Page 135 of Meet Me Under the Mistletoe
Eventually she passed a farm entrance, and the pheasants ducked beneath the gate and took flight into the adjacent field. She shook her head in annoyance.
When Nory turned the car onto the long castle drive, her stomach was a jumping mass of nerves and excitement, which rose up into her chest and forced her to take deep breaths. She drove round to the back of the castle, her eyes wide and wild, hoping to catch a glimpse of Isaac, her heart quickening at being back here, where so much had happened.
Andy opened the staff entrance door as she pulled in.
“Hi, Andy!” she called as she headed round to the boot.
“Hello, young Elinor, good to see you again. I trust you’re still getting up to mischief! Ruined any more outfits recently?”
“Oh, absolutely.” She smiled, glancing around the courtyard as though Isaac might be hiding behind a barrel. “Although there are fewer manure-filled wheelbarrows to fall into in the city.”
“Pity,” he said. “They don’t know what they’re missing.”
Andy helped her in with the table centers, calling for reinforcements from a couple of housekeepers loitering by the bins on a cigarette break. Still no sign of Isaac.
“Are you working throughout Christmas?” Nory asked.
“Only until after dinner is served tomorrow and then we’re off till the twenty-ninth.”
“Wouldn’t you like to get away? Visit family?”
“There’s no place I’d rather be than here, and I don’t have much family. It’s just me and my sister. She came down the other day and she’ll stay for the holidays.”
“Oh, that’s nice. I expect she loves staying in the castle, doesn’t she?”
“That she does. It’s a lot of fun here at Christmas. Lord Abercrombie and his guests cook for all the staff on Boxing Day and cater to their every whim; it’s one of the old traditions that he likes to keep up.”
“That must be funny!”
“Oh, it is. It’s hilarious.”
They laid the last arrangement on the cold larder floor. The shelves above were laden with enough food to see the marquis and his guests into the following Christmas.
“Would you mind if I left the car in the courtyard for a short while?” Nory asked. “I thought I might—”What did you think,Nory? What are you planning to do, hunt him down?“—have one last look at the gardens,” she finished lamely.
Andy smiled. “I’ve been asked to give you this.” He handed Nory a folded note.
Her hands trembled. Her heart stuttered. She didn’t want to open it here in front of Andy; suppose it was a “never darken my door again” note.
“Um, thanks,” she said. “Merry Christmas!” she called, hurriedly making for the door.
“Merry Christmas to you too, Elinor Noel!” he called after her.
With heart pounding and fumbling fingers, she unfolded the piece of paper.
Meet me under the mistletoe.
Isaac xxx
Nory gasped, then she jumped—she actually jumped for joy—before taking off at a run. If she had taken a moment to look back, she would have seen Andy smiling after her from the porchway.
It was a long time since Nory had run for anything that wasn’t the Tube. By the time she reached the secret gate to the lost garden, she was sweating alarmingly, and her breath was coming in ragged wheezes. She leaned against the wall for a few seconds, hands resting on her knees until she had recovered enough to be able to speak.
With her hand on the gate latch, she sent up a silent wish to the spirit of Christmas and then shoved the gate hard. Her eyes scanned the overgrown garden. Freshly pulled brambles lay in tall piles beside areas of cleared land. The snow lent an extra air of magic to the enchanted garden. Her eyes settled on the oldhawthorn with the mistletoe bough. Isaac stood below it, leaning on his spade. He smiled at her, and her nerves disappeared. As she walked toward him, he pulled off his gardening gloves and flung them aside.
They collided in an embrace under the mistletoe, with the snow falling silently all around them. Cold lips were made warm with hot desperate kisses, and even when they stopped for breath, they remained wrapped in each other’s arms. Isaac’s embrace was tight, as though Nory might float away from him if he were to let go. He whispered, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” into her hair.
She breathed him in, realizing only now that she was back in his arms how utterly lost she’d been without him. She was home.
