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‘I came in the Voyager,’ he said briefly.
‘Oh, right.’ She didn’t know he had one. He seemed to have a vehicle for every occasion, she thought with a slight touch of flu hysteria as he left the room.
It was only when she heard his footsteps going down the stairs that it dawned on Kay he must have planned to take them back to his place all along if he’d brought the huge people carrier. She wasn’t quite sure how that made her feel but now was not the time to explore her emotions, she told herself muzzily. She made a great effort and got to her feet, her legs feeling as if they didn’t belong to her.
She was halfway down the stairs when he came in the front door and he swore, softly but a very rude word, she thought primly.
‘What are you trying to do, Kay? Prove a point by breaking your neck?’ he grated out angrily, glaring at her as she wobbled on the last step.
‘Don’t shout at me,’ she muttered weakly. ‘I’m not one of your female slaves who only live to do your bidding.’
‘I wish.’ He shook his head at her as she clung to the post at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Look at you, dead on your feet and still determined not to give an inch. Superwoman is allowed to be ill, you know. Even the most magnificent of the species have off-days.’
‘Probably.’ The room was swimming again and she was forced to acknowledge the brief few steps had taken all her strength. ‘But if I don’t look after Georgia and Emily and my mother no one else will.’
‘Wrong.’ He picked her up as though she weighed nothing at all, his tone terse. ‘For the next few days you are all under my protection and you’ll damn well do as you’re told, woman. Why can’t you be more like Leonora? She doesn’t argue and fight over the simplest thing.’
Much as Kay loved her mother, she was hugely insulted. ‘I hate you,’ she said hotly, wincing at the pain in her head.
‘Perhaps.’ He stared down at her steadily, his silver-blue gaze so piercing she shut her eyes against it. ‘But hate is the sister of love.’
‘Huh.’ It was the most she could manage and she kept her eyes tightly shut.
‘I must be mad,’ he said softly, amusement warming his voice as he walked across the room to the front door, bending down and picking up a blanket he’d placed there and wrapping it round her, ignoring her protests. ‘I’ve got not just one redhead but four of them under my roof for Christmas.’
‘But the others don’t argue and fight over the simplest thing,’ she reminded him bitterly, still furious.
‘True.’
And he actually had the gall to chuckle as he stepped out into the icy afternoon, hooking the door shut behind him before striding down the path to the handsome vehicle waiting at the roadside, Henry at the wheel and her mother and the girls staring anxiously out of the windows, wrapped up like Eskimos.
Over the next couple of days Kay slept most of the time away, her mind more at rest when Emily threw off the worst of the bug overnight.
Mitchell insisted on calling in his own doctor to examine the houseful of patients, but he merely confirmed what had already been said and repeated the advice of rest, hot lemon and paracetamol.
Late Christmas Eve afternoon it started to snow, and for the first time since the flu had manifested itself Kay found she could lie and gaze out of the window without feeling as though her brain were going to break into pieces. She could hear sounds from downstairs; they had permeated her dreams once or twice over the last twenty-four hours, but she hadn’t been able to make herself respond. Now her lips twitched as she heard the unmistakable sound of children’s laughter. The girls were all right, thank goodness. And Henry had said her mother was feeling a little better when he’d brought her some soup earlier.
She couldn’t miss being with the girls Christmas Eve. Kay forced herself to sit up, although it had been very pleasant lying in the warm cocoon with the aches and pains that had racked her body beginning to subside a little, and the big fat flakes of snow drifting past the window.
The room was luxurious—all the bedrooms were—the colour scheme one of soft golds and cream, and the carpet ankle-deep. Kay knew the twins’ room was to the right of hers and her mother’s on the left, but, apart from several very brief visits from Georgia and Emily, she had seen nothing of them. Henry had kept up a steady supply of light nourishing ‘invalid’ food, and Mitchell had made the odd appearance, but she had felt too out of it to do more than open her eyes for a few minutes at a time.
Kay flung back the duvet and swung her legs over the side of the bed, making her way slowly to the bathroom. It was a great effort and she had to rest several times before her toilette was finished, but eventually she was washed and dressed, her hair free of tangles and tied back from her face. She sat on the bed for a few minutes after she was ready, amazed at how tired she felt. In the past she’d
had the occasional heavy cold and labelled it the flu. She now made a mental note never to do that again. The real thing was so different.
Once she was on the landing she could hear children’s laughter and followed the sound. She noticed the staircase had been decorated with fresh garlands of holly and ivy and there were more in the hall once she reached the bottom of the stairs, but it was as she pushed open the drawing-room door and stood quietly surveying the scene within that she had her biggest surprise.
The room had been transformed into a glittering festive pageant, tinsel and ornamentation decorating the walls and every available surface or so it seemed to Kay’s dazed eyes, but it was the eight-foot Christmas tree that really drew the eye. It stood in regal splendour at the far end of the room, its branches bedecked with glittering trinkets, baubles and tinsel and the huge tub that held it surrounded with gaily wrapped parcels.
Emily was lying on one of the sofas, which had been pulled close to the blazing fire, busily threading a paper chain with Henry, her mother was lying on another sofa close by in her dressing gown with a blanket over her legs, and Mitchell and Georgia were sitting together on the floor wrapping a parcel.
It was a charming scene, a homely and comfortable one, which suggested the five of them were totally at ease in each other’s company, and as Kay watched she felt suddenly cold. She was the one on the outside looking in. Ridiculous, maybe, but that was how she felt.
And then Emily looked up and saw her, her shriek of delight causing the others to glance towards the door. Within a moment Georgia was at Kay’s side, taking her hand and leading her over to sit beside Emily—Henry having moved—as both little girls began talking nineteen to the dozen.
‘Do you like the Christmas tree and everything, Mummy? We did it as a surprise for you.’
‘And there are presents for you and Grandma under the tree but we’re not allowed to say what they are.’
