Reluctant Enchantress

by Lucy Keane

  Julius looked as surprised to see her as she was to see him—but he didn’t look horrified. She wondered if any of her true feelings about the situation showed in her face, and hoped they didn’t.

  ‘Who were you looking for—a friend?’ He sounded very curious.

  ‘Not—not exactly. Somebody called Mr. Abbott.’

  He thrust out his lower lip doubtfully. ‘No one of that name in this street that I know of. What does he do?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ She glanced at Fiona; her expression of polite interest only just masked whatever it was underneath. ‘It’s all right. I forgot where he lives. But I remember now.’ That sounded very silly.

  ‘Where does he live?’

  Trust Julius to want the awkward details! Amy waved her hand vaguely towards one end of the street. ‘Down there.’

  She saw his eyes flicker quickly in the direction she had indicated, and then a rather amused expression came over his face.

  Just then Fiona said politely, but with a certain finality, ‘I hope you find him.’ She gave a fleeting but unconvincing smile in Amy’s direction, presumably a token leave-taking, turned and pushed past Julius into the hall, disappearing through a door.

  Julius folded his arms, the way he did in the office, and leant against the side of the door. He was looking at her in a way that made her nervous; he seemed to find something in the situation very humorous.

  ‘Funny you should turn up tonight, Amy.’

  ‘Oh?’ But she didn’t intend to wait for the answer. ‘I’m sorry, I’m in an awful hurry. I—’

  ‘That van parked on the other side of the road—it wouldn’t have anything to do with you, would it?’

  She didn’t need to look at it—he must have guessed. But she wasn’t going to give it away if she didn’t have to—even if it meant hiding round the corner of Market Street to creep back unseen later on, and drive herself to the nearest phone box to contact Celia.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ she said, as innocently as she could manage.

  He was grinning at her now, clearly enjoying some private joke, and just before he spoke she got a terrible feeling she knew what it was.

  ‘Your Abbott wouldn’t be a Prior by any chance, would he?’

  Oh, no. Darling muddle-headed Celia! she thought despairingly. Of all the unlucky mnemonics…! But there wasn’t much she could do about it now.

  ‘Actually—’ She took a deep breath. ‘Actually, if you’re waiting for someone to cook dinner for you, it’s me.’

  She met his eyes squarely this time. Julius, still leaning casually against the doorpost, stared at her now with a mixture of amusement and fascination. Then he said, ‘Where’s the other half? I thought there were two of you.’

  ‘She couldn’t make it.’

  She had a strong suspicion that he believed her responsible for confusing the details of the booking, and she couldn’t bear him to think her more of an idiot than she must appear at the office.

  Even though it seemed a rather treacherous betrayal of Celia’s ineptitude, she found herself saying, ‘My friend’s mother takes the bookings for us as a favour. She didn’t have anything to write on.’

  He continued to look at her. There was something in his eyes now that she hadn’t seen before, and it made her more nervous of him than when he was doing his full tycoon act at work.

  They weighed each other up in silence for a while longer. Her heart-rate seemed to have increased by half as much again. What was he going to say about her job at Prior’s?

  But he only smiled at her, and said, ‘I hope your partner’s mother remembered to tell you to bring the food. That was the arrangement, wasn’t it?’

  She couldn’t resist it. ‘Carrier bags full!’

  If it had been anybody else, she would have said he was rather embarrassed, despite the grin he gave her.

  ‘I had no idea you went in for this sort of thing. Am I forgiven?’

  ‘You mean for thinking I had some major diet problems, and setting Jacquie and Zoe to spy on me? I was very cross about that!’

  ‘I know. I heard you. Was that why you’ve been avoiding me for the past week?’

  ‘Oh!’ She didn’t think he’d noticed, and she didn’t want to admit it. So she said rather awkwardly, ‘I hope I didn’t swear.’

  He laughed. ‘Not that I remember. You’d better come in, Miss Witchery Unlimited.’

  He stood back to let her pass him, and she stepped into a wide carpeted hall with doors opening off both sides. An attractive staircase with a carved wooden banister led up to the first floor.

  He was standing right behind her, and she was conscious of just how close he was. He showed her where the kitchen was, then he slipped on a pair of shoes, taking the van keys from her while she investigated the cooking facilities, and brought in the boxes. Fiona didn’t reappear.

  She tried to gather her wits. Just think of this as an ordinary booking, she told herself with desperation. Even if it isn’t. And what did he mean by witchery exactly?

  ‘OK now?’ He slid the last box on to one of the waxed pine work surfaces.

  The kitchen, she’d thought with a twinge of envy, was as well equipped and attractively laid out as any she’d ever seen.

  ‘Thanks. Everything’s fine. Do you want me to set the table?’

  His expression gave nothing away. ‘Fiona will do that. Shout if you need anything.’

  And he was gone.

  His casual tone of dismissal hurt just a bit—it reminded her very effectively yet again that she was Julius’s employee and of no interest to him beyond the immediate job he paid her to do. It was Fiona he was concerned about.

  But if anyone was going to do any shouting it sounded as though it might be his fiancée. Her opening remark to him was embarrassingly audible. ‘I didn’t know you employed your secretaries for their cooking talents.’ The tone was acidic.

  She heard Julius reply, ‘Neither did I. Amy’s a surprise to us all. Constantly.’ And then the door shut.

  But she couldn’t help being aware of the row that seemed to be developing between them, inadequately muffled by the intervening walls. She could hear the deep tones of Julius’s voice from time to time, and although what she said wasn’t quite clear Fiona’s voice was raised more than once.

  Then, ‘I can’t see why it’s so bloody important to you—you could have got out of it if you’d tried! He’s supposed to be a friend, isn’t he?’

  Torn between curiosity and discretion, her finer feelings won and Amy with some reluctance closed the kitchen door and switched on the little portable radio she found on a kitchen shelf. In her place, Jacquie would probably have been encamped in the hall by now. But there was one thing she had made up her mind about: she wasn’t going to feed the fires of office gossip with anything that happened tonight. Julius at work was fair game—particularly if he was unwise enough to give his fiancée free run of the building and conduct any of his private concerns on the premises—but his life outside office hours was his own affair. And, to give him his due, he’d registered none of the dismay she might have predicted—or disapproval either—when he’d found her on his doorstep.

  She concentrated on preparations for the meal, taking her time. As she wasn’t expected to do any extras like setting a dinner-table, she could take it at a more leisurely pace than she’d expected.

  Then she heard a door opening.

  ‘Well, I’m going with William—and you can go to hell!’

  Fiona sounded furious, and she heard Julius say her name quickly. And then the front door slammed.

  Oh, dear. Amy was rather ashamed that the thought! that came immediately to mind was would that mean the end of the dinner party—and if it did would he still pay her?

  Operations suspended, she perched on a kitchen stool, wondering when Julius would reappear. There were no sounds of anyone moving about the house, although through a closed door and with the radio on it wasn’t easy to be certain.

  Idly, she picke
d up a tomato. It might be a good idea to start on fiddly decorations like tomato flowers now, in case he did want to go on with the dinner. Where had Fiona gone?

  The kitchen door opened, and Julius stood there. He propped himself against the side of the door, one hand in the pocket of his jeans, and looked at her. Carefully she put down the tomato and returned the look.

  His expression wasn’t exactly grim, but it wasn’t too lighthearted either. She didn’t know whether she was expected to make any comment or not.

  ‘I suppose you heard that?’

  She nodded, flicking one long red strand of hair over her shoulder.

  ‘All of it?’ he pursued.

  ‘I heard Fiona leave. And slam the door.’ And then she asked carefully, ‘Does that mean she won’t be setting the table now?’

  The rather forbidding expression vanished, and he gave a reluctant smile. ‘You’ve just about summed it up… Have a drink while we review the situation?’

  She refused the alcohol he offered, accepting instead a glass of Indian tonic stacked with ice and lemon. She wondered if the double whisky he poured for himself indicated anything about his mood.

  He came to stand beside her, watching for a while in silence as she deftly cut long curls of tomato with a sharp knife. She longed to ask about Fiona. She was so aware of him she found it hard to concentrate on what she was doing, and was nervous of cutting her fingers on the knife.

  ‘How is it that when I ring up for a cook I get my secretary in my kitchen?’ he asked at last.

  She turned to look at him. There was something in that direct, lucid gaze that prompted her for the first time to abandon all thoughts of inventing a quick story to gloss over the truth.

  ‘This is my real job,’ she said quietly. ‘Jess and I have been working as Cookery Unlimited for nearly a year now. How did you get to hear about us?’

  ‘I saw your advert in the local paper.’ He leaned back against the work surface, whisky glass in hand. ‘How do you come to be doing this in the first place?’

  She flicked back another strand of hair, aware of his eyes on her. ‘I did a catering course at college—after a cordon bleu cookery course in London. It’s what I wanted.’

  ‘None of this appears on your C.V.’

  Her wretched C.V. again… Of course. She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her reply. ‘Would you really have thought the ability to cook sole Veronique a recommendation in a secretary?’

  ‘I might have done, if I’d known. We could have started up a new line in directors’ lunches.’

  It was obvious that was meant to defuse what was becoming a rather tense discussion, and there was a pause while she flayed another tomato, wondering if she dared ask him now if he was going to sack her. She still couldn’t assess his reaction to the discovery of her double life.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked.

  She put down the knife with care and then turned to him, meeting his eyes honestly. ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t take me on if you thought I had another job. You were very insistent about people with other commitments.’

  ‘And afterwards?’

  She shrugged, and looked away. ‘The same reason really. I’m still afraid you’ll fire me.’

  Another silence. Then he asked, ‘Where’s this Jess of yours?’

  She explained about Cornwall, and Jess’s boyfriend, and the news that she’d gone to a dance prompted him to explain that Fiona too had left for an old schoolfriend’s party in London. There was no suggestion of criticism that she had walked out on the dinner party so suddenly, even though Amy had got the impression that the dinner engagement was vital business as much as pleasure. His apparent understanding of Fiona’s feelings was something she admired in him.

  ‘So this is quite an important dinner party tonight?’ she asked in cautious tones. She didn’t want to make it sound as though she was trying to condemn his fiancée’s defection, since he had been so careful to avoid doing so himself. But it would help to be able to assess the evening ahead.

  ‘Chris is an old friend of mine, and he’s bringing his wife, Maxine. I thought it would be nice for Fiona to meet them both, and she could get to know Maxine while I plied Chris with drinks in an attempt to get him to put some money into a business enterprise. I was thinking of expanding the Spanish property venture my company started up a couple of years ago.’

  ‘I know.’ Her reply was automatic.

  He looked at her sharply, almost as though he’d forgotten that he saw her in the office every day.

  Then he said slowly, ‘Of course you do.’

  He was silent for a moment, as though considering the implications of what she’d just said. She took another sip of her tonic, and started to twist the long curls of tomato into rosettes.

  ‘Amy…’ It was an uncharacteristically thoughtful beginning. ‘I’m going to ask you an enormous favour.’ She raised her eyebrows and waited, but he seemed to be summing her up again.

  ‘OK,’ she said at last, with a nervous laugh. ‘I’m all agog! What on earth is it? You want me to stretch the meal to another six guests by passing off a local Chinese take-away as my own cooking—or do I do conjuring tricks while I serve the coffee?’

  He gave a fleeting grin. ‘Nothing so entertaining. No. I want you to join us.’

  ‘You mean to serve the food?’

  ‘I mean to eat it with us. As a friend.’

  He must have known that she wasn’t in a position to refuse anything reasonable that he could ask. But she found she had mixed feelings at the prospect. Just for the evening, they’d be creating the fiction that she was his friend, and therefore on that level his equal, whereas all the time she was just his employee and tomorrow in the office he’d have no more interest in her than in Jacquie or Zoe—and the thought of that hurt.

  Although it wasn’t a Cinderella complex that upset her, she looked doubtfully down at her butcher’s apron and jeans. ‘I’m not dressed for it.’

  There was another silence, and she glanced up to find his eyes taking in every contour of her loose sweater and close-fitting jeans that emphasised her long legs despite the unglamorous butcher’s apron—she even wondered if he was mentally stripping her. There was something distinctly provocative about the gleam in his eye when he finally met her accusing stare. She was determined! she wouldn’t let him embarrass her.

  ‘I think you look very sexy underneath that apron,’ he said at last. ‘But it’s up to you. I don’t mind what you wear, and I’m certainly not going to dress up.’ That amused her, and he saw her looking at his bare feet—he’d taken his shoes off again.

  ‘Well, not much!’

  She bit her lip doubtfully. ‘I haven’t time to drive home, but I’ve got something a bit more suitable in the car just in case I was expected to appear in the dining-room.’

  ‘As long as it’s not a Victorian maid’s outfit, wear what you like.’

  She couldn’t read whatever it was in his eyes just then, and she turned back to fiddle with the decorations, unaccountably relieved when he finally left the kitchen. Once she had done as much as she could to prepare for the final cooking stages, she went out to the van to fetch the skirt and top she’d flung in at the last moment.

  She decided to change before she had to devote herself entirely to the kitchen.

  ‘Use my bedroom,’ Julius offered. ‘There’s a long mirror in there, and the bathroom’s en suite.’

  She felt very aware that she was entering a personal area of his life as she tried the door to the left of the hall. It opened into what had once been a large reception-room but now contained a double bed.

  Conscious of the fact that Julius could walk in when she was only half dressed, Amy decided to use the bathroom to change in, and quickly slipped off her jeans and sweater. The skirt she had brought was black, fairly tight-fitting, and not overlong. The black stretchy top that matched it had three-quarter sleeves and a low neckline that was just respectable. She fished her comb out of her
bag and went to survey herself in the long mirror on the back of the wardrobe doors. She was glad she had had time to wash her hair the night before—the long dark red strands reflected a red-gold in the bedroom lights. But she thought her outfit needed something else to turn it from what was reasonably fashionable but functional into evening wear, and when she stretched her arms up to comb her hair there was a compromising glimpse of bare midriff.

  A russet-coloured soft suede belt hanging on the hook of the bathroom door had caught her eye—it was not a man’s belt. Fiona must have forgotten it in her hurry to leave. She hesitated, disliking the idea of borrowing another woman’s things when she wasn’t there to ask, but another glance at the precarious waistline persuaded her. She slipped it round her narrow waist, fastening it at the back on the innermost buckle hole. The stiffened front widened into a long, flattering diamond shape. It was ideal for what she wanted, but she supposed she ought to ask Julius if she could wear it.

  ‘Julius?’ She emerged from the bedroom to find him in the hall. ‘Is it all right if—?’

  She faltered into silence, taken aback by the look on his face. He was staring at her with an expression she’d never seen before. Did he disapprove?

  ‘I’m sorry—I’ll take it off if you think I shouldn’t wear it.’

  ‘Wear what?’

  ‘Fiona’s belt.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked as though what she was asking him suddenly made no sense to him. Then he said, ‘No. That’s fine.’

  There was a silence.

  She asked anxiously, ‘Do I look all right?’

  ‘More than all right,’ he said quietly, his eyes directly holding hers. She thought he was going to say something else, but he just looked at her. Then he smiled. ‘Can you cook dressed like that?’

  She grinned back, relieved that the curious moment had passed. ‘Oh, I’ll wear the apron. You are sure it’s OK about Fiona’s belt?’

  ‘I don’t think she’d remember it even if she saw it,’ he said dismissively. ‘That girl has more clothes than anyone I’ve ever met.’

  While she went back into the kitchen, Julius decided to set the table in the other room. She was asked to inspect it when he had finished and followed him into the enormous sitting-room, one end of which served as a dining area. She cast an approving eye over the gleaming silver, and polished mahogany surface of the table. ‘What about candles?’ she asked. ‘Do you have any?’ He bent down to look in the sideboard, and she found herself watching him, the way his shirt was stretched taut across the shoulders as he bent forward, and the way his hair touched the back of his collar, which was open at the neck. He had changed into a pair of dark trousers and clean white shirt and she saw almost with disappointment that he was now respectably shod. There had been something extraordinarily attractive about him wandering around barefoot when she had first arrived. The casual Julius—perhaps even the real Julius—not the office tycoon. She had a sudden overwhelming urge to touch him, and to have him touch her… She gave a little shiver and turned away, shocked by the ridiculous intensity of it.