Underneath The Mistletoe Collection. Marguerite Kaye

heart did a daft wee flip, then sank as the door opened and a maidservant descended, followed by a young woman. Ainsley watched listlessly as the baggage was unloaded. Farther along the crescent, a man had appeared. Tall, dressed in black, he was making his way slowly along, checking the numbers on each of the doors.

      It wasn’t him. Why should it be him? All the same, Ainsley gazed down in dismay at her crumpled gown, put a hand to her hair, which was falling down from the loose knot she’d put it up in this morning. She dare not leave the window to consult the mirror over the fireplace. Not that it could possibly be Innes. Even though he did walk like Innes.

      It was him. Her heart stopped and then began to race as she looked down into his face. Such blue eyes. He raised his hand in recognition. She couldn’t move. He disappeared up the steps. The bell clanged. Still partly inclined to believe he was a figment of her imagination, Ainsley went down to open the door.

      ‘It is you.’ He looked tired. He looked—nervous? Afraid? ‘Has something happened?’ Ainsley asked, panicking. ‘Is someone— Is everyone...?’

      ‘Fine. They’re all fine.’

      ‘And you?’

      Innes shrugged. He smiled, or he seemed to be trying to smile. ‘I don’t know. I’m hoping to find out. Can I come in?’

      ‘How did you know I’d be here?’

      ‘Eoin finally gave me Miss Blair’s address.’

      ‘She’s not here. She’s gone to her parents for New Year.’

      ‘Ainsley, can I come in?’

      She opened the door wider and Innes stepped through, following her up the stairs to the living room. She closed this door behind her, then simply leaned against it, unsure what to say, refusing to allow herself to think about what this might mean. It had been hard enough to leave him the first time. ‘What is it?’ she asked, and her voice sounded sharper than she meant, but it couldn’t be helped.

      Innes took off his greatcoat and put it over one of the chairs. His hat went on the table, and his gloves. He stood in front of the fire, hands clasped behind his back. Then he went over to the window, where she had been standing a few moments ago. Then he joined her at the door. ‘I don’t know where to start,’ he said. ‘I had a speech, but I can’t remember it now.’ He waited, but she could think of nothing to say. ‘I’ve seen Blanche,’ he said.

      Ainsley’s heart plummeted, even as she told herself firmly that this was good news. ‘Good,’ she said, as if saying out loud would make it so.

      Innes nodded. ‘Yes, yes, it was.’ He took another turn round the room, to the fireplace, to the window, back to her. ‘You were right. Or Madame Hera was,’ he said with another of those lopsided smiles.

      ‘Good,’ Ainsley said again, this time with a firm nod. ‘I’m glad.’ She didn’t sound glad. She sounded as if she were being strangled. ‘Did it help?’

      Innes ran his hand through his hair. He had had it cut. Suddenly she couldn’t bear that he’d had it cut and she hadn’t been there. She blinked furiously, but a tear escaped and ran down her cheek. She brushed it away quickly, but another fell.

      ‘Ainsley...’

      ‘It’s nothing. I’m fine.’ She pushed him away and went to sit on the sofa, pulling the comforting woollen blanket over her, not caring how she looked or what he thought. ‘Just tell me, Innes, and get it over with.’

      ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

      ‘I am! I will be,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Would you just tell me?’

      He stared at her in astonishment, and then he laughed. ‘Don’t tell me Mhairi was right.’

      When she had nothing to say to this strange remark, Innes came to sit beside her. He was smiling, this time in a way that made her heart, which had become as wayward as her voice, start to do what felt peculiarly like a dance. ‘Ainsley, you can’t possibly be thinking that I would want Blanche?’

      She shrugged, though the gesture was somewhat obscured by the blanket covering her. ‘You did before,’ she said, and though she sounded like a petulant child now, she couldn’t help adding, ‘You told me yourself that she is beautiful, rich, well born.’

      ‘But I’m married to you.’

      ‘Not really. I told you in my letter that I would cooperate with however you saw fit to end it.’

      ‘And in the meantime, you don’t mind if I’m bedding my first love, is that it?’

      ‘No!’ Though he had not raised his voice, he sounded angry. Ainsley pushed back the blanket and got to her feet. ‘You should not use a word like that in reference to your— To someone— To Blanche,’ she said, picking up the poker and applying it furiously to the coals.

      ‘Ainsley, I’m not bedding Blanche. I’ve no intentions of bedding her or even of making love to her. I can’t believe you would think that. I’m married to you.’

      ‘Not for much longer.’

      The poker was wrested from her fingers. She was yanked to her feet, and held very tightly in an embrace. ‘I came here in the hope of persuading you to make it for life. Please tell me I’m not wasting my time, Ainsley.’

      Now her heart felt as though it was about to jump out of her mouth. The way he was looking at her, as if his life depended on her. But it did not. Surely it did not. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re doing here.’

      ‘I’m trying, in a very, very roundabout and long-winded way, to tell you that I love you. My only excuse for doing it so badly is that I’ve not said it before. Not like this. I’ve never meant it like this, and if you mention Blanche one more time...’

      ‘It was you who mentioned her.’

      He laughed. ‘I was trying to show you that I’d understood. That I’d done what you advised. That I’d taken the opportunity to “put the past to rest”, to quote Madame Hera.’

      ‘That was me, actually.’

      ‘But, as you pointed out to me, they are become one and the same person.’ Innes pushed her hair back from her face. ‘I thought I had to prove myself worthy before I told you, but I think I did it the wrong way round. I love you, Ainsley. I love you with all my heart, and though I can live without you, I can get by with my guilt and my demons persuading myself that it’s all I deserve, I don’t want to. I want to be happy, and the only thing that will make me truly happy is you.’

      She had never believed there was such a thing, but she could have sworn what she saw in his face was the light of love. She had so many questions, but right now all that mattered was that. ‘I love you,’ Ainsley said, ‘I love you every bit as much, and I could do as you said, too, I could live without you, but, Innes, I really don’t want to.’

      ‘You don’t have to. Dearest, darling Ainsley, you don’t have to.’

      He kissed her in a way he’d never kissed her before. Gently. Tenderly. Tentatively. He kissed her as if he was afraid she would not kiss him back. He kissed her as if he was begging that she would. ‘Ainsley, I know it’s all back to front, but I love you so much,’ he said. And then he kissed her again, and she told him, with her hands and her lips, how very, very much his love was returned.

      Later, Innes thought, kissing her. There would be all the time in the world for explanations later. What mattered now was that he loved her, and she loved him, and she was in his arms and he could finally admit just how much he had missed her and how close he had come to losing her. He kissed her, whispering her name over, whispering the words over, kissing her, touching her, pulling her so close there was no space between them. He never wanted to let her go. He wanted to make love to her right now. Make real love. Make love that he’d never made before. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe how much I love you.