by Liz Fielding
‘I don’t have a magic wand, or a cutlass. But I certainly wouldn’t have tiptoed around her in case I hurt her feelings,’ he said, curtly. ‘I’d have told her the truth in words she would have understood.’
‘Oh, really. This I have got to hear,’ she declared, inviting him to demonstrate his technique.
His mouth twisted in something that sketched at a grin. ‘I would have told her that she was behaving like a spoilt five-year-old who was scared of the dentist.’
Faith’s eyes widened at the very idea of telling her formidable aunt anything of the kind. ‘You anticipated surviving this meeting?’
The grin disappeared. ‘Janet and I understand one another. She would have been honest enough to recognise the truth when she was forced to look it in the face. Just because she’s a tough old bird doesn’t mean that she isn’t frightened witless at the thought of surgery.’ He allowed a gleam to brighten the darkness of his eyes. ‘Whatever made you think I had a cutlass?’
She ignored the question. ‘Aunt Janet? Frightened?’ The same Aunt Janet who for more than thirty years had inspired children with the courage to the face all the pains, small and large, that life threw at them; a grazed knee, a broken leg, the loss of a mother?
The idea was crazy.
‘Everyone’s afraid of anaesthetic,’ he said, darkly. ‘It’s surrendering yourself to the unknown . A little death.’ He stared into his glass. Faith who had never experienced the terror for herself realised that he had and she didn’t argue although he waited, clearly expecting some response. When none came he looked up. ‘She’s obviously been doing everything she can to put off the evil day and right now you’re playing into her hands, Faith.’
‘Me!’
‘Yes, you, Miss renowned-for-your-level-headedness Bridges. Unless you get on the telephone and take away the one excuse left to her. And if you think that I’m using emotional blackmail, I can live with that.’
Faith found it hard to meet those eyes. ‘No,’ she said, finally. ‘You obviously just want what’s best for her as well.’ Faith glanced around. ‘My mobile needs charging. Can I use your phone?’
‘It’s this way.’ He wheeled away from the window and led the way across the hall to a small room tucked away beneath the stairs. The contrast between the world of oak panelling and dust motes dancing in the last shafts of sunlight streaming in through the mullioned windows of the library, could not have been more striking.
She had expected a venerable antique desk with a Georgian silver inkstand. Instead the windowless room was packed with technology housing a communications centre that wouldn’t have disgraced the bank where she spent her working hours.
Harry touched a button and the number of Janet’s mobile phone appeared on the nearest screen. He touched another and it began to dial. He lifted a telephone receiver and offered it to Faith. ‘She should have been moved to a private room by now. Don’t tell her that I arranged it.’
‘She’s not stupid, Harry.’
He paused and turned in the doorway. ‘No. And neither are you. I’m sure you know exactly what to say to keep her where she is. But if she gives you any trouble just remind her what she said to me in similar circumstances.’
‘What was that?’
‘She knows.’ And with that he closed the door behind him, leaving her alone.
The telephone rang for so long that she was beginning to wonder if her aunt had already put her threat into action and left the hospital.
‘Hello? Who’s there?’
The familiar voice, with its sharp query, sent relief flooding through her. ‘Aunt Janet, it’s Faith. Harry said you rang earlier.’
‘Yes, I did. And you can tell him that if he thinks I’m going to stay in a private room with no one to gossip to, he’s got another think coming. It’s no good that young nurse saying that I need to be quiet before my operation; I know he’s behind it and you can tell him I said so.’
Faith grinned. ‘I’ll tell him.’
‘On second thoughts don’t bother. I’ll tell him myself when I see him. Are those children of Elizabeth’s all right?’
‘Fine. Tucked up in bed. So much for your promise that there would be no babies.’
‘Yes, well, you wouldn’t have gone would you?’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Anyway you needn’t bother your head about them after tomorrow. The minute I can find my clothes, I’ll be out of here. I’ve already called a taxi.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘THEN cancel it!’ Faith held her breath, crossed her fingers and, hoping that Harry March was right, launched her attack. ‘I can’t believe you’re being such a baby about a perfectly simple operation, Janet Bridges. If it was one of us you wouldn’t stand for this kind of nonsense. You’ll be a new woman once it’s over.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Only someone who knew her well would have detected the tiny tremor of uncertainty in her voice.
‘You know perfectly well what I’m talking about, Aunt Janet.’ Then, more gently, ‘It’s quite normal to be scared you know. Nothing to be ashamed of.’ She paused. ‘Harry sent you a message.’
‘Humph.’ Then, irritably, ‘Well, what is it?’
‘He said to remind you of what you said to him once. In similar circumstances.’
There was a long silence. ‘Faith?’
‘Aunt Janet?’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the reason Harry needed help, but will you promise me something?’
‘Only if you promise me that you’ll stay in that hospital bed.’ She was learning fast.
‘If I do, will you stay with Harry?’ But not fast enough apparently. ‘Just until he can find someone to take my place,’ she added.
Faith let out a long sigh of relief. She had expected her aunt to extract a promise to stay until their mother returned. She had already agreed to stay until the next day and a replacement would be on the way the moment the agencies opened in the morning.
‘No one could ever replace you, Aunt Janet,’ she said, a little hoarsely as her throat tightened. She cleared her throat. ‘I can’t think why you ever imagined I would be the slightest use.’
‘I couldn’t think of anyone else at such short notice.’
‘Oh, thanks.’
Janet Bridges chuckled. ‘You’ll manage.’
‘Yes, I suppose I will. And I promise that I’ll stay until Harry finds a suitably qualified replacement.’ She paused. ‘I’ll be thinking of you tomorrow. Dad said he would come in first thing to see you, before you go to theatre. You’ll be fine.’
‘Yes, dear, I know. And thank you.’
Harry looked up from the drinks tray as she let herself into the library. ‘Everything settled? You were rather a long time.’
‘I thought I’d better look in on the children. They’re both fast asleep.’
‘It happens occasionally. Drink?’
She would have liked a very large gin and tonic but she shook her head. ‘Just a tonic water since I’m on duty.’ He raised an eyebrow but said nothing as he poured it for her. She gave an awkward little shrug. ‘I promised to stay until you found someone else to look after the children.’
He raised one dark brow as he handed her the glass. ‘More blackmail?’
‘No. I’d already agreed to stay tonight. It was your message that did the trick. She went very quiet.’ The tonic water fizzed sharply against her tongue as she took a sip. ‘What did she say to you, Harry?’
He shrugged, then said, ‘She reminded me, when I needed it most, that pride feels no pain.’ Faith’s eyes instinctively flew to his leg, wondering just what had happened to the glad-foot lad of her aunt’s stories. What had smashed his leg and ripped across the smooth broad forehead? Her swift glance was intercepted and his mouth twisted in a provocative little smile. ‘There’s more than one kind of pain, Faith.’ He downed his whisky and turned away to refill his glass. ‘Do you want to make any more calls? I imagine your boyfriend must be wondering what’
s become of you.’
‘Boyfriend?’ she repeated, blankly.
He looked up from his glass. ‘You said you were spoken for. Perhaps I’m old-fashioned, but I assumed it was a man?’
‘You make a dinosaur look progressive!’ Faith could feel the heat rushing to her face and realised to her horror that she was blushing again. Not cool. Not cool enough by half. ‘His name is Julian,’ she said, with as much chill as she could muster, but she never referred to him as her boyfriend. That word suggested all kinds of crazy things that had nothing to do with their mature and sensible relationship. ‘Julian Fellowes. And thank you for the offer but I can’t telephone him. He’s out of the country at the moment.’
Harry shrugged. ‘I’m not about to throw a faint if you want to call Saudi Arabia or Hong Kong or somewhere equally remote.’
Remote. He thought Hong Kong was remote? She was tempted to tell him exactly where Julian was at this very moment and wipe that provoking expression straight off his face. She was tempted, but she resisted, certain that he would make some irritating remark that would make her forget all about being level-headed and lose her temper. He was already overloading her emotional circuits with irrational and unexpected feelings that she had no desire to explore further.
‘Thank you, Harry,’ she said, calmly. Too calmly. A dangerous symptom given the provocation. ‘But it isn’t that easy to get in touch. And since he won’t know I’m not at home it really doesn’t matter.’
‘You don’t live together then?’
She laid her hand against her breast. ‘Please! I’m the daughter of a clergyman.’ His look was speculative and she suddenly wished she had stuck to a simple no. Intent upon quashing any further reference to the matter she quickly continued. ‘Look, I know one or two people who have nannies, perhaps I’d better go and call them to ask for advice about how to find someone for you.’
‘There’s no rush.’
No rush! Did he think that she would be able to conjure up the perfect nanny at the drop of a hat? Or was he simply going out of his way to make her angry? She had told him that it was a matter of the utmost urgency that she get back to London.
‘You can at least finish your drink.’ His mouth twisted into an irritating little smile. It was almost as if he knew what she was thinking and enjoyed making her rise to his bait.
Faith glanced down at the glass in her hand. It was tall and slender, filled with ice and lemon and the sharp fizz of tonic water that made it hard to swallow quickly. Besides, gulping it down would betray her eagerness to be out of the room, out of Harry March’s life. She was sure that would amuse him and she couldn’t think why. She only knew that she didn’t want to be an object for this man’s amusement.
‘What kind of nanny are you looking for?’ she asked, deciding to deal with the question of a nanny as if it were simply one of the many problems that had passed across her desk in the course of a working day. Efficiently, objectively, smoothly and without a trace of emotion. ‘Since you’re going to have to live with her?’
Sure that he had her at his beck and call until she could find a suitable replacement, his slow, trawling look as he covered the distance from her ankles to her chin was designed to provoke.
‘Frankly, my dear, I’m more than happy with the nanny I’ve got. You’re the one who’s being difficult.’
‘I am not! I told you—’ So much for her buttoned up emotions. She began again. ‘I have things to do. Things that won’t wait.’
‘What things?’
His eyes sparkled as he goaded her. Did she think they were cornflower? Not cornflower. They were darker, much darker than that.
Faith’s grasp tightened on the glass and she tried again to take control of the situation. She usually found it so easy, but Harry March refused to play by the rules.
‘It would be a help if I knew how long you are likely to need someone,’ she continued briskly.
‘I’m sure it would. Let’s see now...’ His smile taunted her, as if he wanted her to know that he could read her deepest thoughts. ‘I thought a week, but in your case I’m sure I could be persuaded to spin it out a little longer—’
‘Dinner’s ready.’ Mac’s timely interruption saved her from making an absolute idiot of herself and she turned to him gratefully. ‘I’ve laid a table out in the garden, miss, as it’s so warm this evening.’
‘In the garden? But what about the children? I won’t hear them if we’re outside,’ Faith said anxiously, turning to Harry, glad of something ordinary, something practical to concentrate her mind.
Harry took a small device from his pocket and switched it on before placing it into her hand and closing her fingers about it. It was warm from the heat of his body. That, and the unexpected touch of his hand wrapped about hers, sent a tiny frisson of excitement rippling across her skin and she gave a little shiver.
Harry frowned. ‘Are you cold? We can eat inside—’
‘No,’ she said, too quickly. ‘A little tired, perhaps. It’s been a long day and I had a late night—’
‘A late night? And Julian away?’ He made a small tutting sound and his face positively begged to be slapped.
‘—with the prospectus of a company that wants to be recommended as ethical,’ she continued, as if he hadn’t interrupted.
‘What a waste.’
‘No, as a matter-of-fact,’ she returned, sharply. She could have left it for her successor to wrap up, but she had known that underneath all the pious platitudes of the directors there had been something not quite right. It had taken a lot of digging and a great deal of time to uncover the use of child labour, not one moment in her opinion wasted. She had delivered her report to the bank on the way to pick up Janet. ‘I turned them down.’
‘Politely, I hope,’ he murmured, raising one thoughtful brow the merest fraction and she wondered, uneasily, what her face had shown. She could normally disguise her feelings, but nothing about the day had been normal. Harry didn’t wait for her response, simply tapping the small device he had placed in her hand. ‘This is a baby alarm. If you turn it up sufficiently, you will be able to hear Alice and Ben breathing.’ Still cupping her hand in his, he demonstrated and she could clearly hear two sets of breathing. ‘You’ll know if one of them so much as hiccups. It’s good for half a mile.’
‘An awful lot could happen in the time it took me to cover half a mile,’ she said.
He grinned, unexpectedly revealing a flash of the young Harry. ‘A trifle over-designed perhaps, but then I adapted it from a listening device used by the intelligence services.’
‘Maybe you should market it.’
‘And have husbands listening in on their wives, bosses on their employees and everyone listening in on their neighbours? I might make a fortune, but would it be — ethical?’ She glared at him. ‘Shall we go?’
He removed his hand from hers and placed it instead at the small of her back. It was enough to send her rocketing obediently through the open door.
“Outside” was a small walled courtyard reached through a large, ornate and rather daunting dining room of the kind Faith had seen in houses open to the public, hardly the ideal venue for an intimate dinner for two.
She snatched back that dangerous thought and stuffed it down behind the sofa cushions of her mind as she stepped through the French windows. She was marrying Julian in three weeks time. She had absolutely no business thinking about intimate dinners with Harry March.
Then the enchantment of the garden enveloped her.
The walls were eight or nine feet high and built of the same warm stone as the house — stone that had weathered softly and was now covered with rambling roses and honeysuckle that scented the still evening air. The stone-flagged floor was liberally furnished with tubs of pink geraniums and ivies, and the tiny leaves of lemon thyme burgeoned from the cracks in the paving stones scenting the air as they crossed to a wrought iron table that had been set in the corner to catch the last heat from the sun.
�
��Someone is an inspired gardener,’ Faith remarked as Harry pulled back one of the chairs for her and his hand brushed against her shoulder as she sat down.
Gardening, like the weather, was a safe, neutral subject of conversation.
He looked around him as if he hadn’t noticed its charms before and Faith realised how stupid she had been. She had been thinking how much her father would have loved a walled garden in which to grow his tender treasures. Harry March would never have to bother with anything as humble as gardening; he obviously paid someone to do it for him, just as his mother and other women like her had paid Aunt Janet to bring up their children. By the hour.
He had been born to privilege with servants and a nanny to attend to every need. Horses, dogs and acres of countryside to roam without ever leaving his own land. When he was older there had been a glamorous regiment to join and the daughter of another, equally well-endowed family to fall at his feet, a beautiful girl with corn silk hair and huge bright eyes fixed adoringly on Harry when their engagement was announced in one of the society magazines her aunt was addicted to.
As she turned from her contemplation of the flowers and met the questing blue eyes of the man opposite her she felt a little quiver of alarm ripple her spine. There was something probing about the look and for a moment she wondered if she had fallen into the trap and was looking at him in the same besotted manner.
She came rapidly back to earth. She’d had quite enough of men who asked girls to marry them and then changed their minds. ‘Where’s Mac? Isn’t he eating with us?’
‘Mac prefers the kitchen.’ He smiled slightly, as if aware that Mac would have provided a buffer between them and amused that she felt the need of it. ‘But he’s within shouting distance. If you should feel threatened.’
‘Threatened?’ Her tongue trembled slightly on the word. ‘Why on earth should I feel threatened?’
‘I have no idea, but you’re a bundle of nerves. You’re quite safe you know. I’m not in the habit of pestering the hired help.’
‘What?’ Her laugh sounded forced even to her own ears. ‘Never had a tumble in the hayloft with a scullery maid?’ Ah, but that wouldn’t be pestering. What scullery maid could have resisted the overtures of the youthful Harry March? He didn’t bother to dignify this with a reply but continued to regard her with eyes creased in gentle irony, as if he knew precisely what she was thinking. She stiffened. ‘Besides I’m not hired. I’m doing you a favour.’