Married By Christmas

  Also by Scarlett Bailey:

  The Night Before Christmas

  Married By Christmas

  Scarlett Bailey

  Copyright © 2012, Scarlett Bailey

  First published in the UK in 2012 by Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing, A Random House Group Company

  For Adam, with much love from me.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  The Proposal

  Almost One Year Later

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Twenty Months Later

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  With many thanks to Lizzy Kremer and Laura West for getting this ebook off the ground, and to Gillian Green.

  The Proposal

  The sun was just about setting as Anna Carter and her boyfriend Tom Collins finally reached the summit of Ivanhoe Beacon, the tallest point of the Chilterns. Tom’s parents’ overly enthusiastic Labradors charged around their legs in a series of haphazard circles before Napoleon caught the scent of a rabbit, and Nelson chased after him, both of them barking so loudly that any chance of actually catching one was obliterated by the din.

  ‘I’m worried about that jumper I got your gran, now,’ Anna said, her breath misting in the cold air, as she looked out over the stunning view of the Buckinghamshire valley, bathed in coppery gold, which stretched out below them. It was a perfect Christmas scene – snow globe worthy – of the village, gilt-edged with snow, the spire of the tiny jewel of a church sparkling in the crook of the hill. ‘I mean yes, pastel pink is a good colour for a lady of a certain age, and it will go so nicely with her hair and her eyes, but what if she thinks I’m being patronising, what if she thinks that I think that all old ladies wear pink, and that I don’t see her as person, just as a walking – tastefully dressed for her age – corpse?’

  ‘A what?’ Tom exclaimed, laughing, as he rubbed his frozen hands together, then checking his pockets once again, probably for his gloves, Anna assumed, although he still neglected to put them on. ‘Granny may be eighty-nine, but the very last thing she is is a walking corpse! She was challenging Dad to a drinking game when we left to walk the dogs. She will certainly outlive us all, and she loves pink. You worry too much, Anna. She will adore your gift, just as much as she adores you. And if she doesn’t she will say she does and exchange it in the New Year like most sensible people do. Everything will be fine.’

  ‘But it won’t be fine, will it?’ Anna protested, looking at Tom, who in the dying golden light, his reddish hair shining and his cheeks ruddy from the cold, looked like a particularly handsome fallen angel, a person who was born to be good, but couldn’t quite help getting into the occasional spot of trouble. ‘This is our first Christmas together, my first Christmas getting to know your family. I want them to like me, and to know how much thought I’ve put into their gifts and that I’ve got it exactly right, so that they … you know, like me and don’t secretly discuss why on earth you are going out with me whenever I’m not in the room. It’s Christmas, it’s got to be perfect.’

  ‘Why do people put so much pressure on themselves at this time of year?’ Tom asked her, shaking his head, genuinely bewildered by all the fuss. ‘It’s just another day, another big dinner and a load of money down the drain. Really, it’s no big deal.’ His grin faded as he watched Anna’s face fall. ‘What? What have I said? I was trying to make you feel better!’

  ‘It’s just …’ Anna hesitated, as she struggled to find the right words. ‘Look, I know it’s silly, and frivolous, but to me … when I was a little kid, Christmas was the one time of year when everything seemed shiny and … exciting and magical and just for those one or two days everything was fine. And I suppose I’ll always feel that way. This is my favourite time of year and I don’t want that to change because I’ve killed your family with salmonella or offended your granny with the wrong jumper. This is the time of year when good things are meant to happen.’

  ‘It is?’ Tom put his arms around Anna and pulled her into a slightly awkward hug. Given that she was wearing his mother’s ski jacket, which was made for someone a good deal taller and rounder than she was, at that moment, she most precisely resembled a duvet. ‘Because as far as I’m concerned the good thing has happened already when I met you. And besides, my family already love you. How could they not? You arrived laden down with colour co-ordinated gifts, each wrapped in a different paper for every guest, you’ve volunteered to cook Christmas lunch for fourteen, a job my mother hates, as it very much interferes with her sherry drinking, and you’ve made my mother’s only son a very happy and altogether much more organised man, who no longer forgets everyone’s birthday, not even the dogs’.’

  Anna looked up into his eyes apologetically. ‘I know I’m a nightmare. I’m controlling and overanxious and constantly organising everything that moves. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re not a nightmare.’ Tom grinned fondly at her, touching her rose-frosted cheek with the back of his frozen hand. ‘You’re extremely high maintenance, but you are not a nightmare.’

  ‘It’s just … it’s just …’ Anna gazed out across the valley, the twinkle of faraway headlights dipping and disappearing between hedgerows, as the whole world went home to be with loved ones on Christmas Eve.

  ‘It’s just, you’re the sort of girl who likes things the way you like them,’ Tom spoke for her. ‘And I sort of like that about you, even though you do colour co-ordinate my pants.’

  ‘I just think you know where you are with colour co-ordination. Particularly when it comes to scheduling when to do laundry, you get to cerise and you know it’s time to put a wash on …’ Anna began, before she broke into a chuckle. ‘Sorry again.’

  ‘You are my perfect girl, Anna, any time of the year,’ Tom told her fondly, with more than a touch of pride. ‘Even your imperfections are perfect.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Anna leaned her cheek into his hand. ‘It is so nice that you get me … What imperfections?’

  Tom laughed, tossing his head back so that the very last remnants of the sun bathed his face in amber light.

  ‘Oh you know: the endless list making, the constant diary co-ordination, the way you break into my phone and put reminders in my planner for me …’

  ‘I don’t break into your phone! You don’t have a password on your phone. I keep telling you to get one. I even made a list of difficult-to-hack passwords and set a reminder for you to look at it on your … phone.’

  The two burst into laughter. Anna playfully pushed Tom away and found herself backing into one of the dogs, who for some reason had made it his business to be tangled up in every available pair of legs he came across; Tom’s grandmother said she was convinced he was dead set on getting her a hip replacement,

  ‘Dog!’ Anna yelled, giggling. ‘Don’t stand about, run!’

  Tom grinned as Anna took off through the snow, Nelson barking and leaping excitedly at her heels, eventually bringing her to the ground in a good-natured tackle, which quickly became rather amorous on the part of the dog.

  ‘Tom!’ Anna shrieked and giggled at once as, pinioned to the ground, she suffered Nelson’s enthusiastic attempts at a French kiss. ‘Come here and defend my honour!�
��

  Tom hauled the sizeable animal off Anna and threw an imaginary stick for him to chase – a ruse Nelson almost always fell for, even though he was now almost five. Tom knelt down in the snow next to Anna, who looked happier and more relaxed than he’d ever seen her, with her blonde hair fanned out around her, her eyes sparkling with mirth.

  ‘I love you, Anna,’ he said, rather more seriously than he had ever said it before, which was a total of thirty-nine times since the first time six months ago, Anna happened to know. (And had made a note in her diary in case she should ever forget.)

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, suddenly anxious as he helped pull her up out of the snow and on to her feet, just in time before Nelson got back from his ill-fated mission. The dog fixed his eyes on Tom, his tail wagging crazily until he threw another stick.

  ‘Nothing,’ Tom said. ‘It’s just, just then I realised that it’s really true. I really do love you.’ He smiled happily, but Anna frowned.

  ‘So before then, before that moment all the other thir– times that you said you loved me you weren’t really sure?’

  ‘Yes. No. Oh God, Anna!’ Tom rolled his eyes. ‘Stop analysing everything I say, I’m trying to be romantic here!’

  ‘Sorry.’ Anna was contrite. ‘Proceed.’

  Tom took a breath. ‘Well, I can’t just be romantic on command, that’s not something you set a reminder for in my diary, is it?’

  Shaking her head, Anna made a mental note to delete the reminder she’d set for 13 February at the first available opportunity.

  ‘I love you too,’ she said, testing the words on her tongue. Tom was the very first man she had ever said them to, and they still felt unfamiliar and a little alien, like they weren’t words that were ever meant for her.

  ‘Do you?’ Tom asked her, taking her hands in his and looking into her eyes. Anna was surprised to see her confident self-assured boyfriend looking suddenly nervous and uncertain.

  ‘Of course I do,’ Anna said gently, smiling at him. ‘How could I not? Have you met you?’

  ‘You’re not that forthcoming with the romance yourself, you know,’ Tom said. ‘Most girls I’ve known have been so needy and “I love you, do you love me”, but not you.’

  ‘Really?’ Anna was genuinely surprised, but then again she supposed she hadn’t needed to make a list for how many times she said the three little words in question. ‘Well, I do. I do love you Tom. It’s just that I’ve never had anybody to say it to before, so I suppose I’m not familiar with the etiquette.’

  ‘That’s so you.’ Tom smiled. ‘“Not familiar with the etiquette”.’

  ‘Oh, sorry again—’

  Tom stopped Anna before she could say more. ‘Stop saying sorry for the things I love about you, otherwise I might have to change my mind.’

  ‘Your mind about what?’ Anna asked him, intrigued and then alarmed.

  ‘I’ve been trying to tell you something since we got up here,’ Tom said, pleased that he finally had Anna’s full attention.

  ‘Why?’ she asked him anxiously. ‘Because all I’m saying is if you were planning to dump me you should have done it before I arrived at your parents’ house for Christmas. I bought a goose, Tom, a goose. There is a dead goose the size of a whale in the chest freezer in your garage. It would be exceptionally rude of you to dump a girl who’s preparing to feed your family for the next month—’

  ‘Were you there when I was talking about how much I love you?’ Tom interrupted her. ‘You know, about five seconds ago. Stop it, Anna! I’m not dumping you!’

  ‘What then?’ Anna asked him. ‘Have you got a sexually transmitted disease?’

  ‘What!’ Tom shook his head in despair. ‘You know what, I’m just going to do this.’

  Anna stood watching as Tom fumbled in his pockets again, this time producing a small box, which he opened to reveal a respectably sized diamond ring, of at least a carat, glowing faintly in the dying winter sunlight.

  ‘Oh!’ Anna said, clasping her hands over her mouth.

  ‘Good.’ Tom nodded at her self-imposed gag. ‘Now keep your hands there until I’ve finished.’

  Wide-eyed, Anna nodded as Tom dropped to his knees.

  ‘Anna Carter, the moment I saw you when you opened the door at our friend Liv’s birthday party eight months ago, the moment I set eyes on you, I knew you were the one for me. You are the funniest, kindest, most beautiful, sweetest, most compulsively obsessive and overanxious person I know. And, as previously mentioned, I love you. And even though I am certain that Anna Carter organising a wedding is going to be one of the single most terrifying things I have ever witnessed – or experienced – and may in fact bring about the end of the world as we know it, I am prepared to risk it. Which is why I want to ask you, will you marry me?’

  Anna stared at him, her hands still clamped over her mouth.

  ‘Now is the time when you say something,’ Tom prompted her, ‘especially as I’ve got a horrible feeling I’ve knelt in sheep’s poo.’

  ‘A full year before my deadline too,’ Anna said, happily releasing her hands and gasping in a breath of icy air.

  ‘Pardon?’ Tom asked her.

  ‘My life plan,’ Anna explained, referring to the wine-red ring-bound notebook of mostly lists that she kept constantly at her side. She wrote in it every night, ticking off the things she had done, adding the things she needed to do. It included at its very back her life plan. Tom was familiar with it; he was one of the few people she had ever felt brave enough to show it to, a couple of months into their relationship when he still thought her controlling and obsessive traits were kooky and cute. And although it had made him scratch his head and look confused, he had not run, half naked, out of the door when he’d read her plan for a fairy-tale Christmas wedding, complete with an illustration of the dress, which she’d done aged nine. The plan was simple: married by age thirty-one, two children by thirty-five and a million-pound house in Chiswick to go with them. Which had been reason enough for Anna to decide to be in love with him then and there.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Tom said, clearly a little disappointed, if not surprised by her reaction. ‘So that’s a good thing, right?’

  ‘Totally brilliant,’ Anna said, looking at the ring some more, not quite able to bring herself to touch it. ‘Completely wonderful in every way, Tom.’

  ‘So you are going to say yes?’ Tom asked. ‘And I am going to be able to get up out of the sheep’s poo, before the dogs come back and Nelson tries to have sex with me?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ Anna laughed, her eyes glittering with tears of joy. ‘Yes, I say yes. Yes, Tom Collins, I will marry you.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Tom said, clambering to his feet, just as the Labradors skidded cheerfully to a halt at his heels. He added proudly, ‘Try it on, I stole one of your dress rings when you were in the bath and traced round it.’

  Anna slipped the ring on, where it sat, perfectly at home. Perhaps it was a fraction too big, but it was a neat square-cut diamond, in a simple platinum setting – exactly her taste.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Tom asked, slipping an arm around her thickly padded waist and kissing her on the ear.

  ‘I’m thinking there’s an awful lot I’ve got to do if we’re going to be married by next Christmas,’ Anna said.

  Almost One Year Later

  Chapter One

  Something was not quite right, Liv thought, as she watched Tom squirming in his pale gold upholstered Queen Anne chair while Anna fretted. Anna was dressed as immaculately as ever, her blonde hair tied in a chignon at the nape of her neck, her taupe patent leather heels exactly the same shade as her skirt suit. Liv thought – as she often did – that Anna looked like a cross between Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe, though she had been as careful as ever to attempt to hide her bombshell curves behind sophisticated clothes. Anna always worried that people would think she was nothing more than a dumb blonde, but it was a foolish person indeed that made the assumption.

  Liv gla
nced down at her own pair of grubby Converse and wondered, not for the first time in her life, how it was Anna always managed to look like a princess in waiting, no matter what the occasion, while Liv always looked – as her mother had persisted in telling her fondly, since she was about five years old – like she had been dragged through a hedge backwards. Really it should have been the other way around. Anna was the one who had turned up at school halfway through the autumn term, aged nine, having been taken into care and placed in a local kids’ home. While Liv’s family was like one out of a storybook: her parents owned a large detached house with a big garden, were kind and loving and would do anything for her. Liv had grown up with the sure and certain knowledge that she would almost always get whatever she asked Santa for (except for the pet python – she never did get that).

  Liv still remembered vividly the day that Anna had arrived. Before the new girl had been brought into the class, their teacher had given them a long speech about sparrows. It had been something to do with a flock of brown sparrows, who one day were joined by a single white sparrow, who, because it was a bit different and not brown, they eventually pecked to death, for reasons that were decidedly unclear. Neither Liv nor any of her other classmates could work out what this possibly had to do with them, until eventually their weary and sparrow-pecked teacher came straight out with the news that Anna was living in a children’s home. Thirty nine-year-olds had all but rubbed their hands together with glee as they anticipated the arrival of their new disen-franchised victim, who was bound to be a target for torment if ever there was one. But when Anna arrived she hadn’t been anything like what they were expecting, even then, fresh from all she had been through.

  Yes, her uniform was worn out and second-hand, and her shoes had clearly been bought from a supermarket, but with her long golden hair rippling down her back, Anna had stood tall and proud before them, as Miss Healy introduced her, radiating a mixture of sadness and dignity that had made all the boys fall in love with her at once and all the girls want to be her best friend. Why Anna had picked Liv for the latter position, Liv still didn’t know. Liv had never looked like a storybook princess. At age nine, her thick, unruly dark-brown hair had been cut short and spiky like a boy’s by her own stubby nail-bitten hands, after deciding she longer wished to brush her hair. Her school uniform was always awry and her expensive shoes always scuffed two minutes out of the box. Yet she would be eternally glad that Anna had chosen her to be her friend. That morning at break the two of them had formed an instant and indestructible bond, which had lasted their whole lives since, eventually resulting in them becoming more like sisters. Chalk and cheese they might be, but Liv knew Anna would do anything for her, and she would do the same for her friend, no matter what it cost her. Which was why Tom’s strange and distinctly un-Tom like behaviour today worried her deeply. The wedding was imminent. If anything were to go wrong now, well, Liv was sure that Anna would never recover.