Free Home for Christmas by Lizzie Lane

note, not until now. She had lately detected a gleam in his eyes. Someone had touched his heart. It was a matter of time before she found out who that was.

Chapter Six
    Five days before Christmas, uninvited and unannounced, Iris Wilson arrived on the doorstep surrounded by bulky luggage, namely three brown leather bags and one trunk.
    When informed by the housekeeper Mrs Gander that his sister-in-law had arrived, Doctor Miller looked up in dismay from the article he was writing entitled ‘Contraception and Family Stability’. The pen dropped from his hand.
    Iris breezed in wearing a new coat, a new hat and for the first time he could recall, looking as though she were wearing rouge on her cheeks and dark lines around her eyes.
    ‘Darling Eric. Merry Christmas. I thought I would come early and get things organised. Mrs Gander, you do a wonderful job, but you are ever in need of help are you not?’
    ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that …’ said Mrs Gander, looking slightly affronted, her chin seeming to recede into her neck.
    ‘Iris,’ said Eric, pushing down on his chair arms so that he rose more quickly. ‘I sent you a telegram telling you not to come and that we – Lydia and I – would not be at home for Christmas.’
    No matter how bright her cheeks, Iris’s complexion seemed suddenly to turn a pale mauve, her lips dark purple.
    ‘Telegram? What telegram?’
    ‘You know very well what telegram, Iris,’ said Doctor Miller, gritting his teeth at the same time as trying to wear a welcoming smile. ‘I sent you a telegram telling you not to come.’
    The fact was he could barely keep his temper; not that Iris made him angry as such. What she did do was irritate, behaving as though she were flighty and empty headed, when in fact she was totally the opposite.
    She spread her hands and looked surprised. ‘Where are you going? Where else could possibly be as welcoming as home with the family on Christmas Day?’
    ‘This year will be different. We – Lydia and I – have been invited to spend Christmas in the country. A very influential patient of mine owns the house and estate. I cannot turn him down.’
    ‘How important?’
    ‘He’s a baronet.’
    ‘Eric! I don’t know what to say. This is so unexpected. We’ve always spent Christmas together – you and I – and Lydia of course.’
    Looking to be on the verge of hysterics – which Doctor Miller didn’t believe for a minute – she took out a lace-trimmed handkerchief and began to dab at her eyes.
    ‘What shall I do?’
    ‘So why was it you didn’t receive my telegram? Were you somewhere else?’
    He knew very well that Iris spread herself around in the Christmas season. She visited one relative or friend after another before finally settling with her brother-in-law and niece for Christmas.
    ‘I was with Celia. She hasn’t been well.’
    Her eyes suddenly took on a contemplative look, as though something about her visit to Celia had been quite pleasurable.
    Eric didn’t know it, but she had attended a large dinner party at the house of a widower, a friend of Celia’s who had paid her court all through the meal. Well, if Eric didn’t want her here … Still it always paid in one’s personal life as well as in business to hedge one’s bets, and she wasn’t about to give in too easily.
    ‘Are you sure this is what you want to do?’ she asked. Her eyes seemed to fill her whole face and her voice was tremulous – which relieved Doctor Miller; he couldn’t possibly have coped if she had burst into tears and fallen to her knees.
    In a bid to soothe her disappointment, he suggested they sit down, take a sherry and discuss the matter in greater depth.
    Lydia, who had followed them into the study, standing there without saying a word, excused herself, saying she was meeting the friend she’d gone to the theatre with the night before. She’d thought it best to say theatre rather than the picture house, which was acquiring a bad reputation in some