in case you’re harbouring thoughts of rape and pillage.’
    The deep voice had a thread of amusement running through it and immediately it put steel in Marigold’s backbone. She reared up in her seat, her face, which hadbeen pale a moment ago, now flushed with high colour, and her voice sharp as she lied, ‘Nothing was further from my thoughts.’
    â€˜Hmm.’ It was just one low grunt but carried a wealth of disbelief.
    Loathsome man! Marigold drew her usually soft, full lips into a tight line and warned herself not to respond to the taunt. In a little while she would be at the cottage and he would be gone. She could see about bathing her ankle and strapping it up, and then she would sort herself out for the night. This snowstorm wouldn’t last forever, and come morning she could make her way back to Myrtle and see if the little car could be persuaded to start. If not…well, she’d just have to carry everything to the cottage herself somehow. She didn’t dwell on the thought of how she was going to lug her suitcase and the bags of food, let alone the sack of coal and other things she’d brought with her, through deep snow with an ankle that was hurting more every minute and now so swollen she wondered how she was going to get her boot off.
    Nor did she linger on the fact that if the snow continued to fall as it was doing, two inches could rapidly become two feet. Coping with this angry, aggressive individual at the side of her was more than enough for the moment.
    The ground had been dipping downwards almost from the spot where she’d first heard the car, and now, as they turned a corner on the winding road, Marigold saw they were in a wooded valley and that to their left in the distance was what must be Emma’s cottage. It was set back some fifty yards from the track in its own garden, complete with neat picket fence and small gate. The cottage itself was painted white, from what Marigold couldsee, and it was the slate roof which was most clearly visible through the swirling snow.
    She breathed a silent sigh of relief and gingerly flexed her injured ankle, knowing she had to climb out of the vehicle and walk to the cottage door in a few moments. The immediate stab of white-hot pain was worrying, but again she told herself it would be all right once she could strap it up.
    â€˜Your inheritance.’ It was caustic.
    She turned her head and looked at the granite profile. ‘What makes you think it might be put on the market?’ she asked evenly.
    â€˜Well, apart from the fact that you and the rest of your family have already shown you have no soul, you were heard talking about it in the pub down the road when you came up before,’ he said shortly.
    â€˜People eavesdropped on a private conversation and then had the gall to repeat it?’ Marigold asked with genuine disgust.
    Her tone evidently rattled him. ‘From what I heard, this “private” conversation was all but yelled to the rafters after you and your partner had consumed a bottle of wine each. If you don’t want people to overhear what you say, don’t get drunk. You