Page 117 of The Christmas Invitation
‘Boiler broke – had to move to my club till it was time to come up here,’ Piers explained succinctly.
‘I’m going to be too busy working on the house for guests, even welcome ones,’ Mark said.
‘Clara told me about your wedding reception venue plans and it sounds a really fun idea,’ Zelda said enthusiastically to Mark.
But before he could answer her, Piers said indignantly, ‘But I’m an old friend of the family!’
‘You were Grandfather’s friend,’ Mark said pointedly.
‘You’ll have to take this boy of yours to task, Sybil,’ Piers said, turning to her. ‘His manners leave a lot to be desired. But I knowyou’realways pleased to see me.’
‘I … of course,’ Sybil stammered. ‘It’s just … well, I’ve no idea what we’re going to do—’
‘Zelda kindly updated me onallthe recent events – especially the news about Meg. You must be delighted to have a long-lost cousin, Mark? And what a wonderful surprise for you, too, Sybil, to find a new niece – and possibly a half-sister, I understand, if Meg’s mother can be found?’
He made it sound as if Mum was playing hide-and-seek somewhere, like a mature Mistletoe Bride.
‘Yes, we are, though it was a bit of a shock at first, to find that Daddy—’ she began, then stopped dead, before gathering herself together with an obvious effort and saying with dignity, ‘Naturally, we’re all delighted to welcome Meg into the family. She’s a dear girl.’
‘I’m sure you are. And I expect Meg will be moving to Underhill soon?’
‘No, why should I?’ I asked, surprised. ‘It’s lovely to find I have some relatives, but Underhill isn’t my home.’
‘Underhill will soon be a business, rather than a family home anyway,’ Mark said, sparing me a glance that I was amused to see no longer held any spark of his previous interest. ‘But Meg’s welcome to stay with us whenever she wants to.’
‘Well said,’ applauded Henry.
‘That’s very kind of you, Mark,’ I said gratefully.
‘But Underhill is a lovely old house and needs to be a home as well as a business,’ Zelda protested. ‘It could be both, couldn’t it, Mark? I mean, you’re not going to turn it into a hotel as well, are you?’
‘I think Mark’s plans for the house can be discussed at a later date, darling,’ Clara told her. ‘And we hope Meg will look on the Red House as her second home, somewhere she’ll always be welcome, like you and Lex.’ She looked over her shoulder as the door opened. ‘And speaking of Lex, here he is. Have you heard Zelda’s here, Lex?’
She pointed at Piers. ‘Andan unexpected item in the baggage department.’
He closed the door behind him and surveyed the scene with a slightly sardonic expression in his dark eyes.
‘Den filled me in. He and River will be along with tea shortly.’
‘Good, it seems for ever since lunch,’ Clara said.
‘We finally get to eat the seed cake they made earlier, too,’ Tottie said. ‘The smell’s been tantalizing me since they took it out of the oven.’
‘I dislike seed cake, so I hope there’s something else on offer,’ said Piers.
Nobody replied to that one. Mark had gravitated to Zelda’s side, as if drawn by a magnet, and now they were sitting together on the window seat, talking in low voices, the auburn head and the dark curls, so like Lex’s, close together.
Sybil looked at them in a puzzled kind of way and then at me and I smiled at her. She’d have to readjust her romantic notions a bit if I’d read the signs aright and Mark had finally met his match in both senses of the word.
‘Sybil,’ Piers said, claiming her attention, ‘we must have a little private conversation shortly. We have so much to talk about!’
This got through to Mark, who looked up. ‘You won’t have time; you’d better return to Thorstane before it snows again. I expect Lex or Den will run you up as near to the top as possible – I’d do it myself, if I had the Jeep with me – and we can ring Fred Golightly and ask him to collect you on the other side and put you up for the night.’
Piers looked aghast. ‘But we had to plough through snowdrifts on foot – and I’m too old for repeating that kind of caper.’
‘Clara and I are only a couple of years younger than you are, so you’re hardly heading for the Last Post,’ Henry said.
‘You’re an old ham, Piers, because Pete and Billy actuallycarriedyou in a fireman’s lift through the worst of it.Iwas the one who fell into that snowdrift and had to be pulled out!’ Zelda broke into an infectious peal of laughter. ‘I must have looked like a snowman!’
