Christmas Nights (19 page)

She nibbled worriedly at her bottom lip, cast Oliver Davenport a bitter look and then was forced to listen helplessly whilst Oliver, who still quite obviously bore her a grudge over the clothes, commented judiciously, ‘I like the outfit… It suits you… But then I thought so the first time I saw you wearing it, didn’t I?’

Lisa knew that she was blushing. Blushing…? She was turning a vivid and unconcealable shade of deep scarlet, she acknowledged miserably as she saw the suspicious look that Henry was giving her and recognised from the narrow, pursed-lip glare that Henry’s mother must have also overheard Oliver’s comment.

‘Oliver, let me get you a drink,’ Henry’s father offered, thankfully coming up to usher him away, but not before Oliver managed to murmur softly to Lisa,

‘Saved by the cavalry…’

‘How on earth do you come to know Oliver Davenport?’ Henry demanded angrily as soon as Oliver was out of earshot.

‘I don’t
know
him,’ Lisa admitted wearily. ‘At least not—’

‘What do you mean? Of course you
know
him… and well enough for him to be able to comment on your clothes…’

‘He’s… Henry… this isn’t the time for me to explain…’ Lisa told him quietly.

‘So there
is
something to explain, then.’ Henry was refusing to be appeased. ‘Where did you meet him? In London, I suppose. His business might be based up here at the Hall, but he still spends quite a considerable amount of time in London… His cousin works for him down there—’

‘His cousin…?’ Lisa couldn’t quite keep the note of nervous apprehension out of her voice.

‘Yes, Piers Davenport, Oliver’s cousin. He’s several years younger than Oliver and he lives in London with his girlfriend—some model or other… Emily… or Emma… I can’t remember which…’

‘Emma,’ Lisa supplied hollowly.

So Oliver hadn’t been lying, after all, when he had told her that he was acting on behalf of his cousin. She glanced uneasily over her shoulder, remembering just exactly how scathingly she had denounced him, practically accusing him of being a liar and worse.

No wonder he had given her that look this evening which had said that he hadn’t finished with her and that he fully intended to make her pay for her angry insults, to exact retribution on her.

Apprehensively she wondered exactly what form that silently promised retribution was going to take. What was he going to do? Reveal to Henry and his parents that she had bought her clothes second-hand? She could just imagine how Mary Hanford would react to that information. At the thought of her impending humiliation, Lisa felt her stomach muscles tighten defensively.

It wasn’t all her fault. Hers had been a natural enough mistake to make, she reminded herself. Alison had agreed with her. And Oliver had to share some of the blame for her error himself. If he had only been a little more conciliatory in his manner towards her, a little less arrogant in demanding that she return the clothes back to him…

‘I do wish you had told me that you knew Oliver,’ Henry was continuing fussily. ‘Especially in view of his position locally.’

‘What position locally?’ Lisa asked him warily, but she suspected she could guess the answer. To judge from Mary Hanford’s deferential manner towards him, Oliver Davenport was quite obviously someone of importance in the area. Her heart started to sink even further as Henry explained in a hushed, almost awed voice.

‘Oliver is an extremely wealthy man. He owns and runs one of the north of England’s largest financial consultancy businesses and he recently took over another firm based in London, giving him a countrywide network. But why are you asking me? Surely if you know him you must—?’

‘I don’t know him,’ Lisa protested tiredly. ‘Henry, there’s something I have to tell you.’ She took a deep breath. There was nothing else for it; she was going to have to tell Henry the truth.

‘But you evidently do know him,’ Henry protested, ignoring her and cutting across what she was trying to say. ‘And rather well by the sound of it… Lisa, what exactly’s going on?’

Henry could look remarkably like his mother when he pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes like that, Lisa decided. She suddenly had a mental image of the children they might have together—little replicas of their grandmother. Quickly she banished the unwelcome vision.

‘Henry, nothing is going on. If you would just let me explain—’ Lisa began.

But once again she was interrupted, this time by Henry’s mother, who bore down on them, placing a proprietorial hand on Henry’s arm as she told him, ‘Henry, dear, Aunt Elspeth wants to talk to you. She’s over there by the French windows. She’s brought her god-daughter with her. You remember
Louise. You used to play together when you were children—such a sweet girl…’

To Lisa’s chagrin, Henry was borne off by his mother, leaving her standing alone, nursing an unwanted glass of too sweet sherry.

What should have been the happiest Christmas Eve of her adult life was turning out to be anything but, she admitted gloomily as she watched a petite, doe-eyed brunette, presumably Aunt Elspeth’s god-daughter, simpering up at a Henry who was quite plainly wallowing in her dewy-eyed, fascinated attention.

It was a good thirty minutes before Henry returned to her side, during which time she had had ample opportunity to watch Oliver’s progress amongst the guests and to wonder why on earth he had accepted the Hanfords’ invitation, since he was quite obviously both bored and irritated by the almost fawning attention of Henry’s mother.

He really was the most arrogantly supercilious man she had ever had the misfortune to meet, Lisa decided critically as he caught her watching him and lifted one derogatory, darkly interrogative eyebrow in her direction.

Flushing, she turned away, but not, she noticed, before Henry’s mother had seen the brief, silent exchange between them.

‘You still haven’t explained to us just how you come to know… You really should have told us that you know Oliver,’ she told Lisa, arriving at her side virtually at the same time as Henry, so that Lisa was once again prevented from explaining to him what had happened.

What was it about some people that made everything they said sound like either a reproach or a criticism? Lisa wondered grimly, but before she could answer she heard Mary Hanford adding, in an unfamiliar, almost arch and flattering voice, ‘Ah, Oliver, we were just talking about you.’

‘Really.’

He was looking at them contemptuously, as though they were creatures from another planet—some kind of subspecies provided for his entertainment, Lisa decided resentfully as he looked from Mary to Henry and then to her.

‘Yes,’ Mary continued, undeterred. ‘I was just asking Lisa how she comes to know you…’

‘Well, I think that’s probably best left for Lisa herself to explain to you,’ he responded smoothly. ‘I should hate to embarrass her by making any unwelcome revelations…’

Lisa glared angrily at him.

‘That suit looks good on you,’ he added softly.

‘So you’ve already said,’ she reminded him through gritted teeth, all too aware of Henry’s and his mother’s silently suspicious watchfulness at her side.

‘Yes,’ Oliver continued, as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘You can always tell when a woman’s wearing an outfit bought by a man for his lover.’ As he spoke he reached out and touched her jacket-clad arm—a brief touch, nothing more, but it made the hot colour burn in Lisa’s face, and she was not at all surprised to hear Henry’s mother’s outraged indrawn breath or to see the fury in Henry’s eyes.

This was retribution with a vengeance. This wasn’t just victory, she acknowledged helplessly; it was total annihilation.

‘Have you worn any of the other things yet?’ he added casually.

‘Lisa…’ she heard Henry demanding ominously at her side, but she couldn’t answer him. She was too mortified, too furiously angry to dare to risk saying anything whilst Oliver Davenport was still standing there listening.

To her relief, he didn’t linger long. Aunt Elspeth’s god-daughter, the same one who had so determinedly flirted with Henry half an hour earlier, came up and very professionally
broke up their quartet, insisting that Oliver had promised to get her a fresh drink.

He was barely out of earshot before Henry was insisting, ‘I want to know what’s going on, Lisa… What was all that about your clothes…?’

‘I think we know exactly what’s going on, Henry,’ Lisa heard his mother answering coolly for him as she gave Lisa a look of virulent hostility edged with triumph. So much for pretending to welcome her into the family, Lisa thought tiredly.

‘I can see what you’re
both
thinking,’ she announced. ‘But you are wrong.’

‘Wrong? How can we be wrong when Oliver more or less announced openly that the pair of you have been lovers?’ Mary intoned.

‘He did not announce that we had been lovers,’ Lisa defended herself. ‘And if you would just let me explain—’

‘Henry, it’s almost time for supper. You know how hopeless your father is at getting people organised. I’m going to need you to help me…’

‘Henry, we need to talk.’ Lisa tried to override his mother, but Henry was already turning away from her and going obediently to his mother’s side.

If they married it would always be like this, Lisa suddenly recognised on a wave of helpless anger. He would always place his mother’s needs and wants above her own, and presumably above those of their children. They would always come a very poor second best to his loyalty to his mother. Was that really what she wanted for herself… for her children?

Lisa knew it wasn’t.

It was as though the scales had suddenly fallen from her eyes, as though she were looking at a picture of exactly how and what her life with Henry would be—and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like it one little bit.

In the handful of seconds it took her to recognise the fact, she knew irrevocably that she couldn’t marry him, but she still owed him an explanation of what had happened, and from her own point of view. For the sake of her pride and self-respect she wanted to make sure that he and his precious mother knew exactly how she had come to meet Oliver and exactly how he had manipulated them into believing his deliberately skewed view of the situation.

Still seething with anger against Oliver, she refused Henry’s father’s offer of another drink and some supper. She would choke rather than eat any of Mary Hanford’s food, she decided angrily.

Just the thought of the kind of life she would have had as Henry’s wife made her shudder and acknowledge that she had had a lucky escape, but knowing that did not lessen her overwhelming fury at the man who had accidently brought it about.

How would she have been feeling right now had she been deeply in love with Henry and he with her? Instead of stalking angrily around the Hanfords’ drawing room like an angry tigress, she would probably have been upstairs in her bedroom sobbing her heart out.

Some Christmas this was going to be.

She had been so looking forward to being here, to being part of the family, to sharing the simple, traditional pleasures of Christmas with the man she intended to marry, and now it was all spoiled, ruined… And why? Why? Because Oliver Davenport was too arrogant, too proud… too… too devious and hateful to allow someone whom he obviously saw as way, way beneath him to get the better of him.

Well, she didn’t care. She didn’t care what he did or what he said. He could tell the whole room, the whole house, the whole world that she had bought her clothes second-hand and that they had belonged to his cousin’s girlfriend for all she
cared now. In fact, she almost wished he would. That way at least she would be vindicated. That way she could walk away from here… from Henry and his precious mother… with her head held high.

‘An outfit bought by a man for his lover…’ How dared he…? Oh, how dared he…? She was, she suddenly realised, almost audibly grinding her teeth. Hastily she stopped. Dental fees were notoriously, hideously expensive.

She couldn’t leave matters as they were, she decided fiercely. She would have to say something to Oliver Davenport—even if it was to challenge him over the implications he had made.

She got her chance ten minutes later, when she saw Oliver leaving the drawing room alone.

Quickly, before she could change her mind, she followed him. As he heard her footsteps crossing the hallway, he stopped and turned round.

‘Ah, the blushing bride-to-be and her borrowed raiment,’ he commented sardonically.

‘I bought in good faith my second-hand raiment,’ Lisa corrected him bitingly, adding, ‘You do realise what impression you gave Henry and his mother back there, don’t you?’ she challenged him, adding scornfully before he could answer, ‘Of course you knew. You knew perfectly well what you were doing, what you were implying…’

‘Did I?’ he responded calmly.

‘Yes, you did,’ Lisa responded, her anger intensifying. ‘You knew they would assume that you meant that you and I had been lovers… that
you
had bought my clothes—’

‘Surely Henry knows you far better than that?’ Oliver interrupted her smoothly. ‘After all, according to the local grapevine, the pair of you are intending to marry—’

‘Of course Henry knows me…’ Lisa began, and then
stopped, her face flushing in angry mortification. But it was too late.

Swift as a hawk to the lure, her tormentor responded softly, ‘Ah, I see. It’s because he knows you so well that he made the unfortunate and mistaken assumption that—’

‘No… He doesn’t… I don’t…’ Lisa tried to fight back gamely, but it was still too late, and infuriatingly she knew it and, even worse, so did Oliver.

He wasn’t smirking precisely—he was far too arrogant for that, Lisa decided bitterly—but there was certainly mockery in his eyes, and if she hadn’t known better she could almost have sworn that his mouth was about to curl into a smile. But how could it? She was sure that he was incapable of doing anything so human. He was the kind of man who just didn’t know what human emotions were, she decided savagely—who had no idea what it meant to suffer insecurity or… or any of the things that made people like herself feel so vulnerable.

‘Have you any idea what you’ve done?’ she challenged him, changing tack, her voice shaking under the weight of her suppressed emotion. ‘I came here—’