by Liz Fielding
‘Thank you for that, Maisie. Please don’t move while I ask for directions.’
‘I know the way. I told you, it’s up there.’
‘Lovely. I won’t be long.’
The child shrugged and clamped the headphones back in place.
‘High Tops? You’re going up to High Tops?’ The doubtful look she received from the woman behind the shop counter was not reassuring.
‘If you could just point me in the right direction?’ she prompted.
‘Are you expected?’
The city girl in Jacqui resisted the urge to enquire what possible business it could be of hers; this was, after all, deep in the country, where, according to folklore, everyone considered it their right to know everyone else’s business. Besides, she really needed directions.
‘Yes, I’m expected,’ she said.
‘Oh, well, that’s all right, then. Could you take their post for me?’
The woman didn’t wait for her to reply, just handed her a carrier bag full of mail.
‘Right, well,’ she said, ‘if you can give me directions. I’m running a bit late.’
‘All the same, you city folk. Just don’t go racing up that lane. You never know what’s on the road up there. I saw a llama once.’ She didn’t wait for an answer, which was just as well, since Jacqui couldn’t hope to top a stray llama, but led the way out of the shop to point her in the right direction. ‘It’s simple enough. Carry along here, take the first turning left past the school and keep going until you get to the top. It’s the only house up there. You can’t miss it.’
‘Thank you so much. You’ve been very helpful.’
‘Just be careful how you go. The cloud’s low today and that lane is so full of ruts and potholes it really isn’t fit for anything but a Land Rover.’ She gave the VW a doubtful look and then did a swift double take as she caught sight of Maisie sitting in the back. ‘Is that…?’ Then, obviously deciding that it was, ‘Proper little doll, isn’t she? Her mother was just the same at that age.’ Then, ‘Well, obviously not the same…’ Perhaps realising that she was treading a dangerous line, she said, ‘She always looked like a little princess, too. I swear if she’d fallen in a midden she’d have come out smelling of roses.’
Jacqui thought that extremely unlikely, but didn’t say so. Instead she smiled and said, ‘Well, thanks for the directions. And the warning. I’ll watch out for the potholes. And the llama.’
She was definitely watching. Easing carefully over another deep rut as the wipers swatted away the moisture clinging to the windscreen, she gritted her teeth and continued to inch her way up the lane in low gear.
‘Nearly there,’ she said reassuringly, although more to herself than Maisie, who was ignoring the jolting with as much composure as a duchess. A lot more composure than she felt, as the bottom of the car ground on the edge of a deep, water-filled pothole that stretched most of the way across the lane. A broken exhaust was the last thing she needed.
The torture continued for another half a mile, ratcheting up the tension and tightening her shoulders. Finally, when she was beginning to think that she must have missed the house in the mist or that she’d taken the wrong lane altogether, an old, lichen-encrusted gate that looked as if it hadn’t been opened in years loomed out of nowhere, blocking the way. On it were two signs. One might have once said ‘High Tops’ but was so old that only the odd letter was still clear enough to read. The other was new. It read ‘Keep Out’.
She climbed out, and doing her best to avoid the mud and puddles, lifted the heavy metal closure and put her weight behind it, anticipating resistance…and very nearly fell flat on her face as it swung back on well-oiled hinges.
Maisie didn’t say a word as Jacqui scraped the mud off her shoes and climbed back behind the wheel, apparently still totally enraptured by the CD she was listening to. But she was wearing a thoroughly self-satisfied little smile that betrayed exactly what she was thinking:
Little Princess, 1—Dumb Adult, 0.
Jacqui put the car into gear and a hundred yards or so further on the shadowy outline of a massive, ivy-clad stone house, towers at each corner, the crenellated roof suggesting a fortified stronghold rather than the home of someone’s grandma, appeared out of the swirling mist.
Despite the fact that she’d never been anywhere near High Tops before, it looked vaguely familiar and Jacqui felt an odd sense of foreboding. It was, doubtless, caused by the combination of mist and mud.
She might not be totally in the mood for sun, sand and sangria, but given the choice she knew which option she’d choose. She almost felt sorry for Maisie.
Totally ridiculous of course, she told herself. At any moment the vast door would be flung open and the child enfolded in a loving welcome from her grandma, who must surely be looking out for them.
The door remained closed, however, and rather than expose Maisie’s satin shoes to the elements unnecessarily she said, ‘You’d better wait here while I ring the doorbell.’
Maisie looked as if she was about to say something, but instead she just sighed.
Jacqui was enfolded in the cold, damp air as she ran up the steps to a pair of iron-studded front doors that offered no concessions to the twenty-first century. There was nothing as remotely modern as an electric bell. Just an old-fashioned bell pull.
As she lifted her arm the silver bracelet slid down and the heart caught the light and flashed brightly. For a moment she froze, then she tugged hard on the bell pull and a long way off she heard the jangle of an old-fashioned bell.
From somewhere a dog raised its voice in a mournful howl.
Jacqui looked around nervously, half expecting a near relation of the Hound of the Baskervilles to come bounding out of the mist. Ridiculous. This was not Dartmoor… But nevertheless she shivered and, grasping the bell pull rather more firmly, she tugged it again.
Twice.
Almost before she let go there was a thud as a stiff bolt shot back. Then, as one half of the door opened, she realised why the house seemed familiar. She’d seen it—or at least something very like it—in a book of fairy stories she’d been given as a child; the one with all those terrifying tales about witches and trolls and giants.
This was the house where the big bad giant lived.
He still did.
Half an inch short of six feet—without her socks—Jacqui was tall for a woman but the man who opened the door loomed threateningly above her. OK, she was a step lower than him, but it wasn’t just his height; he was broad, too, his shoulders filling the opening, and even his hair, a thick, dark, shaggy lion mane that clearly hadn’t been near a pair of scissors in months, was, well, big. Gold eyes—which might have been attractive in any other setting—and three days’ growth of beard only added to the leonine effect.
‘Yes?’ he demanded, discouragingly.
It was a little late to wish she’d stuck to her original plan; the one where, exhaust safely in one piece, she’d be heading down the motorway with nothing more challenging ahead of her than lying on a Spanish beach for two weeks.
Instead she did her best not to think about the giant in her book who’d scared her witless as he ground little kids bones to make his bread and, with what she hoped was a bright smile and a professional manner, she offered her hand in a friendly gesture.
‘Hello. I’m Jacqui Moore.’ Then, since he clearly required more information before he committed himself to a handshake, ‘From the Campbell Agency?’
‘Are you selling something? If you are I’m afraid you’ve risked your exhaust for nothing—’
‘More than risked it,’ she responded, a shade more testily than was professional as she let her hand drop, unshaken, to her side. There had been a throaty sound from the car’s rear in those last couple of hundred yards to the house, suggesting that it hadn’t quite cleared that last pothole. ‘Shouldn’t you do something about that lane?’
‘I rather think that’s my business, not yours. Be more careful on the way down.
’ And he stepped back and began to close the door.
For a moment she was too shocked to do or say anything. Then, as the gap narrowed, she did what any resourceful nanny would do in the same situation. She stuck out her foot. It was just as well she was wearing ankle boots beneath her jeans. If her footwear had been less substantial, it would have been crushed.
The giant looked at her foot and then at her. ‘There’s something else?’ he enquired. ‘You didn’t just come to complain about the state of the lane?’
‘No, I’m not a masochist, neither am I selling anything. I’m a flying nanny.’
‘Really?’ He opened the door a little wider, releasing her foot. She didn’t move it, even when his predator’s eyes took their time over a toe-to-head inspection that under any other circumstances would have invited a slap. Even if she’d been feeling that reckless, one look at the hard line of his upper lip was all it took to warn her that taking such liberties would not be wise. Finally, he shook his head. ‘No. I’m not convinced. Mary Poppins wouldn’t have left home without her umbrella.’
OK, that was it. She was here as a favour to Vickie, as a kindness to a child. She had other places to be and she’d just about had it with the giant.
‘Could you please tell Mrs Talbot that I’m here?’ she replied, in her best I’m-so-not-impressed manner. ‘She is expecting me.’
‘I rather doubt that,’ he said. Nothing much happened to the upper lip, but a shift in his expression deepened the lines about his mouth, drawing attention to its lower, shockingly sensuous companion.
‘Yes…’ Momentarily mesmerised, she had to force herself to focus on the job. ‘I’ve, um, brought Maisie…’ She turned away, not so much to indicate the child as to give herself some breathing space.
The giant in her story book had never had that effect on her.
Maisie’s response to this attention was to slump down further in the seat until all that could be seen of her was the sparkly little tiara.
‘So I see,’ the giant responded unenthusiastically after the briefest of glances and instantly losing the almost smile. ‘Why?’
‘To stay. Why else?’
‘With Mrs Talbot?’
Now he sounded perplexed. Which might have been good, since it meant she had company, except, from the way he was looking at her—as if she were crazy—she was almost certain that it wasn’t good at all.
‘With Mrs Kate Talbot. Her grandmother,’ she elaborated with exaggerated patience. Maybe it was because he was so tall, but it seemed to be taking an inordinately long time for a very simple message to reach his brain. ‘I was engaged by the Campbell Agency, on behalf of Ms Selina Talbot, to bring her daughter to High Tops. I’m actually on rather a tight schedule so I’d be grateful if I could hand her over and get on my way.’
‘I’m sure you would, but that won’t be possible. I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted journey, Jacqui Moore.’ He didn’t sound one bit sorry. ‘My aunt—’
‘Your aunt?’
‘My aunt, Mrs Talbot, Maisie’s grandmother,’ he responded, in blatant mockery of her own earlier explanation, ‘is at present visiting her sister in New Zealand.’
‘What? No…’
Jacqui took a deep breath. Obviously there was some simple misunderstanding here.
‘Obviously there is some simple misunderstanding here,’ she said, in an effort to convince herself. Vickie might be devious but she wasn’t stupid and she took her business very seriously indeed. ‘Ms Talbot brought her daughter into the office this morning. I was there when she arrived.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘I was simply pointing out that she wouldn’t have done that if her mother was away. She must have spoken to her. Checked that it was convenient.’
‘You might have done that. I would certainly have done that…’
The giant’s mouth once more offered something that might have been a smile, except that this time no hint of amusement reached his eyes. The effect was rather more a lip-curl of contempt than a good-humoured chuckle. She dragged her gaze from his mouth…
‘…but even as a child, Sally—Selina—had a tendency to assume her wish was her mother’s command. She never did learn to ask nicely like everyone else. Perhaps when you look the way she does you don’t have to.’
‘But—’
‘Nevertheless, on this occasion she’s going to have to put her social life on the back burner and for once play at being mother for real.’
‘But—’
But she was speaking to a closed door.
Harry Talbot closed the door and collapsed briefly against it, the sweat trickling down the back of his neck nothing to do with his recent battle with a recalcitrant boiler.
Damn Sally. Damn Jacqui Moore. Damn everyone…
He straightened, took slow, deep, calming breaths and turned to face the door, anticipating further irate jangling on the bell, but whatever game his family thought they were playing, he wasn’t joining in.
Taking care of Sally’s menagerie of rescue animals was a small price to pay for solitude. They didn’t talk. Didn’t ask questions. Didn’t stare at him, wondering if he’d lost his mind.
Maisie was something else.
That woman was something else.
The bell, unexpectedly, remained silent, but he didn’t fall into the trap of believing, hoping, that they had gone. She hadn’t started her car and once she’d phoned her office for instructions he knew that Miss Jacqui Moore—who, in clinging jeans and a skimpy top that clung to curves that Mary Poppins could only dream of, looked nothing like the nannies that had graced his childhood nursery—would be back demanding refuge for her charge and a little civility for herself.
She’d have to make do with one out of two. And that only as a temporary measure.
Meanwhile he wasn’t going to hang around waiting on her convenience. He had a boiler to fix.
Behind her the car door squeaked open and Jacqui turned just in time to see Maisie carefully avoiding a puddle as she eased herself to the ground.
‘Maisie, stay in the car—’ She needed to think. No, she needed to call Vickie. She’d have to get someone out here to take over from her…
‘I have to go to the bathroom,’ the child said. ‘Right now.’
With some children that would mean RIGHT NOW! With others it was more in the nature of an early warning. Although she suspected that Maisie was a child who thought that everything she wanted should be handed to her RIGHT NOW, she was counting on the fact that she wouldn’t wait until the last moment to announce her need for the bathroom. She wouldn’t take the slightest risk of spoiling her pristine appearance.
Or maybe that was simply what she hoped, putting off the evil moment when she’d have to confront the giant again.
She regarded the bell pull with misgivings. Given the choice between giving it another tug and instructing Maisie to cross her legs, she’d have chosen the latter course. Unfortunately this wasn’t about her. She was going to have to be brave. Soon…
‘Just hold on for a second or two, Maisie,’ she instructed, aware that any sign of weakness would be taken advantage of, then, pushing a strand of damp hair off her cheek and shivering a little as the cold mist seeped into her clothes, she dug her mobile out of her bag and punched in the office number. Before she bearded the giant again, she wanted to speak to Vickie and find out what the heck was going on.
‘And I want a drink,’ Maisie added, taking no notice of the instruction to stay put.
‘Please,’ she corrected automatically.
Maisie sighed. ‘Please.’
‘There’s some juice in my bag on the front seat—’
‘A hot drink.’
Little Princess, 2—Dumb Adult yet to score.
But the child had a point. She was beginning to feel the need of a cup of something warming herself. And now the idea had been put into her head, she’d welcome a comfort break, too.
‘Look, just give me a minute, will you? I need
to make a phone call and then we’ll sort something out.’
Maisie shrugged and she turned her attention back to the phone.
‘Come on, come on…’ she muttered impatiently, getting clammier and colder by the minute. ‘You really should wait in the car, Maisie; it’s colder up here and your dress will go all limp in this weather,’ she said, appealing to the child’s priorities.
When there was no reply she looked around and was just in time to catch a flash of white frock disappearing around the side of the house.
CHAPTER TWO
‘OH, HECK!’
Jacqui had no choice but to abandon the call and take off after Maisie, vaguely registering a huge paved courtyard with a stable block on the far side as she rounded the back of the house.
She finally caught up with Maisie just as she stepped through the back door, which, despite the weather, was standing wide open.
‘What are you doing?’
‘No one ever uses the front door,’ Maisie said, matter-of-factly.
‘They don’t?’
‘Of course not. I’d have told you if you’d asked me.’
And, completely untouched by the mud that seemed to be clinging liberally to her own shoes, her dress as fresh as it had been when they left the office, Maisie walked into the house as if she owned it.
Jacqui, given no choice in the matter, followed her through an extensive mud room littered with boots, umbrellas and an impressive array of waxed jackets that looked as if they’d been handed down for generations—they probably had—and into a huge farmhouse kitchen warmed by an old-fashioned solid-fuel stove.
There was a large dog basket beside it, companionably shared by a buff-coloured chicken, feathers fluffed up to keep in the heat, and two, or possibly three, silver-tabby cats. They were so entwined—and so alike—that it was impossible to tell. A large, shaggy and depressed-looking hound was lying beside it, drying his muddy paws.
But for the chicken, she might have been tempted to lie down and join him. Instead she turned to Maisie and said, ‘You know, sometimes it’s better not to wait until you’re asked. Just in case the person who should do the asking doesn’t catch on to the fact that there’s a question.’