Page 38 of The Perfect Guests
I was relieved to escape to the hall, and I pressed the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Beth? It’s Jonas.”
I smiled. “I know.”
“Have you got plans for Christmas Eve? ’Cause my mum’s having a little party here, and I wondered...”
“What does he want?” Nina’s voice from the staircase was sharp. I turned to look at her. She held my gaze.
“Nina’s here too,” I said into the mouthpiece.
“Well,” Jonas said, “she’s invited, too, of course.”
I tilted the phone away slightly. “Jonas’s mum is having a little party on Christmas Eve. He wants to know if we’d like to go.”
“Mu-um!” Nina called.
A moment later, a cross-looking Leonora appeared in the hall. “What, darling? There’s no need to bellow for me. You should come and find me.”
“Jonas’s mum is inviting us to a party at his place on Christmas Eve,” Nina said.
From the phone by my ear, I heard Jonas groan.
Leonora fixed me with a stern look. “Tell him it’s kind of him, but no, Beth. Anyway, we do our own thing here on Christmas Eve.” She took stock of my disappointed face, and her tone softened slightly. “It’s nice of Stephanie to invite us, but we just can’t make it. Do thank them, all the same.”
I waited for her to return to the drawing room, and then I said to Jonas, “Did you get that?”
“Bloody Averells,” he said.
I glanced up to where Nina still hovered, watching me.
“Funny you should say that,” I said sweetly. “I was thinking the same thing.”
When I hung up, Nina hurried down to the hall and caught both my hands in hers. “I’m sorry. That was mean of me. I’m really sorry, Beth. If you want to go—or maybe we could both sneak out and go...”
But it was hardly the sort of party I wanted to go to anyway—a boring adult affair in the middle of the day at the village B and B. I wanted loud music and dim lights and sweet cider and Jonas’s arms around me.
“It doesn’t matter.” I gave her a weary look. “Honestly. I’m sure we’ll have a nice time here.”
Nina was very childish, sometimes. I pitied her. But underneath that, I felt a sort of protectiveness toward her. She’d grown up in this strange, isolated bubble at Raven Hall, and she didn’t know any different—it wasn’t her fault. Perhaps, when I eventually left, I’d persuade her to come with me.
***
On Christmas Eve, the family had a tradition of exchanging one small present after dinner to kick-start the festive celebrations. I’d bought my offerings on our shopping trip with Leonora in November, and I’d wrapped them carefully: rose-scented hand cream for Leonora, a bag of his favorite toffees for Markus, and a notebook with daisies on the cover for Nina. I was looking forward to seeing them opened.
Nina gave out her presents first, and then I gave out mine. We all cooed over our gifts and held them up for one another to admire. Then Leonora looked at Markus.
“Dad did the Christmas Eve shopping this year,” Leonora said, raising her eyebrows in mock alarm.
“Uh-oh,” Nina said, and both she and I giggled.
“Just you wait,” Markus said, and with a flourish, he produced two identically wrapped boxes. He switched them between his hands with a show of consternation. “Which one’s which? How to tell?” He held one out to each of us. “Luckily, they’re both the same.”
We tore into the paper, eyeing each other’s as much as our own and laughing in our competition to see which of us could reveal the contents first.
“Oh,” I said.
“Wow,” Nina said.
