A Countess For Christmas

‘It’s okay, I can handle it, but I managed to drop a whole tray of drinks out there. The carpet’s absolutely covered in booze right by the camel-coloured sofa and I managed to spray the legs of a partygoer as well. He didn’t seem entirely pleased to be showered in pink champagne.’ She let out a shaky laugh.

‘Don’t worry, Emma, we’ll cover it,’ Grace said, putting a reassuring hand on her arm. ‘Sophie, find a cloth to mop up as much of the liquid as possible, will you?’

‘Will do,’ Sophie said, swivelling on the spot and heading over to the broom cupboard where all the cleaning materials were kept.

‘Ashleigh—’

‘I’ll get another tray of drinks out there right now and go and flirt with the guy you splattered with booze,’ Ashleigh cut in with a smile, first at Emma, then at Grace.

‘Great,’ Grace said, grinning back. ‘Emma, go and sit down with your head between your knees until your colour returns.’

‘But—’ Emma started to protest, but Grace put her hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her back towards one of the kitchen chairs.

Emma sat down gratefully, relieved that everything was being taken care of but experiencing a rush of embarrassment at causing so much trouble for her friends.

After a moment of sitting quietly, her heart rate had almost returned to normal and the feeling that she was about to pass out had receded.

She was just about to stand up and get back out there, determined not to shy away from this, but to deal with Jack’s reappearance head-on, when Sophie came striding back into the kitchen.

‘You look better,’ she said, giving Emma an assessing once-over.

‘Yeah, I’m okay now. Ready to get back out there.’

‘You know, you could stay in the kitchen and orchestrate things from here if you want. We can handle keeping all the guests happy out there.’

Emma sighed, grateful to her friend for the offer, but knowing that hiding wasn’t an option.

‘Thanks, but I can’t stay in here all evening. Jolyon expects me to be out there charming his guests and keeping a general eye on things.’ Rubbing a hand over her forehead, she gave her friend a smile, which she hoped came across with more confidence than she felt.

‘Okay, well, let’s fix your hair a bit, then,’ Sophie said, moving towards her with her hands outstretched. ‘We’ll get it out of that restricting band and you can use it to shield your face if you need to hide for a second.’

Grateful for her friend’s concern, Emma let Sophie gently pull out the band that was holding her up-do neatly away from her face so that her long sheet of hair swung down to cover each side of her face.

‘It’s such a beautiful colour—baby blonde,’ Sophie said appreciatively, her gaze sweeping from one side of Emma’s face to the other. ‘Is it natural?’

Emma nodded, feeling gratified warmth flood her cheeks. ‘Yes, thank goodness. I’d never be able to afford the hairdressing bills.’ Her thoughts flew back to how much money she used to waste on expensive haircuts in her pampered youth and she cringed as she considered what she could do with that money now—things like putting it towards the cost of more night classes and studying materials.

The kitchen door banged open, making them both jump, and Emma’s gaze zeroed in on the puce-coloured face of Jolyon Fitzherbert as he advanced towards her.

‘Emma! What’s going on? Why are you skulking in here when you should be out there making sure my party’s running smoothly? And what the hell was that, throwing a tray of drinks all over my new carpet?’

She put up a placating hand, realising her mistake when his scowl only deepened. Jolyon hated it when people tried to soothe him.

‘I was just checking on the stores of alcohol in here. I’m going back out there right now,’ she said, plastering a benevolent smile onto her face.

Jolyon’s eyes narrowed. ‘Come with me,’ he ground out, turning clumsily on the spot and giving away just how drunk he was.

Sophie put a hand on Emma’s arm, but she brushed her off gently. ‘It’s okay, I can handle him. You make sure everything runs smoothly here while I’m dealing with this, okay?’ She gave her friend a beseeching look, pleading for her support, and was rewarded with a firm nod.

‘No problem.’

Running to catch up with Jolyon, Emma saw him unlocking the door to his study and the lump in her throat thickened. This couldn’t be good. She was only ever summoned to his study when he felt something had gone badly wrong. He liked to sit behind his big oak desk in his puffy leather armchair as if he were lord of the manor and she were his serving wench being given a severe dressing-down.

Deciding to pre-empt his lecture, she put out both hands in a gesture of apology. ‘Jolyon, I’m very sorry about dropping those drinks. It was a genuine accident and I promise it won’t ever happen again.’

Stopping before he reached the desk, he turned to regard her through red-rimmed eyes, his gaze a little unfocussed due to the enormous amount of whisky he’d drunk throughout the evening.

‘What are you going to do to make it up to me?’ he asked.

She didn’t like the expression in his eyes. Not one little bit.

‘I’ll pay to have the carpet professionally cleaned. None of the glasses broke, so it’s just the stain that needs taking care of.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t think that’s apology enough. You ruined my party!’

Despite knowing it would be unwise to push him when he was in this kind of mood, she couldn’t help but fold her arms and tilt up her chin in defiance. She might have made a bit of a mess, but, if anything, her little accident had livened the party up.

‘Jolyon, everyone’s having a great time. You’ve thrown a wonderful party here today,’ she said carefully. What she actually wanted to do was suggest where he could shove his job, but she bit her lip, mentally picturing the meagre numbers in her bank balance rapidly ticking down if she let her anger get the better of her.

As she’d predicted, her boldness only seemed to exacerbate his determination to have his pound of flesh and he took a deliberate step towards her and, lifting his hand, he slid it roughly under her jaw and into her hair. His grip was decisive and strong and she acknowledged a twinge of unease in the pit of her stomach as she realised how alone they were in here, away from the rest of the party.

He began to stroke his thumb along her jaw, grazing the bottom of her lip. Waves of revulsion flooded through her at his touch, but she didn’t move. She needed to brazen this out. She knew exactly what he was like—if you showed any sign of weakness that was it, you were fired on the spot.

‘Well, you ruined it for me,’ he growled, moving even closer so she could smell the sharp tang of whisky on his breath. ‘But perhaps we can figure out a satisfactory way for you to make it up to me,’ he said, his gaze roving lasciviously over her face and halting on her mouth.

She clamped her lips together, racking her brains for a way out of this without making the situation worse.

‘Jolyon, let go of me,’ she said, forcing as much authority into her voice as she could summon, which wasn’t a lot. ‘I need to get back to the party and serve your guests and they’ll be missing you, wondering where you are,’ she said, grasping for something—anything—to aid her getaway. Appealing to his ego had worked well before, but she could tell from the look in his eyes that it wasn’t going to fly this time. He wanted much more than a verbal apology from her.

The thought made her shudder.

Taking a sudden step backwards, she managed to break his hold on her. ‘I need to get back. Let’s talk about this tomorrow, shall we?’ Before he could react, she turned and walked swiftly out of the door and back towards the noisy hubbub of the party, her heart thumping hard against her ribcage and the erratic pulse of her blood spurring her on.

She heard him come after her, his breath rasping in his throat as his movements picked up into a drunken jog. She’d just made it to the living-room doorway when he caught up with her, grabbing hold of her arm and spinning her around to face him.

‘Jolyon, please—’ she gasped, then froze in horror as his lips came crashing down onto hers, his arms wrapping around her like a vice. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, her heart hammering hard in her ears as she struggled to get away from him—

Then suddenly he seemed to let go of her—or was he being dragged away? The loud ooof! sound he made in the back of his throat made her think that perhaps he had been and she spun around only to come face to face with Jack.

His mesmerising eyes bore into hers, blazing with anger as a muscle ticced in his clenched jaw, and her stomach did a slow somersault. His gaze swept over her face for the merest of seconds before moving to lock onto Jolyon instead, who was now leaning against the doorjamb, gasping as if he’d been winded.

‘What do you want, Westwood?’ Jolyon snapped at Jack, flashing him a look of fear-tinged contempt.

Jack glared back, his whole body radiating tension as if he was having to physically restrain himself from landing a punch right on Jolyon’s pudgy jaw.

He took a purposeful step towards the cowering man and leaned one strong arm on the jamb above Jolyon’s head, forming a formidable six-foot-three enclosure of angry, powerful man around him.

‘I want you to keep your hands off my wife!’