Buch lesen: «Kissing Santa»

CHAPTER ONE

AMANDA saw Blair McAllister as soon as she stepped down off the train. He was standing under a banner wishing everyone season’s greetings on behalf of the station staff, but he didn’t look exactly filled with Christmas spirit. Instead, he was watching the passengers piling out of the standard-class carriages, his hands thrust into corduroy trousers with barely concealed impatience and dark brows drawn together over a formidable-looking nose.

Dropping her case onto the platform, Amanda slid A Far Horizon surreptitiously out of her bag so that she could squint down at the photograph on the back of the dust-jacket. Yes, it was definitely the same man.

With a distinct sense of disappointment, she rested her sherry-coloured eyes on Blair McAllister as he searched the milling crowds with a frown. The photograph had been taken in a desert. Unaware of the camera, he had been smiling at someone out of sight, eyes narrowed against the glare and dark hair slightly ruffled by a hot wind, and he had looked rangy and relaxed and utterly competent.

On the tram, Amanda had studied the photograph with interest and a faint stirring of anticipation. She wouldn’t have called him exactly handsome, but there was defimtely something about him, she had decided. She wasn’t sure whether it was that look of lean self-containment, his reputation as an intrepid traveller and programme maker, or simply his tan, but, whatever it was, it gave him an indefinably glamorous air.

Now she slid the book back into her bag with a faint sigh. Who said the camera never lied? The man waiting for her on the platform might have the same severe features as the man in the photograph, but in the flesh he looked tired and bad-tempered and not in the least bit glamorous.

He stood quite still, letting the crowds surge past him, and as Amanda watched he turned his head and looked up the platform towards her. For a brief moment his gaze rested on her vibrant figure with a hard, impersonal scrutiny before it swept on, and the next moment he had transferred his attention back down the platform once more. Amanda was left feeling rather piqued at his lack of interest. She was also a little disconcerted by the shrewd intelligence in his face. Blair McAllister didn’t look like a man who would be easily fooled by anyone.

Which was unfortunate, in the circumstances.

Amanda hesitated. In London it had seemed so easy to take Sue’s place but now, as she faced the reality of her new employer, suddenly it didn’t seem quite such a good idea. She looked doubtfully along the platform at Blair, then squared her shoulders and bent to tip her suitcase back onto its wheels. She had just spent over eleven hours on trains and she wasn’t going to turn round and go back now!

Trundling the suitcase behind her, she made her way towards him through the last of the passengers. ‘Mr McAllister?’

He swung round at the sound of his name, the fierce brows shooting up in surprise at her appearing from the direction of the first-class carriages. ‘Yes—’

He stopped as he took in Amanda’s appearance. She had a mobile expression, and dark, glossy brown hair cleverly highlighted with gold swung around her face. Subject to belated qualms about what she was letting herself in for, she had bolstered her confidence by making up with care on the train, emphasising the unusual golden-brown eyes and outlining the curving mouth with the bold red lipstick that she always wore. She was wearing the suit that she had bought to celebrate promotion to executive status at last, together with her favourite shoes which were decorated with floppy bows and which always made her feel good.

‘You’re Susan Haywood?’ Blair went on in disbelief.

Perhaps she didn’t look much like a nanny, Amanda realised as his eyes rested for an incredulous moment on her shoes. Nannies probably didn’t travel first class either, but Norris had bought her ticket and she had never been one to turn down the chance of a bit of luxury. Still, it was too late to worry about that now. She gave Blair McAllister her best smile instead.

‘That’s me,’ she said mendaciously. ‘But I prefer to be called Amanda,’ she added, having decided that she would get confused if she had to answer to Sue all month.

‘Amanda?’ Her guileless smile didn’t seem to be having much effect on Blair. Instead of smiling back as any other man would have done, the surprise in his face deepened to suspicion. ‘Amanda?’ he said again, staring at her.

‘Yes.’ She allowed her innocent look to fade in her turn into bewilderment. ‘Didn’t the agency tell you?’

‘No, they didn’t.’ Blair’s voice was terse, with only a hint of a Scottish intonation.

Close to, he was much more formidable than he had seemed at first sight. That photograph had been definitely misleading, Amanda decided. Who would have thought that that cool, uncompromising mouth could relax into such a smile?

Not that there was any sign of a smile now. There was a flintiness about him, a reserve edged with irritability that made him appear dauntingly stern, and although the artificial light made it impossible to tell what colour his eyes were it showed enough to tell her that they held an uncomfortably acute expression. The photograph hadn’t warned her about that either, thought Amanda, obscurely resentful. She felt she would have been better prepared if she had known just how they could look through you.

‘All the agency told me was that you were an experienced nanny,’ Blair was saying, still frowning suspiciously. ‘They assured me that you were a nice, quiet girl.’ The penetrating gaze swept from her face to her shoes and then back again. ‘You don’t look very quiet to me.’ His tone implied that he didn’t think she looked very nice either. ‘You’ll forgive me if I seem a little taken aback,’ he went on in an arid voice. ‘I thought I was getting a sensible nanny called Susan and instead I get a glamorous executive type called Amanda!’

Amanda would normally have been delighted to be described as a glamorous executive, but the caustic note in Blair’s voice made it clear that it wasn’t intended as a compliment, and anyway, she was still bridling at the idea of not being considered nice.

‘I’m sorry if you don’t approve of the way I look,’ she said in a voice that was intended to sound quelling but which came out more peevish than anything. ‘But frankly, I don’t see what difference it makes what I look like or what I call myself. I would have thought that the important thing as far as you were concerned was whether I was as sensible as the agency promised.’

‘Quite,’ said Blair acidly. ‘And in my book a sensible girl wouldn’t come to the Highlands in shoes like that in the middle of winter, nor would she be travelling first class. If you’re expecting me to reimburse your travel expenses, you can think again!’

Amanda had opened her mouth to ask whether he always acted like Scrooge or whether it was just in honour of the season when it occurred to her that getting into an argument with her new employer within the first two minutes of meeting him was probably not the best way of ensuring that she got into Dundinnie. She had staked her career on doing just that, so she mustn’t blow it now.

‘I don’t usually travel first class,’ she assured him instead in a conciliatory voice. That at least had the advantage of being true! ‘I bought a standard ticket, but by an extraordinary coincidence I met my godfather in the buffet car,’ she went on, abandoning truth in favour of improvisation. ‘We hadn’t seen each other for ages, so he insisted that I go and sit with him in first class, and he paid the difference...a sort of Christmas present.’

‘Very generous godfather,’ commented Blair dourly. Amanda beamed at him, pleased with her story. ‘Oh, he is.’

‘Quite a coincidence meeting him on the same train!’

‘Wasn’t it?’ she agreed, all wide-eyed innocence. ‘He got off in Glasgow,’ she added, sensing disbelief, and anxious to make sure that he didn’t ask her to produce a godfather to substantiate her story.

‘Hmm.’ Blair favoured her with a hard stare, but to Amanda’s relief he didn’t pursue the matter, merely grunting sceptically as he picked up her case. ‘Well, since you’re here at last, Susan, Amanda or whatever you want to call yourself, we may as well go. I’ve been hanging around here quite long enough.’

Anyone would think that it was her fault that the train had been late, Amanda grumbled to herself, but she swallowed her resentment. She had got over the first hurdle, but she would have to be careful. For a nasty moment there she had wondered if Blair had been going to say that he hadn’t believed a word of her story, and there would have been nothing to stop him simply leaving her to catch the first train back to London, making an ignominious end to her glorious new career.

Eyeing the straight back ahead of her, Amanda reminded herself just what was at stake. This was her chance to break out of the secretarial rank at last. Norris Jeffries had more or less guaranteed a promotion if she got this right, and if she was going to do that she should be thinking about chatting Blair up, not arguing with him.

She hurried to catch up. ‘I’ve just been reading your book,’ she said brightly, but the look Blair cast down at her was not exactly encouraging.

‘Which one?’

Amanda’s mind went hideously blank as she tried to remember the title. ‘It was about the expedition you led to the desert...and you made a documentary when you were there,’ she added helpfully, although she had done little more than read the blurb on the cover and flick through the photographs. Travel books had never appealed to her; fiction, the more implausible the better, was much more her style.

‘That cuts the possibilities down to about four,’ said Blair drily. ‘You don’t remember the name of the desert, I suppose?’

‘No,’ Amanda had to admit. ‘But I thought it was terribly good,’ she made haste to console him. ‘Honestly, it was great’

‘I’m glad it made such an impression on you.’ There was no mistaking the acerbic note in his voice this time and Amanda bit her lip, feeling rather silly. Anyone else would have been glad of a compliment, she thought, instead of making it clear that they didn’t believe that she had read a word of his book! She had been going to pretend that she had seen some of his television programmes too, but she wouldn’t bother now!

Outside the station it was dark and cold and gusts of rain splattered against her face. Unprepared for the sharp drop in temperature, Amanda screwed up her face and wrapped her arms around herself to try and stop the shivering. It had been unseasonably mild in London, and she had packed her coat so that she wouldn’t have to carry it. Now she wished she hadn’t. Clearly, the Scottish weather hadn’t forgotten that there were only a couple of weeks to go until Christmas.

Blair was unlocking what looked like a Range Rover, parked against a wall in the darkness. The back was stacked with boxes, carrier bags and odd assorted pieces of machinery and there was only just enough room to wedge Amanda’s suitcase behind her seat. ‘It looks as if you’ve been shopping,’ she said brightly as Blair leant across to unlock her door and she scrambled gratefully into the shelter of the passenger seat. ‘Don’t tell me they’re all Christmas presents!’

‘Hardly.’ It was obvious that Blair didn’t think much of her effort at making conversation and had already written her down as completely inane. He slotted the key into the ignition and coaxed the engine into spluttering life. ‘I’ve merely been taking the opportunity to stock up since I was coming down to town. Dundinnie isn’t exactly handy for the shops.’

‘So I hear,’ said Amanda a little glumly. She loved shops, but Norris had raved about the castle’s isolated position. ‘The agency warned me,’ she explained quickly, feeling Blair glance at her, and then, to divert him, said, ‘Is the car all right? It’s making an awfully funny noise.’ Sue had told her that Blair McAllister was acclaimed as much for his travel documentaries as for his travel books and daring expeditions, and Amanda would have thought that if he was as successful as he was reputed to be then he could afford a car that sounded healthier than this one. Perhaps Norris was closer to the mark in suspecting that Blair had problems trying to mamtain a medieval Scottish castle at the same time as financing his travels.

‘She’s just warming up,’ said Blair irritably, as if divining the train of her thoughts. He clicked on the headlights and a powerful beam of light bounced off the wall in front of them and was reflected back through the windscreen, throwing the lean planes of his face into eerie relief. Amanda found herself noticing how the blocks of light and shadow emphasised his profile with its strong nose and clean jawline and lit just one corner of that stern mouth.

Switching on the windscreen wipers, Blair began to reverse the car out of its parking space, but as he rested an arm on her headrest and turned to look through the rear window he caught Amanda watching him and raised one eyebrow in sardonic enquiry. Unaccountably ruffled, Amanda looked quickly away. To her relief, the interior of the car was engulfed in darkness once more as the beam of the headlights swung out and away from the wall. For some stupid reason, she could feel a flush stealing up her cheeks.

‘How long will it take us to get to the castle?’ she asked with forced brightness, just to show Blair that she hadn’t even registered that joltingly brief meeting of their eyes.

‘It’s normally about two and a half hours,’ said Blair, putting the car into first. ‘Probably more like three tonight. There was a lot of rain when I drove down this morning, and they were forecasting gales again tonight.’

As if to underline his words, a gust of wind splattered rain against the windscreen. ‘Three hours!’ exclaimed Amanda, aghast. ‘I could be halfway back to London in that time!’

‘Very possibly, but you won’t find any nice straight motorways around here. As the crow flies, Dundinnie isn’t that far, but we have to follow the road around a couple of lochs and then get through the hills, and there may well be snow up there. It’s not an easy road at the best of times, but on a night like this it’ll be even slower than usual, so I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to be patient.’

He didn’t sound very sorry. ‘Couldn’t we stay here tonight and go tomorrow morning?’ pleaded Amanda. She had glanced at a map before she’d set out, measuring the distance against the scale with her thumb, and had calculated that it wouldn’t take much more than an hour to get there. That had seemed bad enough after ten hours on the train—and that was before they had been delayed for over an hour. Now the prospect of another three hours seemed too much to bear. ‘I’ve been travelling all day,’ she reminded Blair, hoping to appeal to his sense of chivalry, but she might as well have spared her breath.

‘You’ve only been sitting on a train,’ he pointed out without a trace of sympathy.

‘For eleven and a half hours!’ Amanda said indignantly. ‘Sitting still for that length of time is tiring—or am I only allowed to be tired if I’ve spent eleven hours hacking through some jungle?’

‘If you’d spent eleven days hacking through a jungle you’d be entitled to feel tired,’ said Blair with a sardonic, sideways glance. ‘As far as I can see, all you’ve been doing is sitting in a first-class carriage not doing anything—not even reading, judging by what you said about my book! I hardly think you’ve got anything to complam about,’ he went on. ‘It’s not even as if I’m asking you to drive. You can go to sleep if you want.’

‘I can’t sleep in a car,’ said Amanda sullaly. ‘It makes me feel sick.’

‘In that case you’ll just have to stay awake and shut up, won’t you?’

He was hateful, she decided, subsiding into simmering silence. Arrogant and inconsiderate and absolutely hateful! She had been unfair when she had mentally compared him to Scrooge: Scrooge would have been more charming and certainly better company this Christmas!

She slid a resentful look at Blair from under her lashes. It was all right for him. He hadn’t been up at the crack of dawn to see Sue and Nigel off at the airport, or had to struggle across London on the tube with a heavy suitcase, and he hadn’t had to sit on a train all day with only his crummy book for company either! Anyone with any feelings at all would have taken her to the nearest luxury hotel, poured her a stiff drink and ensured that she had a hot bath before falling into bed. Instead of which she was being dragged on a cross-country marathon and told to shut up when she dared to protest.

Folding her arms, Amanda glowered through the windscreen at the darkness. If Blair wanted her to shut up, she would shut up. She didn’t want to waste her conversation on him anyway!

Frustratingly, Blair didn’t appear to notice that she was ignoring him. Quite unperturbed by the silence, he drove through the town and out onto the Inverness road. ‘The agency tell me that you’ve had considerable experience of dealing with children,’ he said at last as they left the lights of Fort William behind them. ‘What made you become a nanny?’

‘I started to train as a teacher,’ said Amanda, still rather huffily. It was lucky that she knew Sue’s career nearly as well as her own. ‘But I really liked small children best,’ she went on, crossing her fingers in the darkness. ‘I used to be a nanny m the holidays and I liked the variety of temporary work. I got to travel more too. Once I spent three weeks in a luxury hotel in the Caribbean.’ It was the only one of Sue’s jobs that Amanda had ever found the least bit enviable, but Blair McAllister was predictably unimpressed.

‘I hope you’re not expecting anything like that this time,’ he said dampeningly. ‘Did the agency explain the situation to you?’

‘All they said was that you needed someone to help look after your sister’s children,’ said Amanda, trying to remember exactly what Sue had told her. ‘I gather that she hasn’t been well?’

‘She’s better now, but the illness left her very pulled down, and she really needed a complete break. She went through a very messy divorce last year and I think everything just caught up with her. The children were at school, but there was a very responsible nanny to look after them and she went out to New Zealand to see a friend and have a holiday. Unfortunately, the nanny’s mother is very ill, which is why I had to go down and bring the children up here last week. And then we heard that the friend she’s staying with has just been involved in an accident, so Belinda feels she ought to stay and help out until she’s on her feet again.’

Blair gave a brief sigh. ‘Unfortunately, it means that she’s not going to be able to get back in time for Christmas and the children are obviously disappointed. I have to admit that I wasn’t planning on looking after three children for six weeks, especially when they’re having to miss the end of term. That’s why I rang your agency. I’m trying to finish a book about my last trip at the moment and, to be frank, I don’t know very much about children at the best of times.’

That makes two of us, thought Amanda glumly. ‘So you just want someone to keep them out of your way for a bit?’

‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ he said with a stiff look, mistaking her sympathy for accusation. ‘But I do have a deadline to meet, and it seemed the best thing for the children to have someone who would know how to look after them properly. They’re missing their mother and they haven’t had an easy time of it either over the last couple of years and it’s made them rather... difficult at times.’

Amanda’s heart sank. ‘What exactly does “difficult” mean?’

‘They just don’t seem to do any of things we used to do when we were kids. Simon’s eleven and Nicholas nearly nine, but all they ever want to do is sit in front of the television.’ Blair’s voice thinned with disapproval, but Amanda perked up. Watching television didn’t sound like being difficult to her.

‘There’s a little girl too, isn’t there?’

‘Emily,’ he confirmed. ‘She’s seven and very spoilt. I have to admit that I’ll be glad to hand them over to someone who knows how to deal with children,’ he added in an unexpected admission. ‘If you’re half as good as the agency say you are, you should be able to sort them out.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Amanda’s attempt at breezy confidence sounded hollow even to her own ears. ‘Yes, of course I will.’

‘But you hate children!’ Sue had exclaimed when Amanda had first proposed her plan.

‘Not all of them,’ Amanda had defended herself. ‘I’m sure I won’t mind these children. There are only three of them, after all, and it’s not as if they’re babies who need their nappies changing all the time.’ The two girls had been sitting in a crowded wine bar near Amanda’s office. They had managed to find a table and were methodically working their way through the bowl of peanuts that had come with the bottle of wine.

‘They still need to be looked after properly,’ Sue pointed out.

‘I don’t see that it can be that difficult,’ said Amanda buoyantly. ‘You told me yourself that there’s a housekeeper to do the cooking, so all I’d have to do is keep an eye on them and stop them falling in the loch.’

‘I can’t believe you’re serious about this!’ Sue looked helplessly across the table at her friend. ‘You’ve never had the slightest interest in Scotland and even less in children, and now you say you want to spend several weeks as a nanny in the Highlands! And Christmas too! Surely you’d rather spend it with your family?’

‘It’s not that I don’t want to go home for Christmas,’ said Amanda, ‘but the job’s more important to me at the moment. Anyway,’ she added, ‘my sister and her three children are going to be there, so the house’ll be packed, and everyone will be so busy fussing over them that they won’t have time to notice whether I’m there or not.’

‘What about Hugh?’

‘Oh, that’s all off,’ said Amanda carelessly. ‘He just couldn’t understand why I’d rather have a decent job than a mortgage and a screaming baby. He’s going out with Lucy now—I’m sure she’ll want exactly that and then they’ll both be happy,’ she added, not without a touch of regret, because Hugh really had been very good-looking. ‘No, my future lies in a brilliant career, and if that means spending Christmas in Scotland that’s what I’ll do.’

‘But the whole idea is completely mad!’ protested Sue. Amanda refilled their glasses. ‘No, it isn’t,’ she said confidently. ‘It’s a brilliant idea. It solves your problem and it solves my problem and it even solves Blair MeAllister’s problem. What’s wrong with that?’

‘You don’t think it’s a bit deceitful?’ asked Sue, not without a trace of irony.

‘It’s not going to make any difference to Blair McAllister which girl he gets,’ said Amanda, waving the bottle dismissively. ‘He just wants someone to keep an eye on his sister’s kids, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to do that as well as anyone else. I know you think I’m a domestic disaster, but I’m not completely irresponsible. And it would make a difference to me, Sue,’ she went on pleadingly. ‘It might be just another job to you, but my entire future depends on getting into Dundinnie Castle!’

Unfortunately, Sue was used to Amanda’s sense of drama. ‘Your future has depended on so many new jobs that I’ve lost count!’

‘This job’s different,’ Amanda insisted through a mouthful of peanuts. ‘I’m sick of being stuck as a secretary and told that I can only move up the ladder if I stay there for ten years. I want to be successful now.’

‘There’s no point in wanting to be successful unless you know what it is you want to be successful at,’ said Sue, ever practical, but Amanda brushed that aside.

‘Norris knows what I mean. He says he likes people who are hungry for success. That’s why he’s given me this job. ‘If I can get into Dundinnie and convince Blair McAllister to sell, he says there are no limits to how far I can go, but first I’ve got to prove to him that I’ve got the killer instinct.’

‘The killer instinct? You?’ Sue regarded her friend with exasperated affection. ‘I don’t know why you keep up this pretence of wanting to be a ruthless businesswoman when we all know what a softie you are underneath! You’d better not let Norris Jeffries find out about all those lame ducks you sort out if you want him to think that you’ve got the killer instinct!’

Amanda scowled. She had put a lot of effort into her new executive image. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t got any lame ducks.’

‘No? What about Geny?’

‘She just needs a bit of organisation—’ Amanda began defensively, but Sue didn’t let her finish.

‘And what about that time I turned up on your doorstep in floods of tears when you were on your way to Venice? If you’d had real killer instinct you’d have tossed me a packet of tissues on your way out to the airport, instead of cancelling your whole trip to make sure that Nigel and I got back together.’

‘It’s because I want you to stay together that I think you should let me take your place,’ said Amanda cunningly, seizing her opportunity. ‘What’s Nigel going to think when you won’t give up a crummy temporary job so that you can go with him on this holiday he’s won? It’s the chance of a lifetime, and he can’t turn it down, but if he thinks you don’t care enough to want to spent Christmas with him in California, well...’ She shook her head sadly. ‘It’s not as if you’ll get many opportunities for a free trip to the States either,’ she persevered when Sue looked gloomily down into her glass. ‘And just think what he might get up to without you!’

It was obvious that Sue had already thought. ‘It’s not that I wouldn’t love to go...’

‘Well, then!’ Amanda spread her hands virtuously. ‘Here am I, offering to take your place so that you don’t let down the agency, and all you can do is think up objections!’

‘It’s the thought of you taking my place that worries me,’ said Sue frankly. ‘I’ve built up a good reputation with the agency, and if they hear that I’ve let you work for Blair McAllister under false pretences I’m finished. He’s a highprofile clienl I know you’ve never read any of his books but you must have seen his programmes.’

‘All that pitting-yourself-against-the-elements stuff doesn’t really appeal to me,’ said Amanda.

‘He doesn’t just do that,’ protested Sue. ‘Sometimes it’s true, he does take people out into challenging environments—you should have seen what they were doing in Guyana!—but usually it’s just his individual view of a country.’

‘Maybe, but it never sounds to me as if he goes anywhere with any good restaurants,’ said Amanda flippantly. ‘What’s he supposed to be like?’

‘I think he’s brilliant. If Nigel hadn’t won this holiday, I’d be really looking forward to meeting him.’

Sensing weakness, Amanda sat up straighter. ‘The agency won’t ever find out,’ she said, at her most soothing. ‘It’s not as if I’m going to do anything. All I want is to look round the castle and report back to Norris on its condition. He’s set his heart on it for his new health centre, but he only saw it from the outside when he drove past it a couple of months ago. He wants to know what it’s like inside so that he can make Blair McAllister a realistic offer.’

‘But I thought you said that Norris had already approached him about selling the castle and got a very rude reply telling him to forget the whole idea?’

‘Oh. they always say that at first,’ said Amanda with all the confidence of one who had been in property development for two whole weeks. ‘It’s just a way of forcing up the price. That’s why Norris needs a report on the inside. He’s given me four weeks to get up to the castle and find out what I can about Blair McAllister’s financial situation. It’s not the sort of place you can turn up to out of the blue, and I was just beginning to think that I’d have to admit that I couldn’t do it when you told me you’d been offered a temporary job there starting next week.’ Clutching her hands together, she leant pleadingly over the table. ‘It can’t just be a coincidence, Sue. It has to be meant.’