Which was not to say that he didn’t feel compelled to oversee the situation. It never paid to take anything in life for granted, and that included the rest of the human race.
‘I can’t work for you. I work for Mr Greystone. I know you insisted that I answer to you, but at the end of the day…’
‘Let’s think out of the box for a minute. Yes, you do work for James, and from what I gather you’re the perfect companion—by which, I take it, you have inordinate reserves of patience. Apparently there was a fracas at the tea shop because the scones advertised had sold out?’
Elizabeth momentarily forgot her stress and gave him one of those radiant, transforming smiles. ‘Oh, did he mention that to you?’
‘Apparently he spent so long arguing with the manager about their policy of leaving the board up when the scones were no longer available that he’s been given a voucher for free teas there for the next fortnight.’
‘He did huff and puff about never darkening their doors again, but of course he will. He says they do the best cream-teas in the county—even if he can’t have the cream—and, besides, I think he likes Dot Evans. She told him to stop spluttering because it wasn’t good for his blood pressure, and that if he kicked up a scene in her shop again she would drag him out to the kitchen and force him to do the dishes.’
Andreas was temporarily derailed by the first part of her remark. ‘Likes Dot Evans? Don’t be ridiculous. He’s known the woman for the past ten years! Don’t you think I would have known about it by now?’
‘I guess so,’ Elizabeth backtracked vaguely, shifting her gaze away and waiting in silence for him to return to the thorny subject of her impending doom.
‘Not so fast.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Don’t you think I’ve noticed that tendency you have to fall silent the minute a conversation gets a little awkward?’ Yes, spot on. He had read her correctly, judging from the sudden bloom of colour on her cheeks. Well, at least his ability to read women hadn’t been completely turned on its head in her case.
‘I don’t like talking about things James might have said. Or not said. Okay—said. When he’s not here to…um…say it himself.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What did my godfather say? You’re kidding about Dot Evans, right?’ His ebony brows knitted into a perplexed frown. He knew Dot Evans, of course. She had been a fixture of sorts on the scene for the past ten years, when James had loaned her money to set up the tea shop in the village. In actual fact she and James had been classmates at school a hundred years ago. He couldn’t remember her visiting the house, though. Or had she? Andreas had tried over time to visit his godfather as much as humanly possible, but the frantic pace of work had often waylaid the best thought-out plans. It was easy for things to be left unsaid when visits were snatched.
‘It’s just a feeling I get.’
‘And how is that I’ve been kept in the dark about this? You’re not breaking some secret code by telling me, so you might as well come clean.’
Elizabeth hesitated. Nothing said to her had ever been said in confidence. Although James could be belligerent, forthright and opinionated, he could also be endearingly diplomatic. Diplomacy had prevented him from telling his godson about Dot because when it came to the opposite sex he and Andreas were miles apart. He might have had an affair with her mother, but from what she had gathered about his ex-wife it had been a response to a loveless marriage. Of course, he had never mentioned a word about ever having had a mistress, but the more she knew him the more she realised that he was, essentially, a man of honour.
Would he have ended his marriage for Phyllis? She didn’t think so, but it was a question that could never be answered, because her mother had scarpered the second she had discovered he was married, taking the secret of her pregnancy with her. It was tempting to play with the fantasy of wondering what her life might have been like if James had been a free man, had been able to pursue her mother and marry her.
Lost in her day dreams, she started when Andreas snapped his fingers and delivered her a censorious frown.
‘You’ll be astounded to hear this, but most women don’t drift off into never-never land when I’m trying to have a conversation with them!’
‘Sorry.’
‘He must be ashamed of her,’ Andreas mused. ‘Can’t understand why, unless it’s a money thing, although James has never been a snob.’
‘Of course he’s not ashamed of Dot Evans. She’s a lovely lady. He just doesn’t think that you…’ The words were halfway out of her mouth before she realised that she had uttered them, and she was mortified when Andreas fixed her with his brilliant dark, questioning eyes.
‘Carry on. I’m intrigued to find out where this is leading. Do you know that you have a talent for getting me off-topic?’
‘I’m not sure he has much time for…for some of the women you go out with,’ she said in a rush. ‘So…’
‘So why bother to mention any lady interest in his life when we don’t talk the same language?’ Andreas finished for her and she nodded, chewing her lip nervously. Generally speaking, the opinions of other people had virtually no effect on Andreas. However, his godfather was the exception. Yet, instead of feeling hurt that in this one important area of his life James sincerely felt that he could not confide in him, Andreas was reluctantly forced to concede that he had a point. He thought of Amanda, with whom he had yet to break off, although it was overdue. Amanda, the leggy catwalk-model with not much of a line in intelligent conversation but a killer body and head-turning looks. She was just the latest in a procession of clones and, whilst that worked perfectly for him, it couldn’t be said that his godfather understood.
‘Of course,’ Elizabeth broke in hurriedly, ‘it’s all about live and let live.’
‘Your own personal theory, or another of James’s quotes?’
‘It’s just that he doesn’t understand why you go out with the women you go out with.’ From the frying pan into the fire, she thought.
‘I didn’t come down here to have a heart to heart with you about my private life,’ he bit out grittily, determined to drag the conversation back to the place from which it should never have strayed to start with. ‘We need to sort out the nuts and bolts of you working for me—and there’s no point weeping and wailing and wringing your hands. I’m not going to take you away from your duties to my godfather, but I have gleaned that he’s recovering fast.’
Elizabeth nodded, resigned to her fate.
‘And your afternoons are pretty much your own anyway, when he has his siesta?’
She nodded again, her thoughts now on what working for Andreas might entail. She didn’t think that he could be anything but a cruel taskmaster, whatever his claims about being a progressive employer. He would be far from progressive when it came to dealing with a potential gold-digger, which was what he thought she might be. In fact, being the caveman might be more his approach to the situation.
Belatedly, she realised that her mind had again wandered, and she focused on Andreas. It was an unsettling experience, as it always seemed to be. Sometimes in the past he had arrived by helicopter, descending from the sky like a dark, threatening hawk determined to disrupt the peaceful routine of her life. This time, however, he had come by car. She had spotted his sleek, shiny, testosterone-fuelled sportscar in the courtyard on the way to the office, yet he certainly didn’t look like someone who had spent hours on the road. In fact, he looked as cool as the proverbial cucumber, in his cream trousers and pale-blue shirt that seemed to emphasise the stunning bronzed colour of his skin.
The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, and as she glanced away from the little glimpse of chest her eyes collided with his strong, muscled forearms and became riveted to the way his fine, dark hair curled around the go
ld band of his watch. His mega-expensive watch. A mega-expensive watch for a mega-wealthy guy—which brought her back to the whole point of his appearance on the scene. The rich protected their own, and it was galling to think that she had been cast in the role of interloper.
‘I try to catch up on my emails when James has his afternoon nap. Sometimes I potter in the garden.’
‘Yes. I know. Recent communications from James have shown you have a touching interest in horticulture. Emails to whom?’
‘Friends. I’ve always made a big effort to keep in touch with people who’ve left London and gone abroad to live. Or maybe just left for the country. Some have.’
‘Boyfriend?’
Elizabeth flushed. ‘No. Is this relevant?’
Andreas didn’t answer, although he was curious to press for more details on the subject of the absence of a man in her life. He figured that her reticence in revealing anything at all about her life must have sparked his curiosity. Only natural. And, even if she insisted on wearing outfits that looked as though they had been rescued from a charity shop, there was a body under there—although what it was like he had no idea, because she was an expert at covering it up. Full breasts; he knew that. Obeying the direction of his thoughts, his eyes drifted down to her breasts, which were more than a generous handful, and shapely. He wondered what they looked like, and slammed the door shut on those inappropriate thoughts.
‘Everything is relevant,’ he said shortly. ‘Remember that and we’ll be working on the same wavelength. I’m happy for you to spend the morning with James, but between the hours of one-thirty and five I will expect you to work for me. Sometimes you may be needed to work overtime, and we can discuss that as and when those occasions occur.’
‘Overtime?’
‘Your ex-boss said that there was never a problem with that until the end, when you obviously needed to spend progressively more time with your mother.’
‘I will need to have time for myself,’ Elizabeth ventured. ‘I enjoy walking into the village sometimes…’
‘Which is what weekends will be for.’ He leaned forward, his arms on the desk, and gave her a reproving look.
‘You’re onto a pretty good deal here, and let’s not forget that. I don’t know exactly why you chose to come here, and for the moment I can’t do anything about that—but you’re here now, and from where I’m sitting you’ve landed yourself a nice, cushy number. You’re being paid roughly twice as much as you were getting in London for a job that’s, probably, roughly half as demanding. Naturally, once you start working for me, you’ll be additionally compensated.’
He named a figure that made her gasp.
‘I—I couldn’t,’ she stammered, and Andreas frowned at her.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s too much.’
He narrowed his eyes on her flushed face, but when she looked at him it was with total sincerity. ‘You don’t want the money because you think you’ll be overpaid? How crazy is that?’ For some reason, he really didn’t think it was a case of double bluff. It was hard work constantly reminding himself that nothing and no one should ever be taken at face value. James was worth a considerable amount of money, and while Andreas had absolutely no claim to a penny of it, having insisted a long time ago that he be written out of his godfather’s will, he was still intent on making sure that none of it fell into the wrong hands. A less likely candidate for those wrong hands was the woman who had just tried to refuse a pay increase. Did that make sense?
‘I’d stay here with James even if I weren’t being paid,’ Elizabeth told him truthfully. In fact, she was dutifully putting most of the money she earned into a separate account, which she had opened up on one of her days off. She wasn’t sure why, but touching as little of the money as possible alleviated some of her guilt at accepting it in the first place. Maybe when she finally told him who she really was she would make a symbolic gesture and return all the money to him. She didn’t want to think about it. The longer she stayed, the steeper the hill she had to climb seemed. What would her father say? He was getting stronger by the day, yet she continued to postpone the inevitable, telling herself that the time was not quite right. When she hadn’t known him, when curiosity had been her only driving emotion, she had been a lot less scared than she was now.
‘So please don’t give me any more money,’ she finished lamely. ‘What would I do with it, anyway? I mean, it’s not as though I’m into expensive clothes or jewellery or stuff like that.’
Andreas hesitated. There were practical things to discuss. He would have to familiarise her with the systems which he already had in place on his computer. A high-speed desktop was to be delivered and installed by the end of the day. Everything necessary to transform one of the sprawling and unused rooms on the ground floor would be put into place within the next three hours. He would need her there so that she could have first-hand experience of the layout.
‘I find that hard to believe. All women are into clothes and jewellery.’ His dark eyes did a comprehensive once-over of her body. ‘Okay, so maybe not all. Which makes me curious—what did you spend your money on? You weren’t badly paid in that last job of yours. Hell, you must have a tidy little sum stashed away for a rainy day.’
Elizabeth hesitated. She dearly wanted to tell him that her personal finances were no business of his, but politely backing off was not Andreas’s style. Also, now that he was on a self-confessed witch-hunt, determined to prise her open like a walnut and poke around until he found whatever he was looking for, being unnecessarily secretive would only fire him up.
‘I have some savings, but not very much,’ she told him carefully. ‘Mum had to give up her job when she became ill. At first the company was very understanding, but they were a small business and they couldn’t afford to keep on paying her when she began taking so much time off work. And then she became weaker, and even going in between the hospital visits was too much, so there was only my income to rely on.’
‘Isn’t there a benefits system that covers this sort of thing?’ It didn’t take a massive leap of the imagination to work out that, but for fate and the benevolent guiding hand of his godfather, he might well have ended up in the position of being up close and personal with all the services a welfare state could provide. Since her story of penury was just something else to be factored in to a hidden agenda, however, he refused to allow that pull of sympathy to blinker him.
‘Mum was very proud. She would never have taken a penny from the state, which meant that really all my earnings were spent on the essentials. Whatever was left over, I used to buy mum little treats. She enjoyed going to the shops. In fact, I think I might have been a bit of a disappointment to her, because I never did. I can remember her trying hard to get me involved in clothes and fashion, but I was always much more of a bookworm. In fact, I would have liked to go to university, but of course that was impossible, given the circumstances.’
Where the hell had all that come from? ‘So, you see, I don’t have any money stashed away for a rainy day.’ She could have added that she had been so broke by the time the funeral expenses had been paid that there had been no way that she could carry on renting the three-bedroomed house she had shared with her mother. Not that she would have chosen to.
‘Which I guess makes me a potential gold-digger, if not having a lot of money is the only requisite.’
‘Go to university—to do what?’
Elizabeth blinked in confusion. ‘To study law,’ she told him awkwardly. ‘I might not have been clever enough, though,’ she confessed, which reminded Andreas that this was not the conversation he had intended to have when he had driven down to Somerset. In fact, girlish outpourings of confidence were the last thing he needed, and something he strived hard never to encourage in anyone.
‘Running yourself down is counter-productive,�
� he asserted briskly. ‘We can all do whatever we set out to do, or we can slouch around moaning and whingeing and blaming the rest of the world for our own lack of get up and go.’
‘I never blame anyone for what happens in my life.’
‘Did I refer to you? I was generalising.’
Elizabeth was tempted to tell him that it was all right for him to sit there in all his arrogant perfection and lecture about other people’s lack of get up and go but then knew that she would sound precisely like the kind of whingeing, blaming person he had just criticised. And, since it looked as though they would be working together for at least part of the day, every day for the foreseeable future, it was probably not such a good idea to get off on an even worse footing than they already had.
But he really was perfect, wasn’t he?
Her eyes surreptitiously crept to the forbidding set of his dark, hard features. Cold and ruthless he might be, but he was drop-dead gorgeous, and just mentally admitting that reality kick-started a reaction in her body that made her tense in dismay. Her nipples tightened in her bra, and there was a hot ache that started in her belly and seemed to explode into every nerve-ending in a horrible starburst-effect.
‘James might object to this arrangement,’ she said suddenly.
Andreas squashed that faint hope before it had time to take root. ‘I’ve already run the idea past him, and you’ll be overjoyed to know that he has no problem with it. In fact, he sounded delighted. Maybe he’s concerned at all those wasted hours during the day when you’re stuck on your own with nothing to do but relax.’
Back to the level playing-field with which she was accustomed, Elizabeth lowered her eyes and stared down at the ground in resentful silence, broken only when Andreas restively rose to his feet and walked towards the door.
From Prim to Improper Page 5