Her Man Friday

by Elizabeth Bevarly

  She also noticed that he wasn't wearing a wedding ring, but that was really neither here nor there.

  More than his physical appearance, however, something else was different—his entire demeanor since this morning seemed to have gotten somehow… larger. That was the only way Lily could describe it. Although she'd already thought him tall and broad, suddenly he seemed even taller and broader. He wasn't slouching anymore, but there was more to his expansion than that. He just seemed… larger. All over. More self-assured. In every way. Just more. More than he had been before. Lily had to force herself not to take a step backward in an act of self-preservation.

  "It's all right," she told him, shaking off the odd realization as she tipped her head toward the mess on the bed. "I have a lot of experience with this kind of thing. I know what I'm doing."

  She patted his hand with her free one, trying to ignore the warmth and roughness of his skin, the kiss of the coarse hair growing there. Then—very reluctantly—she removed his hand from her own. Behind his glasses, his eyes narrowed, but he allowed her to go forward alone, shrugging off his concern for her welfare quite literally. So Lily leaned over the bed and, without an ounce of fear or concern, poked the small, slimy thing with her finger.

  "Oh, I know what this is," she said as a flashback from tenth grade biology class hit her square in the head. It was the unmistakable aroma of formaldehyde that did it. "This is…" She threw what she hoped was a heartening look over her shoulder. "Well, to be precise, it's part of a pig."

  "Uh, precisely which part?" Mr. Freiberger asked.

  She picked up the offending item between thumb and forefinger, turning it first to the left, and then to the right. "I do believe it's the spleen. In fact, I'm sure of it. I recall dissecting one in high school, myself. It was really quite a fascinating experiment. I had no idea that a pig spleen was actually capable of—"

  A sound from behind—actually two sounds: a gasp and a thump—halted Lily's observation, because it alerted her to the fact that Chloe's nanny had fainted. So she replaced the pig part on the bed, then sighed as she spun around.

  "Oh, dear," she said. Then, trying her best to reassure the other woman, in spite of her lack of consciousness, she added, "It's only a biological organ. We all have a spleen, after all. There's absolutely nothing to be afraid of, I assure you." Turning to the bookkeeper, she added, "Mr. Freiberger, if you could look in the bathroom there behind you, I think you'll find some ammonia capsules in the medicine cabinet. Would you fetch them, please?"

  He was gazing at her in much the same way one might look when the porch lights were dim, but he did as she'd requested. When he returned, Lily asked him to see if he could rouse the nanny while she washed her hands. By the time she rejoined them, the other woman had begun to come around. Together, they managed to bring her to a sitting position on the floor.

  "Are you all right, Mrs. Puddleduck?" Lily asked when the other woman's pupils had returned to their normal size. Well, sort of normal, anyway. Kind of. "Would you like a cup of tea, or perhaps one of your muscle relaxers? I'll be happy to get you either one."

  Feebly, the other woman shook her head. "What I would like, Lily, is two weeks' severance pay and a damned good reference from Mr. Kimball. And it's Poddledock," she added with surprising force for someone who had just regained full consciousness.

  That, of course, was what Lily had been afraid the other woman would want. In spite of that, she said, "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it. I did warn you that Chloe isn't your average fourteen-year-old."

  "You told me Chloe was a handful," the nanny said. "You never mentioned that she was prone to this kind of mischief and mayhem."

  "Yes, well, I never said a handful of what," Lily offered halfheartedly.

  Unfortunately, she knew the nanny's objections were perfectly well grounded. Lily was absolutely certain that, deep down, Chloe Sandusky was a good kid. But the girl had indulged in so much, well, mischief and mayhem, since coming to Ashling, that even Mother Teresa would have felt taxed.

  In a last ditch effort, however, and with as much cheerfulness as she could muster—which, granted, wasn't much—she pointed out, "Chloe's actually quite a remarkable child. I mean, think about it. This all shows real promise for a career in veterinary medicine."

  "Or a career in serial killing," Mr. Freiberger added in a flat voice.

  Lily threw him what she hoped was a chastening look. "Wake up and smell the formaldehyde, Mr. Freiberger. It's clear that Chloe performed the operation in a controlled environment like biology class, and didn't just take advantage of a defenseless creature while skulking about the farmlands with her friends, the Children of the Corn."

  In response to her assurance, he only arched one eyebrow in silent query.

  Lily lifted her chin smugly. "Chloe is what some people would call a gifted child," she began in the girl's defense.

  "She's what other people would call a menace to society," he countered, his gaze never flinching.

  Lily was about to speak again, but before she could comment, Mrs. Puddleduck began to rouse herself. She stood silently, wavered a bit, smoothed out her dress, wavered a bit more, and then made her way to the closet with all the imperiousness of a czarina. Well, a czarina who was completely whacked on laudanum, anyway. Without a word, she withdrew a suitcase from inside, opened it on the floor, and began to jerk her clothes from the hangers above. She didn't bother to fold them, only tossed them one by one into the suitcase at her feet.

  Even though she knew it would probably be pointless to try to make amends, Lily offered, "In light of today's, urn, incident, I'm sure we could talk Mr. Kimball into giving you a little bonus for your troubles." She bit back a derisive chuckle. Even Publisher's Clearinghouse didn't have enough money to pay a nanny for Chloe Sandusky.

  The other woman spun around and glared at her.

  "No, thank you," she bit out through gritted teeth.

  "How about if you just take a little time to think about it, hmm?" Lily tried further. "A few days off? Paid, naturally."

  But the nanny shook her head and went back to her packing. "No, I think I'll check into that prison matron position I saw advertised in the paper last Sunday. That should be an enormous improvement over this place."

  Lily sighed. "Well, naturally, you'd know what's best for your career."

  The other woman expelled a strangled sound, but said nothing more.

  "Truly, I wish you'd reconsider," Lily tried again. She did not relish the prospect of interviewing potential nannies for Chloe. She might spend weeks trying to find someone else. And she had a million other, more pressing, things to do than search for an appropriate companion for Chloe. "Let me talk to Mr. Kimball to see what kind of permanent future arrangements we can make," she said.

  Mrs. Puddleduck hesitated in her packing. "I'm assuming you mean permanent future financial arrangements?"

  "Of course," Lily assured her.

  "Significant ones?"

  "Well, you are already earning far more than the average nanny. Let's not get greedy."

  The other woman spun around and thrust her fists upon her ample hips. "I am not greedy," she said. "And Chloe is not a nanny's typical charge. The girl is a menace."

  "But a gifted menace," Lily reminded her.

  "Nevertheless, if Mr. Kimball wants me to continue working with her, he's going to have to make it worth my while. Call it hazardous duty pay, if you want. Because that's exactly what it will be. That girl needs a drill instructor, not a nanny."

  "Well, I do appreciate all the work you've put in with Chloe," Lily said. "I know it hasn't been easy."

  That strangled sound erupted from the nanny again, then she said, "You might want to tell that to Mr. Kimball. And don't forget to include the part about me deserving a bonus. A big bonus."

  "I'll do my best," Lily told her, "but you know how Mr. Kimball feels about bonuses."

  Mrs. Puddleduck's expression pretty much illustrated her feelings withou
t a word spoken. Which was just as well, Lily thought, because that kind of language really wasn't appropriate coming out of the mouth of a nanny.

  Lily sighed. "I'll see what I can do about increasing your salary. And your bonus, as well," she added when she saw the other woman open her mouth to remind her.

  "I'll give him one week to… you know… see to my needs," the nanny stated quite forcefully. Then she stared down at her half-filled suitcase with what was obviously much regret. "I need a drink," she muttered. And before Lily had a chance to object—happy hour didn't begin until six o'clock, after all—the other woman had left the room.

  Oh, well, she tried to console herself. At least she had managed to keep Mrs. Puddleduck from joining the ranks of Chloe Sandusky's former nannies—a place in dire need of a twelve-step recovery program if ever there was one. She only prayed that she would be able to talk Schuyler into opening his tight fist long enough to eke out a few more dollars per week for the woman.

  "What was that all about?"

  Lily started at the question. Until Mr. Freiberger had uttered it, she had forgotten he was there. Well, almost forgotten, anyway. There was that small matter of his forearms having totally consumed her thoughts. She turned to look at him, only to find him standing with his weight rested on one foot, his hands hooked loosely on his hips, his intense scrutiny warming parts of her body that really had no business warming in polite company. Oh, and she also noticed that his forearms were still way too sexy.

  "That," she said, "was just the latest in a series of troubling developments here at Ashling."

  "I see," he said. "And who exactly is Chloe? Other than a juvenile delinquent, I mean?"

  Lily supposed that if he were going to be working at Ashling for any length of time, he was going to have to be made aware of Chloe's existence sooner or later. Doubtless, there was some kind of OSHA regulation about such a thing.

  She opened her mouth to explain, but the words didn't quite make it out because she was too busy studying the changes in Mr. Freiberger. With his dweeby jacket gone and his ugly necktie all askew like that, he looked quite fetching. His hair was rumpled in a way that was almost sexy, as if some woman had been clutching great handfuls of it in her fingers while he buried his head between her—

  Goodness, but that was an uncharacteristically lascivious thought she was having. Lily's eyes widened in shock as the graphic image materialized in her brain, but no amount of coaxing would roust it. She shook her head once to clear it, but unfortunately, the image of Mr. Freiberger, um, doing that… to her… came bouncing right back to the forefront of her brain again. She swallowed with some difficulty and made a mental note to have a date with someone. Anyone. Soon.

  "Chloe is Mr. Kimball's ward," she said, telling herself she must have imagined the huskiness her voice seemed to have suddenly adopted.

  "His ward?" Mr. Freiberger echoed doubtfully.

  But Lily wasn't going to offer up specifics of the arrangement to a total stranger, so she only reiterated, "Yes, his ward."

  "What? You mean like Batman and Robin?"

  She narrowed her eyes at him in confusion. "Batman and Robin?"

  He nodded. "Yeah, you know. Like Bruce Wayne's young ward, Dick Grayson?"

  Lily shook her head. "No. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Kimball and Chloe have never donned Spandex and fled from a secret underground entrance to Ashling in a re-engineered Pontiac to rid Gotham City of its unsavory elements."

  Leonard Freiberger offered her a look that was less than tolerant. But he said nothing.

  "Actually," she told him, spurred by his silence, "the situation is more like Jane Eyre."

  "Come again?"

  "You know," Lily went on, "the part about Mr. Rochester's ward being the offspring of a French opera girl? Only with Chloe, her mother wasn't a French opera girl. She was a, uh, a cabaret dancer. But she was originally from Versailles, Indiana, for what it's worth."

  Mr. Freiberger's eyebrows shot up at that. "You mean she was a stripper?"

  Lily suddenly wondered if she was due for a manicure, and dropped her gaze to the backs of her hands. "Yes, I believe that is, in fact, what they're called in this country."

  "So Chloe is Mr. Kimball's illegitimate daughter by a stripper from Indiana?"

  Lily continued to study her left cuticles. "Well, I never said that."

  "You didn't have to."

  "I didn't?"

  "It was that Jane Eyre reference that did it. Just because I'm a bookkeeper, Miss Rigby, doesn't mean I haven't read books."

  She glanced up at that, only to find that Mr. Freiberger was glaring at her. "I didn't mean to imply that—"

  "Chloe's secret is safe with me," he interrupted her. "If that's what you were worried about. The last thing a fourteen-year-old girl needs is to have talk like that circulating about her."

  Actually, talk like that was the least of Chloe's worries, Lily thought. But there was no reason to tell Mr. Freiberger about all that. "Thank you for your discretion," she said instead.

  "How long has she been living here?"

  Lily couldn't imagine why he would be interested in such a thing, but she told him, "About a year and a half now."

  He nodded slowly, and she got the feeling it was because he was thinking hard about something. And although she was reluctant to interrupt him, it suddenly occurred to her that the two of them were alone in Mrs. Puddleduck's room, and his forearms really were quite, quite sexy, and she hadn't had a date in quite, quite some time, so it would probably be better for them to retreat to their previous positions pronto, mainly because Schuyler's office and the kitchen were in two separate wings of the house, and at the moment, Lily felt an intense need to be far, far away from Mr. Freiberger and his forearms.

  So she said, "Would you like to come to the kitchen for a cup of tea?"

  Thankfully—at least, she tried to convince herself that she was thankful of the fact—Mr. Freiberger declined her invitation. "Thank you, Miss Rigby, but I really should go back to my work. I was right in the middle of something very interesting when I heard Mrs. Puddleduck scream."

  Lily nodded. "Some other time then."

  He dipped his head forward a bit in acknowledgment. "I think I'd like that."

  A whiff of formaldehyde reminded her that there was one last matter to which she needed to attend. After glancing briefly over her shoulder, she said, "I'll, uh, I'll have Mr. Tooley, the groundskeeper, see to the, uh, the spleen. Perhaps he could put it in the compost bin. I'll need to order a new mattress, as well." Until then, she thought, the nanny could claim one of the guest rooms.

  "Disposing of the evidence?" Mr. Freiberger asked. The look on his face suggested that he was only half-joking.

  Lily expelled a restless breath. "Look, I won't lie to you. Chloe is more than a handful. But deep down, she is a good kid. She's just had some rough breaks, you know?"

  "What kind of rough breaks?"

  Unwilling to divulge the particulars of Chloe's young life to a man she'd just met—after all, even juvenile delinquents were entitled to some privacy—Lily only said, "Let's just say she has a lot of issues to work out, shall we? Despite what Mrs. Puddleduck said, Chloe's not dangerous."

  If nothing else, Lily was certain about that. Even after a life fraught with insecurity, instability, and perhaps even subtle abuse, Chloe Sandusky was, in essence, a good kid. She was just crying out for attention, and, as a gifted child—as an extremely gifted child, Lily amended—she was simply much more effective than other kids at going about such a thing.

  "I'll hold you to that," Mr. Freiberger said.

  Oh, goody, Lily thought. And then maybe he'd hold her to himself.

  She bit back a sigh at the thought and extended her arm toward the door, indicating he should precede her. But he only smiled and mimicked her gesture, suggesting that she should go first instead. So Lily strode forward with the bookkeeper right behind her. And, with no small effort, she somehow managed to keep from following h
im when they parted ways at the foot of the stairs. Instead, with a brief nod to his forearms—uh, to him—she returned to her cold tea, and warm thoughts, in the kitchen alone.

  * * *

  Chapter Four

  At the foot of the stairs, Leo kept his gaze trained on Lily Rigby until she was completely out of sight. Not so much because he didn't trust her, but because she had a way of walking that a man simply could not ignore. Yeah, a walk that could start fights and stop traffic, no doubt about it. And he just didn't see any reason to deny himself the simple pleasure of watching her.

  In that snug skirt and those smoky stockings, she was, in a word, very hot. Okay, so that was two words. One word just wasn't enough for a woman like that. A woman who, one minute, was throwing looks his way that would outgun a flame-thrower, then the next minute was unflinchingly inspecting a pig's spleen, then the next minute was coming to the defense of a young girl who obviously had some serious problems. Issues, Lily Rigby had called them. Felonies was probably more like it.

  And then another thought struck him when he recalled Miss Rigby's revelation that Kimball's young ward had been at Ashling for about a year and a half. That meant the industrious Chloe had come to live here right around the beginning of last fiscal year. And if Miss Rigby was to be believed—something on which Leo's mental jury was still definitely out—then the troubled Chloe was also a gifted child.

  Well, my, my, my, he pondered as he forced his feet to move in the direction of Schuyler Kimball's office. Presuming that the girl's gifts weren't homicidal in nature, or spawned by a chemical imbalance in the brain, then Kimball's ward might warrant a bit of investigation herself. Just what were they teaching kids in computer science class these days anyway? Seeing as how he hadn't uncovered much of anything else so far today, maybe he'd just try a new tack and see where it led him.

  Leo made his way quickly back to Kimball's office—well, as quickly as he could, considering the fact that Kimball's house was roughly the size of Rhode Island—and rifled through his briefcase until he located his telephone directory. Then, snatching up the phone, he dialed his good buddy Eddie Dolan, a man who was connected in ways that no one operating within the parameters of the American justice system ought to ponder. Eddie Dolan, who could find out anything about anybody… for a pretty hefty fee.