Christmas Angel for the Billionaire

Liz Fielding Christmas Angel for the Billionaire

© 2009

PROLOGUE

Daily Chronicle, 19th December, 1988

MARQUESS AND WIFE SLAIN ON CHARITY MISSION

The Marquess and Marchioness of St Ives, whose fairy-tale romance captured the hearts of the nation, were slain yesterday by rebels who opened fire on their vehicle as they approached a refugee camp in the war-torn region of Mishona. Their driver and a local woman who worked for the medical charity Susie’s Friends also died in the attack.

HM the Queen sent a message of sympathy to the Duke of Oldfield, the widowed father of the Marquess, and to the slaughtered couple’s six-year-old daughter, Lady Roseanne Napier.

The Marchioness of St Ives, Lady Susanne Napier, who overcame early hardships to train as a doctor, founded the international emergency charity with her husband shortly after their marriage.

Daily Chronicle, 24th December, 1988

WE MUST ALL BE HER FAMILY NOW…

Six-year-old Lady Roseanne Napier held her grandfather’s hand as the remains of her slain mother and father were laid to rest in the family vault yesterday afternoon. In his oration, praising their high ideals, the grieving Duke said, ‘We must all be her family now…’

Daily Chronicle, 18th December, 1998

A PERFECT ANGEL…

Today, on the tenth anniversary of the slaying of her parents while helping to co-ordinate relief in war-ravished Mishona, Lady Rose Napier opened Susanne House, a children’s hospice named to honour her mother. After unveiling a plaque, Lady Rose met the brave children who are being cared for at Susanne House and talked to their parents. ‘She was so caring, so thoughtful for someone so young,’ one of the nurses said. ‘A perfect angel. Her mother would have been so proud of her.’

Her mother isn’t here to tell her that, so we are saying it for her.

We are all proud of you, Lady Rose.

CHAPTER ONE

ANNIE smothered a yawn. The room was hot, the lingering scent of food nauseating and all she wanted to do was lay her head on the table in front of her, close her eyes and switch off.

If only.

There was a visit to a hospital, then three hours of Wagner at a charity gala to endure before she could even think about sleep. And even then, no matter how tired she was, thinking about it was as close as she would get.

She’d tried it all. Soothing baths, a lavender pillow, every kind of relaxation technique without success. But calming her mind wasn’t the problem.

It wasn’t the fact that it was swirling with all the things she needed to remember that was keeping her awake. She had an efficient personal assistant to take care of every single detail of her life and ensure that she was in the right place at the right time. A speech writer to put carefully chosen words into her mouth when she got there. A style consultant whose job it was to ensure that whenever she appeared in public she made the front page.

That was the problem.

There was absolutely nothing in her mind to swirl around. It was empty. Like her life.

In just under a minute she was going to have to stand up and talk to these amazing people who had put themselves on the line to alleviate suffering in the world.

They had come to see her, listen to her inspire them to even greater efforts. And her presence ensured that the press was here too, which meant that the work they did would be noticed, reported.

Maybe.

Her hat, a rich green velvet and feather folly perched at a saucy angle over her right eye would probably garner more column inches than the charity she was here to support.

She was doing more for magazine and newspaper circulation than she was for the medical teams, the search units, pilots, drivers, communications people who dropped everything at a moment’s notice, risking their lives to help victims of war, famine, disaster-a point she’d made to her grandfather more than once.

A pragmatist, he had dismissed her concerns, reminding her that it was a symbiotic relationship and everyone would benefit from her appearance, including the British fashion industry.

It didn’t help that he was right.

She wanted to do more, be more than a cover girl, a fashion icon. Her parents had been out there, on the front line, picking up the pieces of ruined lives and she had planned to follow in their footsteps.

She stopped the thought. Publicity was the only gift she had and she had better do it right but, as she took her place at the lectern and a wave of applause hit her, a long silent scream invaded the emptiness inside her head.

Noooooo…

‘Friends…’ she began when the noise subsided. She paused, looked around her, found faces in the audience she recognised, people her parents had known. Took a breath, dug deep, smiled. ‘I hope I’ve earned the right to call you that…’

She had been just eighteen years old when, at her grandfather’s urging, she’d accepted an invitation to become patron of Susie’s Friends. A small consolation for the loss of her dream of following her mother into medicine.

All that had ended when, at the age of sixteen, a photograph of her holding the hand of a dying child had turned her, overnight, from a sheltered, protected teen into an iconic image and her grandfather had laid out the bald facts for her.

How impossible it was. How her fellow students, patients even, would be harassed, bribed by the press for gossip about her because she was now public property. Then he’d consoled her with the fact that this way she could do so much more for the causes her mother had espoused.

Ten years on, more than fifty charities had claimed her as a patron. How many smiles, handshakes? Charity galas, first nights?

How many children’s hands had she held, how many babies had she cradled?

None of them her own.

She had seen herself described as the ‘most loved woman in Britain’, but living in an isolation bubble, sheltered, protected from suffering the same fate as her parents, it was a love that never came close enough to touch.

But the media was a hungry beast that had to be fed and it was, apparently, time to move the story on. Time for a husband and children to round out the image. And, being her grandfather, he wasn’t prepared to leave anything that important to chance.

Or to her.