Escape for Christmas (9 page)

Cal, rattling his manacles in the style of Jacob Marley, and twisting frantically from side to side, was starting to look pained.

“Aw, feck! I’m getting cramp in my arms,” he gasped. “Did you have to loop them quite so high over the bed frame?”

“You weren’t complaining at the time,” Gemma reminded him. In spite of this unfortunate situation her stomach did a delicious somersault. “In fact, I think that was actually your idea. What did you call it again? ‘Bed knobs and broomsticks’?”

“Pull the duvet back up; I’m fecking freezing,” pleaded Cal. He did look a bit blue and goosepimply, and he reminded her suddenly of the giant turkey her mother always cooked every Christmas. All Cal needed were a few stuffing balls and some pigs in blankets! Gemma couldn’t help herself. She started to laugh.

“Aw, very funny, Gemma!” Cal wasn’t looking amused, which was fair enough; after all, he was the one naked apart from a Santa hat, and handcuffed to the bed. “Come on, me darlin’, get me out of these. Jaysus, it can’t be too hard. They’re only plastic, so. See if you can turn the bit of key that’s left.”

Gemma crawled across the mattress and peered at the lock. Bollocks. Sure enough, the key had snapped right inside the lock; a tiny splinter of plastic was all that remained of it. No matter how much she fiddled with it, she just couldn’t get it to turn. Even attempting to pick it with a Kirby grip and tweezers failed miserably. That was her future career as a master criminal halted in its tracks – and Cal’s career as anything but a fantasy Christmas-themed sex slave scuppered.

“It’s not moving. What are we going to do?” she wailed, giving up and sitting back on her haunches.

“Panic?” suggested Cal. “Watch as the circulation stops in my limbs? Call the fire brigade?”

They stared at each other in horror. Across the park the Kenniston clock chimed a quarter past midnight and voices floated on the chilly north wind.

“That was a joke, by the way,” he said quickly. “I’m not having all those hunky hero types pissing themselves when they see me like this.”

“But shall I get help? Your wrists are turning blue.” Gemma was really worried now. The cuffs had been a little snug but at the time that hadn’t seemed to matter. Cal had even joked that he’d diet into them.

But her boyfriend looked mortified by the suggestion of her fetching help.

“No, no, it hasn’t come to that yet! Look, maybe if I pull the cuffs against the bed frame then the plastic will snap?”

Gemma didn’t hold out much hope, but anything was worth a try. She watched helplessly as Cal twisted his arms, frantically flipping backwards and forwards on the mattress like a landed mackerel in a scene that even E L James couldn’t have imagined. Plastic clattered against metal and the bed shook, but the fun handcuffs remained intact.

“Are you sure you didn’t get these from the local nick?” panted Cal. He sagged against the bed head, sweat gleaming on his brow. “Feck. What now?”

They paused for a minute to think, Cal with the duvet up to his nose and Gemma wrapped in her dressing gown.

“Maybe we could dismantle the bed?” Gemma suggested finally. “Perhaps the headboard will come apart?”

The Lion Lodge had last been furnished when Queen Victoria was in nappies, and Cal and Gemma’s bed was an enormous metal-framed contraption – which had seemed a really great bonus ten minutes ago. Now, though, it wasn’t quite so appealing. Victorians built everything to last, from bridges to viaducts to, as they now discovered, bed frames. No matter how Gemma tried to twist and turn the metal rails, they refused to budge. Cal was stuck.

Then a brilliant idea occurred to Gemma.

“Where’s your toolkit?” she asked.

“My what?” said Cal. He was looking extremely uncomfortable and Gemma felt terrible. Typical Angel and her bright ideas. Next time if she wanted excitement at bedtime she’d just buy an electric blanket.

“Your toolkit,” Gemma repeated. “You know, for doing DIY.”

This was bound to hold the solution. Her father and brothers all had various kinds of toolkits and Gemma herself was pretty handy with a spanner. You didn’t grow up on a farm without learning a few skills. Once she had her hands on a hacksaw Cal would be free in a jiffy.

“Gem, darlin’,” said Cal, with a great deal of patience for a man who’d been chained to a bed frame for almost half an hour. “Have you ever seen me with a toolkit? When I have ever, in all the time you’ve known me, shown any desire to do some DIY? Sure, I might feel a total tool right now, but I do not have a toolkit. I’m a baker, not a builder. I leave all that stuff to all those muscle-bound guys at the Hall. If you want a toolkit then it’s Craig you need.”

Their eyes met suddenly.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” said Gemma.

Cal paled, his stubble and freckles suddenly standing out like a rash. “Do you know, this isn’t so bad. I’ll stay like this until the morning, Gem, and then you can drive to Homebase and get us a hacksaw. It’ll be fine.”

His hands were blue and his wrists were starting to swell. He didn’t look fine. He looked as though his circulation might be cut off at any minute. Never mind lasting until tomorrow when Gemma could go and find a saw; Cal might not last another ten minutes. There was only one solution and, much as Cal would hate it, they didn’t have any choice.

She was going to have to call a builder…

“Blimey, mate! I never had you and your missus down as kinky! Like you’re in your thirties, right? I didn’t think people even had sex in their thirties!”

Builder Craig, fresh from his party and with several shandies under his belt, stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Cal’s predicament. Two members of the
Bread and Butlers
crew armed with a boom mike and a camera almost crashed into Craig, and even Laurence Elliott was shocked out of his habitual aristocratic languor.

“Bloody hell, Cal!” Laurence’s pewter-grey eyes were out on stalks. “Whatever happened to you?”

“Put it this way: I’m never letting Gemma go shopping with your wife again,” said Cal. “Sure, I know you public school types get up to all sorts, but pain is not doing it for me.”

Gemma felt dreadful. This was all her fault. She really should know better than to listen to Angel. She and Cal were more M&S than S&M,
especially when it came to the food hall. Brioche and not bondage was what did it for them. Now, thanks to her, poor Cal was in agony and providing great footage for the show.

She clenched her fists so tightly that her nails dug into her palms. This was exactly what was starting to grate so much. Why was it that everything was always about the show? Laurence and Craig were supposed to be their friends and all she’d wanted was some help from them, or failing that a hacksaw. But as Cal had pointed out, reality TV was not her friend. When she’d called Angel, her pal had hooted with laughter before promising to send help.

“I just need a hacksaw,” Gemma had explained, “to get through the chain. If Craig could drop one off that would be brilliant.”

“No problem. He’s right here; I’ll send him to find one,” Angel had promised. “See! Didn’t I tell you buying those bits would make your love life more exciting?”

“This wasn’t quite the kind of excitement I had in mind,” Gemma had told her, but Angel had already gone, hopefully to sort out Cal’s rescue. All things considered, it was the least she could do.

So when chirpy Craig had arrived on the doorstep at a quarter to one with Laurence and the film crew in tow, Gemma had nearly exploded. There was no way this was being filmed! When Craig had said he’d only free Cal if the cameras were involved, and Laurence had politely pointed out that Cal was under contract to allow filming of all areas of his life, Gemma had almost told her best friend’s husband exactly where he could stick his contract. Only the fact that poor Cal was trapped upstairs, in pain and very fed up, stopped her.

“This will be brilliant material for the show before the Christmas special,” she’d heard the producer say gleefully. “What a stroke of luck!”

Gritting her teeth so tightly that she’d half expected them to shatter, Gemma had let the crew in. She’d been ready to combust. Tonight was just the final straw for
Bread and Butlers
. Sod the contract. She and Cal were out of here.

Craig – dressed in a tight white tee shirt that showed off his sculpted torso, and jeans that were quite indecent around the crotch – was making a big show of freeing Cal, drawing the hacksaw backwards and forwards with excruciating slowness while making sure that the cameras were shooting his good side and that the lighting showed his rippling biceps to the best advantage. With his butterscotch tan, Armitage Shanks white teeth and flopping blond hair, he looked like he belonged to a boy band and had rolled up to shoot a video.

“I don’t want to hurry you, so,” Cal was saying, his face screwed up in pain, “but would you get a move on? I can’t feel my fingers.”

Craig flipped his hair. He was evidently conscious of the contrast between his gym-honed groomed self, the hero of the hour, and poor pale cuddly Cal who looked a total fool.

“I’m doing a good job,” he pouted. “These things take time and skill.”

Time and skill my arse
, thought Gemma. Craig was so slow at his work a glacier could overtake him. He was hacking at the bed frame to milk the TV moment, rather than sawing through the chain, which would take seconds.

When he paused, wandering off to check the angle of the shot, she knew it was time to seize her moment. Wasn’t there a scene a bit like this in
Titanic
?

“Do you trust me?” she asked Cal.

He gave her a watery grin. “Jaysus, after tonight? Never again!”

Gemma mimed at him to hold his hands out, stretching the links of the cuffs, before in three sharp motions she passed the hacksaw across the links and freed Cal – who slumped forward, rubbing his wrists and stretching his poor cramped limbs.

“And if so much as a frame of that is aired,” she said to Laurence, “I’ll sue Seaside Rock for every penny it has. Cal might be under contract but I’m not.”

Laurence looked as though he was about to argue, but the expression on Gemma’s face made him think better of it.

“We can still show the bits with me in them, can’t we?” Craig was asking in a worried tone. “I thought some of that could be really good.”

“Don’t worry, Craig,” Gemma said, shooing them all out of the room and down the stairs. “I’m sure they’ll splice something together so that you look like a total hero as always.”

“Eh?” said Craig, on whom sarcasm was completely wasted. Gemma gave up. She flung open the front door and ushered the crew and their disappointed star out into the cold night air. Actually, was it slightly warmer outside than indoors? Now that she was dressed once more in her customary three layers, Gemma found it hard to tell.

“Thanks a lot,” she hissed at Laurence, who was the last to leave. “All we needed was a saw. You’re supposed to be our friend.”

Laurence Elliott ran a weary hand over his eyes. The skin was taut across his finely boned face and he’d lost weight, which made his hawk-like features even more pronounced than usual.

“I am your friend, Gemma,” he said. Even his voice sounded tired. “But I’m also running a business here at Kenniston and the show is all part of it. Without the show there’s not nearly as much publicity for Cal’s bakery and certainly no money to pay Cal the Christmas bonus he thinks he needs. New ovens again, I suppose.”

Gemma stared at him. “Cal wants a Christmas bonus for new ovens?”

If Cal wanted new ovens at Kenniston then was he thinking about staying put? Doing another year of the show? Surely not? He knew how she felt about that.

Laurence’s expression was shuttered all of a sudden.

“Come on, Gemma, you know how the show works. It’s our lives laid bare, no frills and no hiding. If we make the Christmas show a success then we’ll all do very well; Cal knows that.” There was a troubled look on his high-cheekboned face and his mouth was set in a grim line. “I can’t say I’m a fan either but it’s pulled us all back from the brink.”

But Gemma shook her head. She felt exploited by this evening’s events. Having the film crew in her bedroom made her feel grubby and tainted and utterly let down.

“You’re wrong,” she said slowly. “It’s pushing us
over
the brink. Friends help each other, Laurence; they don’t take advantage of one another. Just be sure to tell Angel that from me.”

And with this parting shot she shut the door, leaving the Lord of the manor on the step, a bleak figure in his long waxed jacket and country boots. For a moment his lean form stayed put, a dark blur through the window panes, as though he wanted to come back and say something. Gemma waited. Was there going to be an apology?

A couple of minutes passed before Laurence shrugged and turned away. Apparently not then. Well fine, thought Gemma, at least they all knew where they stood.

Once the headlights of Laurence’s Defender had swept away up the drive, Gemma braved the arctic kitchen and made two cups of tea and fetched the cake tin. She’d made a boiled fruitcake several days ago and it was one of Cal’s favourites. She figured that after the traumas of this evening the least her boyfriend deserved was a slice of cake. As she cut him a thick wedge Gemma simmered with anger. How dare Seaside Rock
use the events of this evening for the show? This was their personal life! And how could Angel have been so insensitive? Cal didn’t deserve to be humiliated and portrayed as a laughing stock.

By the time she’d reached the bedroom Gemma had decided that first thing tomorrow morning she’d walk up to Kenniston Hall and have it out with Angel. They’d been friends for too long and been through too much to let this come between them, but Angel had to understand that she couldn’t carry on behaving like this. Much as Gemma admired her best friend’s ambition and all the hard work she was putting into turning around the fortunes of the big house, Angel had gone too far tonight.

“I’ve brought you some tea, babe,” Gemma said, pushing open the door.

There was a low snore from the bed. Cal, worn out from a five a.m. start and the events of the evening, was fast asleep. He was buried so deep beneath the duvets that his golden curls, bright against the pillow, were just about all Gemma could see of him, and her heart twisted with love. If she and Cal could just be by themselves and away from the craziness of Kenniston Hall then everything would be fine; she just knew it.