by Lucy Gillen
Kim nodded. "Mmm."
Aunt Bess looked dubious. "It doesn't seem very honest, dear, does it?" she ventured. "Wouldn't it have been better to have told him the truth?"
Kim shrugged. "Probably," she admitted. "But it's no concern of his, so I didn't." George, she thought determinedly, was not the only one who should be taught a lesson.
"Ah well," Aunt Bess said hopefully, "maybe it won't
just be a joke after all, hmm?" And Kim could not help laughing at her determined optimism. It would not be her aunt's fault if George Daley did not become her nephew-in-law.
As he had promised, George arrived next morning to take Kim to work in the car, and he kept up the practice for the next couple of weeks or so too. It was only when Kim insisted that she was perfectly able to walk now that he agreed to let her make her own way.
She saw very little of James Fleming and on the occasions when she did he seemed to have recovered at least some of his former manner, although he was still inclined to be far more formal than before. It was difficult to remember how easy it had been to flirt with him after he brought her home on the night she hurt her ankle. She still stubbornly refused to tell him that her supposed engagement to George was no more than a joke, and she had begged Fay not to tell him either.
It was George himself who puzzled her rather. Since his initial shock at the situation he seemed almost to have accepted it, and Fay shook her head over his uncharacteristic behaviour. "I want to see just how far he'll go," she told Kim when Kim suggested they end the whole thing.
"He knows we weren't serious," Kim told her, "or at least he guesses. He must do, or —"
Fay nodded wisely, her eyes glistening with a devilment reminiscent of her brother. "Either that or he really is serious, Kim."
"Oh, he can't be," Kim protested, suddenly uneasy. "Not George, he's never serious, Fay, especially about anything as final as marriage."
"Nevertheless," Fay insisted, "I've never known him keep anything going as long as this before. He just might
be serious about you, Kim, have you thought of that?" She eyed Kim speculatively. "What would you do if he was ?"
Kim shook her head, her eyes uncertain. "I — I don't know, I honestly don't know. George can be very charming and I'm very fond of him, but marriage —" She shook her head again. "I just don't know, Fay."
"We could find out," Fay suggested quietly, but with that glimmer of mischief still showing, "by suggesting a wedding date, then if he takes that in his stride, we'll know he's serious."
"But we can't," Kim objected, unwilling to take the chance, "it's too risky, Fay."
So the matter was left, rather unsatisfactorily, in the air, although several times Kim was tempted to mention it to George, only Fay's thorough enjoyment of the situation kept her quiet. It would be bound to work out right, she thought optimistically, and let things drift.
Thanks to Kim's efforts, the pile of work she had been required to tackle initially had diminished and there was really very little for her to do some days, so that when George suggested one morning that she might like to work on a temporary basis for someone else, she could not claim to be so busy it was out of the question.
"It's a friend of mine," George told her, looking at her in what she mentally dubbed a shifty way.
"Well, it's up to you, of course," she demurred. "I don't mind helping out of it won't interrupt anything you're doing. I presume," she added, "that I shall still be employed by you — I'm not getting the sack?"
"Good lord, no !" He looked shocked at the idea. "Not on any account would I part with you permanently. It's just that this friend of mine needs a secretary for a week or two while he's laid up after an accident and I offered to lend him mine."
"Very generous of you," Kim told him dryly. "Who is he? Anyone I know?"
His air was too casual, she realised a moment later. It was as if he fully expected her to object and was trying to diminish the effect of her protest by being as offhand as possible. "James."
Kim stared at him, some section of his earlier statement sticking in her mind. "Did — did you say he'd had an accident?" she asked, and George nodded.
"Yesterday," he told her. "He bent his car and broke a leg and he has to stay put for a bit, but with James that's just not on, and wants someone to do secretarial work for him at home."
"But why me?" Kim asked, still scarcely believing her ears. "What about the super-efficient Miss Norton, or Morton whoever she is?"
"Ah well, now," George explained. "Miss Norton, you see, is in Austria on her hols at the moment and James has been sharing a secretary with another bod, but the poor girl can't be in two places at once, so James is seeking outside help."
"And I'm supposed to be the outside help?" Kim asked. "I offered," George said humbly. "I didn't think you'd mind as we're not too busy at the moment."
"Did you find out how long it's for ?"
George shrugged. "Oh, not for long, about four or five days, that's all. I said you'd show your face on Monday if that's all right."
Kim smiled wryly. "I don't have much choice, do I?" she asked. "You've made all the arrangements and I've been handed over like a — a piggie going to market !"
George hugged her close, kissing her mouth gently and with all his charm in evidence as he sought to placate her. "You don't really mind helping poor old James out for a
day or two, do you, darling?" He kissed her again, his eyes pleading and anxious — George at his most irresistible. "Not just to please me?"
Kim laughed softly, shaking her head over the blatant deliberation of it. "All right," she agreed, "I'll go. I'll report to Mr. Fleming on Monday morning — when?"
"Oh, I don't know," George shrugged, "about nine, I suppose." He grinned. "One thing, darling, you won't have far to go to work, will you?"
Far to go or not, Kim declined to show her face at the house next door until dead on nine o'clock, and it was a rather surprised Mrs. Pannet who admitted her, so obviously her coming there had not been explained to the housekeeper.
She was first welcomed by Lee and Terry, who greeted her arrival with rather more enthusiasm than she expected from their uncle. "You comin' to be with us?" Lee asked, and Kim shook her head, smiling.
"Not with you exactly, Lee. I'm going to do some work for your uncle."
Lee looked puzzled for a moment. "For James?" he asked. "Why?"
Kim smiled wryly, ruffling his mop of hair with one hand. "That's a very good question," she told him.
"Can we come too?" Lee asked, and little Terry nodded her head, her eyes hopeful.
"I shouldn't think so," Kim told them. "It's only office work and not really very interesting at all. You wouldn't like it."
Lee considered this for a moment, then tried another tack. "I don't fink James can work today," he informed her gravely, "he's hurted his leg."
"I know." Kim was aware of Mrs. Pannet watching her
with patient resignation by one of the doors that led off the hall and wondered if James Fleming was listening to these delaying tactics with impatience or if he would understand. "That's why I'm here," she explained, "because your uncle can't go to his office. I'm going to help him."
The argument would have been interminable, Kim thought, but James Fleming's voice called from the other side of the door, "Mrs Panned " and the housekeeper started almost guiltily.
She opened the door and went in. "Yes, Mr. Fleming?" "Is that Miss Anders?"
"Yes, sir, she's talking to the children. Shall I ask her to come in now?"
"If she can spare the time." The sarcasm made Kim flush and she deliberately stopped to ruffle Lee's mop again before going across the hall and past Mrs. Pannet in the doorway.
"Good morning, Mr. Fleming."
He was sitting on a long settee, much as she had done herself when he came to see her after she hurt her ankle. His leg, however, was far more heavily encased in plaster of Paris from foot to knee and he looked as if he resented being immobile, for h
is face was as black as thunder.
"I hope I'm not disturbing you?" he told her, and Kim's eyes sparkled.
She closed the door carefully behind her and came across the room to where he sat, for once able to tower over him. "I know how you must be chafing under the inactivity," she told him, with as much patience as if she was talking to one of the children, "but you don't have to take it out on me or Mrs. Pannet."
For a moment she thought he would explode, and the light grey eyes were stormily dark as he looked up at her helplessly, then he laughed. True it was a short, harsh sound
at first, but gradually it became more normal and the light eyes shone with it. "You are having your own back, aren't you?" he said.
"I'm not trying to have my own back," Kim denied, unable to hide her own laughter and glad of the change in him. She could not have borne the bad-tempered image he had first presented and would probably have departed in high dudgeon.
He eyed her for a moment, more soberly. "Thank you for coming, Kim. I'm grateful you're prepared to help out."
Kim smiled wryly, prepared to be honest. "I hadn't much choice, to be quite honest," she admitted. "George more or less presented me as a fait 'accompli, so I understood, but I don't mind helping out — we're not very busy at the moment."
"So I gathered," he said, and eyed her thoughtfully. "Did George give you a choice? I hope he wasn't too highhanded about it."
Kim smiled, unable to resist the jibe. "George isn't highhanded," she told him, and he laughed.
"All right, all right. Shall we get down to some work? I presume you're used to business procedure?"
"I am," Kim nodded, and picked up the shorthand note: book that lay on the table near him. "I've worked for business men before."
"Ah yes," he smiled, "I remember — some are very nice, some quite the reverse." He cocked a quizzical eyebrow at her. "You never did say which category I came into," he added, and Kim refused to meet his eyes.
"Shall we start?" she suggested.
It was mostly a matter of routine letters which Kim had done for many years before she worked for George, and she had to admit to quite enjoying the change, although she would not have liked to go back to it permanently.
It was when they were part way through a rather complicated report on some new production method or other that Mrs. Pannet knocked tentatively on the door and James Fleming frowned his annoyance at the disturbance. "Excuse me, Mr. Fleeting," she began, and got no further, for Eve Mellors literally pushed her way past her in the doorway and came into the room, her face a picture of anger and dislike.
"I don't have to be announced like a visitor," she informed Mrs. Pannet, and glared across at Kim, who met the angry gaze with as much calm as she could summon.
"Eve!" He was, Kim thought, a little annoyed, but more surprised to see her. "What brings you here at this time of day?"
"I came to see how you were," Eve claimed, "and to tell you I think you're very unwise to be working at home. I'm sure Doctor Morgan would agree with me too."
"Possibly," James agreed wryly, "but I intend to carry on regardless of both of you."
The angry dark eyes still glared at Kim. "Why isn't Miss Norton here?" she asked. "I'm sure she wouldn't mind coming over from Woodmouth for a few days."
"I expect she wouldn't," James agreed again, and with a little less patience. "But she'd take an extremely dim view of coming over from Austria every morning."
"Oh, I see, she's on holiday." She sat down in one of the armchairs, with the evident intention of staying. "Well, I hope you're not overdoing it, darling, it's only one day and you must still be suffering from shock." She managed to convey that Kim's presence there could be attributed to the same cause, and James Fleming smiled.
"Kim's helping out for a day or two," he told her. "George was very self-sacrificing and let me have her for a while."
"Very noble of him," Eve remarked, "especially in view of their — their relationship." A thin hand expressed scorn for the so-called relationship. "I presume you are still engaged to George?" she added, and Kim determinedly held her tongue on the truth, partly because, like George, she knew it annoyed Eve.
"Nothing's changed, Miss Mellors," she told her quietly and with no more than the truth.
"Hmm." It seemed, Kim thought, that Fay was not the only one surprised by the length of time George was keeping the pretence going.
James Fleming, she thought, was looking at her with a somewhat speculative look and she tried not to meet his eyes. "When's the wedding to be?" he asked, taking Kim by surprise.
"I — it's not fixed yet," she admitted. "There's plenty of time."
"Oh, of course," he agreed blandly. "I only asked because he's asked me to be his best man."
CHAPTER VIII
FAY stared at Kim unbelievingly when she told her about George's asking James to be his best man. "I just can't believe it," she told her. "James must have been teasing you, Kim, surely."
Kim shook her head, her frown uncertain. "He sounded serious enough," she said, still remembering her own open mouthed receipt of the news.
The two of them were sitting in their favourite seat in the window of a small coffee house. The window overlooked the sea and the seat, being set deep in the small bow, gave them a feeling of isolation. It was a place they came to whenever they wanted to be free of George for a while and it had the advantage of staying open until eight o'clock at night, which was notoriously late for quiet Woodsea.
"I can't believe it," Fay repeated, sipping her coffee and frowning thoughtfully out of the window.
"Well, it's true," Kim assured her. "I nearly died when James said it, and I'm sure your cousin found it just as hard to believe."
"Eve?" Fay arched her brows expressively. "Was she there?"
"She came in while we were busy on some highly complicated planning system that's being prepared," Kim told her, "and she wouldn't have been very flattered if she'd seen the face James made when he saw her either! He wasn't very pleased at being interrupted."
Fay grinned. "I thought she went off in an almighty hurry after she spoke to George," she said. "He must have
mentioned that you were working for James. That would
have put the cat among the pigeons, as George would realise!,
"I don't see why," Kim told her wryly. "She needn't have worried. It wasn't possible for me to sit on his knee, if that was what she anticipated, and we were far too busy anyway."
Fay laughed, sounding rather like George at his most maddening. "Eve is just naturally suspicious and George is just naturally a stirrer."
"A stirrer?"
Fay nodded. "He loves stirring things up. He thoroughly enjoys sitting back and watching what he's started, and he'll do anything to annoy Eve."
Kim frowned over the rather unflattering portrait Fay painted of her brother, but had to admit to the truth, of at least part of it. "Is asking James to be his best man part of annoying Eve, do you think?" she asked. .The idea of George being serious about it worried her more than she cared to admit.
Fay pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I honestly don't know what to think about George lately," she admitted. "He's not behaving at all in character." She looked at Kim curiously. "Are you worried?"
"Yes and no." Kim stirred her coffee with an absent air. "I suppose I am in one way, although I can't honestly think George is serious about really getting married. I think he knows we were fooling him and he wants to make us admit it first."
"Mmm, maybe," Fay admitted, "but it's not like George to let anything go on for so long without having to say something about it and giving the game away — that's what makes me think he's up to something."
"Up to something?" Kim echoed. "But what could he
be up to, Fay?"
Fay shrugged. "That's what puzzles me," she admitted. "I have a feeling that he and James were planning something. I don't know why," she added hastily when Kim would have spoken, "it's just a feeling I have."
Ki
m frowned over that. "James? But what on earth could George and James do —" She shrugged impatiently. "Oh, I don't know," she said. "I'm tired of the whole thing."
"Are you going to tell George?"
"That we were only fooling him?" Kim sighed. "I don't know. Perhaps if I say nothing the whole silly business will fizzle out." She was, she felt, being rather optimistic, but she was rather tired of the subject.
One advantage of working for James was that it allowed her time away from George and time to think, so she made the most of it. They were extremely busy and James was a much more demanding employer than George, but most of the work was such routine that she could give at least half her attention to her own problems.
After the first day James had insisted on getting about, although it was obvious that his injured leg gave him a certain amount of pain and as a result he was rather more short-tempered than usual. Kim took little notice of his temperament, for she had long ago learned to cope with employers who were less than sweet-natured. The difference with James Fleming was that he always ended the day by apologising for his shortcomings, a habit Kim found rather disconcerting.
Aunt Bess took a rather biased view of her working for James, however briefly the period was to be, for it was obvious that she saw in George's generous gesture a threat to her plans for Kim and George. Her persistent matchmaking rather amused Kim and she wondered what her
aunt would have said if she knew that George had asked James about being his best man. Kim had thought it best to keep quiet about it in case Aunt Bess's enthusiasm led her into indiscretion.
Since Kim's arrival, Eve Mellors had visited Covely each day and somehow James managed to inveigle her into leaving again after a very short time, without appearing to be anxious for her to leave. That he was less than enthusiastic about her visits Kim was in no doubt, for he pulled a wry face each time he saw her coming up the front path to the house. Apparently work took precedence even in Eve's case.