“Not too soon. You don’t have to handle me with velvet gloves—”
“It isn’t just you,” he interrupted. “I...need some time, too.” His voice was rasping, but carried an underlying note almost of pleading.
Curbing her bewildered disappointment, Jade said, “If that’s what you want.”
“I want—“ Magnus stopped abruptly, fiercely. “I think it’s best.”
It was a phrase calculated to set her teeth on edge. She bit back her instinctive objection and said, “Will you at least kiss me good-night?”
She wondered if he was going to refuse. He moved jerkily towards the bed, and when she held out a hand to him, took it in a crushing grip. Then he bent and kissed her forehead and stepped back, dropping her hand. “Good night, Jade,” he said.
* * *
Mrs. Riordan breakfasted in bed, quite early. When Jade entered the dining-room at eight, she found Ginette nibbling on toast and drinking coffee, while Magnus had just started on a plate of bacon and eggs and grilled tomatoes.
“There’s more here,” he told her, indicating a covered dish on the table.
“I usually have cereal and toast,” Jade said doubtfully, helping herself to cornflakes and milk.
Ginette finished her coffee and said, “Excuse me.” As she rose, she asked Magnus, “What time is your sister expected to be here?”
“They said they’d make it before dinner. I’ll be working in my office until they arrive.”
As Ginette left, Jade offered, “Can I help?”
He looked as though he was about to refuse, and she said quickly, “I’d really like something to do, Magnus. Even if it’s only tidying papers or opening the mail. Filing? There must be something I can help with.”
“Bored already?” he asked her.
“I just hate doing nothing, and you know I always liked office work. It’s what I trained for.”
“And what you were good at,” he said, the knife and fork in his hands stilled. “Then I brought you here and turned you into a nursemaid, cook-housekeeper and general drudge.”
“I was never a drudge! No one forced me, Magnus. You know I offered of my own free will.”
A look of angry pain passed across his face, and was replaced by bitterness. “Yes. You must have been—”
His expression changed again, to a guilty dismay, and Jade, smiling wryly, supplied the word. “Mad?”
The knife and fork clattered onto the plate before him, and he covered his eyes with one hand, dropping his head onto it.
“Not then, actually,” Jade said. “That came later.”
He looked up, his expression rueful in the extreme, and said, “I’m sorry.” Then, catching her eyes, he said, “You can laugh about it?”
“Now I can. And please don’t apologise to me, Magnus.”
He made a small grimace and returned to his breakfast. “I’ll try not to be so tactless in future.”
“I told you last night,” she said, flushing slightly as she recollected in what context, “there’s no need to treat me with velvet gloves. It was a perfectly ordinary remark.”
“Okay, I’ll try to remember.”
Jade gave an exaggerated sigh, and gazed at him with her chin on her hands, her elbows resting on the table.
Magnus winced. “I’ve just done it again, haven’t I?”
Jade nodded, and he pushed away his emptied plate, smiling almost reluctantly at the long-suffering expression on her face. “I won’t apologise yet again.” He reached for a piece of toast. “Shall I ask Mrs. Gaines to make some fresh toast?”
“No, not for me.”
She had finished her cornflakes, and Magnus said, “Have some bacon and eggs, then.” He lifted the cover.
They did look and smell delicious, and it would be a pity to waste Mrs. Gaines’s efforts. Later, though, she’d tell the housekeeper that there was no need to make a cooked breakfast for her.
Magnus poured coffee as she took a crisp rasher and an orange-yolked farm egg from the dish. “There are a couple of things you could do,” he told her. “I’ve got behind with the filing, and there are letters that need typing. I’ve made notes on a tape recorder. I usually send them to a secretarial bureau in Auckland.”
“I’ll deal with them.”
By the time he’d finished a second cup of coffee she was ready to accompany him to the office. He gave her a pile of paper and indicated the filing cabinet. “Ask me if you’re not sure where to put any of them. And there’s a tape player on the desk over there with the typewriter.”
“Earphones?”
“In the drawer.”
He switched on the computer and settled himself in front of it while Jade quietly went about slotting papers into the filing cabinet. She put aside the queries to be dealt with later, now and then stealing a glance at the apparently oblivious man sharing the room, his fingers tapping on the keys, his head bent slightly towards the screen as he concentrated on the figures that moved about it.
It was a familiar scenario, although formerly his office had been in a glass-walled building in the heart of Auckland city.
During a preliminary interview before hiring Jade, he had expressed both surprise and some reservations about her youth, but Jade had deliberately cultivated a mature appearance and manner, and her qualifications and ability had been impeccable.
They’d been a good team, she and Magnus. After her first few weeks working for him, she’d never felt like an inferior staff member, a minion, and once he’d ensured she was thoroughly acquainted with her duties, Magnus had treated her like an equal.
The job had been challenging, exciting, because they complemented each other, he with his brilliance with figures and knowledge of the intricacies of accountancy, and she with her meticulous spelling, grammar, layout and keyboarding skills, her talent for organisation, her ability to take care of time-consuming details and deal with difficult clients who wanted an appointment yesterday, or got fidgety when the person before them took up more than the allotted time.
Always a perfectionist, she’d been constantly striving for the role of office paragon, never a foot wrong or a hair out of place. She had exerted herself to more than live up to expectation, a byword for efficiency and thoroughness.
When his father died of a heart attack with no warning at all, Jade had been the first person Magnus told. He’d taken the call, and then asked her to come into his office and said calmly, “I’ve had bad news. My father collapsed and died about half an hour ago.”
She’d thought at first that he was completely unemotional about it. He’d asked her to cancel his appointments or refer them to his partners, firing instructions about unfinished business so fast she could scarcely keep up as she scribbled notes. “Phone me at home if you need to,” he’d said, and stood up. “I know I can rely on you to deal with most things for the next couple of days.”
She’d looked up then and seen him frowning at the neat piles of ledgers and papers on his desk. Then he’d raised his head and his eyes met hers and she instinctively stood, too, her notebook still clasped in one hand, the other outstretched to him as she whispered, “I’m so sorry!”
He’d taken her hand as though it was a lifeline, the strength of his grip almost cracking the bones. Staring down at their entwined fingers, he muttered, “He’s my father, you see....” He looked up at her, and she saw the baffled disbelief in his eyes.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I know.” She’d wanted to take him in her arms, but this wasn’t the right moment. There were things he had to do for his mother, his family—his father. He would have to remain in control for them. “I’ll look after things here for you,” she’d assured him, and then, crisply, to steady him, “Can you drive? Or shall I get someone to...?”
“No.” He’d dropped her hand then. “I’ll drive myself. Take my mind off it,” he added without hope.
“If there’s any way I can help,” she said, “do let me, please.”
“Thank you, Jade. It
’s a help just to know you’re here.” He’d stooped and kissed her cheek before striding out.
* * *
It had been the first time they’d touched, and the first time she’d seen a hint of emotional vulnerability in Magnus. It wasn’t something he allowed to show very often. To this day she didn’t know if he’d ever let go his rigid control and cried for his father.
Jade slid the last drawer closed, and turned to see Magnus flex his shoulders and push his chair a little way from the desk. As she left the metal cabinet he enquired, “Finished?”
“Nearly. I’m not sure what to file these under.” She took the small sheaf of queries over to him and put them into his outstretched hand.
He went through them quickly, giving instructions, and then passed them back. “Can you remember all that?”
“Yes. Thank you.” She paused before turning away, and he looked up at her.
Jade smiled. “Just like old times.”
He said on a harsh note, “You must tell me if you’re tired.”
“I’ll tell you,” she promised, inwardly sighing.
He pressed a couple of keys on the computer and removed a disk from the drive, slotting in another. Jade finished the filing and went to the other desk, slipping on earphones so that she could transcribe the tapes he’d recorded without disturbing him.
At ten-thirty Mrs. Gaines tapped on the door and brought in a tray with one cup of tea on it. Seeing Jade, she went away to fetch another.
“Thanks, Netta,” Jade said when she returned with it and placed the cup before her.
Mrs. Gaines jerked her head in the direction of her employer. “He forgets to drink it, quite often,” she murmured. “Do you think you...?”
Jade promised, “I’ll remind him.”
When the housekeeper had closed the door, Jade took her cup and strolled over to her husband’s side, leaning back on the desk so she could face him.
She saw him press the save keys and picked her moment. “Mrs. Gaines is afraid you’ll forget your tea.”
He glanced up, then reached for the cup. He pushed his chair away from the desk, sipping the hot drink. “How’s the typing?”
“I’m a bit out of practice, but it comes back. I’m enjoying it. And I feel...”
His eyes lifted to hers. “What?”
“Well—useful, as if I’m earning the money you spent on me yesterday—at least, part of it.”
He didn’t look pleased. “I told you, that money was earned.”
Jade’s fingers tightened on the cup in her hands. “You know I didn’t want payment.”
* * *
Shortly after their wedding—a hastily arranged, muted celebration because of his recent bereavement, Magnus had confided his shock discovery that his father’s apparent prosperity had been an illusion. He’d left behind huge debts. “The farms may have to go,” Magnus had said.
Jade had been shocked. “No, Magnus!” The farms had been in the family for generations. “It’s your heritage, and your mother’s home! What would it do to her, on top of the stroke?”
“I know. I could divert some of the profits from my business to the farms, try to rebuild them into a viable enterprise, but there isn’t enough income to provide the household help and nursing that my mother needs, and send the twins and young Andrew to university as my father had planned. That’s quite apart from normal living expenses. I’m sorry,” he’d said then. “It isn’t fair to involve you in this mess. I should never have married you.”
“Don’t be silly,” she’d told him. “I want to help, Magnus. You must let me.”
* * *
Three years on, it hurt her that he seemed unwilling to acknowledge that his love had been all the reward she needed.
Magnus said now, “If you didn’t want payment for all that you did for me—and my family—then why can’t you accept the clothes and whatever other necessities I can give you in the same spirit, instead of being so damned difficult about it?”
Jade sipped thoughtfully at her drink. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “I’ll stop being difficult. Magnus—”
His eyes were alert, as though something in her voice had warned him.
Her eyes fixed firmly on the quarter cup of now lukewarm tea in her hands, she said in a low but steady voice, “Is there someone you should...tell...about the decision we agreed on last night?”
There was a heartbeat’s silence, and then she heard the thud of his cup as he placed it forcefully on the desk. “No, damn you!” he said, making her gaze fly to his face in astonishment, seeing it bleak and angry and taut. “There isn’t anyone I need tell. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to work.”
Startled, Jade straightened from her perch against the desk, staring at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. Calling up some more numbers to the screen with quick keystrokes, he was ignoring her completely, his eyes fiercely concentrated, a scowl on his forehead.
She walked back to her own desk, and sat there looking at his rigid back for some time.
Where had that got her? she wondered. Exactly nowhere, of course. His anger could mean any one of a number of things, and she had no idea which. She put her cup on the corner of the desk, picked up the earphones and flicked a switch. Magnus’s voice filled her ears, and she concentrated hard on transforming the verbal notes that he’d made into neatly printed copy.
By lunchtime she’d typed a small pile of letters for Magnus to sign. He wrote his strongly looped signature at the bottom of each, and said, “Enough for today. You’ve been a great help.” He seemed to have got over his spurt of temper.
Jade said, “I’ve enjoyed it. It’s good to feel like a useful member of society again.”
She got up, took a deep, relaxing breath and lifted her hands to briefly massage her scalp, her fingers pushing under her hair and fluffing out the new short style. Magnus’s eyes were drawn to her taut body, and for an instant she was held still in his dark, riveted gaze, until he dragged it away.
She lowered her arms slowly, a small spark of triumph warming her. No matter how he might try to pretend, he wasn’t indifferent to her. On a basic, sensual level she had a measure of power over his emotions. It was a power that she would exploit if she had to.
“Lunch,” Magnus said curtly. He strode to the door and opened it, waiting for her.
“Coming.” She gave him the sweetest smile she could muster as she preceded him from the room.
Mrs. Riordan’s eyes flicked from Jade to Magnus as they entered the dining-room together. Ginette, too, gave them a curious glance.
“How are you, Mother Riordan?” Jade asked as she seated herself.
Mrs. Riordan took a fork and picked up a piece of cold beef to slide it onto her plate. “The same as usual. What have you been doing with yourself all morning?”
Magnus said, “She’s been working.”
“Working?”
“With me,” he expanded. “In the office.”
“Is that wise?” Mrs. Riordan asked. “Be careful not to overtax her, Magnus.”
Jade said, a little more loudly than necessary, “I’m not being overtaxed. It’s been good for me.”
“She’s finished for the day, anyway,” Magnus decreed, picking up several unopened letters that sat beside his place. “You’d better take it easy this afternoon, Jade.”
Jade was opening her mouth to protest when he added, “You might find Danella and family a bit wearing.”
Jade closed her lips rather tightly, and Ginette sent her a glance of humorous understanding.
Reluctantly, Jade returned a wry smile.
“This one’s for you.” Magnus was handing her a letter, and she saw her name on it in large, sprawled handwriting.
She picked up a knife and slit the flap, drawing out three pages covered in the same scrawl. “It’s from Annie!” she exclaimed.
Magnus had been studying one of his own letters, although it looked less like a letter than a bill of some kind. He looked
up, and she thought a flash of relief lit his eyes. “Really?”
She must have written almost immediately after Jade had left. “I’m so glad she changed her mind.”
I’ll visit you, Jade had promised as she packed.
Annie, perched on Jade’s bed, had vehemently shaken her head. “Don’t you come back here,” she advised her. “You don’t want to remember all this.”
“I won’t forget you,” Jade had replied, and kissed her friend’s cheek, giving her a long, warm hug. “You’ve done me more good than all the nursing staff and the doctors combined. Come and see me when you’re out. I’ll give you my address—”
But Annie had at first refused to let her. “They reckon you’re cured,” she said. “You won’t need anything to do with loonies like me.”
“Don’t you dare say that!” Jade scolded.
Annie said gruffly, “Okay, but I’m not much of a letter writer, anyway. And I warn you, if you come visiting, I’ll tell them I don’t want to see you! You shake the dust of this place off your feet and get on with it.”
* * *
“Changed her mind?” Magnus queried.
“She wouldn’t promise me she’d write.” Jade scanned the page eagerly, and gave a gurgle of laughter. Glancing up, she found Magnus regarding her with a look of enquiry, Ginette smiling curiously, and Mrs. Riordan wearing an aloof air of impending disapproval.
“I’m sorry,” she said, folding the letter and replacing it in the envelope. “I’ll read it later.”
There was no way this audience could appreciate the humour of Annie’s account of old Mrs. Penny’s trenchant exchanges with a nurse determined to give her an unwanted though much-needed bath, or of the havoc one of the younger patients, who insisted on being called Madonna although her file said her name was Maryanne, had wreaked in Miss Cherrible’s therapy room during an inspired attempt at fashioning a costume for a rock video.
“This Annie,” Mrs. Riordan said precisely, “is an inmate of that place?”
“A patient,” Jade said. “And my very good friend.”
Mrs. Riordan’s brows rose. “And you gave her our address?”
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