The Unexpected Holiday Gift (16 page)

‘She's a child, Jacob,' Clara said, sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘Children have accidents all the time. It wasn't anyone's fault.' Never mind that her own heart had stopped for a moment as she'd watched it happening. She couldn't let Jacob blame himself for this.

‘Maybe not. But that just makes it worse.'

Clara frowned. ‘How?'

‘I couldn't keep her safe, Clara. She was my responsibility for half a day and she got hurt. I wasn't paying enough attention.'

‘You know how crazy that sounds, right? It was an accident, Jacob, that's all.' She reached out to touch his arm but he pulled it back, out of reach.

‘I can't do this Clara.'

And there it was. The words she'd dared to believe might not be coming. But there they were, out in the world like a final sentence. His last words.

‘Because of one stupid accident?'

‘Because I'm not the right person for this. I never was. I thought... When I married you, I convinced myself that I could be a good husband just because I
wanted
it so much. Wanted
you
so much.' He ran his fingers through his damp hair, a look of agony on his face. ‘And I almost made the same mistake again. I wanted to be with you, with Ivy, so much I thought I could be what you need. But I can't. And it's not fair to Ivy to take that risk. She deserves everything—including a wonderful father. And that's just not me.'

‘You're giving up,' Clara said quietly. ‘Giving in. Because you're scared.'

‘You're right I'm scared. I'm terrified, Clara. And that's a sign. I shouldn't be doing this.'

Anger rose up inside her, the flames licking her insides. ‘You're wrong. If you're scared, it's a sign it's worth fighting for.'

Jacob laughed, and it came out harsh and bitter. ‘Like you fought for us? You walked out without a backward glance, Clara. And you know what?
You were right.
I admit it. So now it's my turn to do the same.'

‘And you never came after me! You wouldn't let me go, wouldn't divorce me, but you wouldn't come after me either. Why was that, Jacob? Because you were too scared to lose me—but too scared to love me too. Too scared to let me in, let me close.'

‘And you weren't?'

‘Maybe I was. But you know what? I've grown up. I've opened up to you, told you everything. And I took a risk; I gave you a chance. A chance at the best thing you could ever have—being Ivy's father. And you're turning it down?' She shook her head sadly. ‘You're an idiot.'

‘Maybe I am,' he said, his voice soft. ‘But Clara, I'd rather hurt you both now than risk breaking you later.'

She stared at him. He was really doing this. After everything they'd shared, said and done, he was pushing her away again.

‘One day you're going to realise,' she said. ‘Keeping people at arm's length doesn't keep them safe, Jacob. It only keeps them lonely.'

He didn't answer.

Clara turned and left, closing the door behind her, alone once again. Alone, not because he didn't want her, or even because he didn't love her, but because he didn't have the courage to be with her and Ivy.

She wasn't sure if that was better or worse.

‘So that's that, then?' Merry asked, and when Clara looked up she saw her best friend standing a little way along the corridor.

‘You heard?'

‘Enough,' Merry confirmed. ‘What do you want to do now? Sheila has invited us to stay here for the night, and Ivy looks close to falling asleep on her feet.'

‘I know.' Clara chewed her lip. Part of her wanted to get out of there the first chance they got, but another larger part didn't want to do anything to ruin Christmas Day for the others. She couldn't stay but she couldn't run either. Not just yet.

‘Let's put Ivy to bed,' she decided. ‘Then we can clear up down here.'

‘And then?'

‘Then, the moment everyone else goes to bed, we get Ivy in the hire car and drive back to London,' Clara said.

Christmas was nearly over.

It was time for her new life to begin again.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

‘I
ONLY
ASKED
if you'd spoken to her,' Sheila said, throwing up her hands defensively. ‘There's no need to snap.'

‘I didn't snap,' Jacob said, knowing full well that he had. But really, it had been four days. No, he hadn't spoken to Clara. And no, he had no intention of doing so.

His family hadn't taken Clara's departure in the middle of the night well, or the note that she'd left explaining that she and Merry had work back in London they needed to return to. Jacob, who was more used to being walked out on in the middle of the night, had simply crumpled the note up and thrown it on the fire.

He'd made his decision. He couldn't blame her for abiding by it. Not this time.

‘Is Dad in his study?' Jacob asked, looking past his mother down the hallway at Honeysuckle House. The Christmas decorations were still up and he wanted nothing more than to tear them down. Wasn't it New Year yet? Couldn't they move on?

He was ready to start his new life, without Clara. Without Ivy. He just needed the world to stop reminding him of them both.

Both.
That was the biggest surprise. He'd expected to be haunted by Clara's memory—he had been often enough over the past five years to have grown almost used to it. But Ivy... Jacob had spent less than a day with her, and yet everywhere he turned he seemed to find reminders of her. A girl on a bike, a small red coat, a too bright smile, a Christmas cracker like the ones she'd insisted on pulling with everyone. Even the Christmas lights made him think of her.

Clearly he was losing his mind.

‘Yes, he's upstairs, I think,' Sheila said, answering the question Jacob had almost forgotten he'd asked.

‘Right.' He made for the stairs, his mind still occupied by thoughts of an empty castle, and a note he never wanted to see again.

He'd hoped that a business conversation with his father would take his mind off things, as well as giving him a chance to check on James's health after the trek to Scotland and back. But, instead, he found his dad in a pensive, family orientated frame of mind. Which was the last thing Jacob wanted.

‘Come in! Sit down!' James motioned towards the visitor's chair. ‘Pull it up over here. I'm just looking through some old photo albums.'

Jacob's stomach clenched as he saw the open page, filled with photos of Heather as a little girl, through from babyhood to a final one of her with bandages wrapped around her arms and scratches and cuts on her face. Why had they even taken that picture? Who wanted to remember that moment in time?

He reached across to try and turn the page but James stopped him with a gentle hand on his wrist. ‘She really did look uncannily like Ivy, don't you think?'

‘Yes. And no, before you ask, I haven't spoken to them.'

‘Why?' James asked. ‘Really, Jacob. Why haven't you gone after them?'

‘Because we decided it would be best for Ivy if I wasn't part of her life.' The truth was always easier than a lie. ‘I can't commit to being a father right now.'

‘And whose decision was this, exactly? Yours or Clara's?'

Jacob looked away. ‘Does it matter? She kept Ivy's very existence from me for five years. I think we can assume that Clara agrees I'm not the right person to be a father.'

‘I think she was scared. Maybe even as scared as you are right now.'

Jacob looked up to meet his father's gaze and found a depth of knowing and understanding there that shocked him to his core.

‘When your mother first told me she was pregnant with you, I was terrified,' James admitted, flipping to the next page of the album as if his words were of no consequence. But Jacob clung to them anyway. ‘I had no idea how to be a father—I was a scientist! An academic, at that point. I was the only child of an only child, so there had never been any babies around when I was growing up. I hadn't the first idea what you should do with one.'

‘So what did you do?'

‘I learnt,' James said bluntly. ‘Because I knew that being a father was the one thing in life I couldn't afford to fail at. So I learnt everything I could.'

‘It worked,' Jacob said with a bitter laugh. ‘You were an excellent father. Far better than I could ever hope to be.'

‘No, I wasn't.'

Jacob looked up at his father in shock. ‘You're wrong. I...I couldn't keep my sister safe, or my wife happy or by my side, or even stop Ivy from falling off her bike! But you, you kept our whole family together, all these years.'

James shook his head. ‘It's not enough. I think maybe our fear for Heather, after the accident... We focused so hard on her, on keeping her safe, maybe we ignored your needs. I should have told you...so many things. That I'm proud of you. That no one ever blamed you for what happened. It was a freak accident. You didn't
mean
to hurt her. I should have told you that nothing you ever did could make me less proud of you.'

‘Dad... You don't have to...' Jacob felt as if his heart was growing in his chest as his father spoke. As if years of armour built of fear and shame were falling away from his shoulders, leaving him lighter than he could remember feeling since he was a child.

‘Yes. I do.' James reached out and took Jacob's hand. ‘I'm dying. We both know that. And people say you have all sorts of revelations at the end of your life. But that's not what this is. These are all the things I should have told you years ago—that I should have been telling you every day and didn't.'

‘And you've said them. Thank you.'

‘But that's not all. Son, you have to know...it's okay to fail. It's okay to screw up and make mistakes. As long as you
try again
. When I was inventing, for every thing I created that worked, I made a hundred—a thousand!—that didn't. But I still didn't give up, no matter how many times I failed. That's the key to the things that matter in life. You just have to keep trying.'

‘I tried, Dad, with Clara. We both did. Time and again. It just didn't work.' Whatever he did, she was always going to leave him.

‘What about with Ivy? Isn't it worth trying again for her?'

‘Not if I'm just going to mess it up again.' He'd seen the look on Clara's face when she'd spoken about not wanting Ivy to feel unwanted. He knew where that came from—knew how scared she was of Ivy living through what she'd had to. And maybe she was right not to take that risk.

‘As long as you keep trying, you can't get it wrong,' James promised him. ‘Look at me. I've been messing up your upbringing for over thirty years, and I'm still trying to make it right. So let me try. And help me succeed.'

‘What do you want me to do?'

‘I want you to be happy,' James said simply. ‘I want you to think about the last time you were truly happy, and do whatever it takes to get you there again. And then I want you to try your best to stay there. Can you do that?'

The last time he had been happy.
In bed with Clara at the castle. Except...no. There was one more moment after that, one more second when he'd felt pure happiness.

Watching Ivy's face when she'd found her bike outside the castle.

Jacob swallowed, hard.

‘I think I can,' he said. ‘And I'm definitely going to try.'

James clapped him on the shoulder. ‘That's my boy.'

* * *

Clara was officially pampering herself. Or at least that was what Merry had instructed her to do when she'd shown up to whisk Ivy off to see a pantomime earlier that afternoon.

‘You've been working flat out ever since we got back from Scotland. You need a day to relax and get yourself ready for the Charity Gala tonight. To get ready for the new year to start and for you to begin your awesome new life,' Merry had said. ‘And you can't do that while you're busy putting on a brave face for Ivy or working too much so you can pretend you haven't just had your heart broken. So we're going out. Take a bath or something.'

‘But what about the gala? There's last-minute stuff to sort—'

‘All delegated. That's why we have staff.'

‘What about the last table? The cancellation?' One last-minute cancellation had left them with an empty table—or, at ten grand a plate, one hundred thousand pounds less money that had been raised. That wasn't acceptable—and it definitely wasn't Perfect London.

‘Sorted. I sold it this morning.'

‘Seriously?'

‘I am a miracle worker. I have planned and fixed everything. Now, go run that bath.'

Merry probably hadn't planned on the knock on the door, however.

Clara sighed into the bubbles around her. Then, as whoever was waiting knocked again, she hauled herself out of the bath and wrapped a towel around her.

‘Mrs Clara Foster?' the delivery man at the door asked.

Clara blinked. ‘I suppose so.' Even if no one had called her that in five years. ‘For now, anyway.'

‘These are for you.' He motioned to the large stack of boxes in his arms. ‘Shall I bring them in?'

Clara nodded. He set them on the table, then discreetly disappeared again, leaving Clara to open them in peace.

Fixing her towel more tightly around her, she opened the largest box, lifting out the most beautiful ballgown Clara thought she had ever seen. It was dark red velvet, sprinkled with sparkles on the bodice and overlaid with lace on the skirt. She held it against her and imagined dancing in it at the gala that night. She'd never worn anything half as beautiful. Even her wedding dress had been grabbed off the rack at the shop next to the Vegas chapel.

The next box held matching shoes, then a bag and smaller boxes with discreet silver and garnet jewellery—earrings, a necklace—and a silver bangle studded with garnets, and with a message engraved on the inside:
She believed she could, so she did...

Someone knew exactly what she liked. Clara pulled out the card last, and held her breath as she read it.

I chose the presents myself this time.

I'll see you tonight.

Both of you.

Love, J x

She blinked.
Both of you?

A second knock rattled the door and she dashed across to answer it, half expecting Jacob to be there himself. But instead it was another delivery man, carrying another stack of boxes, all a little smaller than the first.

‘I'm looking for a Miss Ivy Foster?' the delivery man said.

Clara bit back a smile. ‘She's not here right now, but I can take those for you.'

This time, she reached for the card first.

Ivy,

I can't wait to carry on our conversations at the ball tonight. I hope your mum might still let me tell you something very important.

Love, Jacob x

Clara grabbed her phone, hoping to catch Merry before the pantomime started. ‘Who exactly did you sell the last table to?' she asked when her friend answered.

‘Ah,' Merry said. ‘It's a funny story...'

Clara fell into her chair and laughed, her heart lifting for the first time since she'd left Scotland.