by Liz Fielding
His smile deepened. ‘So you are, and if you had not made a point of informing me that you are already spoken for, Faith Bridges, I might just have taken that as an invitation.’ He ignored her enraged gasp. ‘Tell me about Fellowes. I believe you said he was overseas?’
‘Yes, I believe I did.’ She stuck her fork in the trout, managed a tiny morsel. ‘This is delicious,’ she said.
‘Tell Mac. He does it all himself. Including the fishing.’
‘And what do you do?’ Her tone left him in no doubt of her suspicion that he did very little indeed.
‘Me?’ His eyes glinted wickedly. ‘Apart from teasing young women who take themselves far too seriously?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘I manage to keep myself amused. I like to play around with electronics.’
‘Like the baby alarm?’
‘It’s one of my toys,’ he confirmed. ‘Why don’t you have a glass of this wine?’ he said, filling her glass. ‘Elizabeth certainly would if she were here.’
Faith ignored the wine. ‘When did you say she’d be back?’
‘I didn’t, but I’ll call her later and maybe she’ll be able to give me some idea.’ He continued to regard her thoughtfully. ‘Is he a missionary?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Fellowes. You said you are the daughter of a clergyman. I thought perhaps you had been snapped up by some passing curate on his way to darkest—’ He paused, his eyes all mischief. ‘Where do missionaries go these days?’
Faith didn’t know whether to be amused or outraged. And realised almost too late that she should be neither. ‘I’ll ask my father to send you some information shall I?’ she asked, her voice carefully neutral. ‘Maybe you could spare a donation.’
He leaned back in his chair. ‘I would seriously advise you to reconsider. You’re quite unsuited to vicarage life.’
‘Do you think so?’ This bold statement amused Faith, but she resisted the impulse to smile. He didn’t need encouraging. Instead she ate a little more trout, sipped her wine. ‘I’ve served a very thorough apprenticeship,’ she said, at last. ‘I know precisely what would be expected of me.’
‘Organising the church cleaning rota, arranging the flowers, taking minutes at the Mothers’ Union and the Parish Council meetings?’
‘They all have to be done,’ she said, quite seriously. She had done them all in an emergency and a lot more besides.
‘But not by you.’
She’d never be a member of the Mothers’ Union she realised, but kept the thought to herself.
‘You don’t know me, Harry,’ she said, turning with relief as she heard footsteps behind her. ‘That was delicious, Mac. Thank you.’
‘Aye, well. See what y’make of this.’
This was an elegant pastry stuffed with wild mushrooms. ‘It’s absolutely wonderful, Mac,’ she said, after a taste. ‘You should open a restaurant.’ Her expansive gesture took in the beautiful manor and the parklands beyond as she turned to Harry. ‘You could open a hotel here and Mac would make you a fortune.’
‘Well if I’m ever in need of a fortune, I’ll bear that in mind.’ Faith caught an undercurrent of awkwardness in the look that passed between Mac and Harry and she realised that nothing on earth would induce Harry to throw open this private paradise to the public.
‘I’m sorry, it’s none of my business but I began my career in the small business section of the bank. It’s hard to break the habit.’
‘Banking seems an odd career for a woman,’ Harry interrupted, smoothly. ‘Particularly for a clergyman’s daughter.’
‘Do you really think so?’ She was used to men finding her career a little odd and although Harry really was the most opinionated, pig-headed version of the species she had ever met, she kept the cool distant smile fixed to her lips. ‘The fact is that I discovered a talent for managing money when I took over the parish accounts for my father. It’s not all summer fetes and flower arranging you know.’ Just as well considering how hopeless she was at bending plant material to her will. ‘Perhaps you should tell me what you think would be a more suitable career? Maybe social work would fit the profile?’ He didn’t answer, or betray his thoughts by so much as a twitch. ‘You think that’s flying a little too high?’ she probed. ‘Of course I realise I’m only a woman and that a woman’s true place is serving the male. A secretary is about as high as her aspirations should reach.’
‘That was once a male preserve too,’ he reminded her.
‘Not since the days of the quill pen,’ she snapped, then recovering herself, gave a little shrug. ‘Obviously you think I should have followed in my aunt’s footsteps and become a nanny.’
Harry, totally unabashed by this cool put-down, merely shrugged. ‘You’d certainly have been a lot more useful to me right now.’
Faith, a fork-full of food half-way to her mouth, felt like flinging it at him. Instead she smiled sweetly. ‘Since being useful to you is very low on my list of priorities, I clearly made the right decision.’
Ben’s thin high wail rose from the baby-minder on the table beside her and the creases deepened around Harry’s mouth as he smiled back with an equal degree of insincerity.
‘I expect he needs his nappy changing,’ Harry said, somewhat unnecessarily. She had a pretty clear grasp of what was expected.
‘Since it’s the only opportunity a woman ever has to change a man,’ she said, ‘I shall grasp it with enthusiasm.’
‘In that case it’s obvious that you’ve never done it before.’ He rose to his feet. ‘I’d better come with you to hold your hand.’
Faith had already been provoked into responding far too recklessly to Harry’s teasing. It had left her emotionally exposed, wide open to ridicule and right now all she wanted to do was escape. Ben was offering her a brief respite and she was going to make the best of it.
‘Actually, Harry, I have a pretty shrewd idea I’ll need both of them, so please don’t interrupt your dinner on my account.’
For a moment she thought he was going to argue but he lifted his wide shoulders in a careless shrug. ‘Well, if you think you can manage Mac will hold things up in the kitchen.’
* * *
Faith’s confidence in her ability to handle one small baby was misplaced. He flung his legs up in the air, yelling with misery as she tried to unfasten the complicated system of poppers that kept his suit on. He wriggled as she wiped him, kicking the baby powder from her hand so that it scattered everywhere before falling out of reach. Then she couldn’t get the nappy tabs to stick because they were coated with talc. ‘Oh, great,’ she muttered as she pulled another from the box but Ben just wanted to play and she couldn’t resist him. He was so beautiful. So perfect. Tiny fingers and toes, soft skin, an explosive crop of thick dark hair and eyelashes that any girl would kill for. She dropped a kiss on his tummy before she finally fastened the last of the poppers.
‘You should have taken the hand I offered.’
She started at the unexpected sound of Harry’s voice, wondering just how long he had been standing there, watching her make a fool of herself. ‘No.’ She picked him up before turning to face Harry. ‘I told you I would manage.’
‘And so you have. But it doesn’t normally take twenty-five minutes to change one small baby. Even I could do it in less.’ He moved towards her, touched her cheek. ‘And I’d do it without getting talc all over myself.’
‘Really?’ She rubbed at her cheek with her wrist ostensibly to remove the smear of white powder, but more importantly, to obliterate the electric tingle left by the tips of his fingers, stirring the downy bloom, stirring feelings that she had long ago put away from her. ‘Well I did warn you,’ she said, just a touch shakily. ‘Next time he cries you can show me how it’s done. But meantime I think I’d better go and make a few phone calls to try and find you someone more capable.’ She turned quickly away to lay Ben down in his cot.
He took her arm. ‘Come and try the pudding Mac has produced in your honour. After your tussl
e with Ben you deserve it.’
‘It wasn’t a tussle.’ She turned, saw the grin that straightened his mouth. ‘More like a wrestling match. And Ben won on a submission.’
* * *
Harry looked up from his armchair as she entered the library an hour later. ‘Did you manage to find someone?’
She handed him a slip of paper. ‘Miss Muriel Kenway will be with you tomorrow afternoon. She usually works as a maternity nurse but she’s free for a couple of weeks before her next client is due to deliver.’
‘And I’m sure she has impeccable references?’
‘I telephoned two of them. Apparently you’re very lucky to get her.’ She knew that because Miss Kenway had told her so.
‘In other words she’s going to cost me a fortune.’
‘Is that a problem? You did offer to pay top rates,’ she reminded him.
‘But that was for you.’
‘Which was foolish considering I have no experience.’
‘But you’re easy on the eye.’
‘I’m afraid I had to promise Miss Kenway a little extra to persuade her to come at such short notice. She’s giving up her holiday for you.’
‘An unnecessary sacrifice.’ Then he shrugged. ‘No doubt she’ll be Mary Poppins personified.’
‘I don’t think it would be wise to say that to her.’ Miss Kenway hadn’t sounded as if she had much of a sense of humour. But then new born babies probably didn’t mind.
Harry, picking up on her doubts, said, ‘You’d better not have saddled me with some sour old bat. You promised to stay until you found someone satisfactory. And I’ll decide what’s satisfactory.’
‘Miss Kenway sounded quite charming,’ Faith assured him. Not thoroughly charming, just quite charming. In fact, just what Mr Harry March deserved. Rather pleased with her verbal games, she offered him a bland smile. ‘I just thought that nannies must really hate being called Mary Poppins,’ she added, covering her slip. ‘I certainly would. Shall I pour you some coffee?’
‘Thanks, but I can manage a coffee pot.’ He rose stiffly to his feet, eased his leg then poured two cups, handing one to her. ‘Do you play backgammon?’ He indicated the board set up on an exquisite games table in the bow of the window.
‘Occasionally. My father enjoys a game.’ It was actually played as a blood sport at the vicarage, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. ‘Would you like to play now?’
‘Oh, Faith,’ he said, softly. ‘The things you say.’
The blush that darkened her cheeks sealed his fate. Not that he was easy to beat. It had been a while since she played and she had rather expected him to indulge her. Humour her a little. After all, she was a woman. She was mistaken. The speed of the first game took her by surprise and she was swept away. She came back at him in the second, beating him with a double six. After that it was war and the dice flew and the counters slapped fast and furious around the beautiful antique inlaid board.
It was four games all when Harry called a halt, glancing at his watch. ‘It’s late and Ben will have you up at six.’
‘I’m on a winning streak,’ Faith declared, rebelliously, smothering a yawn. ‘You just don’t want me to beat you.’
Harry grinned. ‘You couldn’t beat me if you played until Christmas. But I’ll let you try. Tomorrow.’
‘I won’t be here tomorrow.’
* * *
Harry was right about the early start. Alice woke her by sitting on her back.
‘Ben’s awake,’ she said, very loudly, very close to her ear. Faith opened her eyes briefly. Then closed them again. Alice tugged at the sleeve of her pyjamas. ‘He smells awful. You’ll have to change him.’ The words didn’t make any sense for a moment. Then they did and she groaned. ‘That’s what Mummy always says too,’ Alice said, bouncing back to the floor. ‘You’d better hurry, or the whole house will stink.’
Should Alice be allowed to say that? Faith opened her eyes and looked blearily at her watch. It wasn’t quite six o’clock. Far too early to worry about what words her small charge used. She’d leave it for the professional to make a ruling.
By half past she had dealt somewhat queasily, but more successfully than her previous attempt, with Ben’s bottom and the three of them were in the kitchen trying to make up a bottle for his breakfast. It was beginning to be a matter of some urgency, as his cries of hunger threatened to raise the roof.
‘Come quickly, Muriel Kenway,’ Faith murmured as she finally popped the bottle into Ben’s mouth having carefully followed the instructions on the tin of formula, heavily supplemented by well-meaning advice from Alice. Alice began to help herself to cereals, scattering them liberally over the table and floor. Helpless to do more than watch as Ben sucked contentedly from the bottle, Faith left her to it. She could always clear up afterwards. ‘Mind the milk—’ Too late. The carton was knocked over and the table awash.
‘It’s all right,’ Alice said, cheerfully as she grabbed the carton and poured the remainder over her cereals. ‘There’s plenty left.’
‘Oh, good,’ Faith said, faintly as, mindless of the mess surrounding her, Alice tucked into her cornflakes.
Being pitched headlong into the day like this was not the way Faith liked to wake up. Her mornings were peaceful affairs. Tea first, then a shower followed by toast and coffee while she contemplated the financial news.
Ben paused for breath. Should she wind him? She thought she probably should but was unwilling to risk him throwing up over her again. Instead she cradled him in the crook of her arm, nestling him against her breast. He was warm and milky and displaying two small teeth as he smiled up at her. Was he smiling, or was it just wind? She put him over her shoulder and began rubbing gently at his back.
She had known it all once. She had stayed with her aunt in the summer holidays and had been her most eager pupil when it came to baby care. That had all changed when Michael had jilted her. With his desertion she had put romance, marriage, the two point four children and happy ever after behind her. But she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life alone. Julian had become a friend, would be a companion…
Ben’s burp dragged her back to the reality of the kitchen. At least they had it to themselves. She had half expected the dour Mac to be in possession, even at this early hour and because of the racket Ben was making she hadn’t dared to waste time getting dressed. But it was still only seven. Plenty of time to clear up and get back to the safety of her room before anyone appeared.
‘What the hell!’
She swung round to discover Harry standing in the kitchen doorway. Far from being tucked up safely in bed as she had supposed, his dark hair was wet, dripping onto the white towel draped about a pair of tanned, powerful shoulders that glistened with moisture.
His chest was deep, sprinkled liberally with coarse dark hair that dived across the hard plane of his stomach and disappeared into the sleek blackness of a pair of trunks that clung to narrow hips. His legs were long and muscular — except for the shocking scars that raked his left thigh, puckering the flesh.
Something had ripped through it, tearing flesh and bone and she flinched, seeming to feel the pain for herself. His eyes blanked as he took in her shocked expression and she tried desperately to pull herself together as he turned away to tug the jogger pants that he was carrying over his wet skin.
She wanted to say something, break the awful silence. He had gone swimming early because he didn’t expect anyone to be around. Because he didn’t want to see anyone. Didn’t want anyone to see him. But her tongue was like a lump of wood in her mouth. And what could she say? I’m sorry? There didn’t seem to be much point in that. Besides, he had already turned his attention to the mess of cereals and milk that puddled the table and was now dripping onto the floor.
‘Just in time for breakfast, I see,’ he said, curtly.
She dragged her eyes back up to his face and his eyes mocked her imagined weakness, as if he expected nothing better. As if he were used to nothing bett
er. What did he expect for heaven’s sake? It had been a shock, but that was all. She had seen worse. He could have lost his leg altogether.
She suspected that it had been touch and go.
‘Your timing is perfect, Harry,’ she said, keeping her voice brisk. ‘But as you can see, it’s self-service.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘IS there any coffee going?’ Harry asked, abruptly.
‘I’m afraid not. I’ve only one pair of hands and, as you can see, both of them are occupied.’
‘I could hardly fail to notice,’ he replied, taking in the chaos created by Alice’s attempt to make breakfast for herself. Was he angry? It was disconcerting not to be able to tell, impossible to know how to react; perhaps indifference was safer. Safer, but difficult. Harry March wasn’t a man anyone could remain indifferent to. ‘I think I’d better make some for both of us. Frankly, you look as if you need it.
Not angry, then, just irritable at having his routine disturbed.
‘I’d rather have tea,’ she replied. His disbelief strained the mask of indifference to the limit. ‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ she added.
He gave her a sharp sideways glance. ‘It’s a very great deal of trouble and I wouldn’t do it if you were a proper nanny,’ he said, giving the cereals and dripping milk a wide berth as he went to fill the kettle. His limp seemed more noticeable or maybe she was just more aware of it now. Impossible not to be.
‘If I were a proper nanny, you wouldn’t have to. I did warn you.’
‘So you did.’ Something in his face as he turned back to her suggested that his sense of humour had reasserted itself. ‘But if the choice is between a proper nanny and you in red silk pyjamas, I’ll take you.’