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CHAPTER ONE

‘OH, WHAT—?’

All Georgia could see in the atrocious conditions were snaking brake lights, and she feathered the brake pedal, glad she’d left a huge gap between her and the car in front.

It slithered to a halt, and she put on her hazard flashers and pulled up cautiously behind it, trying to see why they’d stopped, but visibility was minimal. Even though it was technically still daylight, she could scarcely see a thing through the driving snow.

And the radio hadn’t been any help—plenty of talk about the snow arriving earlier than predicted, but no traffic information about any local holdups. Just Chris Rea, singing cheerfully about driving home for Christmas while the fine, granular snow clogged her wipers and made it next to impossible to see where she was going.

Not that they’d been going anywhere fast. The traffic had been moving slower and slower for the last few minutes because of the appalling visibility, and now it had come to a complete grinding halt. She’d been singing along with all the old classics as the weather worsened, crushing the steadily rising panic and trying to pretend that it was all going to be OK. Obviously her crazy, reckless optimism hard at work as usual. When would she learn?

Then the snow eased fleetingly and she glimpsed the tail lights of umpteen cars stretching away into the distance. Far beyond them, barely discernible in the pale gloom, a faint strobe of blue sliced through the falling snow.

More blue lights came from behind, travelling down the other side of the road and overtaking the queue of traffic, and it dawned on her that nothing had come towards them for some minutes. Her heart sank as the police car went past and the flashing blue lights disappeared, swallowed up by the blizzard.

OK, so something serious had happened, but she couldn’t afford to sit here and wait for the emergency services to sort it out with the weather going downhill so quickly. If she wasn’t careful she’d end up stranded, and she was so nearly home, just five or six miles to go. So near, and yet so far.

The snow swirled around them again, picking up speed, and she bit her lip. There was another route—a narrow lane she knew only too well. A lane that she’d used often as a short cut, but she’d been avoiding it, and not only because of the snow—

‘Why we stop, Mummy?’

She glanced in the rear-view mirror and met her son’s eyes. ‘Somebody’s car’s broken down,’ she said. Or hit another car, but she wasn’t going to frighten a two-year-old. She hesitated. She was deeply reluctant to use the lane, but realistically she was all out of options.

Making the only decision she could, she smiled brightly at Josh and crossed her fingers. ‘It’s OK, we’ll go another way. We’ll soon be at Grannie and Grandpa’s.’

His face fell, tugging her heartstrings. ‘G’annie now. I hungry.’

‘Yeah, me, too, Josh. We won’t be long.’

She turned the car, feeling it slither as she pulled away across the road and headed back the way she’d come. Yikes. The roads were truly lethal and they weren’t going to get any better as more people drove on them and compacted the snow.

As she turned onto the little lane, she could feel her heart rate pick up. The snow was swirling wildly around the car, almost blinding her, and even when it eased for a second the verges were almost obliterated.

This wasn’t supposed to be happening yet! Not until tonight, after they were safely tucked up with her parents, warm and dry and well-fed. Not out in the wilds of the countryside, on a narrow lane that went from nowhere to nowhere else. If only she’d left earlier...

She checked her mobile phone and groaned. No signal. Fabulous. She’d better not get stuck, then. She put the useless phone away, sucked in a deep breath and kept on driving, inching cautiously along.

Too cautiously. The howling wind was blowing the snow straight off the field to her right and the narrow lane would soon be blocked. If she didn’t hurry, she wasn’t going to get along here at all, she realised, and she swallowed hard and put her foot down a little. At least in the fresh snow she had a bit more traction, and she wasn’t likely to meet someone coming the other way. She only had half a mile at the most to go before she hit the other road. She could do it. She could...

A high brick wall loomed into view on the left, rippling in and out like a ribbon, the snow plastered to it like frosting on a Christmas cake, and she felt a surge of relief.

Almost there now. The ancient crinkle crankle wall ran alongside the lane nearly to the end. It would give her a vague idea of where the road was, if nothing else, and all she had to do was follow it to the bigger, better road which would hopefully be clear.

And halfway along the wall—there it was, looming out of the blizzard, the gateway to a hidden world. The walls curved in on both sides of the imposing entrance, rising up to a pair of massive brick piers topped with stone gryphons, and between them hung the huge, ornate iron gates that didn’t shut.

Except that today they were firmly shut.

They’d been painted, too, and they weren’t wonky any more, she realised as she slowed to a halt. They’d always hung at a crazy angle, open just enough to squirm through, and that gap had been so enticing to an adventurous young girl out for a bike ride with her equally reckless older brother.

The gryphons guarding the entrance had scared them, mythical beasts with the heads and wings of eagles and the bodies of lions, their talons slashing the air as they reared up, but the gap had lured them in, and inside the wall they’d found a secret adventure playground beyond their wildest imaginings. Acres of garden run wild, with hidden rooms and open spaces, vast spreading trees and a million places to hide.

And in the middle of it all, the jewel in the crown, sat the most beautiful house she’d ever seen. A huge front door with a semi-circular fanlight over it was tucked under a pillared portico that sat exactly in the centre of the house, surrounded perfectly symmetrically by nine slender, elegant sash windows.

Not that you could see all the windows. Half of them were covered in wisteria, cloaking the front and invading the roof, and the scent from the flowers, hanging delicately like bunches of pale lilac grapes against the creamy bricks, had been intoxicating.

It had been empty for years; with their hearts in their mouths, she and Jack had found a way inside through the cellar window and tiptoed round the echoing rooms with their faded grandeur, scaring each other half to death with ghost stories about the people who might have lived and loved and died there, and she’d fallen head over heels in love with it.

And then years later, when her brother had started to hang out with Sebastian, she’d taken him there, too. He’d come over to their house one day to see Jack but he’d been out, so they’d gone out for a bike ride instead. His idea, and she’d jumped at it, and they’d ended up here.

It had been their first ‘date’, not really a date at all but near enough for her infatuated sixteen-year-old self, and she’d dragged him inside the still-empty house just as she had her brother.

Like her, he’d been fascinated by it. They’d explored every inch of it, tried to imagine what it would have been like to live there in its hey-day. What it would be like to live there now. They’d even fantasised about the furnishings—a dining table so long you could hardly see the person at the other end, a Steinway grand in what had to have been the music room and, in the master bedroom, a huge four-poster bed.

In her own private fantasy, that bed had been big enough for them and all their children to pile into for a cuddle. And there’d be lots of them, the foundation of a whole dynasty. They’d fill the house with children, all of them conceived in that wonderful, welcoming bed with feather pillows and a huge fluffy quilt and zillion-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets.

And then he’d kissed her.

They’d been playing hide and seek, teasing and flirting and bubbling over with adolescent silliness, and he’d found her in the cupboard in the bedroom and kissed her.

She’d fallen the rest of the way in love with him in that instant, but it had been almost two years before their relationship had moved on and fantasy and reality had begun to merge.

He’d gone away to uni, but they’d seen each other every holiday, spent every waking moment together, and the kisses had become more urgent, more purposeful, and way more grown up.

And then, the weekend after her eighteenth birthday, he’d taken her to the house. He wouldn’t tell her why, just that it was a surprise, and then he’d led her up to the master bedroom and opened the door, and she’d been enchanted.

He’d set the scene—flickering candles in the fireplace, a thick blanket spread out on the moth-eaten carpet and smothered in petals from the wisteria outside the window, the scent filling the room—and he’d fed her a picnic of delicate smoked salmon and caviar sandwiches and strawberries dipped in chocolate, and he’d toasted her in pink champagne in little paper cups with red hearts all over the outside.

And then, slowly and tenderly, giving her time even though it must have killed him, he’d made love to her.

She’d willingly given him her virginity; they’d come close so many times, but he’d always stalled her. Not that day. That day, when he’d finally made love to her, he’d told her he’d love her forever, and she’d believed him because she loved him, too. They’d stay together, get married, have the children they both wanted, grow old together in the heart of their family. It didn’t matter where they lived or how rich or poor they were, it was all going to be perfect because they’d have each other.

But two years down the line, driven by ambition and something else she couldn’t understand, he’d changed into someone she didn’t know and everything had fallen apart. Their dream had turned into a nightmare with the shocking intrusion of a reality she’d hated, and she’d left him, but she’d been devastated.

She hadn’t been back here in the last nine years, but just before Josh was born she’d heard on the grapevine that he’d bought it. Bought their house, and was rescuing it from ruin.

She and David had been at a dinner party, and someone from English Heritage was there. ‘I gather some rich guy’s bought Easton Court, by the way—Sebastian something or other,’ he’d said idly.

‘Corder?’ she’d suggested, her whole body frozen, her mind whirling, and the man had nodded.

‘That’s the one. Good luck to him. It deserves rescuing, but it’s a good job he’s got deep pockets.’

The conversation had moved on, ebbing and flowing around her while she’d tried to make sense of Sebastian’s acquisition, but David had asked her about him as they were driving home.

‘How do you know this Corder guy?’

‘He was a friend of my brother’s,’ she said casually, although she was feeling far from casual. ‘His family live in that area.’

It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth and she’d felt a little guilty, but she’d been shocked. No, not shocked. Surprised, more than anything. She’d thought he’d walked away from everything connected to that time, as she had, and the fact that he hadn’t had puzzled her. Puzzled and fascinated and horrified her, all at once, because of course it was so close to home, so near to her parents.

Too close for comfort.

But a few days later Josh had been born, and then only weeks after that David had died and her whole world had fallen apart and she’d forgotten it. Forgotten everything, really, except holding it all together for Josh.

But every time since then that she’d visited her parents, she’d avoided the lane, just as she had today—until she’d had no choice.

Her heart thudded against her ribs. Was he in there, behind those intimidating and newly renovated gates? Alone? Or sharing their house with someone else, someone who didn’t share the dream—

She cut that thought off before she could follow it. It didn’t matter. The dream didn’t exist any longer, and she’d moved on. She’d had to. She was a mother now, and there was no time for dreaming. She dragged her eyes and her mind away from the imposing gates and the man who might or might not be behind them, flashed her son a smile to remind her of her priorities and made herself drive on.

Except her car had other ideas. It slithered wildly as she tried to pull away, and the snow swirled around them, the wind battering the car ferociously, reminding her as nothing else could just how perilous their situation was. Gripping the wheel tighter, her heart pounding, she pressed the accelerator again more cautiously and drove on, almost blinded by the blizzard.

Before she’d gone more than a few feet she hit a drift with her right front wheel, and her car slewed round and came to rest across the road, wedged up against the bank behind her. After a few moments of spinning the wheels fruitlessly, she slammed her hand on the steering wheel and stifled a scream of frustration tinged with panic.

‘Mummy?’

‘It’s OK, darling. We’re just a teeny bit stuck. I need to have a look outside. I won’t be long.’

She tried to open her door, but it wouldn’t budge, and she wound the window down and peered out into the blizzard, shielding her eyes from the biting sting of the snow crystals that felt as if they were coming straight from the Arctic.

She was up against a snowdrift, rammed tight into it, and there was no way she’d be able to open the door. She shut the window fast and shook the snow out of her hair.

‘Wow! That was a bit blowy!’ she said with a grin over her shoulder, but Josh wasn’t reassured.

‘Don’t like it, Mummy,’ he said, his lip wobbling ominously.

Nor do I. And I don’t need them walking in a winter wonderland on the radio!

‘It’s fine, Josh. It’s just snowing a bit fast at the moment, but it won’t last. I’ll just get out of the other door and see why we’re stuck.’

‘No! Mummy stay!’

‘Darling, I’ll be just outside. I’m not going away.’

‘P’omise?’

‘I promise.’

She blew him a kiss, scrambled across to the passenger side and fought her way out into the teeth of the blizzard to assess the situation. Difficult, with the biting wind lashing her hair across her eyes and finding its way through her clothes into her very bones, but she checked first one end of the car, then the other, and her heart sank.

It was firmly wedged, jammed between the snowdrift she’d run into on the right and the snow that had fallen down behind them, probably dislodged as she’d slid sideways. The car had embedded itself firmly against the right bank, and there was nothing she could do. She could never dig it out alone with her bare hands, not with the snow drifting so rapidly off the field in the howling wind. It was already a few inches deep. Soon the exhaust pipe would be covered, and the engine would stall, and they’d die of cold.

Literally.

Their only hope, she realised as she shielded her eyes from the snow again and assessed the situation, lay in the house behind those beautiful but intimidating gates.

Easton Court. The home of Sebastian Corder, the man she’d loved with all her heart, the man she’d left because he’d been chasing something she couldn’t understand or identify with at the expense of their relationship.

He’d expected her to drop everything and follow him into a lifestyle she hated, abandoning her career, her family, even her principles, and when she’d asked him to reconsider, he’d refused and so she’d walked away, leaving her heart behind...

And now her life and the life of her child might depend on him.

This house, the house she’d fallen so in love with, home of the only man she’d ever really loved, was the last place in the world she wanted to be, its owner the last man in the world she wanted to ask for help. She didn’t imagine he’d be any more thrilled than she was, but she had Josh with her, and so she had no choice but to swallow her pride and hope to God he was there.

Heart pounding, she struggled to the gate, lifted a hand so cold she could scarcely feel it and scrubbed the snow away from the intercom with her icy fingers.

‘Please be there,’ she whispered, ‘please help me.’ And then, her heart in her mouth, she pressed the button and waited.

* * *

The sharp, persistent buzz cut through his concentration, and he stopped what he was doing, pressed save and headed for the hall.

This would be the last of his Christmas deliveries. Hurray for online shopping, he thought, and then glanced out of the window and did a mild double-take. When had it started snowing like that?

He looked at the screen on the intercom and frowned. He couldn’t see anything for a moment, just a swirl of white, and then the screen cleared momentarily and he made out the figure of a woman, huddled up in her coat, her hands tucked under her arms—and then she pulled a hand out and swiped snow off the front of the intercom and he saw her clearly.

Georgie?

He felt the blood drain from his head and hauled in a breath, then another one. No. It couldn’t be. He was seeing things, conjuring her up out of nowhere because he couldn’t stop thinking about her while he was in this damn house—

‘Can I help you?’ he said crisply, not trusting his eyes, but then she swiped the hair back off her face and anchored it out of the way, and it really was her, her smile tentative but relieved as she heard his voice.

‘Oh, Sebastian, thank goodness you’re there. I wasn’t sure—um—it’s Georgie Pullman. Georgia Becket? Look, I’m really sorry to trouble you, but can you help me? I wouldn’t ask, but my car’s stuck in a snowdrift just by your gateway, and I don’t have a spade to dig myself out and my phone won’t work.’

He hesitated, holding his breath and staring at her while he groped frantically for a level surface in a world that suddenly seemed tilted on its axis. And then it righted and common sense prevailed. Sort of.

‘Wait there. I’ll drive down. Maybe I can tow you out.’

‘Thanks. You’re a star.’

She vanished in a swirl of whiteout, and he let go of the button with a sharp sigh. What the hell was she doing driving along the lane in this weather?

Surely not coming to see him? Why would she? She never had, not once in nine years, and he had no reason to think she’d do it now—unless it was curiosity about the house, and he doubted it. Not in this weather, and probably not at all. Why would she care? She hadn’t cared enough to stay with him.

She’d hated him in the end, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d hated himself, but he’d hated her, too, for what she’d done to them, for not having faith in him, for not sticking by him just when he’d needed her the most.

No, she wasn’t coming to see him. She’d been going home to her parents for Christmas, using the short cut, and now here she was, purely by chance, stuck outside his house and he had no choice—no damn choice at all—but to go and dig her out. And that would mean talking to her, seeing her face, hearing her voice.

Resurrecting a whole shed-load of memories of a time he’d rather forget.

Dragging that up all over again was the last thing he needed, but just moving here had done that, anyway, and there was no way he could leave her outside in a blizzard. And it’d be dark soon. The light was failing already. He’d dig her out and send her on her way. Fast, before it was too late and he was stuck with her.

Letting out a low growl, he picked up his car keys, shrugged on his coat, grabbed a shovel and a tow rope from the coach-house and threw them into the back of the Range Rover he’d bought for just this sort of eventuality. Not that he’d ever expected to be digging Georgia out of a hole.

He headed down the drive, his wipers going flat out to clear the screen, but when he got to the gates and opened them with the remote control, there was no sign of her. Just footprints in the deep snow, heading to the left and vanishing fast in the blizzard.

It was far worse than he’d realised. There were no huge, fat flakes that drifted softly down and stayed where they fell, but tiny crystals of snow driven horizontally by the biting wind, the drifts piling up and making the lane impassable. He wondered where the hell she was. It would have been handy to know just how far along—

And then he saw it, literally yards from the end of his drive, the red tail lights dim through the coating of snow over the lenses. He left the car in the gateway and got out, his boots sinking deep into the powdery drifts as he crunched towards her. No wonder she was stuck, going out in weather like this in that ridiculous little car, but there was no way she’d be going anywhere else in it tonight, he realised. Which meant he would be stuck with her.

Damn.

He felt anger moving in, taking the place of shock. Good. Healthy. Better than the sentimental wallowing he’d been doing last night in that damn four-poster bed—

Bracing himself against the wind, he turned his collar up against the needles of ice and strode over to it, opening the passenger door and stooping down. A blast of warmth and Christmas music swamped him, and carried on the warmth was a lingering scent that he remembered so painfully, excruciatingly well.

It hit him like a kick in the gut, and he slammed the lid on his memories and peered inside.

She was kneeling on the seat looking at something in the back, and as she turned towards him she gave him a tentative smile.

‘Hi. That was quick. I’m really sorry—’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said crisply, trying not to scan her face for changes. ‘Right, let’s get you out of here.’

‘See, Josh?’ she said cheerfully. ‘I told you he was going to help us.’

Josh? She had a Josh who could dig her out?

‘Josh?’ he said coldly, and her smile softened, stabbing him in the gut.

‘My son.’

She had a son?

His heart pounding, he ducked his head in so he could look over the back of the seat—and met wide eyes so familiar they seemed to cut right to his soul.

‘Josh, this is Sebastian. He’s going to get us unstuck.’

He was? Well, of course he was! How could he refuse those liquid green eyes so filled with uncertainty? Poor little kid.

‘Hi, Josh,’ he said softly, because after all it wasn’t the child’s fault they were stuck, and then he finally let himself look at Georgie.

She hadn’t changed at all. She had the same wide, ingenuous eyes as her son, the same soft bow lips, high cheekbones and sweeping brows that had first enchanted him all those years ago. Her wild curls were dark and glossy and beaded with melted snow, and there was a tiny pleat of worry between her brows. And her face was just inches from his, her scent swirling around him in the shelter of the car and making mincemeat of his carefully erected defences.

He hauled his head out of the car and straightened up, sucking in a lungful of freezing air. Better. Slightly. Now if he could just nail those defences back in place again—

‘I’m really sorry,’ she began again, peering up at him, but he shook his head.

‘Don’t. Let’s just get your car out of here and get you inside.’

‘No! I need to get to my parents!’

He let his breath out on a disbelieving huff. ‘Georgie, look at it!’ he said, gesturing at the weather. ‘You’re going nowhere. I don’t even know if I can get your car out, and you’re certainly not taking it anywhere else in the dark.’

‘It’s not dark—’

‘Almost. And we haven’t got your car out yet. Just get in the driver’s seat, keep the engine running and when you feel a tug let the brakes off and reverse gently back as I pull you. And try and steer it so it doesn’t go in the ditch. OK?’

She opened her mouth, shut it again and nodded.

Plenty of time once the car was out to argue with him.

* * *

It took just moments.

The car slithered and slid, and for a second she thought they’d end up in the ditch, but then she felt the tug from behind ease off as they came to rest outside the gates and she put the handbrake on and relaxed her grip on the wheel.

Phase 1 over. Now for Phase 2.

She opened the car door and got out into the blizzard again. He was right there, checking the side of her car that had been wedged against the snowdrift, and he straightened and met her eyes.

‘It looks OK. I don’t think it’s damaged.’

‘Good. That’s a relief. And thanks for helping me—’

‘Don’t thank me,’ he said bluntly. ‘You were blocking the lane, I’ve only cleared it before the snow plough comes along and mashes it to a pulp.’

She gulped down the snippy retort. Of course he wasn’t going to be gracious about it! She was the last person he wanted to turn out to help, but he’d done it anyway, so she swallowed her pride and tried again. ‘Well, whatever, I’m still grateful. I’ll be on my way now—’

He cut her off with a sharp sigh. ‘We’ve just had this conversation, Georgia. You can’t go anywhere. Your car won’t get down the lane. Nothing will. I could hardly pull you out with the Range Rover. What on earth possessed you to try and drive down here in weather like this anyway?’

She blinked and stared at him. ‘I had to. I’m on my way home to my parents for Christmas, and I thought I’d beat the snow, but it came out of nowhere and for the last hour I’ve just been crawling along—’

‘So why come this way? It’s hardly the most sensible route in that little tin can.’

She bristled. Tin can? ‘I wasn’t coming this way but the other road was closed with an accident—d’you know what? Forget it!’ she snapped, losing her temper completely because absolutely the last place in the world she wanted to be snowed in was with this bad-tempered and ungracious reminder of the worst time of her life, and she was seriously leaving now! In her tin can! ‘I’m really sorry I disturbed you, I’ll make sure I never do it again. Just—just go back to your ivory tower and leave me alone and I’ll get out of your hair!’

She tried to get back in the car, desperate to get away before the weather got any worse, but his hand shot out and clamped round her wrist like a vice.

‘Georgia, grow up! No matter how tempted I am to leave you here to work it out for yourself—and believe me, I am very tempted at the moment—I can’t let you both die of your stubborn, stiff-necked stupidity.’

Her eyes widened and she glared at him, trying to wrestle her arm free. ‘Stubborn, stiff-necked—? Well, you can talk! You’re a past master at that! And we’re not going to die. You’re being ridiculously melodramatic. It’s simply not that bad.’

It was his turn to snap then, his temper flayed by that intoxicating scent and the deluge of memories that apparently just wouldn’t be stopped. He tugged her closer, glowering down into her face as the scent assailed him once more.