Free Her Christmas Fantasy & The Winter Bride by Lynne Graham, Penny Jordan Page B

ideas that he might have gained from her unguarded and totally foolish comments, she said quickly, ‘It must have been wonderful here at Christmas when you were young—your family…this house…’
    â€˜Yes, it was,’ he agreed, before asking, far too perceptively for Lisa’s peace of mind, ‘Weren’t your childhood Christmases good?’
    â€˜Yes, of course they were,’ Lisa responded hastily.
    â€˜But?’ he challenged her.
    â€˜My parents travelled a lot with their work. They still do. Whilst I dreamed of traditional Christmases in a house with log fires and a huge tree surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins, going to church on Christmas morning and doing all the traditional British Christmas things, the reality was normally not roast turkey with all the trimmings but ice cream on an Australian beach or sunshine in Japan.
    â€˜My parents did their best, of course. There were always mounds of presents, and they always made sure that we spent Christmas and Boxing Days together, but somehow it just wasn’t the same as it would have been if we’d been here…It’s silly of me, really, but I suppose a part of me still is that little girl who—’
    She stopped, embarrassed by how much of herself she had inadvertently revealed. It must be whatever it was he had obviously added to her hot chocolate that was making her so loquacious and communicative, she thought. She certainly wasn’t normally so open or confiding with people she barely knew, although in some odd way it felt as though she had actually known Oliver for a very long time.
    She was still frowning over this absurdity when he handed her a glass of amber liquid that he had just poured.
    â€˜Drink it,’ he told her when she looked at it doubtfully. ‘It’s pure malt whisky and the best antidote for a heavy cold that I know.’
    Reluctantly, Lisa took the glass he handed her. Her head was already swimming slightly, and she felt that the last thing she needed was any more alcohol, but her father was also a great believer in a hot toddy as a cure for colds and so hesitantly she began to sip the tawny golden liquid, closing her eyes as it slid smoothly down her throat, spreading the most delicious sense of beatific warmth throughout her body.
    There was something so comforting, so safe, so…so pleasurable about being curled up cosily here in this house…with this man… With this man? What did that mean? Where had that thought come from?
    Anxiously Lisa opened her eyes and started to sit up.
    â€˜Was that why you wanted to marry Henry, because you thought he could provide you with the traditional lifestyle you felt you’d missed out on?’ she heard Oliver asking her.
    â€˜Yes…yes, I suppose it was,’ she agreed huskily, caught too off guard to think of prevaricating or avoiding the question, and then flushing slightly as she saw the way Oliver was looking at her.
    â€˜It would have been a good marriage,’ she defended herself.‘We both wanted the same things…’ As she saw the way his eyebrows rose, she amended herself shakily, ‘Well, I thought that we did.’
    â€˜I’ve heard of some odd reasons for getting married,’ she heard Oliver telling her drily, ‘but marrying someone because you think he’ll provide you with a traditional Christmas has to be the oddest…’
    â€˜I wasn’t marrying him for that—’ Lisa began indignantly, stopping when another volley of sneezing mercifully prevented her from having to make any further response or explanation.
    â€˜Come on,’ Oliver told her. ‘I think it’s time you were in bed.’
    The whisky that she had drunk was even more potent than she had realised, Lisa acknowledged as Oliver led the way back into the warm, panelled entrance hall and up the stairs.
    Just where the stairs started to return towards the galleried landing,