A Nanny for Keeps

by Liz Fielding

  Jacqui frowned. Far ahead? ‘When did Mrs Talbot go to New Zealand?’

  ‘Last November.’

  ‘But that’s five months ago.’

  ‘That’s right. She took her time. Went by boat for part of the way. She got there in time for Christmas though.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘No point going all that way for five minutes, is there?’

  ‘Er—no. Is she due back soon?’

  ‘Not that I heard. In her last letter she said that as long as Mr Harry is happy to stay and keep an eye on things, she’ll stay on for a bit.’

  ‘And Mr Ha…Mr Talbot’s happy, is he?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say happy, exactly, but he’s in no hurry to leave. It’s the nearest thing he’s got to a home.’

  It was?

  She bit back the question hovering on her lips. One step further down that path would be gossip.

  ‘I don’t understand why Miss Talbot sent Maisie here. She must have known her mother wasn’t here to look after her.’

  ‘Lives in a world of her own, that one. Always has.’

  ‘Even so, it’s hard to see how anyone could have made such a mistake,’ she prompted, putting on the kettle. ‘Can I make you a cup of tea?’

  ‘Not now, thank you. I’m just going to give the chickens a bit of do. But I’ll have one when I come back if you like. It’s perishing out there this morning.’ She gave Jacqui a look that suggested she was two jumpers and a pair of long johns short of dressed and headed for the door.

  Disappointed—she didn’t approve of gossip, but she had been hoping for a cosy chat around the teapot and some answers to any number of questions that had kept her awake half the night—she said, ‘No problem.’ Then, ‘Before you disappear, could I ask you something?’

  ‘You can ask,’ she replied, warily. ‘I can’t promise you an answer.’

  ‘It’s just that Maisie hasn’t brought any outdoor clothes with her. There are none in her room and Mr Talbot doesn’t seem to know whether she keeps spares here.’

  ‘Well, why would he?’

  Jacqui was beginning to understand why a thwarted two-year-old might throw a tantrum. It was the same inability to communicate. Obviously there was an answer out there…she just couldn’t seem to frame the right question.

  Old enough to know that throwing herself on the floor and drumming her heels—no matter how tempting—was not a constructive response to frustration, she tried again.

  ‘Actually, I don’t know. I don’t know anything.’

  Maybe humility was the answer, because Susan said, ‘Well, he’s always off gallivanting to some foreign place or other, isn’t he? Never a word for months, years even, then he just turns up.’

  Just her luck that their visits happened to coincide…

  Much as she’d have liked to pursue this further, Susan was already heading for the mud room. ‘Do you know?’ she asked, a touch desperately.

  The woman thought about it for a minute, then shook her head, reinforcing the message with a simple, ‘No.’

  Blunt, but at least direct. ‘Maybe I could look around and check for myself,’ she suggested. ‘Where would be a good place to start?’

  ‘I told you, she doesn’t keep any clothes here.’ With that she reached into the mud room and unhooked a coat. ‘Her last nanny always packed everything she needed.’ The criticism was unspoken, but it was scarcely veiled.

  ‘I didn’t have that luxury. I’m having to manage with what I was given. Pink taffeta and wellington boots it’s going to have to be.’

  ‘I suppose you could take a look in the old nursery,’ Susan said, relenting as she took a headscarf from her pinafore pocket. ‘You might find something of Miss Sally’s in there. It’s up the stairs, and…’ she thought for a moment ‘…five doors down.’

  ‘Thank you, Susan.’ She smiled. ‘I expect you’ll be ready for a bacon sandwich when you’ve sorted the hens. To go with your tea.’

  The woman grinned. ‘Go on, then. If you insist. I’ll be about half an hour.’

  Which gave her plenty of time to scout the ‘old nursery’.

  She climbed the first flight of stairs and, as instructed, turned right through an arch and immediately found herself in a wide corridor, lit on one side by a series of windows that must have offered a fine view when it wasn’t obscured by ground-level cloud.

  The polished floor was bisected by a Turkey runner and the inner wall furnished with antique chests and some fine pictures, serving to remind her that, despite her first impressions, this was a substantial house. Slightly shabby on the outside, maybe, but very much what had once been called a ‘gentleman’s residence’.

  Shame about the gentleman in residence she thought, counting the doors until she came to the fifth. It was near the top of a fine flight of stairs. The premier position in the house and scarcely where she’d have expected to find the nursery, but she shrugged and, opening the door, walked in. Since it was early and the hill fog, still clinging close to the house, made the rooms dark, she reached for the light switch.

  An ornate overhead light fitting sprang into life and she immediately realised that she’d been right. This wasn’t a nursery, but the master bedroom and furnished in high style by the ‘gentleman’ whose residence this had been some time back in the Regency. Elegant, expensive and with an impressive four-poster bed dominating the room.

  She turned, her intention to immediately withdraw. And found herself face to face with Harry Talbot, standing in front of a chest of drawers, apparently looking for underwear.

  Bad enough that she’d walked into his room without even knocking, but then there was the small fact that he’d just stepped out of the shower and was naked but for a towel slung carelessly about his hips.

  As he spun to face her it lost its battle with gravity.

  He made no move to retrieve it and, despite opening her mouth with every intention of apologising for having blundered into his room, she found herself quite unable to speak.

  He was beautiful.

  Lean to the bone, hard, sculptured, his was the kind of body artists loved for their life classes. Even his hair, thick and heavy, had sprung into thick curls down which droplets of water ran in a slow, sensuous trickle. She watched one fall onto his shoulder, run down his chest until it became part of him.

  He represented the perfection of Michelangelo’s David.

  Which made the scars lacerating his back, scars which he hadn’t moved quickly enough to hide from her, all the more terrible.

  Without thinking, she reached out, as if to touch him, take the pain into her own body. Before her fingers made contact, he seized her wrist and in one swift, savage movement thrust her out of the room.

  Then he said, ‘Stay there. Don’t move.’ He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed him, but shut the door in her face.

  She didn’t need him to tell her to stay put.

  While all her instincts were to run, hide, her legs were beyond movement. Her entire body was trembling and she covered her mouth with her hand as if to stop herself from screaming.

  What had happened to him? The ridges of scar tissue where his flesh had been ripped and torn were like nothing she had ever seen. Nothing she ever wanted to see again.

  She groaned and leaned against the door arch, almost falling in on him as he opened the door, this time wrapped in a thick towelling robe.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, catching her, holding her arms so tightly to keep her at a distance that his fingers dug into her flesh. She didn’t complain. She didn’t for one moment believe it was intentional.

  She didn’t ask what he meant, either. She just nodded and he relaxed his grip sufficiently for her circulation to be restored. But he didn’t let go.

  Maybe, she thought, close enough now to see that the beginnings of a beard disguised just how gaunt he looked—as if he hadn’t slept in a long time—he’s the one who needs a prop.

  ‘So what did you want that couldn’t wait? H
as Sally been in touch?’

  So cool. So matter-of-fact. So do-not-even-think-about-mentioning-what-you-saw. But for the painful pressure points in her arms, she might actually have been fooled.

  ‘No. It’s too early to call the agency…’ Then, because he wasn’t interested in what she hadn’t done, just what the devil she was doing bursting into his room unannounced, she took a rather shaky breath and did her best to match his tone as she continued, ‘I wasn’t actually looking for you. I was looking for the old nursery. S-Susan said there might be something more suitable for Maisie to wear. Up the s-stairs, fifth door along, she said…’

  As if it mattered what Susan had said. Or whether Maisie played in the stables wearing a party frock, as long as she was warm enough. She had to know…

  ‘Harry—’

  ‘She assumed you’d be coming up the front stairs,’ he said, cutting her off before she could ask the question. ‘It’s this way.’ And he walked her back down the corridor, his hand gripping her firmly beneath her elbow as if to stop her bolting, or fainting, or saying one word about what she’d seen. ‘Help yourself,’ he said, opening a door. Then turned abruptly and walked away.

  ‘Harry!’

  He stopped at the entrance to his room, not looking at her. ‘Don’t ask,’ he warned.

  For a moment neither of them moved, neither of them spoke. Then, apparently satisfied that he’d made his point, he stepped inside and closed the door.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MAISIE, having finally settled on pink taffeta, was not impressed with the alternatives Jacqui had found.

  ‘They smell,’ she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

  ‘Only because they haven’t been worn in a long time. I’m not asking you to put them on until they’ve been washed. I just want to make sure they fit.’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘Probably not,’ she agreed. ‘I think your mother must have been taller than you.’

  ‘No, she wasn’t. I’m exactly the same height as she was, she told me.’

  Pride…so predictable.

  ‘Oh, well, these were hers, so that’s all right.’

  ‘Oh, please.’ Maisie, quickly recovering from her mistake, picked up a sweatshirt featuring a cartoon character and held it at arm’s length. ‘My mother wouldn’t ever have been seen dead wearing something like this.’

  Having anticipated this reaction, Jacqui produced a photograph that she’d found pinned to a display board in the nursery. It was curling at the edges, very faded and had doubtless been pinned up because of the puppy a very young Selina Talbot was cuddling, rather than for any aesthetic reason.

  Or maybe it was because, behind her, an older, taller, protective presence, stood her big cousin, Harry.

  The reason didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was wearing that sweatshirt.

  ‘Why would she keep a dumb sweatshirt?’ Maisie demanded, giving her back the picture, not thrilled to be proved wrong.

  ‘Haven’t you ever kept a favourite dress, even when it doesn’t fit you any more,’ she asked, ‘just to remember how you felt when you wore it?’

  Maisie shrugged. ‘I s’pose.’ Then, ‘Is that Harry with my mother?’

  She looked at the photograph again and then offered it back to the child. ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

  ‘No,’ she said, fiddling with a button rather than take it. ‘It’s him.’

  ‘Unless he’s got a twin brother,’ she agreed.

  On second thoughts, there was no question in her mind why Selina had kept the photograph where she could see it. The man might have some serious flaws, but the boy had been built for hero-worship. And his hand on her shoulder would have made the sweatshirt special, too.

  Probably.

  Or maybe that was emotional transference…

  ‘OK, it’s miserable outside at the moment so you can’t go out to play, but in the meantime I’ll put this through the wash and then maybe, if the cloud lifts this afternoon, I could take a photograph of you wearing it.’

  No response.

  ‘With one of the puppies? You could give them both to your mother when she comes home. I’m sure she’d like that.’

  ‘Only if Harry will be in it, too,’ Maisie insisted, aware that she’d painted herself into a corner, but giving it one last shot. ‘So that it’s exactly the same.’

  ‘That’s a lovely idea,’ she said. Although whether Harry Talbot would think so was another matter entirely.

  ‘Will you ask him for me?’

  There was a whole world of want—need—in those few words and she said, ‘Yes, sweetheart. Of course I’ll ask him.’

  ‘First. Before I put that on.’

  She should have seen that coming.

  Maisie was little, but she was bright and she knew when she was being sold a pup—in every sense of the word.

  Jacqui was saved any immediate challenge to her negotiating skills, since—unsurprisingly—Harry wasn’t hanging around waiting for a chat. Once breakfast was over she left Maisie ‘helping’ Susan with some baking and went to call Vickie.

  As she opened the office door, Harry looked up from the pile of post he’d tipped out of the carrier bag, his eyes so fierce that she took a step back.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

  ‘Your presence in the house disturbs the very air,’ he declared. Then, after what might have been a deep breath, or possibly a ten-count while he regained his composure, ‘I accept, however, that there’s nothing you can do about it so will you please stop tiptoeing around me?’

  ‘It would help if you didn’t look as if you were offended by the mere sight of me,’ she pointed out.

  ‘I’m not…’ he began irritably, then stopped, perhaps unwilling to perjure himself and dismissing the matter with a gesture that suggested she was being over-sensitive. Then did what any man who knew he was wrong would do; went on the attack. ‘Did you leave this pile of garbage here?’

  ‘If you’re referring to the mail, then yes. The woman running the village shop asked me to bring it up. When I stopped for directions.’

  ‘Then when you leave I suggest you give it back to her and tell her—’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea, Mr Talbot,’ she said, fed up with being the butt of his ill-humour. Whatever trauma he’d suffered, she wasn’t to blame. ‘Why don’t you…’ breathe, Jacqui, breathe ‘…tell her yourself?’ Then, because she wasn’t averse to a little subject changing when she’d overstepped her own aggression threshold, ‘Have you heard from your cousin?’

  He shook his head. ‘No joy from your agency, I suppose?’

  ‘I was just about to ring them.’

  ‘Help yourself.’

  He pushed the telephone towards her and she lifted the receiver, then jiggled the button a couple of times. ‘There’s no dial tone.’

  He took it from her and listened as if he didn’t believe she knew her dialling tone from her elbow. The man, she thought, had a very underdeveloped sense of self-preservation.

  ‘Am I mistaken?’ she asked, with deceptive sweetness.

  It was, of course, possible that his rudeness was a shield against unwanted pity.

  If so, it was working.

  He muttered something beneath his breath. She didn’t ask him to repeat it; she didn’t think it was anything she was meant—or would want—to hear.

  ‘It happens all the time up here,’ he went on. ‘Just as well you’ve got a cellphone.’

  ‘I’ll report the fault, shall I?’

  ‘If you must.’

  She bit back her first thought, which was that, no, actually, she was quite happy to leave him without contact with the outside world and that she was sure the outside world would thank her.

  No point in going out of her way to aggravate the man when she was doing such a good job of it without any effort at all, especially as she had a favour to ask him. For Maisie.

  But not yet.

  Phone call first.
/>   If the news was good, he’d be in a better mood.

  That was the theory, anyway. There was only one problem with it; she couldn’t find her cellphone.

  Leaving Harry alone in his office, she checked her pocket, which was where her phone lived during the day. Then checked the bedside table, which was where it usually spent the night.

  But yesterday hadn’t been usual in any sense of the word: witness the silver chain lying where her phone should be. She picked it up and fastened it around her wrist—just for safety—then checked beneath the bed in case it had fallen on the floor, before retracing all her moves without any luck.

  It wasn’t in the kitchen either, and Maisie, enveloped in a huge apron and with smears of flour across her cheeks, just looked blank when asked if she’d seen it.

  The office was the only place left and, since it was the last place she actually remembered having it, she had no choice but to enter the lion’s den for the second time that morning. This time she took the precaution of tapping on the door before opening it.

  Harry looked up. ‘Well?’

  ‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ she said. ‘I can’t find my phone. If it isn’t in here I don’t know where else to look.’

  ‘I didn’t see it, but then I wasn’t looking.’ He indicated the mail spread across the desk—most of it of the junk variety and still apparently untouched. ‘Dig in. You might find anything under this lot.’

  She picked up a handful of the stuff and went through it tossing most of it into the waste basket unopened—having brought it to the house, it was the least she could do—leaving personal mail and bills in separate piles to one side. When she looked up, she realised that he was watching her.

  ‘What?’

  He shook his head. ‘Carry on, you’re doing a fine job.’

  ‘It’s good to know I’m useful for something, even if it is only getting rid of the rubbish.’ But she began to feel self-conscious as he continued to watch her. ‘You can put a block on most of this stuff, you know. It’s almost your duty, in fact. One phone call to save the planet…’ Then, as she binned the last of the circulars, straightened the papers on the desk, ‘All you need is a phone. It’s not on the desk, is it?’ Then, beginning to feel a touch desperate, ‘This is ridiculous. It’s got to be here somewhere. Would you mind standing up?’