Promoted to Wife (Destiny Bay)

by Conrad, Helen

  He frowned, remembering the chaos of the last time the children had come for a visit—a direct result of which had been the resignation of three members of the staff.

  “I'm ready to do anything,” Terry prompted irrepressibly. “I'm a hard worker. No job too big or too small.”

  Okay, why not? He mused silently as he stared at her. Why couldn't a butler take over child control? After all, the job included providing a comfortable atmosphere in the house. If he told her that was what he wanted, she would go off like a firecracker. Obviously, she hadn’t come here to babysit. But if he put it in other terms…

  “Okay, I get the picture,” he said. “You really want this job and you want to prove to me that you can handle it. Right?”

  She looked suspicious, not sure where he was going with this. But she said, “Right,” and waited to see.

  “You’re ready to take on just about anything?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

  She flushed, mistaking his intent. “Well, almost anything. ‘Playmate’ has never been a part of a butler's job description.”

  He couldn't resist teasing her. “Are you sure about that?” he asked as though thoroughly disappointed. “Not even in the fine print?”

  “Not even.” She was desperate for this job, but not quite that desperate. “Not ever,” she said emphatically.

  He was careful not to grin. He didn’t want her to think he was making fun of her. “I see.” He pondered that for a moment. “Okay, tell you what. I’m considering giving it a try for twenty-four hours.”

  “Oh.” She looked suddenly radiant. “Oh, thank you Mr. Carrington. You won’t be sorry. I promise.”

  “I didn’t commit to that yet,” he warned her. “I’m considering it.”

  “Twenty-four hours would be perfect. I know I can convince you.”

  His mouth opened, but he closed it again. What could he say? Now he felt guilty. Twenty-four hours would get them through the awkward period of his children being here without a full staff. Once maids began to show up, he’d have plenty of babysitters to use. He could let her go easily. In the meantime…

  He was about to start talking about plans, but a shout from the backyard interrupted him. With a quick look at Rick, Terry bounced off the bed and went through the French doors onto the balcony to see who was hailing them.

  “Hey, lady, you want your chimneys swept or not? I been banging on this door for half an hour here and no one's answering.”

  Standing on the lawn below was a small man all dressed in black, brushes and shovels over his shoulder, black smudges on his cheeks, and a tall, shiny top hat on his head. Terry was enchanted by him at first sight.

  “Just a minute,” she called down. “I'll let you in.”

  Here was her chance to show the boss how well she could manage. “I'll take care of this,” she told Rick, “and then we can come to terms over what exactly you’ll expect from me.”

  He didn't say a word but rose to follow her down the stairs and through the kitchen to the back door, which she unlocked quickly.

  “Come on in,” she told the dusty chimney sweep, standing back and holding the door. The man was a real work of art—a walking, talking period piece right out of Dickens. She turned to where Rick stood, halfway across the kitchen, to see how he liked the costumed worker.

  Their gazes met, a silent laugh, and she almost felt as though he'd spoken. A silent sense of connection rippled through the air between them. The smile froze on her lips as she looked at him, then abruptly looked away. She felt as though she'd seen too much of him or he'd seen too much of her, that she'd made herself somehow naked and vulnerable. Crazy feeling. She'd best lose it.

  It was the chimney sweep's voice that finally brought her back down to earth.

  “Well, I'm here, I am. Dusty Dan's the name.”

  She nodded at him absently, still feeling the searing heat of Rick's gaze—still not sure if it was his intensity or her own memories of her teenaged crush that had lit that fire. “I'm sure you are,” she murmured, then shook herself alert. “Oh, yes. I'm so glad you're here. Some of the fireplaces are in pretty sad shape.”

  Her fingers were trembling. What was wrong with her? How could she work for a man who could do this to her with merely a glance?

  The sweep walked farther into the kitchen and coal dust seemed to rise from his every movement. “I'm here to fix that for you,” he said cheerfully. “I do my best work up the chimney, making things clean for Santy Claus.” He chuckled at his own little joke, and though it was the middle of the summer and hardly time to be thinking of reindeer on the roof, the two of them smiled with him.

  “I've drawn up a list of the fireplaces and their conditions,” she said, forcing herself to be calm and searching through the stack of papers she'd piled on the table in the kitchen.

  “How many fireplaces have you got here?” the sweep asked, adjusting his burden from one shoulder to the other.

  “Five,” she told him with efficient certainty.

  “Six,” Rick corrected softly from behind.

  She swung around, chagrined. “Six? I counted five. I went through every room and I counted five.”

  “Six,” he insisted quietly. “Trust me. I've lived here more than you have.”

  So much for total control. Terry flushed, but kept her cool. “All right. Six.” She found her paper. “Here's a partial list, then. I'll have to find the other one for you a little later.”

  The chimney sweep went on his way and she looked at Rick. “A wonderful character, isn't he?” she asked, but her heart wasn't in it. She knew the time of reckoning was at hand. Was he going to agree to let her stay? This meant so much to her—and to her father.

  “Most of the servants are still on leave,” Rick said. “The cook won't be back until tomorrow.”

  “I know.” Did that mean that, once the sweep left, they were going to be alone in the house until the next day? Her pulse began to quicken at the thought, but he quickly put a damper on that.

  “My kids are coming this evening. Charles, the chauffeur, will be picking them up at their school in Santa Barbara.”

  The children. She'd forgotten all about them until he’d mentioned them a few minutes ago. She remembered having read of Rick's marriage. It had filled the society pages for weeks. He'd married a Southern heiress and they'd had two children, a girl and a boy. But hadn't she read something about a divorce?

  How was she going to deal with children? She'd never had much contact with kids. But then, kids were people, younger and shorter, maybe, but people just like anyone else. She imagined she'd do just fine.

  “Are they with their mother during the week?” she asked without thinking, then immediately regretted it. She didn't want to pry into things he'd rather she stayed out of.

  “Their mother is dead,” he said shortly, and she was sorry she'd brought it up. He looked at her struggling for words of sympathy and seemed to take pity on her. “She died of leukemia last year . It's been hard on the children.”

  “I'm sure it has been,” she said quietly.

  He was eyeing her again, looking like a man in the throes of indecision. She smiled brightly, hoping to tilt the scales.

  “Can you handle children?” he asked.

  She hesitated, but not for long. “Of course.”

  “And you're sure you can run a house like this?” he asked. “How much do you know about it?”

  “I'm fully qualified,” she said quickly, not really saying what she was fully qualified for. “I've run houses before.”

  Sure, her dorm room at college, the apartment she and her girlfriends had shared after school, the apartment in Hollywood where she lived alone. And the house she’d shared with Craig Annison for the last year or so. But thinking of that one made her wince.

  Not much experience, really, but Rick didn't need to know that. Let him think she'd been butling for years.

  “You really do know what you're doing?”

  Now, that she could answ
er sincerely, because she had the number one butler in the country on twenty-four-hour call. She couldn't fail! “Absolutely,” she promised.

  He stared at her for another long moment, then shook his head as though amazed at his own foolishness. “Go ahead. I'll give you one day, then we'll have a conference and see how things are going. Meet me back here tomorrow at 10 am. We’ll see how it looks from there.” The touch of steel was back in his voice. “But I won't hesitate to fire you if you don't measure up. You understand that?”

  “Of course!” Flushed with elation, she had an urge to throw her arms around his neck, but she stifled it. “I won't disappoint you.”

  She'd never have the chance to disappoint him, he thought grimly. He couldn't let her stay for longer than a day. It would never work out, he knew that. But she would be useful until he found someone else.

  All of which wasn't very fair to her. Maybe he would think of something else for her before he had to fire her. But he doubted it.

  Terry met his gaze and frowned, slightly puzzled. His eyes were dark and unreadable. Suddenly he seemed remote. Without another word, he turned and walked away, and as she watched him go she felt a quiver of unease dashing a bit of her triumph.

  CHAPTER THREE:

  A Butler’s Work Is Never Done

  Terry's father called her three times in the next two hours. Each time she answered the phone with butler-like aplomb, and each time he launched into some new concern without any preamble.

  “Mind you attend to the silverware before the master arrives,” he warned her on the first call. “Every piece should gleam with a new sheen on the day the family returns to Mar Vista.”

  Mar Vista was the name of the Carrington mansion. The estate had a beautiful view of the ocean, though it was somewhat obscured these days by the huge black oaks lining the driveway. The grounds swept out away from the house in shades of green, from the emerald-green lawns to the soft, clover green of the fields beyond, to the dark green of the forest. There was a cliff leading down to the rocky shore, where the Pacific came calling on stormy days. Terry was enchanted by the sea and the grounds. She’d always loved the place.

  But it looked like a good bet that the phone calls from her father would continue without let-up throughout her stay. She had her phone on vibrate and her pocket was quivering at least once an hour.

  “Make sure you put out the egg cups for breakfast,” he told her excitedly on another call. “Mr. Carrington does love his soft-boiled egg in the morning. Exactly three minutes, not a second more.”

  She agreed, even though she was sure the Mr. Carrington he was referring to was happily eating his soft-boiled eggs in the comfort of Queen Anne’s Acres in Santa Barbara right now. That was what she’d been told, at any rate.

  “Grandfather is preparing to come to live with us here,” Rick reassured her at one point. “That’s the plan. He’s still recuperating from a bad case of the flu. Some things just don’t want to heal right. But he’s bound and determined to get here.”

  “And you’re going to live here in the meantime?” she’d asked him.

  He’d shrugged. “For the summer, at any rate. Then, who knows?”

  That all seemed a little vague to her, but it wasn’t her grandfather, and it wasn’t her mansion. Her own father was the only one she was concerned about. This was all for him and she was glad to do it.

  “How many footmen do you have working for you?” her father demanded later, and was horrified to hear there weren't any at all. “How can you possibly run a house that size without footmen? Who will take care of the deliveries? Who will wait at table?”

  The calls didn't annoy her. Terry knew he was just trying to keep in touch. She also knew her father had no doubt that she was going to be a great butler. She only hoped she could live up to his expectations—and her own goals.

  She raced around the house, putting bedrooms in order for the two children, dusting the furniture, making sure the house was presentable.

  Rick went out for an hour. He came back carrying books and a heavy briefcase. On his way in, he stopped by the kitchen, where Terry was making up inventory lists.

  “Got anything you want me to do?” he asked, and it seemed to her that he really meant it. “Any heavy stuff to be lifted or tall ladders to climb?”

  She gave him a skeptical look, wondering what his angle might be. Was it just her, or was he being a little too nice to the help? She wasn’t used to getting this sort of consideration from the men she worked with.

  She hesitated for a moment, tempted. There were some heavy logs that needed to come in for the fireplaces. She would have loved to ask for his help there. But she quickly stifled the impulse, knowing that his offer was just another sign that he really didn't think she could do this job. Nope, she had to do things on her own. That was the only way she would ever be able to prove herself.

  “No thanks,” she said, keeping her eyes on her lists. “I can manage.”

  He disappeared into the den. She saw him going over papers when she peeked in. It seemed that Rick Carrington wasn't quite the playboy she'd pictured him to be. He was actually turning out to be something of a workaholic.

  He glanced up and nodded, as though he was thinking about something else and hardly recognized her. And that, she thought to herself as she went on down the hall, was probably a good thing.

  She slipped out shortly after lunch and drove down into the shopping district. Destiny Bay was a typical California beach town, with its little pastel houses, a fully operational marina, beachfront shops, a downtown section with two department stores and several wealthy enclaves.

  Terry had spent most of the summers of her teenaged years here, when her father was working for the elder Carrington and the place hadn’t changed much. She smiled as she recognized stores from the old days, and especially as she passed by Mickey’s on the Bay, a simple seaside café that was run by a second cousin of hers. She didn’t have time to stop in now, but she made a note to do so soon. She hadn’t seen her in years, but Mickey had always been one of her favorite relatives.

  She found a quick-print shop easily and had business cards made. “Terry Yardley, Professional Butler, White Glove Service Guaranteed” , with her cell phone number. She smiled, looking them over. That ought to do it.

  She raced back to the Carrington estate and began hunting down her boss. The car was still in the driveway, but she couldn’t find him anywhere. That was odd. She went upstairs and looked out from the music room, a round space that was all windows and looked out over the entire estate. There was someone outlined in black against the blue sky, standing on the cliffs that jutted out over the surf below.

  Something about the way he was standing there, slightly leaning out, as though against the wind, made her heart skip a beat. He wouldn’t jump, would he?

  She bit her lower lip. What a dumb thing to think. The man had it all——money and a place in society that pretty much let him do whatever he wanted to do. That was the way it looked from here at any rate.

  “Don’t be silly,” she muttered to herself.

  And yet—a memory of the way his eyes had glazed over with sadness swam back into her mind. There was something putting a damper on his happiness. That must have been what had given her the idea he might be contemplating a leap into the sea.

  “Fat chance,” she muttered as she began to make her way down the stairs. And just to prove it, she decided to go out onto the cliffs herself and see if he needed anything. Just to be safe.

  “Hey there,” she called as she came within hailing distance. “I’ve got something for you.”

  He spun and stared at her, almost as though she’d awakened him from a dream. “No kidding,” he said, but he looked puzzled, as though he wasn’t sure why she had come out such a way from the house and wished she hadn’t. Now she really felt foolish, because all she’d brought him was the card she’d had printed up.

  Then he shook his head, shaking the mood away, and smiled at her. “You
came back. I thought you’d gone.”

  “Gone? Why would I go?”

  He shrugged. “I saw you drive off. I thought maybe you’d had second thoughts about this whole butler thing.”

  “Au contraire,” she told him with a flip look. “In fact, I went to get these made. Look.” She handed one to him.

  He stared at the card for a moment, then looked at her and laughed. “So that makes it official, does it? Now that you have cards.”

  “Exactly.” Her smile was definitely impertinent and she meant it to be. “And who are you to say otherwise?”

  He shook his head, bemused. “I wish all careers were that easy to establish,” he said. “Just print up a card and off you go.”

  “Why not?”

  His gaze met hers and he frowned, searching her eyes. “Why not?” he whispered. “Why the hell not?”

  There was something in his intensity that disturbed her. She knew she ought to head back toward the house. But she couldn’t go yet. She couldn’t just leave him here.

  “So what are you doing out here on the cliff?” she asked.

  That was not a question a servant ought to ask and he was obviously not going to give her a real answer.

  “Thinking,” he said, as though that covered all bases. He gazed out over the sea with a distant look, seeing things he wasn’t going to explain. “Just thinking.” He shaded his eyes, looking further.

  “You know what I used to do when I was a kid and I got upset?” he said softly, almost to himself. “When troubles got too heavy? When I didn’t think I could cope?” He snapped his fingers in the wind. “I used to grab a board and go surfing at the point.”

  He turned and looked at her, his eyes bright with sudden anticipation. “In fact, I think I’ll do that right now,” he said.