CHAPTER EIGHT

      ‘YOU look gorgeous!’ David told her admiringly as she entered the sitting-room a short time later to join the others for a pre-dinner drink. ‘Like Mrs Christmas, in fact,’ he added teasingly, obviously having got over his upset of earlier.

      Or else he was just hiding it well…

      Molly understood what he meant about the knee-length, figure-hugging Chinese-style red dress she was wearing this evening; it was a bright poppy-red that someone was sure to say didn’t go with her copper-red hair.

      Although Gideon seemed unusually quiet this evening, standing broodingly beside the fireplace, looking elegantly attractive in his black dinner suit and snowy white shirt. And as remote and cold as a statue as his gaze briefly met hers.

      Molly quickly averted her own gaze, turning to smile at Sam as he handed her a glass of champagne. ‘What are we celebrating?’ she teased.

      ‘The slightly late start of Christmas,’ he returned ruefully. ‘Diana is upstairs with Crys right now, checking on Peter, but she assured us that Peter really doesn’t have chickenpox, and that he is much better already,’ he added with satisfaction.

      ‘That’s wonderful,’ Molly said with relief. ‘Definitely worth drinking to.’ She took a sip of the bubbly wine, without looking at Gideon this time to see if he was watching her. She had a feeling that looking at Gideon was going to be quite hard to do after that earlier scene in her bedroom.

      ‘Where’s Merlin?’ she prompted, with nothing better to say.

      Sam arched a mocking brow. ‘Where do you think?’

      She smiled. ‘Upstairs, keeping watch over Peter.’

      ‘Right first time!’ Sam grinned. ‘I—’ He broke off as they heard the telephone ring in the kitchen. ‘Now, who could that be—telephoning on Christmas Eve?’ He frowned.

      ‘I’ll go; it could be the parents,’ Molly told him quickly, putting down her wineglass to hurry across the room, not wanting anything to spoil this time for Sam and Crys now that the worry over Peter was apparently at an end. Something she couldn’t guarantee if it should be another one of those hang-up calls.

      ‘I’ll answer it,’ Gideon told her gruffly, and the two of them reached the sitting-room door at the same time.

      Molly felt the colour warm her cheeks, not quite able to meet that piercing blue gaze as she looked up at him. ‘Fine,’ she accepted huskily, turning quickly away so that he shouldn’t see how even being near him like this affected her after what had happened between them earlier.

      Because, despite Gideon’s anger, his forcefulness, Molly knew that part of her had wanted to respond to his kisses, that she had wanted to kiss away his anger, to know the deeply sensual man she sensed below that surface of fury.

      Ridiculous when everything Gideon said, everything he did, told her of his contempt for her. He—

      ‘Penny for them…?’ David prompted as he moved to stand beside her, putting her glass of champagne back in her hand.

      She gave a sad shake of her head. ‘I can’t make any sense of them, so why should you?’

      David gave a rueful shrug. ‘We’re a strange collection of people, aren’t we?’ he murmured ruefully as Diana Chisholm and Crys entered the sitting-room. Both women smiled at Sam as he turned to them enquiringly. ‘There’s Crys and Sam, obviously the centre of this motley crew—’

      ‘Speak for yourself,’ Molly cut in teasingly.

      He gave a nod of acknowledgement. ‘And there’s baby Peter, too, of course. Then there’s Dr Chisholm: beautiful, probably only in her thirties, but obviously dedicated to her career. Then there’s you: Sam’s sister, Crys’s friend, the only one of us who’s really entitled to share this family Christmas. And there’s me, of course, recently widowed, fighting shy of being anywhere that’s going to remind me of Cathy and the Christmases we spent together.’ He smiled self-derisively.

      ‘Don’t.’ She put a sympathetic hand on his arm. ‘Don’t do this to yourself, David,’ she urged. Though at the same time she was curious as to what his explanation would be for Gideon’s presence here…

      But as Crys brought Diana Chisholm over to formally introduce her to the two of them Molly knew she wasn’t going to hear David’s opinion of Gideon being there. Pity. That might have been worth hearing.

      Where was Gideon? It had been some time since he went to answer the telephone call, so what was keeping him?

      ‘Excuse me,’ she murmured before slipping away, confident she could leave the slightly melancholy David in Crys’s more than capable hands.

      She found Gideon in the kitchen, standing in front of the window, staring out, supposedly, up at the starlit sky. She came to a halt in the doorway, not sure whether or not she should intrude on what was obviously a moment of privacy. She decided not.

      ‘Makes you realise how insignificant we all are, doesn’t it?’ Gideon murmured just as she would have turned and walked quietly away. He turned to face her, his face partly in shadow. ‘The stars,’ he explained at her puzzled look. ‘Did you know that some of them have died, completely disappeared, before their glow is even apparent to the human eye? Quite—’

      ‘Have you and David both forgotten to take your happy pills this evening?’ Molly cut in pragmatically. ‘You’re both so introspective I think you must have done!’ she explained as his eyes widened. Inwardly, she wondered how he had known she was standing in the doorway, sure that her high-heeled shoes hadn’t made any noise as she walked down the thickly carpeted hallway. Eyes in the back of his head, probably; he certainly didn’t seem to miss much.

      Gideon continued to look at her for several seconds, and then his mouth began to twitch, his eyes to glow with suppressed laughter. ‘If it happens again we can always rely on you to bring us back down to earth, can’t we?’ He was openly chuckling now.

      She shrugged dismissively, not sure it was actually a compliment, but deciding to accept it as such. ‘Who was on the telephone just now?’ she prompted lightly; at least they weren’t arguing for once.

      ‘My assistant.’ He grimaced. ‘A client wants me to fly to Vienna the day after Christmas.’

      “‘All work and no play”,’ Molly quoted dismissively, suddenly wondering if his assistant was female, and also if their relationship was just business orientated. Surely it was a little unusual for an assistant to track you down at someone else’s house on Christmas Eve, of all days, just to tell you about a commission?

      Just as quickly she admonished herself for even thinking such a thing. What difference could it possibly make to her whether or not Gideon’s relationship with his assistant was purely business—or his relationship with any other woman, for that matter?

      ‘Not this time.’ Gideon shook his head firmly. ‘I’m fully booked until at least Easter; this client will just have to take a number.’

      James, she knew, had been an extremely popular interior designer, but the name Gideon Webber had been in vogue long before James had come on the scene. Obviously his designs were still sought after.

      ‘Come on,’ Gideon said firmly, crossing the room in three strides. ‘Let’s go and join the others.’ He took a firm hold of her elbow. ‘And David was right, by the way,’ he murmured as they approached the sitting-room.