The Christmas Bride by Penny Jordan

Author:Penny Jordan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-03-22T20:59:56+00:00

‘Right, kids, you get in the back with Matilda. You won’t mind if I sit in front with you, Silas, will you? Only I get so carsick if I sit in the back.’

Not a word of apology to her, Tilly seethed, as Cissie-Rose appropriated the passenger seat of the large four-wheel drive. Unlike her, Cissie-Rose seemed to have arrived in Spain well equipped for the snow, Tilly realised, as she looked a little enviously at her expensive winter sports-style outfit.

‘I want a window seat.’

‘So do I.’ Cissie-Rose’s children were already clambering into the back seat.

‘You’ll have to sit in the middle, Tilly,’ Cissie-Rose instructed—for all the world as though she were some kind of servant, Tilly thought crossly.

‘One of the children will have to sit in the middle. Not Tilly,’ Silas intervened, in the kind of voice that said there would be no argument. ‘They can take turns to have the window seat—one when we drive out and the other when we drive back.’

‘Maria always sits in the middle,’ the elder of Cissie-Rose’s sons piped up.

‘Maybe she does. But Tilly is not Maria.’

‘Goodness, what a fuss you’re making, Tilly,’ Cissie-Rose said spitefully, and so blatantly untruthfully that Tilly was too taken aback to retaliate.

‘Call this an SUV?’ the older boy commented derogatively. ‘You should see our SUVs back home.’

‘Fix my seat belt for me,’ the other commanded Tilly in a disagreeable voice.

She was just leaning forward to help him when Silas stopped her. ‘Please will you help me with my seat belt, Tilly? That’s what I think you meant to say, isn’t it?’

Tilly couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for the two boys. They were only young, and it was obvious their mother was the type of woman who treated her sons as useful bargaining tools—to be fussed over when it suited her, and then be dismissed and kept out of her way when it didn’t.

For the entire length of the time it took them to drive into Segovia Cissie-Rose focused her attention on Silas—to such a degree that she and the children might just as well not have been there, Tilly decided, more upset on behalf of the children than for herself. After all, Silas had already shown her that he had no interest in Cissie-Rose, and without knowing quite how it had happened Tilly discovered that she was actually allowing herself to trust him. That would make her dangerously vulnerable, an inner voice warned her, but Tilly chose to ignore it. In fact she was choosing to ignore a lot of warnings from her inner protective voice since she had met Silas.

The boys, once they realised Tilly wasn’t the kind of person who could be cowed or spoken to in the way they were used to speaking to Maria, the young girl Cissie-Rose hired to look after them, began to respect her calm firmness and even responded to it. Tilly liked children, and she enjoyed enlivening the journey for the boys, teaching them some simple travel games and talking to them about their sports and hobbies.

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