The Feisty Fiancée

by Jessica Steele

  'You'd like the car keys?"

  'I'll take a taxi.'

  That probably meant he was celebrating some business deal with a glass or two of something! `If you're sure?' she checked-this to a man she was growing positive was sure in all he did.

  He didn't deign to answer, and they were going up to their rooms in the lift when he told her, `Make certain you have something to eat yourself.' Yancie got out of the lift on her floor and she didn't deign to answer.

  She was in her room when she began to wonder why the man had the power to-without effort-niggle her so. Probably, she pondered, because she had never met a man like him before. The man was an automaton. `Make certain you have something to eat yourself,' he'd said. Well, of course, she would.

  Though, having eaten in the hotel's dining room by herself at lunchtime, she had little wish to dine by herself that night. But the only person she knew in this neck of the woods was Thomson Wakefield, and he was dining elsewhere, thank you very much.

  She paused then and stood stock-still as the thought suddenly came to her-was that why she was feeling all niggled? Because he hadn't asked her to dine with him?

  Oh, come on! As if she wanted to dine with him, for goodness' sake! To do so would mean she was keen for his company, that she liked him. Why, she couldn't even stand the man! Having indisputably established that fact, Yancie did a mental trawl of girls she'd been at boarding-school with, but, before she could come up with a name, she remembered Charlie Merrett. She reached for the phone.

  'Fennia,' she said when her cousin answered, `have we got Charlie Merrett's phone number between us?'

  Fennia had it in her address book, and not only gave it to her but said Greville had phoned to say if Yancie got in touch and said her mother had found her would she forgive him? `Apparently Aunt Ursula was particularly hell-bent on finding you,' Fennia added.

  Yancie had a ten-minute conversation with her cousin and told her to tell their half-cousin that she understood perfectly; that she'd probably have done the same in similar circumstances, and that she forgave him completely.

  After her phone call to Fennia, Yancie rang Charles Merrett's number. 'Yancie!' he exclaimed when he heard her. 'How're things going? Lovely to hear from you. Still in London?"

  'At this moment, I'm nearer to you than I am to London. You're not free to have dinner, are you?"

  'Am I not!' he answered eagerly. `Just give me a minute to cancel my arrangements for tonight, and I'll be with you.'

  'Oh, I wouldn't want you to cancel…'

  'I would! I can see my male friends any old time,' he said warmly.

  'You're sure?"

  'Where are you?'

  Because it seemed she was staying in a hotel in an opposite direction from where Charlie lived, Yancie said she'd make her own way to the restaurant he'd suggested.

  'I couldn't let you,' he argued.

  'Yes, you could,' she laughed, and had only one other question to ask before she agreed to meet him at the appointed place at eight-thirty. `Does this restaurant have a car park?'

  'That's a small part of the reason why it's so popular,' he answered.

  Yancie took a shower feeling pleased, since it sounded as if the restaurant they were going to was very up-market, that she had brought the dress with her that she had. After her shower, she dressed her white-blonde hair in a knot on top of her head, applied the small amount of make-up she normally wore, and slipped into the long-sleeved ankle-length black lace dress with its black silk petticoat lining.

  She left her room knowing that she looked good and, strangely, half wishing that Thomson Wakefield could see her. Well, she defended, when trying to work out why she should think anything so ridiculous, she wouldn't have said her brown uniform was the most flattering garment she had ever ownedbut it was the only thing he had ever seen her in or was likely to, for that matter.

  Yancie had a small, but only a very small, tussle with her conscience on whether she, like her employer, should take a taxi. But why, for goodness' sake? She had a perfectly good car out there doing nothing, and she knew that she wouldn't have any trouble parking it. It wasn't as if she was likely to bump into Thomson Wakefield or anything like that, was she? Nor, since he'd taken a taxi, which indicated he intended to do a little celebrating, was it likely that he'd be back before she was.

  Charlie Merrett was just as she remembered him from the last time she'd seen him-about a year ago. Tall, handsome and around the same age as Yancie, she found him as willing and eager to please as ever he had been.

  'You're gorgeous, Yancie. Absolutely gorgeous,' he said enthusiastically as they entered the restaurant.

  Who wouldn't be fond of him? `And so are you,' she teased him, and they both laughed. Then, as the head waiter came up to them, so Yancie looked about-and nearly went into heart failure. There, across the room, wining and dining at a table with several other people, sat Thomson Wakefield. And, while he was looking straight at her, at the same time he managed to look straight through her.

  Oh, crumbs. While he wasn't acknowledging her, Yancie knew he had registered her. Too late now to wish she'd taken a taxi-oh, help-she had the firm's car out there. A car, she swiftly realised, which, since Thomson Wakefield had already started on his meal, he was bound to see when, as was likely, he left the restaurant before she did!

  It fleetingly crossed her mind to pop outside and park the car somewhere else. But that was just a thought in the panic of the moment. For heaven's sake, hadn't he said-no, ordered her to have something to eat? Well, that was exactly what she was doing-obeying orders. He hadn't specified where she should eat, had he?

  Yancie was profoundly thankful just the same that the waiter led her and Charlie to a table in a small alcove. At least she was spared having to look at the boss man while she ate. Though that too bothered her because, being unable to see him, she started to feel all on edge that any moment she would feel a hand on her shoulder and hear a cold voice request that she hand over the car keys.

  She pushed Thomson Wakefield out of her head and made herself concentrate on Charlie Merrett. She had asked him out to dinner, so the least she could do was to play the game. Though in truth Charlie seemed happy enough just to be there.

  'So what have you been doing?' she asked, and the next hour went by with the two of them catching up on the happenings of the last twelve months.

  Yancie discovered that, while finding it impossible to lie to a friend, she was avoiding telling Charlie that she had left home and had a job-even though it was highly unlikely that he would bump into her mother and comment on it.

  They were tucking into a fine pudding when Charlie looked across the table and suddenly recalled, `You never said what you were doing in my part of the world.'

  Yancie took a spoonful of the fruit and meringue concoction while she thought how best to answer. `Someone I know was giving a speech at a conference centre up this way,' she smiled. `It was quite something.'

  'That sort of thing-making a speech would terrify me,' he said. `Is your pudding all right?' No wonder they were all so fond of Charlie.

  It was about half past ten, when they had drunk the last of their coffee, that Yancie told Charlie how super it was to see him again but that she'd been up early that morning and thought she'd go back to her hotel and her bed.

  'You'll give my love to Fennia and Astra,' he beamed, and as Yancie promised she would she was bracing herself to walk through the restaurant where he was dining. Should she give him a smile or, following his example, do a bit of looking straight through him?

  It irritated her that this man should do this to her confidence and make her so that she had to think how to act rather than follow her natural instincts. However, the situation of whether to smile or whether to look straight through Thomson Wakefield didn't arrive because, when she took a glance over to where he had been sitting, she saw that he wasn't there. His party had gone.

  She and Charlie hugged and kissed farewell in a friendly fashion, know
ing, without pain, that it could be another twelve months before they saw each other again, and Yancie began her journey back to the hotel.

  She'd had an extremely pleasant evening with Charlie Merrett, but it was not thoughts of Charlie that occupied her on that drive-but Thomson Wakefield. Had he gone back to the hotel-had he gone on somewhere?

  Gone on somewhere, she decided. Grief, it was only a little after half past ten. On a Saturday night, too! Of course, his dinner had been of the business variety, but corporate entertaining-she was sure she'd heard that phrase somewhere didn't end when the clock struck ten; she, without the smallest experience of `corporate entertaining', felt she could be positive about that. But, in any case, she suddenly felt she could be equally positive that if Thomson Wakefield had decided to return to the hotel and, on his way out, had spotted the company Jaguar, then she wouldn't at all have put it past him to have come back in and ordered her to drive him back to the hotel. And she, eager as she was to keep this job, would have had to comply.

  By the time Yancie was parking at the hotel she had drummed up a fine head of hate against the brute. She was, though, by then, fully confident that he had moved on to continue his evening's entertainment elsewhere. Of a certainty, since she was going straight up to her bed, she ran not the smallest risk of seeing him again that night. The next time she saw him would be tomorrow morning-or so she thought.

  It was a cold night and once she had locked up the Jaguar Yancie didn't hang about but hotfooted it into the hotel. Hurrying in, passing a lounge area on her way to Reception, she saw Thomson Wakefield, and stopped dead in her tracks. Their eyes locked full-on. He didn't smile-when did he ever?

  Tearing her glance away, and without acknowledging him either, Yancie went swiftly on and out of his sight. She all at once felt all shivery and shaky inside, and she just knew that it had nothing to do with the cold weather.

  It had been a shock to come in and see him sitting there nursing a Scotch. What rotten luck; another five minutes and he might have gone to bed. Yancie asked for her key, and was all of a sudden indecisive again, her normal confidence fractured. Should she walk back and say something? What? Goodnight? What if he didn't answer? She'd feel a proper idiot.

  To the devil with him. Key in hand, she turned from the reception desk-and discovered that her shocks for the day weren't over. There, endorsing her thought that a few minutes more and her employer would have finished his Scotch and made tracks for his bed, stood Thomson Wakefield, waiting for her.

  It was a shock too that, instead of going straight over to the lifts, he was standing near, while she claimed her key, ready to walk over to the lifts with her.

  'Good evening?' she enquired as they reached the lifts and he pressed the call button.

  Thomson Wakefield didn't answer but looked at her, his glance taking in her blacklace-covered arms and upper chest, her lace dress with its modesty lining. `You're not afraid of catching your death?' he enquired evenly in return, his glance going up from the fine column of her throat to her piled-on-top of-her-head ash-blonde hair. And suddenly, as his glance fell again to her elegant dress, Yancie just knew that he knew that she would never have been able to afford such an expensive item on what Addison Kirk were paying her.

  'Er…' She felt left-footed again. `Um, I forgot to bring a coat,' she mumbled-and was suddenly cross. Hang it all, she sounded more like a fourteen-year-old than the confident twenty-two-year-old she, up until then, had considered herself to be.

  'Your uniform jacket didn't quite go?'

  Was she being reprimanded? Or-she didn't believe it-was he teasing her? Yancie looked up into his grey eyes-there was something there, but she couldn't be sure. But his reference to her uniform reminded her, if reminding she needed, that she was there only because of her job-the job she very much wanted to keep.

  'I haven't been drinking!' she exclaimed hurriedly, apropos of absolutely nothing.

  'Did I suggest you had' he answered mildly, and the lift came and Yancie was glad to step inside.

  She watched as, plainly knowing which floor she was on, he pressed the two buttons, and the lift started to ascend. `You did insist that I had some dinner,' she thought to excuse that she'd been out to dine using the company car.

  'So I did,' he agreed, but, his tone cooling slightly, he added, It didn't take you long to pick somebody up.'

  Pick somebody up! Of all the nerve! All too obviously, this was his way of referring to her escort of the evening! Yancie, who was trying her very best to behave, felt the restraint she had put herself under all day getting away from her. Confound it, she had been good all day and on her best behaviour-well, mostly-and, while she tried hard to let his remark go, she couldn't. The words just would not stay down.

  'I thought he looked a bit of all right,' she replied-and dared to look at him. And just had to go on looking at him when, definitely yes, most definitely-she saw his lips twitch.

  'So how long have you known him?' he asked.

  'We were at nursery school together,' she owned. `I rang him.' And suddenly she found she was laughing. She heard Thomson laugh too, stared at him, mesmerised, saw the way his mouth picked up at the corners, saw his white even teeth-and was never more glad when the lift stopped at her floor and the door opened. `Goodnight,' she said quickly-and went swiftly along to her room.

  Lifts never used to affect her like that, but really-and it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that, coincidentally, she had seen Thomson Wakefield's smile for the first time, heard him laugh for the first time-she felt all sort of breathless and fluttery inside.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As IF to make amends for the cold, damp day yesterday had been, Sunday dawned bright and sunny. Yancie was up early and went to shower and dress.

  She had no idea what time they were leaving and realised she should have asked Thomson last… Thomson? When had she started to think of him as Thomson? Feeling slightly staggered that her employer's first name rolled around so effortlessly in her thoughts, Yancie knew she had better watch her tongue. The chief of the whole shoot was just going to love it, wasn't he, if his mere driver went up to him with a `Where are we going to today, Thomson?' type of comment.

  Yancie couldn't help but smile as she visualised the affronted expression on his face. But, no time for dawdling. If he wanted to be off straight away, she stood a very real chance of missing her breakfast.

  She decided she felt comfortable with her hair up, so pinned it that way. But she left her name tag off, then went down for something to eat. She entered the hotel's dining room and at once saw Thomson, and realised she should have known that he hadn't got where he was by sleeping until midday.

  She manufactured up a smile and went over to the table. He stood up and politely waited until she was seated before resuming his seat, but looked at her expectantly when, something very belatedly occurring to her, she exclaimed, `Oho'

  'Oh?' he queried, and she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.

  'I'll move!' she said abruptly, reaching for her shoulder bag which she'd draped over her chair.

  'You're not comfortable here?' he enquired smoothly.

  'I've just realised I should be sitting somewhere else,' she said, getting up. `You should?"

  'Do your drivers usually sit with you on these sort of trips?' she asked hurriedly. `Shouldn't I be sitting in some lowly corner?'

  A muscle moved at the side of his mouth, as if she had amused him. But he didn't smile but, still in that same even tone, advised, `Sit down, Miss Dawkins; I just don't see you ever sitting in some lowly corner.'

  She wasn't sure what she was supposed to make of that, but hesitated to sit down again. `This is embarrassing,' she mumbled.

  'Not half as embarrassing as it would be for me if you took yourself off and sat yourself elsewhere,' he assured her.

  Yancie sat down. More, she began to realise-as she ate her way through cereal, bacon and egg, followed by toast and marmalade because finding so unexpectedly
that Thomson Wakefield, her taciturn employer, had a great deal of charm.

  What else could it be but charm that had made him say he'd be embarrassed if she didn't breakfast at the same table? It wouldn't bother him a scrap if she moved to another table and left him sitting there. From what she knew of him, she'd have said he wouldn't give a hoot where she ate-or whatever table she left his to go and eat at. She could go and perch on the roof for all he cared.

  They did not hang about once breakfast was over. But, on the road to London once more, Yancie started to discount entirely that she had for a moment thought Thomson Wakefield had an ounce of charm. He'd got his head stuck in some paperwork-plainly only needing a driver so he didn't waste precious working time by having to drive himself-and had barely moved himself to do more than grunt at her since then.

  She glanced at him in the rear-view mirror-his eyes seemed to be focused somewhere at the back of her head. He flicked his eyes upwards-and gave her a sour look. Yancie studied the road up in front, and took pains not to look at her passenger again. Until, that was, about an hour later when the car phone rang.

  Her eyes shot in panic to the mirror, and met his full-on. And, of course, he knew what her panic was about. Because, even as he was reaching for the instrument, he was enquiring, `Are you in if it's your mother?' Sarcastic swine!

  Fortunately, he then gave his attention over to the telephone call, which was for him, and she was spared having to make any reply. All too clearly Thomson thought she was the one who had given her mother this telephone number-Yancie wasn't likely to tell him that she hadn't. He must never know that it had been Greville and that Greville Alford was her halfcousin. From there Thomson would quickly, and rightly, conclude it was only because of Greville that she had been taken on by Addison Kirk.

  Yancie dropped her passenger off just after two. She would have been a little earlier but, as he had on the outward journey, Thomson had insisted she have a coffee break after a couple of hours of driving.