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.“Have you had an enjoyable day?” she asked casually once their sandwiches and tea had been placed on the table, the latter in front of her mother so that she could pour the Earl Grey into the three china cups.“It’s a little late for Christmas shopping, and the weather hasn’t exactly been brilliant for walking around the shops.” There had been flurries of snow and rain most of the day, and the wind was bitterly cold.“Everywhere looks so festive we didn’t notice.” Her mother smiled her pleasure.“I had forgotten how wonderful everywhere looks at this time of the year,” she added wistfully.Jane had barely noticed the decorations, she had to admit, not because she didn’t like Christmas, but because until the evening of the twenty-fourth of December she would be worked off her feet providing other people’s food for the festive season.Christmas Day she would spend with her parents, and on Boxing Day the round of parties and dinners would all begin again.But, yes, everywhere did look rather splendid, and, without her being aware of it until this moment, she was feeling lightened by some of the Christmas spirit herself.And part of her now wondered just how much of that was due to the presence of Gabriel Vaughan in her life…She quickly pushed the question to the back of her mind, not wanting to know the answer.He couldn’t be coming to mean anything to her; he just couldn’t!“Was there a special reason for your coming up to town today?” she queried as she took her cup of tea from her mother.Her parents looked briefly at each other before her father answered her.“Actually, Janette, I had a business meeting.Don’t look so surprised.” He laughed at her shocked response to his statement.“I do still have some contacts in the business world, you know,” he chided teasingly.And most of those contacts hadn’t wanted to know when he’d run into financial difficulty and had to relinquish his company.To Gabriel Vaughan…But, whatever had transpired earlier today at this “business meeting”, her father was transformed from that man already grown old at only sixty-one, his shoulders no longer stooped and defeated, that playful twinkle back in his eyes.“I know you do, Daddy,” she soothed apologetically.“I just thought—I believed—”“That I had turned my back on all that,” he finished lightly.“As most of them turned their back on me,” he added tightly, the first time he—or her mother—had ever indicated the pain they had suffered over the last three years because of the defection of their so-called friends.“Retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you know,” he added wryly, stirring sugar into his tea.Especially when it had been forced on him!But, nevertheless, her father was now sixty-one; he couldn’t seriously be considering fighting his way back into the business arena at this stage of his life…Jane looked across at her mother, but her mother only had eyes for her husband: proud and infinitely loving.That love and pride in her mother for her father had never changed.As it hadn’t in Jane.It was just that she could see something else in her mother’s gaze today, something she couldn’t quite put a name to…“Well, don’t keep me in suspense, Daddy.” She turned back to her father.“Tell me what you’ve been up to!”“I haven’t been ‘up to’ anything,” he smiled at her frustration.“And I’m not sure I should actually tell you anything just yet,” he added less assuredly.“Not until things are a little more settled.What do you think, Daphne?” A little of the hesitancy that had been with him so much over the last three years crept back into his face as he looked at Jane’s mother for guidance.“I think everything is going to work out splendidly,” Daphne answered him firmly, one of her hands reaching out to rest briefly on his.“But I’m sure it can all wait until after Christmas,” she added briskly.“You are still coming to us for Christmas Day, aren’t you, Janette?” She looked across at her encouragingly.Where else could she possibly be going for Christmas? Besides, she always spent Christmas with her parents.Even during the really bad times with Paul, Christmas had been a family time, when they had all been together, happily or not [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]