Newborn Under the Christmas Tree Read online

  * * *

  Grabbing his bag from the back seat, Liam pressed the button to lock the car and turned to face Thornwood Castle in the flesh for the first time in twenty-five years.

  ‘Yeah, still imposing as all hell,’ he murmured, eyeing the arrow slits.

  As far as he’d been able to tell from the notes his assistant had put together on the castle, it had never really been built for battle. In fact, it was constructed about two hundred years too late for the medieval sieges and warfare it looked like it was built to withstand. It was more or less a folly—one of those weird English quirks of history. Some ancestor of his—by blood if not name or marriage—had got it into his head that he wanted to live in a medieval castle, even if it was the seventeen-hundreds. So he’d designed one and had it built. And then that castle had been passed down through generations of family members until it reached him, in the twenty-first century, when all those arrow slits and murder holes were even less necessary than ever.

  Well, hopefully. He hadn’t been back to Britain in a couple of years. Who knew what might have changed...?

  Normally, Liam would happily mock the folly as typical aristocratic ridiculous behaviour. But as his assistant, Daisy, had pointed out to him drily as she’d handed him his plane tickets, building follies and vanity projects was basically what he did for a living these days. And he supposed she had a point. How was designing and building a hotel in the shape of a lily out in the Middle East any different to a medieval castle in the seventeen-hundreds?

  Except he didn’t keep the buildings he designed, or force them on future generations. He did an outstanding job, basked in the praise, got paid and moved on.

  Much simpler.

  As he jogged up the stone steps to the imposing front door, Liam tried to find that desert warmth again inside himself, and the glow of a good job well done. He was renowned these days, and in great demand as an architect. He’d built structures others couldn’t conceive of, ones that every other architect he knew said was impossible.

  There was no reason at all that he should still feel this intimidated by a fake English castle.

  Straightening his shoulders, he reached out for the door handle—only to have it disappear inwards as the door opened by itself.

  No, not by itself.

  Liam blinked into the shadows of the entrance hall and made out one, two, three—five women standing there, blinking back at him.

  For a moment he wondered if this was his staff—all lining up to meet him, as the new master. Even if he couldn’t inherit the title that would have been his father’s, if he’d lived long enough, he had the estate now.

  Then he realised that the women were all wearing jeans and woolly jumpers—and that, somehow, inside the castle felt even colder than outside.

  ‘You must be Liam!’ the woman holding the door said, beaming. ‘I mean, Mr Howlett.’

  ‘Jenkins,’ he corrected her automatically. ‘Liam Jenkins. I use my mother’s name.’ No need to explain that he’d never been offered his father’s.

  From the colour that flooded her cheeks, the woman knew that. ‘Of course. I’m so sorry. Mr Jenkins.’

  She looked so distraught at the slip-up, Liam shrugged, falling back into his usual pattern of making others feel comfortable. ‘Call me Liam.’

  ‘Liam. Right. Thank you.’ The pink started to fade, which was a shame. Without it, she looked pale and cautious, her honey-blonde hair made dull by the grey light and shadows of the castle. But for that brief moment she’d looked...alive. Vibrant, in a way Liam hadn’t expected to find at Thornwood.

  Which still told him nothing about who she was or why she was in his castle. ‘And you are...?’

  ‘Oh! I’m Alice Walters. Your great-aunt hired me to, well, to make Thornwood Castle useful again.’

  ‘Useful?’ Liam frowned. ‘It’s a medieval castle in the twenty-first century. How useful can it really be?’ Interesting, he could understand. Profitable, even more so. He’d half expected to find a guided tour in progress when he arrived—all the people who’d been kept out for so long coming to gawk at everything Rose had left behind. Nothing compared to what he had planned for the place. He had so many ideas for what to do to Thornwood—things he knew Great-Aunt Rose never would have even considered—to make the place into a proper tourist attraction. One he didn’t have to visit, but still paid him handsomely.

  He’d considered all sorts of options since he’d first got the phone call telling him that Thornwood Castle was his.

  He just hadn’t considered useful, beyond his own financial purposes.

  ‘Rose wanted to make sure that the castle fulfilled its traditional role in the community,’ Alice said vaguely. ‘She hired me to make that happen.’

  ‘Its traditional role?’ He was starting to sound like a bad echo. But really, Alice’s explanations weren’t explaining anything at all.

  Perhaps it was time for some non-English bluntness. After all, he was more Aussie than English when it came down to it—whatever Rose’s will said.

  ‘Look,’ he said, taking care to sound more bored than annoyed, ‘I’ll make this really easy for you. Just a simple answer to a very simple question. What the hell are you all doing in my home?’

  CHAPTER TWO

  OKAY, THIS WAS not going as well as she’d hoped it might. Even if she hadn’t really hoped all that hard—her experiences were generally even worse than Heather’s, after all.

  Behind her, she heard Penelope let out a tiny gasp at Liam’s words and realised it was time to move this conversation elsewhere, before he upset all their girls. He might sound so laid-back he was almost horizontal, but this was his house and he could still throw them all out on a moment’s notice if she didn’t do something fast.

  ‘Mr Jenkins, how about you come with me into the estate office? I can explain everything there.’ Plus there was a kettle. And biscuits. Maybe a nice cup of tea and a sit down would make them all friends.

  ‘Works for me,’ he said with a shrug.

  She led him the long way round—partly to avoid any remaining flooding in the great hall, and partly to show off some of the parts of Thornwood that weren’t underwater.

  ‘Has it been many years since you were last at Thornwood?’ she asked politely as they skirted around the edges of the library, avoiding the combination of mismatched tables pushed together in the middle of the room with abandoned wool and knitting needles strewn across them. Everyone had dropped what they were doing the moment Liam’s car had pulled up. Understandable, given the impact he stood to have on their future. But still, Alice couldn’t help but wish they’d paused to tidy up a bit first.

  ‘Twenty-five,’ Liam said, raising his eyebrows at a ball of neon orange wool that had rolled off the table and into his path.

  Alice swept it up as she passed, and lobbed it back on to the nearest table once he wasn’t looking. Really, for an Australian, it seemed he had the imperious English aristocrat thing down pat. The mixture of relaxed disapproval was most disconcerting.

  ‘That’s a long time,’ she said, knowing it sounded inane. But really, what else was she supposed to say?

  Your great-aunt was alone for the last fifteen years of her life, and you couldn’t even spare an afternoon to visit?

  Sure, he lived on the other side of the world. But Alice had been doing some reading up on Liam Jenkins, ever since she’d got wind of the details of the will, and she was willing to bet he’d been in London often enough over those twenty-five years. Looking at his résumé, he’d built at least a handful of buildings less than two hours’ drive away. How hard would it have been to stop in and see a lonely old lady? Or even to check on his inheritance, if he was truly that heartless.

  Alice frowned. So why hadn’t he? Having met him, she could buy him not being bothered enough about Rose to visit.
But he’d called Thornwood Castle his home. How could it be home if he hadn’t been there in two and a half decades? Maybe it was just a slip of the tongue. Or maybe not...

  Suddenly, Alice got the feeling she was missing something in this story. It had the ring of the tales she’d heard from some of the women who stopped by the castle sometimes. Stories about slipping on the stairs, or losing their purse with the housekeeping money in it. No more believable than walking into a door and getting a black eye, but that was the point. Nobody expected those tales to be believed, not here. They didn’t need to be. Thornwood was a safe place.

  But maybe Liam didn’t know that yet.

  Well, if he wanted to make it his home, he’d have to learn. And hopefully he’d see the value of it, and let her continue her work.

  Otherwise, there were going to be a lot of local women who didn’t have a safe place any more.

  With that dismal thought, they reached the estate office. Alice reached past the suit of armour she’d named Rusty and opened the door. ‘Come on in.’

  Inside, the office was as tidy as it ever got. Which, given that it was essentially a store cupboard with a desk shoehorned in and covered in a mass of paperwork and Post-it notes, wasn’t very. Thornwood had plenty of rooms—far more than one person could ever need. But when Alice had arrived at the castle three years before, she’d known that all those public spaces could be put to better use. Besides, they were all far too big—echoing and full of draughts. At least here in her little cupboard she was cosy. And hardly anyone ever came looking for her there.

  ‘Have a seat.’ She motioned to the rickety wooden dining chair on the near side of the desk, and squeezed past the filing cabinet to flip on the kettle. She didn’t need to look back to know he was staring dubiously at the seat—she’d done the same. Rose had said it dated back over a hundred years and hadn’t collapsed yet. Alice thought it might just be biding its time.

  Maybe it had been waiting for Liam Jenkins...

  She turned back but the chair was still standing, even under Liam’s weight. Which...well, he was a big man. Lots of muscle. Objectively, she supposed he could even be called well built, which was more than she’d have said for the chair before this point.

  Maybe the chair was as scared of him as she was...

  No. That was crazy—and not just because chairs didn’t have emotions. She wasn’t scared of Liam—he was too laconic to be scared of. She was...apprehensive, that was the word. And, even then, it was only because he could end everything that she’d built here in one fell swoop. It wasn’t personal. He had no power to hurt her, not like other men had. He was her boss, and if he fired her she’d be fine and free to pursue other worthwhile projects elsewhere.

  This wasn’t like before. She had to remember that, even when he was scowling at her.

  She wasn’t that Alice any more, and she never would be again. That much she knew for sure. Life had changed her—not always for the better, but for ever.

  ‘So,’ Liam said as they waited for her ancient kettle to brew, ‘what’s the conversation we need to have that you couldn’t have in front of all those women out there?’

  ‘Not couldn’t,’ she corrected him. ‘Chose not to.’

  ‘Right.’ He shrugged, obviously not seeing the difference. Alice sighed. Perhaps that was where she needed to start.

  ‘Those women—they’re part of the work I’ve been doing here,’ she said, swilling hot water around the teapot to warm it. She might not have space for much in her utility cupboard office, but there was a sink, a kettle and a teapot with cups and saucers. Besides her laptop, there really wasn’t much else that she needed.

  ‘Yeah, your work. Making Thornwood useful, wasn’t it?’

  Did he really have to put such emphasis on the word? He made her sound like a small child trying to earn money for chores. ‘How much do you know about the history of the English aristocracy, Mr Jenkins?’

  ‘Not as much as you, I’d wager.’ He watched her, curiosity in his gaze, as she measured out the tea leaves and added the boiling water, before leaving the tea to steep. ‘I suppose you’re going to educate me? Starting with the national drink?’

  ‘I’m no expert myself,’ Alice assured him. She placed the pretty floral cups and saucers on the tray beside the pot and the small milk jug, then swivelled round to place the whole thing on the desk. Settling into her own desk chair, she rested her forearms on the wood of the desk and eyed him over the steam drifting up from the spout of the teapot. ‘But I know what that history meant to your great-aunt.’

  ‘It meant she left me this place, for a start.’

  ‘That’s right.’ However wrong a decision that might have been. Rose had been full of misgivings, Alice knew, about leaving Thornwood to someone she knew so little, who had shown no interest at all in his heritage or legacy before. But, when it came down to it, Liam Jenkins was the only family she had left. So blood had trumped legitimacy, and everything else that went with it. ‘But I want to be sure you understand exactly the expectations that she was leaving with that. Thornwood is more than just a pile of stones and rusty armour, you know.’

  ‘I know that,’ Liam shot back, too fast to sound at all casual. ‘It’s home, right? My family pile, so to speak.’

  There was that word again. Home. Obviously that mattered to him and, even if she never knew why, perhaps Alice could use it. Could appeal to his decency—didn’t everyone deserve a home? Even those women out there whom he’d never met, who’d left hideously coloured wool all over the place and half flooded his castle?

  It could work. Maybe.

  Alice took a deep breath. She was going to have to try.

  * * *

  Liam eyed Alice over the desk and felt a small shiver of nerves at the back of his neck as she studied him back, then gave a tiny nod. She’d made a decision about something, that much was clear. He only wished he had the faintest clue what.

  Alice, he was starting to realise, had plans for Thornwood—plans that were almost certainly at odds with his own. Which was why it was just as well he was the one who held the deeds to the castle, not her.

  Maybe she was some sort of gold-digger. One who’d had his great-aunt wrapped around her little finger, taking advantage of her money and kindness—if the old bat really had any of either at the end—and expected to inherit. She must be furious to be done out of Thornwood, if that was the case. Good. He might not have deserved to inherit the place but, if she really was a gold-digger, she deserved it a thousand times less. And what was the deal with all those big-eyed women in cable knits?

  ‘Rose believed, very strongly, that the privilege of owning a place like Thornwood, and the status in society that it conveyed, came with a very definite level of responsibility too,’ Alice said, sounding so earnest that Liam almost put aside his gold-digger theory immediately. But only almost. After all, if she was good at it, of course she’d sound authentic. And, from what he remembered of Great-Aunt Rose, Alice would have had to be very good to fool her.

  ‘A responsibility to the estate?’ he guessed. Thornwood had been Rose’s life—keeping it going would have been her highest priority. God, she must have shuddered as she’d signed the documents that meant it would come into his hands. But Alice’s expression told him she meant more than that. So he kept guessing. ‘Is this about the title? Or that seat in the House of Lords thing? Because I didn’t inherit the title.’ Even Rose wouldn’t go so far as to convey that kind of status on the illegitimate son of her nephew. ‘And besides, I heard that Britain finally moved with the times and stopped giving people power just because of who their parents were. Well, apart from that whole monarchy thing.’

  Alice shook her head. ‘It’s not anything to do with the title, not really. Except that...’ She sighed, as if the impossibility of making him understand her quaint British ways was beginning to dawn on
her. ‘In the past, the lord of the manor—or lady, in Rose’s case—was responsible for the people who lived on their estate.’

  ‘You mean feudalism,’ Liam said with distaste. ‘Just another word for slavery, really.’ Just because he wasn’t British didn’t mean he wasn’t educated. She looked slightly surprised to realise that.

  ‘No! Not feudalism—at least, not for the last several hundred years. No, I just meant...the people who live on the estate have, traditionally, worked there too—usually as farmers. The local village is owned by the estate too, so it sets all the rents and has an obligation to take care of the tenants. They’re more...extended family than just renters, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ It wasn’t something he’d thought of before. He’d been so focused on the memory of Thornwood Castle’s imposing walls, and the chilly reception the place had offered him, that he hadn’t thought beyond the castle itself. He’d assumed that it would come with some gardens or whatever, but not a whole village. That was considerably more ‘home’ than Liam had bargained for, even if he didn’t plan to stay. And how would they take the news that Thornwood Castle was about to become the county’s biggest tourist attraction? He’d just have to spin it as good news—get them excited about the new jobs and tourist income before they realised how much disruption it would cause, or started getting nostalgic about the old days. Same as any other big project, really.

  ‘So, what? They need me to open a village fete or something?’ He’d seen the Downton Abbey Christmas special with his ex-girlfriend. That was practically a British documentary, right?

  ‘Not exactly.’ Alice looked uncomfortable but she pushed on regardless. Liam supposed he had to admire her determination to get her point across, whatever that point turned out to be. ‘Times have changed around here. A lot of the farmland had to be sold off, and the village itself is pretty much autonomous these days. And Rose...well, as she got older, she couldn’t get out and about so much. But she still wanted Thornwood Castle to be relevant. To be useful.’