"And how long is that going to be, may I ask?"
Alexander leaned his chin on his hand, his eyes almost concealed by his enviably thick lashes. That, Miss Gordon, is something I'm beginning to worry about a great deal. "
Her dark eyes opened wide.
"Surely another month will be long enough?"
"We'll have to wait and see," he said cryptically, and helped her on with her coat.
The two applicants who arrived in the afternoon were far more promising, one an attractive young woman in her thirties, the other a very pleasant lady with grey hair and a no-nonsense look about her.
Both women were sent out to Sophie's office to _demonstrate their efficiency at typing, and after the second lady had taken her leave Sophie rushed into
Alexander's office to demand a verdict.
"Well?" she asked.
"Any good?"
"Your eagerness is scarcely flattering," he said acidly, 'but I suppose I must admit that both women were excellent. "
"So which one do you want?"
Alexander turned from the window to look at her broodingly.
"You know that already, Sophie. I want you. But since I may not have you, I think the most sensible choice is Mrs. Rogers, the widow."
Sophie ignored the sudden leap of her pulse at his first words in her relief to hear his approval of the pleasant Mrs. Rogers.
"I'm sure she'll be excellent," she assured him.
"And unlikely to find Perry chasing her round her typewriter, either," agreed
Alexander.
"I've never had any trouble on that score!"
"For reasons previously explained." Alexander came swiftly round the desk to take her by the shoulders.
"I laid the law down originally for our respective families' sakes. Now----'
He paused, looking down deep into her eyes.
"Now I think my motives might be altogether more personal."
"Shall I go out and come in again?" asked a patient voice behind them, and
Alexander relinquished a very hot and bothered Sophie to explain to Perry that a new secretary had been found.
"And is she young and nubile?" Perry gave Sophie an outrageous wink as she passed him on her way out.
"Sorry, old chap," drawled Alexander.
"Grey haired widow-lady with sons older than you."
Thank God for that," said Perry piously.
"It'll be nice to come in here without having to knock first."
Sophie fled, feeling the sooner she left Paget & Sons, the better all round.
Over dinner that night Dr Gordon reiterated his worries about Ilex Cottage as a suitable home for his daughter.
"I only hope you won't be too lonely there, Sophie," he said, his eyes anxious.
"Silly, I suppose, but I can't help worrying. I shall miss you, pet."
"That's what Alexander said, too," answered Sophie, rather wishing she hadn't as David Gordon's eyes narrowed.
"But he won't for long, of course. We found a replacement for me today."
"So you'll be able to fly the nest quite soon, then." Dr Gordon went on eating his dinner, looking dubious.
"But Ilex Cottage won't be ready for a while, will it?"
"No, but I can lodge at Greenacre while I finish the decorating and make curtains, and so on. Dad could I take my own bed with me, do you think?"
She was assured she could take anything from the house she wanted, and jumped up to hug him affectionately.
"Unless you'd like new things," he said.
"I think I can spare the pennies for a few sticks of furniture."
Sophie assured him Ilex Cottage would look odd with contemporary things.
"Grail says I can have one or two pieces from Greenacre, too, so I'll be fine.
It's such a minute place I shall need much."
There were less, disturbing encounters with Alexander for a while, since
Sophie flatly refused to lunch with him more than once a week, and took to
_spending every weekend with her grandmother so she could get on with her home-decorating in Ilex Cottage, leaving Kate to show prospective buyers over the Gordon home. The sale had been put in the hands of Sam Jefford, rather to Sophie's surprise. He came to measure the house himself, and afterwards rather diffidently suggested a meal somewhere the following evening, since they would soon be working together. Sophie agreed, finding she enjoyed her evening with him more than expected. Sam Jefford was restful company, a complete contrast with either Julian or Alexander. Time spent socially with
Alexander smacked of armed truce these days, full of unsaid words and fraught with the feeling that any moment he might brush aside the barrier she tried to keep between them. Julian, on the other hand, took her for granted,
Sophie knew, and she was quite untroubled by the fact.
Consequently, Sam Jefford's eagerness to please was rather refreshing.
Sophie suspected it stemmed from his recent harrowing experience of divorce.
He was lonely and showed it. It was an interesting pastime to analyse the differences in all three men while dining with Sam Jefford, or during a trip to the theatre with Julian. It was disturbing, however, to realise that during any time spent with Alexander, in work or out of it, she never gave a thought to either of the other men. Or to anyone else. Which made Sophie sorry she had promised to remain at home with her father until the wedding.
It was high time she was up and away. It just wouldn't do to go any further down the path she seemed to be travelling with Alexander these days, because she was convinced that only heartbreak could lie at the end of it. Once she had made the break and left Deansbury, everything would be better, she told herself. On her own in Ilex Cottage, she would be safe.
"I hear you've been seen dining with a new man lately," said Alexander one morning.
"Getting to know my new boss," said Sophie.
"Not too well, I trust?"
"As well as advisable between employer and employee." Sophie met his cool green gaze serenely.
Alexander, who was dressed for London in a dark overcoat and grey suit, gathered up his briefcase and strode to the door.
"For the first time I feel pleased that you're leaving me, Sophie."
She stared at him, affronted.
"No insult intended," he assured her, with a distinctly tigerish smile.
"Since you seem to set limits on professional relationships, I look forward to the day when your relationship with me, Sophie, will be a purely personal one." He gave her a brief ironic bow and departed for his conference, leaving Sophie completely routed.
Alexander's absence gave Sophie a golden opportunity to give Mrs. Rogers a teach-in on the routine at Paget & Sons. The new secretary was a quick study, and showed signs of proving highly satisfactory.
Her keen sense of humour gave her a head start with Perry, her interest in his children quickly endeared her to George Huntley, while the young draughts men and trainees were her slaves from the start because Mrs. Rogers brought batches of home-made cakes to serve at coffee-time.
"One up on you, Sophie," remarked Perry, mouth _full one day.
"Why have you never made cake for us?"
Sophie told him bluntly that no cake she made ever got past Matt and Mark, and now they were away she saw no point in adding to either her father's waistline or her own. Perry regarded the area in question and gave his opinion of her shape in terms that made her blush, adding that his wasn't the only eye in the office which took pleasure in dwelling on her charms.
"Only for God's sake don't tell Alexander I said so," he begged.
"Himself is incredibly touchy where you're concerned these days. A touch of the green- eye, would you say? A scalp too many dangling at your belt of late?"
Sophie's dignified rebuttal was rather impaired by being called to the telephone to Sam Jefford, whose request for her company at lunch sounded untypically urgent.
"Is it all right if I go off to lunch a little early
?" she asked reluctantly, self-conscious under Perry's mischievous blue gaze.
"Mrs Rogers will hold the fort for me."
"Off you go, darling." He wagged his finger. "While the cat's away, and all that."
Sam Jefford was waiting for Sophie in a quiet teashop well away from the market square, an establishment rarely patronised by the businessmen of the town. Sophie had chosen it deliberately, not happy about the ethics of lunching with her new employer in the George while she was still employed by
Alexander. Not, she assured herself, that it was any business of the latter.
Nor was her choice of rendezvous influenced by the desire to meet Sam
Jefford unseen by anyone she knew. But she was worried about what had brought him thirty miles to see her in the middle of a working day.
Her apprehension increased the moment she saw Sam. He wore an aura of uneasiness about him, despite the diffident charm of his smile.
"Hello," she said cordially, as she joined him. "What brings you to
Deansbury at this time of day? Business?"
"Certainly not pleasure, Sophie." He stared unseeingly at the menu.
"The Welsh rarebit's quite good here," she said gently.
He pushed the menu aside.
"I'm really not very hungry. I'll just have some coffee, I think."
Sophie smiled encouragingly.
"Snags with the sale of the house?"
"No." He met her eyes with a desperate look.
"I've struck a snag in quite another area, actually. With my secretary."
Sophie's heart sank.
"Oh, dear."
He swallowed convulsively, staring down into the coffee the waitress put in front of him.
"I feel so bad about all this, but, well, you see the girl who works for me now ' " The pregnant lady. "
"Quite. Well, I automatically assumed she would be leaving for good, you see. But she isn't. I mean, she doesn't want to. She wants to come back after the baby's born."
Sophie regarded his down bent head in silence. "You didn't know?"
He looked up miserably.
"I'm pretty hopeless where women are concerned. It seems she expected to all along she's not married, you see. She needs the job even has a sister who'll fill in until she gets back."
Sophie reached across and patted his hand.
"Don't worry, Sam." She smiled a little.
"I'll find something else."
He covered the hand with his own.
"Does this mean you'll stop seeing me now? Socially, I mean?"
"Of course not." Sophie finished her coffee and stood up.
"Anyway, I'd better get back now. I'll give you a ring when I'm settled in
Ilex Cottage. You can come round for a drink, or something."
Sam Jefford followed her outside, looking forlorn. She smiled at him cheerfully, bade him a brisk goodbye and made her way back to Paget's, feeling forlorn herself. What on earth was she to do now? she thought in dismay. "
Dr Gordon was very-'definite with his views when she told him later that the new job in Arlesford had fallen through. He strongly disapproved of his daughter's taking off to live alone with no job prospect.
"Since you've been in such a tearing hurry to organise your own replacement at Paget's," he said forcibly, 'you'd better stay with Kate and me at the
Chantry until you find yourself something to do in reach of Ilex Cottage. "
Sophie could have wept. Instead she swallowed hard on her response to this unusually dictatorial pronouncement and prepared herself for an evening devoted to answering the telephone, because it was Dr Gordon's night on call, with the added delights of preparing a casserole for the next day and tackling a pile of ironing, none of which came into her top ten of favourite occupations. Her father was called out before he'd had time to swallow his coffee, leaving Sophie alone to ponder bitterly on the irony of fate which gave out with one hand and took back with the other. Mrs. Rogers had proved so instantly efficient that Sophie had taken the plunge and informed Perry she was leaving the following Friday, which meant only another week at her present salary.
Alexander was a very fair employer who expected his pound of flesh, but also expected to pay generously for the privilege, and Sophie had amassed a comforting little nest egg. But it had been meant for such contingencies as new curtains and carpets for Ilex Cottage, not for tiding her over until, or if, she found a new job.
Sophie answered the telephone several times during the evening, sometimes to a worried patient, sometimes to her father, who usually called in to check where he was needed next. The list was larger than usual, enough to keep Dr
Gordon occupied all evening due to the distances involved in reaching patients in outlying districts, and Sophie, had prepared her casserole and was half-way through the ironing when the doorbell rang. She sighed, hoping it was riot some patient local enough to call on her father in person, then stared in astonishment as she found Alexander on the doorstep, looking tired and pale, dressed in the clothes he'd worn to London.
"May I come in?" he asked.
"Of course." Sophie fought down a surge of excitement at the sight of him and led the way through to _the kitchen.
"Do you mind if I carry on ironing?" she said, glancing up at him curiously as she renewed her attack on the pile of shirts.
"Something wrong, Alexander?"
He watched her, the glare of the strip light striking sparks of gold from his thick fair hair, and emphasising the marks of fatigue beneath his eyes and the silver-gilt stubble on his jaw.
"I called in at the office before going home, Sophie. Perry left me a memo with various bits of information, the most important of which was the news that you're leaving next week."
Fool that I am, thought Sophie. She nodded.
"Yes. Mrs. Rogers is an absolute marvel, so I couldn't see the point of staying longer. She's coming in again a couple of days beforehand for the changeover."
"I see." Alexander subsided on one of the tall stools.
"Jefford's getting impatient, I suppose."
Sophie folded a 5hirt carefully.
"Not exactly. It seems I counted my chickens far too soon. Sam Jefford came over to Deansbury today to tell me his secretary wants her job back once her baby's born. She's not married and needs the money. So, I shall have to start job-hunting; very good for me, I suppose. A new experience."
Alexander slid off the stool and unplugged the iron, then took her by the hands.
"I could offer you an alternative, Sophie."
She stared up at him in surprise, her pulse beginning to race as she she met the molten gleam in his green eyes. Her breathing quickened and she ran the tip of her tongue over suddenly dry lips as the hurried movement of her breasts drew Alexander's _gaze like a magnet.
"Sophie His voice was hoarse as he pulled her against him and kissed her fiercely, one arm almost cracking her ribs, his free hand moving over her breasts as his tongue slid into her mouth. Sophie yielded to him with a helpless moan, her arms sliding under his jacket to hold him closer, and he flattened his hand on the base of her spine, locking her hips against his as he pulled her on tiptoe against him.
Breathing like a marathon runner, Alexander picked her up and stood with her cradled in his arms, his mouth demanding a response Sophie answered without reserve. She locked her arms round his neck, returning his kisses fiercely, submerged in her own delirium, until at last Alexander gently lowered her to her bare feet once more.
Contact with the cold quarry tile of the kitchen floor brought Sophie very literally back to earth. Alexander smiled crookedly, and smoothed her tumbled hair, touched his finger to her swollen bottom lip.
"Why did I never dream you'd be so inflammatory, I wonder?"
Sophie tried hard to control her breathing.
"I could say the same thing," she muttered.
"Then it's mutual? I'm not fantasising about this this explosion every time
I touch you?"
> "No," she said grudgingly.
"You don't enjoy it?"
"I didn't say that."
Alexander perched on the stool, drawing her close to stand between his outstretched legs. Sophie fidgeted, very much aware that neither of them had recovered from their heated exchange.
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