A Nanny for Keeps

by Liz Fielding

  He looked so huge beside her. She looked so vulnerable and she knew he could so easily crush her with an unkind word. But he didn’t. After a long moment, he crouched down, placed the box on the ground in front of him and let Maisie tip the chick into his hands.

  She looked anxiously up at him for approval.

  ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ he asked. ‘Go and find some more.’

  Not exactly praise, but Maisie rushed off, tripping over her boots in her eagerness to please him. As Jacqui watched he reached out a hand as if to steady her, but her momentum carried her out of his reach as, the pink ruff of her skirt bouncing, she rushed back to the hedge.

  It was over in a second, but the look on his face as he watched her gave the lie to all the hideous feelings of shock and disgust that were whirling around inside her.

  As he watched her go, forgetting her prima-donna princess act and just dizzy with excitement like any other six-year-old, his true feelings were etched on his face for the briefest of moments.

  Behind the cold, uncaring mask there was exasperation. Amusement, too. But most of all love.

  By the time he looked across at her, it had been wiped out, obliterated, but she wouldn’t be fooled again.

  ‘Ouch! Cut it out.’ She shook off the annoyed mother hen who had taken exception to their rescue operation and was pecking at her ankles. ‘We’re taking care of your babies, OK?’

  ‘I told you to wear wellies,’ Maisie told her in passing—and sounding exactly like a grown-up telling some little kid ‘I told you so’.

  Harry caught her eye. ‘That had better not be a smile,’ she warned him.

  ‘Not even close,’ he assured her.

  Hmm.

  Ten minutes later, as she placed the last chick in the box, she said, ‘That seems to be the lot. Where do we put them?’

  ‘In the stables. Here, take the box.’ He pushed it into her arms and she thought he was done, but he said, ‘I’ll go and look for some boards to keep them penned in.’

  ‘They’ll need food and water,’ Maisie reminded him, still buzzy with excitement and forgetting to be cool and distant.

  ‘You’re right. Do you want to see to that?’

  Her shoulders went up to her ears in an absolute paroxysm of joy at being given something important to do by Harry, and she rushed off.

  ‘What are you looking so pleased with yourself for?’ he demanded, looking up and catching her in a grin that, unlike him, she was not quick enough to hide.

  ‘Me?’ Jacqui asked.

  ‘The words “Cheshire” and “cat” come to mind.’

  Not quite the image she was striving for, but she kept the smile glued to her face and said, ‘I have a naturally sunny disposition, Harry.’ Then added, ‘You’d better get used to it.’

  ‘Is that your way of telling me that you’re going to be around for some time?’

  ‘That’s the bad news, yes. Your cousin hasn’t responded to the messages left by the agency, so unless you have some better plan, you’re stuck with us.’

  He didn’t leap to assure her that her self-sacrifice was appreciated. He didn’t say anything.

  ‘Of course,’ she went on, ‘she may have decided to get in touch with you direct. It’s entirely possible that while you’ve been wherever it is you’ve been and we’ve been out here having a good time with these adorable chickens, she’s left a message on your answering machine.’ She was finding it increasingly difficult to keep up the businesslike manner in the face of his totally blank expression. ‘It’s even possible that she didn’t wait to call us, but boarded a plane home the minute she picked up the first message.’

  ‘I hope you’re not holding your breath on that one,’ he said, finally.

  ‘No. Taking my cues from those who know and love her, I’ve kept breathing in and out on a regular basis.’

  ‘Smart woman,’ he said. Then, ‘Will you stay?’

  He was asking her? Actually asking her to stay?

  ‘Can you stay?’ he went on, when she didn’t immediately answer. ‘I realise that we’re all taking you completely for granted.’

  ‘No…’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Yes…’ She gathered herself. ‘You’re not taking me for granted. That honour belongs to someone else. And yes, of course I’ll stay for as long as I’m needed.’ And she discovered she was smiling again.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’ll book a replacement holiday for you myself as soon as things are back to normal.’

  She shrugged. ‘Maisie said this is a good place for a holiday and, despite the weather and the chickens, I can see why she likes it. Besides, the sun is so bad for your skin.’

  ‘It isn’t always like this,’ he said, turning away and heading for the paddock gate, opening it and standing back so that she could go ahead of him. She turned in the opening, blocking his way. What she had to say could wait, but he would keep taking to the hills.

  ‘While you’re here, can I just get a few things straight?’

  ‘Will anything I say stop you?’

  She ignored the rudeness—now she recognised it as a defence mechanism it was easy to ignore—and smiled, as if he’d said something amusing.

  ‘Since I’ll be here for a while, I’m going to have to ask you to let me know when you’re going to disappear the way you did at lunchtime.’

  ‘I was under the impression that you were Maisie’s nanny, not mine.’

  ‘Were you?’ She wasn’t anyone’s nanny, but she didn’t see any need to tell him that. Then, ‘It’s just a question of next of kin, in the event of an accident, illness, that’s all. I’ll also need a list of essential telephone numbers, a designated vehicle to use in an emergency—my own motor insurance will cover me—and a set of keys for both the house and the car.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You missed lunch. You’ll find some sandwiches in the fridge when you’re done.’

  With that she turned and walked away.

  ‘Jacqui…’ She halted, waiting for the explosion. When none came, she glanced back. ‘How’s your head?’

  She looked back over her shoulder. He hadn’t moved and for a moment she was tempted to do a ‘Maisie’, wince a little, get him closer to have another look. But she just said, ‘You did a good job, doc.’ Her voice was a little husky and she was forced to clear her throat before she added, ‘I’ll recommend you to all my friends.’

  And then, very much afraid she was doing the Cheshire Cat thing again, she raised the box containing the chicks a little, to indicate that she’d better get on.

  Her powerhouse smile rocked Harry back on his feet. It was only his hand, grasping the bracelet in his pocket, that kept him grounded. He’d meant to give it straight back to her when he found it, but the business with the telephones had knocked it clean out of his head and then he’d taken off for the hilltop as if the higher he climbed the further away he was from everything that reminded him of everything he’d lost.

  Except that today he’d found himself drawn back. Not just to Maisie, but to Jacqui.

  Then, stuffing his hands into his pockets to keep himself from just reaching out for her, he’d found the bracelet. That was why he’d called out. To give it to her.

  His fingers tangled with the chain, his thumb rubbed over the tiny heart.

  He took it out and looked at it again. ‘…forget and smile…’

  Who was she supposed to forget?

  He wanted to ask her whether she’d managed it. And if so what the trick of it was. But maybe she was finding it as difficult as he was and he put the chain back in his pocket.

  Much safer not to go there.

  He’d leave it somewhere for her to find.

  Later, when the chicks were safe and he’d somehow managed to avoid sitting down to eat supper with Maisie, instead making do with the sandwiches Jacqui had left for him earlier while he caught up with the estate accounts in the office, he picked up the telephone in anoth
er attempt to contact his cousin. Despite her willingness to stay, he couldn’t take advantage of Jacqui’s good nature.

  And yet as he put the receiver to his ear, he found himself almost wishing the phone were dead again.

  No such luck.

  He got her first time.

  ‘Harry?’ Sally sounded almost as unhappy to hear from him as he was to be calling her. ‘Have you any idea what time it is here?’

  He thought about it. ‘Two, three o’clock in the morning?’ he offered. ‘Were you asleep?’

  ‘Of course I was asleep!’

  Of course she was. He hadn’t called in the middle of the night simply to be annoying. He knew if she’d been thinking clearly she would have ignored his call.

  ‘I’ve called about Maisie.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘The agency and the nanny accompanying her thought she was going to be staying with Aunt Kate, Sally.’

  ‘Really? Why? I merely asked for them to deliver her to her grandmother’s house. They’ve done it before.’

  ‘You’re not getting the picture here, Sally. These are responsible people who take their duties seriously. They won’t leave her with just anyone.’

  ‘You’re not just anyone, though, are you?’

  ‘She’s your responsibility, Sally,’ he said, refusing to go there. ‘A little girl. You can’t treat her like one of your strays. You’ll have to fax a note to the agency, giving them written permission to leave her here with me.’

  ‘All right! OK. Consider it done.’ Then, ‘Is that it, only there won’t be enough concealer in the entire world to cover the dark shadows under my eyes if I don’t get some sleep? I mean, she’s not sick or anything?’

  ‘And if she is? Will you drop everything and come home?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, darling, she wouldn’t want me. She never wants me. Besides, you know how hopeless I am at that sort of thing.’

  There were any number of things he knew and he was tempted to say all of them, but what would be the point?

  ‘When will you be home?’

  ‘Not for a month at least. I’m going on to Japan from here and then to the States to shoot some commercials. After that I’m going to spend a little time on a friend’s yacht. I sooo need a holiday.’

  ‘What about Maisie? Don’t you think she might like to join you?’

  ‘Maisie? What on earth would she do on a yacht?’

  He didn’t ask what she’d be doing. Her romance with a billionaire playboy was currently top of the hot-gossip pops and she clearly didn’t want a precocious child getting in the way.

  ‘A month,’ he said. ‘Right.’

  ‘Well, maybe just a little bit longer. It depends on whether the decorators have finished the house.’

  ‘Decorators?’

  ‘It’s going to be featured in a magazine later in the year so interior designers are falling over themselves to do it for me for the publicity. It’s supposed to be finished by Easter, but you know how these things can run over.’

  ‘I have heard,’ he agreed, finally understanding why Maisie couldn’t just stay at home with Sally’s retinue of staff to take care of her, the way she usually did. ‘Would you like to talk to Maisie?’

  ‘I’m really tired, Harry.’

  ‘Jacqui, then?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The nanny who brought her here.’

  ‘What? But I thought… Wasn’t she supposed to be going on holiday?’

  ‘Yes. She missed her plane because of your incompetence and now she’s given up her holiday to stay and look after Maisie.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Harry, why did you let her do that? You’re perfectly capable of looking after one small child, aren’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t let her do anything. She insisted. I guess she just goes that extra mile for a child in her care,’ he said, answering the first question. He ignored the second, since they both knew the answer to that one.

  ‘Vickie Campbell did say that she’s a gem. She’s hoping to persuade her to take on the job full-time.’

  ‘Is she? Well, I hope for Maisie’s sake that she succeeds.’

  Because the fact that Jacqui Moore was taking care of her was the only thing he was happy about.

  He briefly considered calling his aunt, but while waking Sally in the middle of the night had been a deliberate strategy to catch her off guard, disturbing Kate at the crack of dawn in New Zealand to listen to his concerns was something else.

  And what could she do, anyway? Abandon the first proper holiday she’d had in years just because he wanted to keep his distance? She’d get on the next flight if he asked her, he knew that, but it was bad enough that her daughter treated her like an unpaid servant.

  That was the problem with occupying the high moral ground. You couldn’t walk away when things got difficult.

  Jacqui was staying. Maisie was happy. As for him…well, right now all he needed was a hot bath to ease the nagging aches that were always brought on by the damp weather. If he was very lucky Jacqui might even have left him some leftovers from supper to reheat—since she seemed to have taken it upon herself to make sure he was eating properly.

  He was still smiling at the thought when, at the top of the stairs, he paused, transfixed by the intermingled sounds of splashing and shrieks of laughter floating down to him from the floor above.

  It sounded so joyful, so normal, and he took a step closer.

  ‘One, two, three…’ The water whooshed through Maisie’s hand and she shrieked with laughter as it splashed over the edge of the bath in a tidal wave.

  Jacqui grabbed a towel to stop the flood, but as she dropped it on the floor she confronted a pair of large feet encased in nothing but a pair of what were now extremely wet socks.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, looking up. ‘Sorry. We were having a waterspout competition.’ Then, because as he’d already pointed out she never did know when to stop, ‘Want to play?’

  ‘You’re planning to flood us out?’

  ‘It’s not coming through the ceiling, is it?’ she asked, scrambling to her feet.

  ‘No, really, it’s OK. I didn’t mean to stop you having fun. I just came to return this.’ He took the bracelet from his pocket. ‘I found it in the library. I thought you might be worrying about it.’

  Jacqui looked at her wrist, not quite able to believe that it had been gone all that time and she hadn’t even missed it.

  ‘I noticed you wearing it,’ he said. ‘Earlier.’

  ‘Did you? Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘Interesting inscription.’

  ‘You read it?’ Then, ‘It practically needs a magnifying glass.’

  ‘I’ve got twenty-twenty vision.’

  From behind her Maisie, in a loud stage whisper, said, ‘Ask him now.’

  ‘Ask me what?’

  Jacqui, about to tell him, was stopped by a warning finger.

  ‘Maisie?’ Harry prompted.

  Maisie, suddenly not so sure of herself, began playing with a plastic duck, pushing it beneath the water and letting it bob up. ‘About what Susan said this morning.’

  He knelt down beside the bath, ignoring the water soaking into his trousers, and captured the duck, held on to it so that she was forced to look at him. ‘Susan said a lot of things this morning.’

  She mumbled something. He waited. ‘About going to school in the village,’ she repeated, crossly.

  ‘You’d really like to go?’ Her face said it all. ‘But what would you wear? You can’t go to school in a party frock.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because,’ Jacqui said, hurriedly intervening, ‘it would make all the other little girls unhappy because they didn’t have something that pretty.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ Then, ‘There are those old clothes you found,’ she said, looking up, eyes wide, a little tremble to the voice, then switching her appeal back to Harry and saying, ‘Pleeease.’

  She never used his name, Jacqui realised. Most children
in her position would have called him ‘Uncle Harry’, surely?

  Harry didn’t immediately answer, but turned to her and said, ‘What do you think, Jacqui?’

  She did her best to ignore the little butterfly that was waltzing around in the region of her abdomen at this evidence of trust. The truth was more likely to be more prosaic. By putting the decision in her hands, he could dissociate himself from the fallout if the whole experiment was a disaster.

  She was afraid that it might well be. A child of six who had never been to school would find the situation challenging to say the least. Especially if she was a little princess like Maisie.

  But if she did go to school, she’d be out of Harry’s hair for most of the day. And if it went well, he would find it very difficult to change his mind about her staying.

  Which meant she’d just have to do everything she could to ensure it went well.

  ‘If the head teacher doesn’t mind taking her for the last couple of weeks of term, I’m sure she’d enjoy the company,’ she said. Then, because arriving at school wearing ill-fitting cast-offs would be just as bad as turning up in a yellow silk frock and satin Mary Janes, she added, ‘There is just one problem. I did notice on my way through the village that the children all seemed to be wearing a fairly basic kind of uniform. Grey skirts, white shirts, red sweaters.’ Then, because she knew that it all had to be spelled out so there could be no misunderstanding, ‘Sensible shoes.’

  ‘Black?’

  ‘Or brown.’

  ‘Sensible black or brown shoes?’ He shook his head as if unable to believe it. ‘And dreary grey skirts, too. Well, I guess that changes everything. Maisie wouldn’t want to wear anything like that.’

  He stood up, clearly thinking that was an end to it, and, for a heartbeat, Jacqui seriously considered committing grievous bodily harm.

  Maisie forestalled her, leaping to her feet, flinging her arms wide and sloshing water in all directions as she declared, ‘Yes, I would!’ As if not quite believing it herself, she blinked, then said, ‘I want a uniform. I like grey.’

  Harry, halfway to the door, stopped, turned back. ‘You’re really sure? There’s no point in Jacqui taking you into town to buy you school clothes if you’re going to change your mind.’