Yuletide Bride. Mary Lyons
breathlessly as she swiftly gathered up her parcels.
‘You don’t look at all well. I hope you’re not going down with flu?’ Her friend gazed with concern at Amber’s pale face and trembling figure. ‘If you’re not feeling too good, there’s no need to worry about picking up Emily from school tomorrow. I can easily put off my trip to London.’
‘No...don’t do that. I’m fine. I’ve just got a lot to do today—that’s all,’ she assured Rose, before hurriedly making her way out of the café.
* * *
Dazed and shivering with nervous tension, Amber sat huddled in the front seat of her ancient Land Rover, staring blindly at the wind-rippled, dark water of the wide river estuary. Completely shattered by Sally’s news, she’d known that there was no way she was in a fit state to drive the five miles back to Elmbridge Hall. Not when it had taken her several fumbled attempts to even place her key in the ignition. But since she couldn’t continue sitting in the town car park, either, she’d cautiously made her way down to the quayside which was, as she’d hoped, completely deserted at this time of year.
She ought to have known that this was likely to happen sooner or later, Amber told herself grimly, wrapping her arms tightly about her trembling figure. What a blind, stupid fool she had been—living in a fool’s paradise for the past eight years. While she’d had no idea that Lady Parker was his grandmother, she should have realised that Max Warner must eventually return—like the prodigal son—to his old home town of Elmbridge.
Suddenly feeling in need of some fresh air, Amber opened the door and stepped down from the Land Rover. Walking slowly up and down over the frosty cobblestones, she desperately tried to clear her mind, to try and work out what she was going to do. But it was proving difficult to think clearly when her mind seemed to be filled with memories of the past.
A much-loved and only child of wealthy parents, Amber had always been protected from the harsh facts of life. But the catastrophic events surrounding the collapse of her father’s business empire, during the long hot summer of her eighteenth birthday, had shattered and destroyed for ever the safe, secure world of her childhood. Shocked and bewildered by the newspaper headlines trumpeting ‘Financial Scandal!’ and ‘Millions Lost by Suffolk Businessman!’ she’d been totally ill-equipped to deal with either the devastating news of her father’s bankruptcy, or his sudden death from a fatal heart attack. And when her mother—unable to face the prospect of either being shunned by her former friends, or the total reverse of the family fortunes—had collapsed and been placed by the family doctor in a local psychiatric nursing home, Amber had found herself standing completely alone amidst the ashes of her previous existence.
Maybe if, during that tense and anxious time, there had been someone with whom she could have discussed her problems, her life might have turned out differently. But with no close relations other than an elderly aunt in London, and all her school friends either away on holiday—or prevented by their cautious parents from associating with the child of a man who had, reportedly, been involved in crooked financial dealings—her only relief from the mounting stress and strain had been to take long, solitary walks through the deserted meadows edging the river-bank near her home. And there it was that Max had found her, one hot afternoon in late August, weeping with despair and deep unhappiness.
Despite an early teenage crush on the wickedly glamorous Max Warner, she’d seen nothing of him during the past five years. However, it had seemed the most natural thing in the world when he’d put his strong arms about her trembling figure.
‘How could I have forgotten those wonderful, sparkling green eyes?’ he’d said, smiling lazily down at her as he wiped away her tears. ‘I always knew that you’d grow up to become a real beauty.’
‘Have I really...?’ she’d gasped, her cheeks flushing hectically beneath his warm, engaging smile as he gently brushed the long, damp tendrils of hair from her wide brow, before lowering his dark head to softly kiss her trembling lips.
Miraculously, it seemed that Max—unlike so many of her family’s friends and acquaintances—did not hold her personally responsible for her father’s misdeeds. And as they’d walked slowly back to her house, whose contents were now mostly in packing cases for despatch to the local saleroom, she realised that he, too, was suffering from the sudden loss of a parent. Completely immersed in her own problems, Amber had only been dimly aware of the Reverend Warner’s recent death from a massive stroke, resulting in Max’s urgent recall from America, where he’d just completed his postgraduate degree at the Harvard Business School. However, when he confessed to the misery and desolation of being now alone in large empty rooms of the vicarage, or his deep regret at not having been closer to his father, saying, ‘I was pretty wild as a teenager, and there’s no doubt he must have found me a considerable pain in the neck,’ she was easily able to understand Max’s thoughts and feelings at such an unhappy time.
If only she hadn’t been quite so young and innocent! Amber squirmed with embarrassment as she now gazed back down the years at her youthful self. With her head stuffed full of romantic fantasies, her dazed mind reeling beneath the assault of those glittering blue eyes and his overwhelming sensual attraction, it was no wonder that—like some modern-day Cinderella—she’d immediately fallen head over heels in love with her very own Prince Charming. But if Max found her obvious adoration a nuisance, he gave no indication of doing so, as day after day he joined her for long walks along the deserted river-bank. So, it was perhaps inevitable that, having tripped and fallen over a log hidden in the thick grass, she should have found herself clasped in his arms, fervently responding to the fiercely determined possession of his lips and body.
It wasn’t for lack of trying, of course. But, over the past eight years, Amber had never been able to fool herself into believing that Max was totally to blame for what happened. Pathetically ignorant of lovemaking as she was, the feverish impetus of her desire had been every bit as strong as his, her ardent and passionate response clearly overpowering any scruples he may have had.
It had always seemed to Amber as if the next few weeks had been an all too brief, halcyon period of enchantment and rapture. Neither the deep sadness of her father’s death, nor her increasing worries about her mother’s mental condition, had seemed to disturb their mutual ecstasy and euphoric happiness, or the uncontrollable desire that exploded between them each and every time they were able to be alone with one another.
Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do to prevent the harsh, cruel light of reality from eventually breaking through their cloud of happiness. Both the fast-approaching sale of her family home, and the offer to Max of a job in his uncle’s large firm in America, meant that they would soon have to part.
Starry-eyed with joy when he placed a small gold ring on her finger, vowing that they would be married just as soon as he was well established in his new career, Amber had never doubted Max’s total sincerity. ‘My uncle’s offering me a good salary, with a partnership in the near future. So, it won’t be long before we can be together for ever and ever,’ he’d pledged, clasping her tightly in his arms before leaving for the airport. ‘Just promise that you’ll wait for me?’
‘Of course I will,’ she told him fervently, blinking rapidly in order to prevent the weak tears from running down her cheeks as she waved him goodbye.
And she had waited. Waiting, alone in the empty house through the long autumn days, while her father’s creditors checked that all her family’s precious possessions had been sold; waiting, while her mother who, if not yet ready to leave the hospital, was showing definite signs of improvement. Until, well over two months after his departure, her increasing apprehension that she might be pregnant hardened into certainty, and she realised that she was in deep and desperate trouble....
A sudden, freezing gust of wind cut into her memories of that intensely unhappy time, bringing her sharply back to her present-day problems—and the questions raised by the fear of Max’s return. However, by the time she found herself driving back home, Amber had managed to regain a small measure of self-control.
She couldn’t, of course, pretend that Max’s return was likely to be anything