Light the Candles

by Denise Robins

Genres: Erotic & Steamy Romance

Synopsis

Who is the attractive stranger who knocks on the Cornells’ door one snowy Christmas eve? Lucy discovers the answers to a tragic family secret—and finds lifelong romance…Charlotte and Bill are happily married—until they have children, forcing Charlotte to choose between being a loving wife or a caring mother…Nicholas Carden is impossibly handsome—and a woman-hater. But Victoria is determined to marry him, but hook or by crook! Twelve tales of the heart by veteran author Denise Robins.

Release date: June 26, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 160

Sample

The Christmas-tree stood in a corner of the room.

It was dark in the big drawing-room on this grey, dreary day of December the twenty-fourth. The tree stood in shadow. Faintly the tinsel glittered and the coloured glass balls could only pick up fragments of light. The wax candles looked like little twisted sugar-sticks in their toy tin holders.

Lucy, gazing from the doorway, thought of all the hours she had spent in decorating the tree. She sighed; sighed again at the sight of the holly behind the gilt-framed pictures on the walls, at the crossed loops of gay-coloured paper nailed from end to end of the room, at the big bunch of mistletoe tied with scarlet ribbon hanging from the crystal chandelier.

It was all so festive, and yet so cold and dark – so utterly lacking in any gaiety. Like the big Victorian house itself, which was always silent and full of ghosts. True, it was all quite comfortable, even luxurious in the manner of the last generation. Mrs Cornell had spared no money when she had come here as a young bride. And nothing had been changed. The walls were still hung with the dark crimson-striped paper. Like the thick carpet with its floral design, the satinwood chairs and tables, the heavy brocade curtains, the Venetian blinds.

Lucy was used to it all. She had lived here with her aunt for the last ten years, since the death of her own parents had left her an orphan. In a way she liked the old house, mainly because it meant so much to Aunt Madge. Poor Aunt Madge, who had nothing but her memories – and Lucy – to comfort her now that she was failing fast in health, both mentally and physically.

Aunt Madge had money. There were servants – old retainers – to do all the work at Blakeley Grange.

But sometimes Lucy wished that she had more to do. She was so unutterably bored. Here she was, aged twenty-one, the bosom companion of an old lady who had grown ‘queer’ since The Tragedy of more than twenty years ago. (The Tragedy that was only spoken of every Christmas Eve.) There were no young friends for Lucy, no dances, no parties. Nothing would happen here today or tomorrow to warrant all these Christmas decorations. The tree which stood there in its fairy-like splendour must remain in darkness. The candles would never be lit. That was all part of The Tragedy.

Tomorrow morning there would be a present for Lucy – a handsome present from Aunt Madge. Then church. A Christmas dinner for the two of them. (That was always a mockery!) And after that a walk. Tea and the effort to help Aunt Madge forget the past. Good night, and then the prospect of another difficult year. Lucy wondered how many more of them she could bear before she ran away!

She walked to the windows and peered out. It was past five o’clock and darkness had fallen. All day snow had threatened. Now it was falling, whirling in grey feathery flakes against the panes. In the morning the cedar which stood on the wide lawns outside Blakeley Grange would be a lovely sight.

The silence was broken suddenly by the crunch of footsteps on the gravel drive. Who could that be at this hour? There were few callers at the Grange, except Aunt Madge’s doctor and one or two local friends who had known the Cornells for years.

Lucy turned back to the drawing-room and switched on the light. At once the vast crystal chandelier flung out a myriad shooting-stars, flooding the whole room with magnificence.

A moment later, old Florence, the parlourmaid who had been with Mrs Cornell ever since The Tragedy, came in.

‘Please, miss, could you come and talk to a gentleman who is in need of help and wants to use the telephone?’

‘But, Florence,’ said Lucy, ‘you know we are not on the telephone.’

‘I know, miss. But the gentleman seemed so surprised and upset. Will you speak to him?’

With sudden recklessness, Lucy said: ‘Ask him in, Florence.’

A tall young man was ushered into the drawing-room. He stood, hat in hand, looking at Lucy. She looked back at him. She had to admit that he was exceedingly good-looking. So tall, and with such square shoulders, black hair and bright hazel eyes.

He smiled at her. ‘I’m afraid I’m intruding,’ he said. ‘But my car has let me down, and I seem to have struck the loneliest part of the world for my breakdown. I could hardly believe it when the maid said that you were not on the ’phone.’

‘My aunt is old-fashioned and doesn’t like the disturbance of the bell ringing,’ explained Lucy.

‘This is your aunt’s house?’

‘Yes. Mrs Cornell. I am Lucy Cornell, her niece.’

‘My name is John Mostyn,’ he said.

He was a friendly young man with a wide, friendly smile, and Lucy could not resist it. The shadows seemed to have lifted in this room. Not only because of the light from the chandelier. She felt suddenly happy. A dimple appeared at the corner of her mouth. John Mostyn, with his six-foot-two of good looks, was standing right under the mistletoe opposite her. She wondered if he noticed the fact.

Blushing, she backed away a bit and said: ‘What bad luck for you to have broken down.’

But he felt that it was good luck, because he had never seen a prettier girl than this one. And she was naturally pretty, not in an artificial way. No heavy make-up, only a touch of lipstick. He was ready to swear that there was no mascara on the long, dark lashes of Miss Lucy Cornell. She had two brown plaits of hair pinned round her small head, and large dark, fawn-like eyes. She was small and slender in her cherry-coloured woolly dress. He noticed that entrancing dimple when she smiled.

‘I’m darned if I know what to do,’ he said. ‘How far are you from the nearest garage? This is my first visit to England and to Devonshire. I was driving around intending to spend my Christmas wherever I landed. Where have I landed, by the way?’

‘On the outskirts of Exmoor,’ she said. ‘And the nearest garage is ten miles away.’

‘Lord!’ he groaned. ‘Then it’s a ten-mile tramp for me in the snow, and no food yet awhile.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Lucy with distress. ‘You can’t walk through the snow, when you don’t know your way or anything. It’s frightfully lonely around here. I must tell my aunt. She’d never let you do that.’

‘Please – I wouldn’t dream—’ he began.

Then a voice interrupted them. A rather high-pitched, tremulous voice.

‘But it may be André, Florence. You wouldn’t remember him. I ought to know. I saw him walking up the drive from my window. I know it’s André. Let me see him. Help me down. Call Miss Lucy quickly.’

John Mostyn looked at Lucy. She answered his unspoken question, her cheeks pink and hot.

‘That’s my aunt. I must explain to you quickly. She – she isn’t quite normal. You heard what she said. She thinks you may be André. That’s her son. My cousin. There was an awful Tragedy …’

‘I’m so sorry. But please explain … if there’s anything I can do …’

‘No, nothing,’ she said hurriedly. ‘But before my aunt comes down you’d better know what to expect.’

She told her story swiftly to the stranger. She had had to tell it so often to excuse poor Aunt Madge. Nearly twenty years ago Aunt Madge had lived happily here with her husband and her young son. Madge Cornell was of French extraction and her boy had been christened André after her father. Young André had been a brilliant musician. At his own request, he was sent to the Conservatoire in Paris to study. Then, all in the same week, two devastating blows were struck at Mrs Cornell’s happiness. Her husband had been thrown from his horse, hunting. He died at once. Two days later she received news from Paris that her son had disappeared. Vanished and left no trace behind him. Nothing for his agonized mother but a note of farewell saying that he was sick of work and of life as he led it, and was going to South America with a friend – he did not say whom – to seek real adventure.

John Mostyn interrupted the story.

‘Good lord! I come from South America. How strange! What made him go there? Why should he so suddenly chuck up his studies, and his home?’

‘That is the unsolved mystery,’ said Lucy. ‘It was generally thought among his friends that he was not the paragon my aunt imagined him, but just a weak, temperamental young fool who wanted to get away from parental authority. His father was rather strict. You see, the news never reached André about his father’s death.’

‘And he was never traced?’

‘Never. But the double blow robbed my aunt of her reason. She isn’t mad. She’s sweet and kind and gentle. But she wanders a bit. I mean – every Christmas she thinks that André’s coming back. Always we have a tree. But the candles are never lit. She says they must only be lit when André gets home.’

John Mostyn was silent a moment. He opened his lips to speak, but shut them again. He appeared to struggle with himself. Then, over his brown face came a queer, secretive look. He brought his attention back to Lucy. He thought it was very hard on this pretty girl that she should have to bear the load of sorrow in this deserted home. She should have love and laughter, and a thousand candles lit before the shrine of her youth!

Then the door opened and Mrs Cornell came in, leaning on the arm of an elderly maid.

John Mostyn had never seen a lovelier old lady. Hers was a Dresden-china fragility of pink-and-white skin, of snowy curls, of forget-me-not blue eyes. In one hand she carried an ebony stick. Later he learned that she was not yet seventy. But years of suffering and of thwarted hope had aged her unbelievably. She might have been Lucy Cornell’s grandmother instead of her aunt.

Lucy ran to her aunt.

‘This is Mr Mostyn, darling. He’s lost his way on the moors. His car has broken down. We can’t let him go on in this snowstorm, can we?’

Mrs Cornell looked long and hard at the tall young man in the grey suit and tweed overcoat, who stood there twisting his hat in his fingers. She said, hesitatingly: ‘André! André, isn’t it you? Haven’t you come back so that we can light the Christmas-tree for you?’

He felt a sudden lump in his throat. He had adored his own mother and she was dead. Now, he was a hard-bitten man of the world with a bachelor flat in Rio, and he led a life that seemed a thing apart from this English home with its Christmas decorations. The sort of home he had heard about from his mother, who used to live in the Old Country, and which he had always wanted to have. He felt nothing but a strange desire to be very tender with the poor demented old lady who thought that he was her son.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m not André. My name is John.’

Mrs Cornell gave a great sigh.

‘Oh dear! Then I’ve made a mistake. You might have been André. You look a little like him, and he was about your age.’

‘Darling,’ said Lucy, feeling very uncomfortable. ‘What shall we do? Mr Mostyn is stranded here.’

‘He must stay, of course. He shall have dinner with us and he can have the spare room and welcome.’

‘No, no,’ began John Mostyn, ‘I couldn’t encroach on your hospitality. I’m a stranger to you.’

Mrs Cornell drew nearer to him, peering up into his face.

‘Don’t go,’ she said wistfully. ‘It’s nice to have a young man in the house. André used to bring all his friends home, and now we have nobody … nobody …’ Then suddenly she began to weep. ‘André, when will you come back? Oh, my son, my son!’

Lucy and the maid each took an arm of the old lady and led her out of the room. John Mostyn could hear her soft weeping and moaning as they took her up the stairs.

He walked to the window and looked out at the whirling snow. And under his breath he said: ‘Good God! How strange! How more than strange. But I mustn’t speak. I couldn’t hurt her all over again.’

Lucy Cornell came back into the room.

‘I must apologize. It was so embarrassing for you.’

‘You needn’t worry,’ he said. ‘And now I had better go.’

The dismay in her eyes was flattering.

‘Oh, but don’t. My aunt really means it. You must stay here the night. You can’t possibly go on in this weather, on foot.’

‘It’s more than kind of you and your aunt – and very trusting. You know nothing whatsoever about me.’

The dimple reappeared at the corner of Lucy’s mouth.

‘Well, if you’re a thief and you disappear in the night with the silver, you’ll probably be found dead in a snowdrift at dawn, so it wouldn’t do you any good.’

‘That’s true,’ he said, and laughed. ‘Well, I’m not a thief, I assure you.’

‘I’m sure, too. Will you stay?’

‘I think it would be marvellous,’ he said.

They looked into each other’s eyes. Suddenly, outside the door, there came the sound of childish treble voices singing:

‘No-el! No-el! …

Born is the King of Israel.’

‘The carol-singers!’ said Lucy.

‘How gorgeous,’ said John Mostyn. ‘I’ve wanted to hear something like that ever since I was a small boy. My mother used to describe the English Christmases. I used to dream of them in Rio. My father had a business out there, and I followed on. I’ve never seen England until now.’

‘I’m afraid you’ll find it very dull in this house.’

‘Not if you’re here,’ he said impulsively.

Lucy was suddenly absurdly thrilled. And the thrill deepened when John Mostyn put his hand in his pocket, drew out half a crown and said: ‘Let’s give this to the carol-singers, shall we?’

She went with him to the front door feeling immeasurably glad that the stranger from South America had lost his way and come to Blakeley Grange. For he would be here tomorrow. And it was the first Christmas Eve that she could truly feel that there was something to look forward to.

Poor Cousin André had run away just before Christmas, all those years ago. So it was always at this time that Aunt Madge felt her Tragedy most. Consequently, the time which should have been the happiest was the very one which Lucy had grown to dread.

She began to think excitedly what fun it would be to have this gay and attractive young man to share Christmas dinner with Aunt Madge and herself tomorrow.

But that Christmas dinner was not destined to be for three at Blakeley Grange. Only for two.

On the night that John Mostyn found shelter at Blakeley Grange, Mrs Cornell was taken very ill. It was her heart, the doctor said when he arrived long after midnight after a twenty-mile drive. The poor tired heart, overloaded with suffering, had given way at last. He did not think that she would live until Boxing Day.

At first John Mostyn had anticipated leaving the Grange at once in the doctor’s car, since he had the chance of a lift. But something in Lucy’s brown eyes prevented him. A frightened appealing look. Poor pretty child! She would not want to be left alone with a dying aunt at this festive season. He would not go. He could not. And there were many reasons, apart from that, why he did not want to leave her. So the doctor went away alone. He promised to send a breakdown gang out from the garage in the morning to tow in John’s car, which was by now half-buried in a snowdrift on the moor.

Lucy had never been more glad than when John elected to remain in the house. It was grand to have somebody to talk to whilst Florence nursed the old lady upstairs.

Lucy knew that it would be for the best if Aunt Madge passed beyond all suffering. If she lived, it could only mean protracted years of hopeless waiting for André. The son who must now be dead, otherwise he would surely have come back long ago.

‘And what will you do once you’re alone?’ John asked Lucy as they sat before the fire which Florence had lit for them in the drawing-room.

‘I don’t know,’ was her answer. ‘It will seem so strange being on my own. But I think I shall want to travel; to see something of the world which I have always longed to do.’

‘It’s a crime that you should have been shut up here all these years.’

‘One gets used to anything, and I read a lot and make all my own clothes. I ride, too. I love riding.’

‘I’d like to ride with you one day,’ he said. Then, looking down at her slender hands, added: ‘And I bet you know how to handle a horse, too. You ought to ride with me in South America, up in the mountains where I have a ranch. You’d love the life out there.’

‘Tell me about it,’ she said.

So, sitting there in front of the fire, he told her a great deal about Rio, until she felt that she could see it all. Feel the drenching sunlight, the golden beauty of the loveliest harbour in the world. See herself in the mountains, upon a horse at the side of this tall young man, riding under the blue, burning skies. There was glamour in the thought. Glamour for her this Christmas Eve, in spite of The Tragedy which was drawing to its close upstairs. Glamour, when she realized that it was past two in the morning and that Christmas Day had come upon t. . .