A Pretend Engagement
Jessica Steele
It startles the life out of her to come home and find a man in her bedroom! But even more so when Varnie Sutton discovers that the man is CEO Leon Beaumont, her brother's boss!Leon is using Varnie's country house to avoid the media, but when Varnie discovers that her brother's job is at risk if she doesn't let him stay–they're stuck with each other! Especially when it's splashed across the front pages of every newspaper that the couple have just become engaged…
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” Leon said, adding in much the same tone, “Want to shake hands?” And not a bit abashed by his own nakedness, he looked about to get out of bed….
The man was no stranger to Varnie—not since she had seen that picture of him in the paper yesterday. There was absolutely no need for the man to introduce himself. She already knew who he was.
But what in blazes was Leon Beaumont doing here? And more worrying than that, he—the first man ever to do so—had just seen her completely stark naked, stitchless. Oh, heavens above, how on earth was she ever to face him again?
Jessica Steele lives in a friendly Worcestershire village in England with her super husband, Peter. They are owned by a gorgeous Staffordshire bull terrier called Florence, who is boisterous and manic, but also adorable. It was Peter who first prompted Jessica to try writing and, after the first rejection, encouraged her to keep trying. Luckily, with the exception of Uruguay, she has so far managed to research inside all the countries in which she has set her books, traveling to places as far apart as Siberia and Egypt. Her thanks go to Peter for his help and encouragement.
Vacancy: Wife of Convenience #3839,
Harlequin Romance®!
Books by Jessica Steele
HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®
3695—HIS PRETEND MISTRESS
3721—A PROFESSIONAL MARRIAGE
3741—AN ACCIDENTAL ENGAGEMENT
3763—A PAPER MARRIAGE
3787—HER BOSS’S MARRIAGE AGENDA
A Pretend Engagement
Jessica Steele
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE (#u10559fc8-9548-5694-8f3a-ba3f8ee1cd7b)
CHAPTER TWO (#ue3e6e3a5-8217-586b-8fcf-f9752b9c2677)
CHAPTER THREE (#u5856084d-1c09-55cb-87fe-b272a831aa10)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
HER thoughts were many and varied during that long drive from Heathrow airport to North Wales. Nor were her thoughts the happiest. It did not cheer her one whit that fog had descended, making it a truly murky, damp and miserable November night. The night matched her mood.
She had hoped to make the journey to Aldwyn House in Denbighshire in record time, but poor visibility made any chance of driving at speed out of the question. To speed in these conditions would be utter madness.
Not that she had intended to drive to Wales when she had first left the airport. Her initial thought, an unconscious thought, had been to drive back to her home near Cheltenham. An hour into the drive, however, and Varnie had recalled all the stresses and strains her overworked parents had endured recently. The last thing she wanted to do, now that they were retired and sailing in calmer waters, was to give them cause to be upset or anxious again—especially about her.
They’d had more than enough to worry about, first with her brother, Johnny, crashing his car—though it was true he always seemed to be about an inch away from some disaster or other—and then her father being diagnosed with high blood pressure. Johnny had walked away from his car crash with barely a scratch, but they had all worried about him. On top of that the hotel they owned had started to lose money, and they had decided to try and sell it. And then Grandfather Sutton had died. One way and another it had been a pretty anxious time.
But, looking on the brighter side, the hotel had at last sold and, wonder of wonders, Johnny, at twenty-five—and something of a misfit—had at last found his niche, and was finally settled in a job he absolutely loved. So, all in all, their parents should now be able to look forward to the stress-free life that they so thoroughly deserved.
No way, Varnie had realised, could she go back home to lick her wounds. With the best acting in the world she knew she had no hope of hiding how very let down and upset she was feeling. And, on fretting about it, Varnie had just known that she had no need to go home; her parents were not expecting to see her again for two weeks anyway!
Varnie had changed course and felt distinctly out of sorts as she’d dwelt on how only that morning her parents had stood on the drive of their new home and waved her a smiling goodbye. She had been smiling too, experiencing quite a flutter of happy anticipation at the prospect of sharing a whole two weeks in Switzerland with her boyfriend Martin.
Because he worked so hard, holidays were a rarity for Martin. He was only able to take this trip now because he was able to combine it with some business. But when he was not engaged in business they would be together, and it would be a chance for them to really get to know each other—so she had thought.
Varnie was not smiling now. In fact she was feeling far from happy as she headed for Wales. By sheer good fortune she had popped her keys to Aldwyn House into the glove compartment of her car on her last visit there.
Oh, what a fool she had been! What a total and complete idiot! How could she…? My heavens, if she had not started to grow a bit fidgety when Martin Walker had been three-quarters of an hour adrift from the time they had arranged to meet at the airport, she would even now be on some plane with him about to land in Switzerland!
It was only because he was meant to be partly on holiday that she had broken his ‘Don’t-ring-me-at-the-office. We’re-so-busy-and-I’m-always-dashing-all-over-the-place, and-they’ll-never-find-me’ rule. But she had tried ringing his mobile—it was switched off.
She had fidgeted some more. Walked around a little—with luggage. And eventually, with the view of trying not to keep a fixed gaze on the entrances into the departures area, she had gone and purchased a newspaper. On opening the paper, however, her mind for a very brief while had been taken away from Martin Walker. Because there on the very front page was a picture of one man felling some other man—with a headline telling her that the man doing the felling was none other than her brother’s new boss, Leon Beaumont. The photographer had caught him just after he had thrown his punch and as the other man hit the ground. Good heavens!
Swiftly she’d read what it was all about. Apparently, and ‘allegedly’, in newspaper speak, which meant there was probably very little doubt about it, Leon Beaumont had been making out with one of his female executives—there was a picture to the side of one very elegant and attractive thirty or so brunette, name Antonia King—and her husband had got to hear of the liaison.
Why Neville King was the one on the floor, a hand going to his recently thumped jaw, and not the other way round, was not stated. But Leon Beaumont looked angry enough to give him more of the same once the cuckolded husband managed to get to his feet.
Varnie had lost interest. She didn’t think much of men who went around knocking other men to the ground—even if this particular pugilist was the employer her brother admired so much. Oh, where was Martin? If he didn’t soon arrive…
She had checked her watch for the umpteenth time, and had known that if she were going to make that call to his office that she had better do it now. The firm’s switchboard would be closing in ten minutes. She had given it another three, and still no Martin.
She’d had enough. He was supposed to be on holiday, for goodness’ sake. She’d taken out her phone—she would make just the one call, then she would switch her phone off too, ready for the flight.
Glad she had thought to take a note of Martin’s number, a number she had never before called, Varnie had pressed out the digits. Martin had a new secretary; she hoped she wasn’t the sort who took off ten minutes early on a Friday night.
She wasn’t. The telephonist had soon put her through.
‘Oh, hello,’ Varnie said brightly, conjuring up the female’s name from somewhere, ‘Is that Becky?’
‘That’s me,’ answered a sweet girlish voice.
‘Martin isn’t there by any chance, is he?’
‘Oh, no. He left ages ago!’ Becky replied, much to Varnie’s relief. But before she could thank her, say goodbye and switch off her phone, Becky was enthusiastically enquiring, ‘You and the children got to Kenilworth all right, then, Mrs Walker?’
‘I’m not…’ Mrs Walker! His mother? Children? ‘Mrs Walker?’ Varnie enquired evenly—five years in the hotel trade had taught her to mask any slight feeling of inner foreboding, even though she knew she had not the smallest need to feel in any way disquieted.
‘I’m sorry,’ Becky apologised at once. ‘You’re not Mrs Walker, are you?’ and, going on without pause, she excused, ‘Only, Mrs Walker—Melanie—and the children were in here just after lunch. She and the little ones were just going off to stay with her mother while her husband’s away on business.’
Feeling shaken to the roots of her being, Varnie was speechless—and disbelieving! Her brain wasn’t taking in what it very much sounded as if Becky was trying to impart. ‘Er—Martin is married to Melanie?’ she managed when, knowing she must have misunderstood, she got her breath back.
But, ‘That’s right,’ Becky answered cheerfully. ‘Such a happy couple together. Martin hated having to leave her, but business is business and—’
Varnie abruptly ended the call. Without another word she switched off her phone and sat totally stunned. There was some mistake! There must be. For heaven’s sake, Martin had told her he loved her and that this trip, this two weeks, would be a time of them getting really close. She had been excited at the idea. Martin was always so busy that the only times they had been able to see each other had been when he’d been Cheltenham way on business and had stayed overnight at her parents’ hotel.
Why, her parents had liked him! Had wished her well when she had explained that this trip was about her and Martin making up for all those weekends when he had been too busy to see her. Her parents knew all about busy weekends. The hotel business was a seven-days-a-week business.
But doubt, small at first, suddenly started to creep in. Varnie pulled her suitcase nearer to her and tried to think of one single, solitary weekend that she’d had free at the same time as Martin. She could not think of one!
The significance of that, when partnered up with his secretary Becky’s remarks just now, started to creep in. Was Martin busy every weekend—or was it that he had to spend his weekends with his wife and children? Children!
Unable to take such thoughts sitting down, Varnie got abruptly to her feet. ‘Martin is married…?’ she had asked. ‘That’s right. Such a happy couple together.’ And don’t forget ‘the little ones’. And do not forget ‘Martin hated having to leave her’. Her—his wife!
Varnie had moved two steps when she saw Martin, a huge grin on his face when he saw her, come dashing in. ‘I’m so sorry, my sweet darling,’ he apologised, simply oozing charm. ‘The traffic was a—’ He broke off when he saw that Varnie was looking more frosty than loving. ‘What—?’
‘Tell me straight,’ Varnie cut in. ‘Are you married?’
‘I—um…’ He started to bluster, and Varnie went cold. She had somehow fully expected a swift and outright denial. ‘Hey—what’s this?’ he asked, recovering, his boyish grin blasting out as he attempted to take a familiar hold of her arm.
‘Are you?’ Varnie insisted, while at the same time hating herself that, had he said no, she would still probably have believed him. ‘Are you?’ she repeated firmly.
‘Well—um…We’re separated.’ He quickly got himself together. ‘We’re going to divorce. I haven’t seen her in ages, but I’m planning to get my solicitor to contact hers the minute you and I get back to…’
Varnie went from merely being cold to icy. She stooped to pick up her suitcase. ‘Goodbye, Martin,’ she said, and guessed that her expression must have told him that anything else he had to say could be said to the air, that she was not interested in him or his lies, because he did not try to stop her from leaving.
Nor was she interested in anything else he had to say. She felt wretched. She felt sick. And she was having the hardest time in accepting just how easily she had been duped. How easily her parents, too, who were far more worldly-wise than she, had also been so taken in by Martin Walker’s smooth charm.
Varnie went in search of her car with her mind in a turmoil.
He was married! Martin Walker was a married man and—all too plainly—still living with his wife! He—they—had children! And her—he had been dating her!
True, their dates had been more kind of snatched moments when he was in the Cheltenham area. But—she had been going to go away with him, for goodness’ sake.
She felt frozen up inside and bitterly betrayed. He had fooled her, and he had fooled her parents.
Her thoughts started to wander and she went back to when they had first met Martin. He had stayed overnight at their smart but modestly priced hotel. She had served him drinks in the bar and they had got talking. He was thirty-four, he had openly told her, and was working all hours trying to make a go of his own business. She had relayed that to her parents. They had approved. Hadn’t they done the same? Were they still not doing the same? And until the hotel, then recently put on the market, found a buyer, they would go on doing the same.
Purchasers for small independent hotels were not that thick on the ground, and they had all still been beavering away three months later—with Martin Walker now a frequent overnight guest. He’d begun to take an interest in Varnie. She’d liked him. Her parents had smiled on when occasionally he would spend two consecutive nights at their hotel; they’d more or less left her to deal with him.
Somehow she and Martin had become a couple. He would phone her daily, usually around three in the afternoon, when she was in the office typing up menus or doing some bookkeeping. Varnie made a point of being in the office at that time, though she was used to ‘filling in’ whenever some member of staff rang to say they had child-minding problems, toothache, or whatever misadventure had befallen them so they could not work their shift.
But because both she and Martin were fully stretched work-wise—he getting his business off the ground and she as well as working what were termed ‘unsocial hours’ taking on extra duties—their warming friendship had seemed to stay just that.
Then Mrs Lloyd, the woman who’d cooked and cleaned for Grandfather Sutton at Aldwyn House, had rung to say she had found him collapsed on the drawing room floor and had called a doctor. Typically, he had refused to go to hospital, and Varnie and her mother had dashed to North Wales to see him.
Varnie swallowed hard as she recalled that dreadful time. Grandfather Sutton had died three days later, and she had so loved him. She had been his only blood relation, and he’d liked her to spend all her childhood holidays with him. Johnny would come too, often, and her grandfather would treat them both the same, albeit that Johnny was in actual fact his step-grandson—her stepbrother.
Johnny’s father was the only father Varnie had known. She had been an infant when her own father had died, and two years old—Johnny five—when his divorced father had married her mother. Varnie had kept the name Sutton, but felt fully a member of the Metcalfe family. Johnny’s father loved her like the father she had never known.
Martin Walker had been there at the hotel when they had returned from Wales after her grandfather’s funeral, Varnie recalled as she motored on. Johnny had loved Grandfather Sutton too, and had been with them. Varnie knew she had been feeling emotional and vulnerable, so that when Martin had taken her in his arms and had told her that he loved her she had rather thought that she loved him too. She abruptly blocked her mind off to that, what she now knew to be a false memory, and attempted to concentrate on something else. What? Johnny?
Johnny, her clever but butterfly-brained brother. He had wanted absolutely nothing at all to do with the hotel trade, and had made tracks for London as soon as he could. In actual fact he had a fine brain, and if he ever applied himself to go into business for himself—and stuck to it—it was a foregone conclusion he would make a success of it. But for all his bright brain, or maybe because of it, he was easily bored and never seemed to stay long with any one firm. Needing money, however, he would work for it. His last few jobs had seen him deskbound—until boredom had set in.
‘I’ve been made redundant,’ he’d said cheerfully, when his previous job had ended abruptly.
‘Oh, Johnny, I’m so sorry,’ she had sympathised.
‘I’m not.’ He had laughed. ‘Now what?’
Oh, Johnny, Johnny. Varnie thought fondly. The fog was seeming to become thicker than ever, making driving conditions even more hazardous. It seemed she and her parents had spent most of their lives worrying about Johnny. He seemed to have the most uncanny knack of getting into twice as many scrapes as other men his age. How well she remembered the time he had written his car off, and how they had charged up to London, terrified of what he might have done to himself—only to find that he had discharged himself from hospital and gone for a pint at his local. Sometimes they were certain that Johnny must come from some other planet.
Then, with the exception of her grandfather passing away, things had started to look up. The hotel had sold and their parents had purchased a new home, and, with money over, Johnny had been promised a lump sum when all finances were settled. Johnny had immediately made arrangements to go to Australia to spend a month with friends he had there.
Shortly afterwards, and to put the icing on his particular cake, he had found the job he said he had been looking for all his working life. ‘It’s the job of my dreams, Varnie!’ he’d enthused, and she’d thought she would have to tie him to a chair if he got any more excited.
The job was as peripatetic assistant to one Leon Beaumont. Apparently the great man was often out of the office, either travelling around Britain or abroad. But so keen, not to say desperate, had Johnny been to get the job, he had been ready to cancel his proposed Australian holiday. It had not come to that, because, having been offered the job, he’d found that Leon Beaumont was prepared to honour his holiday arrangements. As it happened those arrangements conveniently fitted in with a break he was thinking of taking himself.
In actual fact Johnny’s Australia-bound flight had taken off earlier that day, Varnie reflected. But, not wanting to think about airports, she recalled how her father—stepfather, to be absolutely accurate—had wanted to give her a lump sum too. But by then she had learned that Grandfather Sutton had left Aldwyn House to her. And, though she knew she would not be able to afford the upkeep of the big old house, and would, reluctantly, have to sell it, she also realised that she would make a considerable amount from the sale, and did not therefore feel able to accept her father’s generous offer.
She had little money of her own, but was heartily glad she had paid her own airfare to Switzerland. Though it would have served Martin Walker right if she had allowed him to pay for it—but in all probability he would have been able to cash her ticket in. Come to think of it, she could not recall him ever offering to pay her fare.
It had been a very big step for her to have agreed to go with him in the first place. It wasn’t as if she had ever done that sort of thing before. But, what with all the upheaval that had happened, the trauma of losing Grandfather, she had been rather looking forward to a break herself. And, she reminded herself, don’t forget she had loved Martin.
Had? That word brought her up short as, the foggy conditions not improving the least bit, she drove carefully on. Had she loved Martin? Grief, she must have done! Hadn’t she been thinking of getting herself some kind of a career in London so that she should be nearer to him, so that they might see more of each other?
Yet what did she feel now? Anger, mainly. Fury that there were such ghastly men about. She felt duped, soiled, and it was none of her making. She felt a sort of numbness too, and wondered if that numbness was perhaps a precursor to the pain she was bound to feel when that numbness wore off.
She knew then that she had made the right decision not to go home. She did not feel up to facing her parents’ concern for her, nor did she want them to be concerned. They’d had enough of an anxious time. Perhaps she could spend the two weeks she was supposed to be in Switzerland in getting herself together at her grandfather’s home. His death was so recent she still thought of Aldwyn House as her grandfather’s home.
Varnie wanted her parents to have some quiet time with each other. Oh, how they had earned it. A time together with no hotel to worry them, a time of tranquility, with their children off on their own happy pursuits and without traumas various happening in their worlds.
Varnie became aware that her eyes were feeling dreadfully gritty from her efforts of concentrating so hard on her driving in such diabolical conditions. At the very next opportunity she pulled off the motorway—to discover, when she went to search out a cup of coffee, that everyone else had the same idea.
When she was eventually served she found a spare seat at a table and decided to stay where she was for a while. She did not fancy at all driving the tortuous mountain roads if this fog were a blanket over the whole country.
But eventually, aware that other people were coming in all the while, she vacated her place and went to sit in her car. She was glad then to feel angry again that through no fault of her own—expect perhaps blind trusting gullibility—she was where she was anyway, and not safely tucked up in her own bed at home.
Men! she fumed, though had to modify that when she thought of the sweetness that had been her grandfather, the loving generosity that was the man her mother had married—Johnny’s father—and Johnny himself, given that Johnny had always seemed to be getting himself into some sort of scrape or another. They were always honest scrapes, though. Well, she had to qualify, honest since he had left his boyhood behind. Which honesty was more than could be said for Martin Walker. How honest was it to tell one woman you loved her while married and still living with another? He even had children that she had known nothing about! Men! She’d had it with the lot of them.
Why—look at Leon Beaumont! She had evidence for her own eyes in the paper today of what an adulterous swine he was. Varnie searched the recesses of her mind for information she would probably have given no heed to if her brother had not gone to work for him. Hadn’t Leon Beaumont been involved in some divorce scandal only recently? Hadn’t he been toting around some other married lovely, whose marriage had ended in divorce on account of him?
Somehow she found that she could not get thoughts of Leon Beaumont out of her head. Which was odd, because until she had seen that picture of him today, having just thumped Neville King and waiting for him to get up so he could give him another one, she’d had no idea of what the man her brother admired so much looked like.
He was tall, that much was obvious, even when bent over from decking the man on the floor. Good-looking too—dark-haired, athletic-looking—and loaded. As Johnny had said, as bachelors went, they didn’t come any more eligible. Varnie was unimpressed—she was off mid-thirties men, and Leon Beaumont looked only a year or two older than Martin Walker.
But where Martin was trying to build up a business—if what he said was true—Leon Beaumont, head of an international design and development company in the field of communication systems, had already done that.
That was according to Johnny who, while waiting to know if he had got the job as Leon Beaumont’s assistant, had never ceased singing the man’s praises.
Apparently the man already had a PA who was little short of brilliant. So brilliant, in fact, that when she’d married last year, and then started to fret about being apart from her new husband when called to go on the many trips out of London and out of the country, Leon had taken action. Rather than lose his gem of a PA, he’d decided she could stay office-bound and he would create the new position of peripatetic assistant, who, when they were both in the office, could give her a hand.
Johnny was well versed in office routine, a wizard with his laptop and anything to do with computers. Plus, he had a pleasing personality and having learned something of a lesson from his car crash, was a very good driver.
To start with he had truly believed the position advertised would go to some female, but he’d felt he had interviewed well. There had then followed a period of him phoning home every day in panic that he had heard nothing, and they’d been in no doubt, as the days had gone by, that he would feel totally crushed if he did not get the job.
‘I’d work the first three months for nothing if only he’d give me the chance,’ Varnie remembered him saying one time. That, she realised, from a brother who never seemed to have any spare cash, just proved how desperate he had been to have the job.
The day he’d rung to say he had actually been offered the job, actually had the letter in his hand, Varnie had been so glad for him. Though she had thought that some of his enthusiasm might wane when he had been in the job for a month.
But, no, not a bit of it. Leon Beaumont could do no wrong, it seemed. Johnny drove him all over the country—and learned a great deal by just watching the man in action. Leon was this, Leon was that, and, though he did not suffer fools gladly, Johnny had never met a more fair-minded man. He took neither nonsense nor favours from anyone. In business he was his own man, and would not be indebted to anyone.
Johnny had driven him to one of their plants—the technology was absolutely amazing. He had been enthralled, and had subsequently taken notes at some high-powered meeting and, having prior to his interview taken an emergency course in speedwriting, been little short of ecstatic that he had got it all typed back perfectly and accurately.
Given that Johnny had a harum-scarum tendency, they had always known he had a fine brain—when he cared to exercise it. But, in short, having so desperately wanted this job, having got it, he was so happy, and was determined to do everything to keep it and to make his employer think well of him.
Which, she decided, with the hotel sold, Johnny settled and her parents settled, made her the only odd one out. Her parents thought that everything would now be fine and that they could sit back and relax—so how could she go home now and ruffle the calmer waters of their life?
Feeling glad she had made the decision she had, to drive by Cheltenham and head for the Welsh mountains, Varnie knew even so that she would not be sorry to reach Aldwyn House and her bed.
The moment she hit those twisting mountain roads though, she had little space to think of anything but where she was heading. She felt as though she had been driving for a dozen or so hours, and it was in fact after midnight when she at last hit a straightish run of road where she had space to once again let her thoughts in. But oddly, while her family and Martin Walker had their fair share in her thoughts, it seemed as though Leon Beaumont, a man she had never met, was determined to have an equal part in her head.
‘Oh, clear off,’ she actually muttered aloud, when the picture she’d seen of Leon Beaumont in the paper jumped into her mind’s eye. He might be scrupulously fair in his business life, but it was a pity he didn’t run his personal life so scrupulously!
It was one in the morning by the time she passed the little clutch of cottages that were the nearest neighbours to Aldwyn House. A quarter of a mile further on and Varnie climbed stiffly from her car to open the gates to the property. She drove through, but felt too weary suddenly to bother to close them behind her.
‘Have a wonderful holiday,’ her parents had bidden her. Varnie had not visualised then that she would be spending the next two weeks not skiing, but here at Aldwyn House.
She left her car standing in front of the garage. All at once she felt too used up to try and do battle with the heavy garage doors—she would put her car away in the morning. Similarly, the front door sometimes stuck in the damp winter months. She was too tired to contemplate finding the energy to wrestle with it.
With her house keys and flight bag in one hand, her suitcase in the other, and with some vague notion to take a shower prior to falling straight into bed, Varnie went to the rear of the house and let herself in through the kitchen door.
She noticed at once as she snicked on the light that someone had been there. She didn’t mind. Johnny had a key. He was a kind soul, and while she and their parents had been dealing with packing that which the new owners of the hotel were not taking over he had volunteered to come and empty her grandfather’s wardrobes and drawers.
Switching lights on and off as she went, Varnie left the kitchen, having noted that while Johnny had not got around to putting away the cup and saucer he must have used when he’d made himself some black coffee, he had rinsed them and left them drying on the draining board. She went up the stairs and to the room she always used when she visited. It was a pretty room, with a lovely view, and though not as large as the master bedroom it was a room she preferred.
Seated on the side of the bed, she eased off her shoes and reflected on one of the worst days of her life. But, bed calling, she got up, glad she had left the bed made up from her last visit. But when she went to unlock her suitcase she suddenly felt too weary to remember in which of the many compartments of her flight bag she had put the key.
‘Oh, hang it,’ she mumbled, and stripped off. Deciding for once not to obey the habit of a lifetime and shower before bed, she climbed into bed—and went out like the proverbial light.
As weary as she had been, however, she was awake at her usual time of six o’clock. She lay there in the pitch darkness and was briefly surprised that after all that had happened yesterday she had slept at all.
Then all at once several things struck her that she had been too weary when she had arrived to pay any heed to. The house was warm! Johnny again. The house was built of stone, almost two feet thick in places, which made it lovely during a heatwave, but bitterly cold in winter. Johnny must have put the central heating on when he’d arrived and forgotten to turn if off again when he left. Thank you, Johnny.
She clicked on the bedside lamp, smiling fondly as she thought of him. She hoped he had a fantastic holiday in Australia. His friends Danny and Diana Haywood would make him more than welcome, she knew that.
But, in the meantime, she would not have to make do with the low-powered hit and miss, not to say downright temperamental shower in her adjoining bathroom. She could use the brilliant and powerful one in the bathroom adjoining the master bedroom.
Varnie toyed with the notion of shaking some clothes out from her suitcase first, but all at once to take the shower she had missed last night seemed to be something of a priority.
Modesty was simply not required, and, stark naked, she left her room and padded along the landing to grab a large towel from the big airing cupboard as she went. She had the house all to herself after all. Not a soul there to see her.
With a towel over one arm, she trundled along to the master bedroom and opened the door. Her mind more on crossing the room to the door of the bathroom than anything, Varnie flicked on the light switch and was halfway across the room when all of a sudden it was borne startlingly in on her that she was very far from alone!
She wasn’t even looking at the bed when her peripheral vision detected the movement of bedcovers! She stared, stunned, at the bed. But before her brain could leap into action, electric light flooding the room had alerted the other occupant to another presence, and a body began to emerge!
‘What the…?’ His sleep disturbed by the sudden glare of light, the man was not thrilled and was already sitting up. And, by the look of his naked chest and hip as the bedcovers started to go back, he was as stark naked as she!
‘H…? Wh…? Oh!’ she gasped, frozen to the spot, her brain totally seized up as she stared, her sea-green eyes saucer-wide, at the dark-haired man about to leave the bed.
Her shaken rigid expression, her scarlet face, must have got through to the man. However, she was sure it was not to spare her blushes that he halted briefly and remarked, a shade toughly, she felt, ‘I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,’ adding, much in the same tone, ‘Want to shake hands?’
And, not a bit abashed by his own nakedness, he looked about to get out of bed—though not before he took a slow inventory of her—assets. His eyes—grey, she noticed, quite ridiculously, she afterwards felt—travelled meticulously from the top of her tousled long blonde hair, down over her face and, resting perhaps a fraction longer than necessary over her pink-tipped breasts, down over her belly and slender hips, past her beautifully shaped long, long legs.
But by the time he reached her toes Varnie was released from the shock that had kept her frozen still and was suddenly galvanised into action. Without a word or another glance at him, as one of his legs came from beneath the covers and it seemed he was going to stand up and shake hands anyway, Varnie got out of there. Had she had space, time, and had her head not been alive with horror she would have attempted to cover her fleeing naked buttocks with the towel, but she was much more concerned with doing a quick disappearing act.
She reached her room and slammed the door hard shut, to find she was breathing hard and shaking from head to foot. Johnny! Johnny Metcalfe, her brother—stepbrother, if you must. She’d stepbrother him! If he wasn’t in Australia, if she could get her hands on her, she’d kill him.
How could he? And it had to be him! He had invited a perfect stranger to sleep overnight at what was now, she started to accept, her place.
Johnny knew who he was, of course. The man was no stranger to him. And not totally a stranger to her either, not since she had seen that picture of him in the paper yesterday. There was absolutely no need for the man to introduce himself. She already knew who he was.
But what in blazes was Leon Beaumont doing here? And, more worrying than that, he—the first man ever to do so—had just seen her completely stark naked—stitchless. Oh, heavens above, how on earth was she ever to face him again?
CHAPTER TWO
HASTILY, flicking nervous glances to her slammed shut bedroom door from time to time, just in case Leon Beaumont should take it into his head to follow her, Varnie wrapped the large towel around her shape and searched her flight bag for the key to her case. With fumbling, agitated fingers she unlocked her case and extracted underwear, trousers and a shirt.
She heard plumbing noises and hated Leon Beaumont that he, when she was too panic-stricken to think of taking a shower in case he walked in, as nice as you please, was showering, quite unconcerned.
Varnie broke another unwritten rule. She rinsed her face and then dressed without first showering. After running a comb through her hair she left her room, went down the stairs and went into the kitchen—to wait.
He was in no particular hurry, it seemed, and still hadn’t appeared five minutes later. But, while still not looking forward to seeing him again—she went red just thinking of how she had stood, positively starkers, in front of him—she was beginning to feel much calmer than she had.
The longer he kept her waiting, though, and she was starting to think that perhaps there was no need for her to face the embarrassment of seeing him again. Johnny would have told him that his sister owned the house and…Or would he? There was no knowing with Johnny. At times that clever brother of hers could be totally feather-brained. It could be, she realised, that Leon Beaumont had not the smallest clue who she was. So why didn’t she just open that door, take a fast walk to her car, and get out of there? She could be back home in Gloucestershire by…
Hang on a minute, this was her house! Not his! And anyway, she wasn’t ready to go home yet. Soon the pain of Martin Walker’s perfidiousness would start, and she would prefer to be alone here rather than at home with her parents when that happened. She wanted to leave them in peace, blissfully believing she was abroad enjoying the ski slopes.
And on the thought that she had come here to be alone Varnie decided that it was time she got her act together. Time she took charge of the situation. She had no idea what Leon Beaumont was doing here, but she wasn’t leaving—he was!
Feeling in a sudden determined frame of mind, Varnie marched from the kitchen and along the hall to the bottom of the stairs. There she listened for sounds of the electric motor that would tell her that Beaumont was making the most of his shower. She could hear nothing, so knew he was out of the shower.
Preferring not to see him in any stage of undress, she decided against going up the stairs to give him his marching orders. He might be her brother’s boss, but he wasn’t hers. She was about to go back to the kitchen when she spotted a whole pile of junk mail on the floor by the front door. There was masses of it, and since she had cleared away anything that had come through the letter flap on her last visit…
Thinking to occupy herself while waiting for his lordship—what on earth had Johnny been thinking to give him his key?—she went and collected up the mound of clear plastic covered unsolicited mail. Then she found that one was a plain white envelope.
Taking the mail with her back to the kitchen, she knew that the only explanation for Beaumont being inside her property must be because Johnny had handed over his key. Now, why would he do that?
She had a sudden flashback of standing with not a stitch on in front of the man her brother thought so highly of, and knew she was red about the ears. She swiftly busied herself opening up the unaddressed white envelope—and very quickly learned why, or part of why, her brother had parted with his key.
The letter was from Mrs Lloyd, the lady who had come to clean and cook for Grandfather Sutton, and was in response to a telephone call that Johnny had made to her. For all his name was not on the envelope, it began, ‘Dear Mr Metcalfe’.
I am sorry I wasn’t in when you rang yesterday. And I am sorry too that I am not able to come and look after your guest.
Apparently Mrs Lloyd was now retired but, if Mr Metcalfe was really stuck for someone, she had written the phone number of a Mrs Roberts who might be willing, if he could call daily and collect Mrs Roberts, who had no transport.
Her breath caught as it hit Varnie that this was not intended to be just a one-night stopover, as she’d thought! So, she fumed, cross with Johnny and fuming against his employer, that was it. Leon Beaumont obviously fancied a bit of a break—away from outraged husbands, no doubt—and Johnny, doubtless mentioning Aldwyn House, had decided it would be an ideal spot for a hideaway. And, without doubt too, would not have needed much coercion to hand over his key. Naturally enough Johnny, being Johnny and aware that she wouldn’t be around for at least two weeks because she was flying off to Switzerland, had seen no need to inform her of what was happening. She felt fairly certain then that Johnny, as ever Johnny, just hadn’t thought to tell his womanising employer that the property didn’t actually belong to him.
The sound of footsteps interrupted her angry thoughts. She looked to the door. Leon Beaumont stood in the doorway. He was tall, as she had known he was. And, just as she had known she would, she went crimson.
He came further into the kitchen, but did not comment on her embarrassed colour; there wasn’t so much as a hint of embarrassment about him, she noticed. But then, he was probably used to seeing the female form unclad, she fumed sniffily. Though before she could tell him that now that he was dressed she was throwing him out, he demanded, ‘What’s your name?’
As if it had anything to do with him! ‘Varnie Sutton,’ she answered snappily, and watched to see if her name meant anything to him. Clearly it didn’t, so obviously Johnny had not thought to mention her. Not that he should in the ordinary run of things, but, dammit, this was her house! Realising that she was getting quite proprietorial about a house she would have to sell, Varnie decided it was high time she sent this man on his way. ‘And you’re Leon Beaumont,’ she began stiffly. ‘You—’
‘You know who I am?’ Beaumont demanded.
‘Ever think you’ve wandered into someone else’s nightmare?’ she retorted.
He ignored that. ‘How do you know who I am?’ he barked curtly. ‘Metcalfe had strict instructions that I wanted him to find me somewhere isolated where I wouldn’t have to put up with—unwanted intrusions.’
Unwanted intrusions! By that did he mean he thought that she might come on to him? Varnie was on the instant up in arms. She was off men in general, and him in particular. ‘For your information, I wouldn’t touch you with a disinfected line-prop ten feet long!’ she hissed. He favoured her with a searing look of scepticism. ‘For your further information—’ she went on.
‘That’s why you walked naked into my room, was it? Because you’re not interested?’ he cut in. ‘Had I shown the smallest inclination you’d have been in that bed with me like a shot.’
Varnie stared at him in utter disbelief; the whole of her skin felt aflame. Somehow, though, she recovered, to tell him in no uncertain fashion, ‘I’d sooner swallow prussic acid!’ And, building up a fine head of steam, ‘Your eyes were so busily engaged elsewhere…’ She wished she hadn’t said that. Her skin flamed anew as she again recalled his eyes going over her naked figure. ‘…otherwise you might have noticed I was carrying a towel. My only purpose in coming to that room was to take a shower. I didn’t even know you were here.’
‘What’s wrong with the shower in your room?’
‘My room?’
‘I checked. You slept here last night.’
The cheeky swine! ‘My shower needs fixing, there’s hardly any pressure and the shower’s better in your room.’ Why was she bothering to explain? Good…
‘You obviously know the house?’
‘This isn’t my first visit.’
Leon Beaumont stared at her, suspicion rife. ‘From the size of your suitcase, you appear to have some notion of staying for a while?’
Did she have news for him. ‘That’s the general idea,’ she replied. But before she could go on to tell him that she was staying and that he wasn’t, he cut her short.
‘You obviously know John Metcalfe.’ Varnie was about to agree that she did, and that Johnny was her brother. But what Leon Beaumont said next brought her up very short, and caused her to hesitate. ‘Obviously, too, you’re also very well acquainted with my inefficient, new and soon to be short-lived assistant,’ he rapped.
Varnie felt stumped. In an instant she recalled just how keen Johnny had been to work for this sharp and disgruntled-looking man. To work as Leon Beaumont’s assistant, not deskbound but travelling all over—smoothing his path, so to speak, to leave him to deal with bigger, more important issues had been everything Johnny wanted! She gave an inner sigh—protecting Johnny, for all he was three years older than her, had over the years become second nature.
And that was when suddenly, albeit reluctantly, but without having to think about it, Varnie knew she was going to have to change her tune. If she did not, then by the look of it when Johnny came home from Australia, he would not have a job to come home to!
So, okay, she would stick up for Johnny, but no way was she going to crawl to this tall, dark-haired, grey-eyed man who had now come up close to her and was looking toughly, icily at her, through hard, cold and unfeeling grey eyes. ‘Your assistant is extremely efficient,’ she retorted.
‘You know this?’ he questioned, his hard gaze fixed on her sea-green eyes.
‘I do,’ she said, her mind racing to strive to think up something brilliant that Johnny had done.
‘Surprise me?’ Leon Beaumont’s tone had turned to mockery.
‘I—er—know for a fact that—that he tried to get some domestic help to cover while you’re here,’ she brought out triumphantly. Thank goodness she had read that letter.
‘Mrs Lloyd?’
Rats! He already knew that. ‘I arrived late last night,’ Varnie answered, which was pertinent to nothing. She knew she was struggling. But, truth be told, she was more than a tiny bit fed up with this man’s questions.
‘I know that!’ he clipped. ‘I was late getting here myself.’
Oh, grief, he was growing narky again! For herself, she didn’t give a button. But for Johnny…Even if she did feel like wringing her brother’s neck for what he had done, she knew she would not let him down.
‘The fog was dreadful, wasn’t it?’ she commented pleasantly. Deaf ears. Leon Beaumont ignored her pleasant comment. ‘Actually, I somehow didn’t expect you to be here until today—er—the fog and everything,’ she added lamely. ‘Um, you must have put your car away in the garage.’ She came to an end to see that he had clearly heard quite enough of her rambling on.
‘Just what are you doing here?’ he challenged aggressively. ‘And how the hell did you get in?’
Tell him, urged her true self. And she knew she would derive a great deal of satisfaction from doing just that. But—Johnny…Somehow, just to tell this man that his assistant was her brother seemed like letting Johnny down. ‘Oh—sorry,’ she apologised, racking her brains. ‘Didn’t I say?’ What? What? What? ‘There’s a spare key hidden in the pyracantha bush by the tool shed. Er—Mrs Lloyd can’t come after all—’ Varnie broke off, her brain racing. ‘I’m here as her replacement.’ Had she actually just said that? She hadn’t—had she?
Looking at Leon Beaumont, Varnie saw that he didn’t appear to believe it either. He cast an eye over her trim figure, in her casual but obviously good clothes, and bluntly, scepticism rife again, questioned, ‘You’re here to do domestic work?’
Varnie, used as she was to looking out for her brother, couldn’t see what other choice she had. ‘Yes,’ she confirmed.
His answer was to take hold of both her delicate hands. She immediately wanted to snatch her hands back, but by effort of will managed to stay still. She did not often have a manicure, but she had been going to go on holiday, for goodness’ sake, with someone she had up until yesterday thought of as someone a bit special. So why wouldn’t she go the whole hog and have her hands and nails professionally attended to?
‘These hands have never known hard work,’ he stated, tossing them disgustedly away from him.
‘Yes, they have!’ she argued.
‘You’ve skivvied?’ So absurd did the notion seem to appear to be to him, he looked as though he might burst out laughing. He didn’t.
‘I have!’
‘It looks like it.’
‘I was in the hotel trade!’ she defended, while hardly knowing why she was bothering. ‘I’ve worked all areas when required—chambermaid, cleaner, chef, secretary, accountant,’ she enumerated.
‘You were learning the hotel business?’ He seemed to reconsider. ‘So what happened?’ he wanted to know.
‘The—er…’ Oh, heavens, how much had Johnny told him? ‘The hotel sold out to a bigger chain,’ she lied. ‘There were two of us doing the same job. I—er—sort of lost out.’
‘You were sacked!’
Oh, how she would like to poke him in the eye—both eyes, come to that. ‘Not sacked. They’ve said they’ll give me a splendid reference.’ She had been in charge of that sort of thing; she could write herself a super reference if need be. Though of course a reference wouldn’t be needed for casual work.
‘So when this Mrs Lloyd told Metcalfe she couldn’t come, he rang and asked you to come and help out?’ he asked, looking not taken in for a second.
‘That’s about it,’ Varnie answered. What on earth was she doing? While she wanted to stay on at Aldwyn House, no way did she want to stay here with him! And no way did she want to stay and, worse, work for the wretched man.
‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ He declined an offer that she was not altogether sure she had made anyway.
‘Why not?’ Why was she arguing? Johnny—must keep Johnny to the forefront of her mind. Part of being a sister meant looking out for one’s sibling—no matter how infuriating that sibling could be at times.
For a moment it did not look as though Leon Beaumont would deign to answer. Then, abruptly, ‘I don’t take favours,’ he said curtly.
Good! Johnny! Damn. ‘It’s you who’ll be doing me a favour,’ she said in a rush—Johnny Metcalfe, you owe me, big-time. ‘I’m out of a job and I’ve nowhere to live until I hear from my live-in job applications,’ she lied sorrowfully.
Leon Beaumont looked as if to say, Tough. Oh, how she’d delight in kicking him out. Did Johnny really, really want to keep his job? ‘You intend to “live-in”?’ Beaumont asked harshly. ‘You want to be a…’ he paused ‘…a “live-in” skivvy?’ he enquired deliberately.
Oh, to thump his head! ‘The nearest town is miles away,’ she controlled herself to explain.
‘You didn’t come here on your bike—there’s a car parked out there.’
Clearly this man did not miss much. She’d had it with him. I tried, Johnny, I tried. ‘So I’ll leave!’ she answered snappily—and with no little amazement. She had been going to throw this man out, for goodness’ sake, and here she was, saying that she was going to leave! Johnny, of course. A part of his job appeared to be to find this womanising swine a bolthole when his womanising backfired on him. Well, Johnny had been efficient—he had found him that bolthole—nobody was likely to find Beaumont here.
She sighed heavily, and was about to get out of there when she found that Leon Beaumont had misinterpreted the reason for her sigh. He thought she was sighing because she was homeless and had nowhere to go. She guessed it was that, but didn’t thank him for it when suddenly he seemed to relent in his tough stance.
But his tone was curt, nevertheless, when he stated abruptly, ‘You can stay and earn your keep—with certain conditions.’
Huh! Big of you! I own this place! Johnny? Always Johnny. She lowered her glance so Beaumont should not see the enmity in her eyes. ‘Anything you say,’ she answered meekly.
There was a moment of silence, as if he either didn’t care for her meekness or did not believe in it. But he was soon sharply itemising. ‘One, you tell anyone I’m here—just so much as a whispered hint—and you’re out. Got that?’
She knew he meant the press, if they came sniffing around. They must have been ‘doorstepping’ him to have got that picture of him decking Neville King. ‘You don’t want anyone to know you’re here?’ she asked innocently. ‘I saw a picture of you in the paper yesterday. Are you afraid of that woman’s husband…?’ She didn’t finish, and he didn’t bother to dignify her absurd question with an answer.
‘I want no company but my own,’ he told her forthrightly.
‘You’re off women too?’
‘In spades!’ he retorted, and she could see that he meant it. ‘Which leads me to the second condition. You stay out of my bedroom!’
Oh, the arrogance of it! How she managed to hold down some snappy comment she had no idea. But she did, to ask nicely, ‘You’ll manage to make your own bed?’
He gave her a speaking look. She waited to be hired or fired. ‘Get my breakfast!’ he ordered.
Get it yourself, sprang to mind. But by the look of it, whether she wanted it or not—and she did not—she had been hired. ‘Three bags full, sir,’ she retorted, her phoney meekness short-lived as, his instructions given, he strode out.
Varnie went to her grandfather’s pantry to see what, if anything, there might be there that would in any way do for his lordship’s breakfast.
As she had anticipated, unless he fancied canned mandarins followed by canned corned beef, there was nothing. She went to the drawing room, where she found her new and unwanted employer standing looking out of the window.
He was so not interested in her he did not even turn around. ‘I shall have to go to the shops,’ she announced bluntly.
He did turn then, favouring her with a brooding kind of look. ‘Get me a newspaper,’ he commanded, and, to her huge embarrassment, he took out his wallet, extracted some notes and, without a word, held them out to her.
She flushed scarlet. ‘I don’t want your money!’ she erupted indignantly.
He stared at her in some surprise—surprise not only at her high colour but at her genuine indignation too. He seemed about to make some comment about both, but changed his mind to tell her bluntly, ‘I don’t want you paying for my breakfast.’ And, ramming the money into her hand, ‘Bring receipts,’ he snarled, and, plainly fed up with her, left her standing there.
Varnie wondered if she would last the day without thumping him. Never had she met such a man. He could starve as far as she was concerned. But again her mutiny was squashed by thoughts of her dear—though not so dear at the moment—brother.
She knew then that she would do all she could not to, as it were, rock the boat for Johnny. She would, because he loved his job so well, and for once seemed settled in a career, try to put in a good word for him whenever she could. She would do a good job on his behalf too, as long as it lasted. She hoped it would not be for long. She looked at the money in her hands. Oh, grief, there was enough there to keep them in supplies for a month.
She felt better when common sense stirred to make her feel sure he had no intention of being away from his business for that long. She determined, however, that she would ask Beaumont just how long he was staying at her first opportunity.
Hoping that it would not be longer than for just a few days, she went upstairs to take a shower—it wouldn’t hurt him to wait a little longer for his breakfast.
She heard him on the phone in her grandfather’s study as she went by on her way out to her car. Darned cheek! Though, in fairness, she supposed that since he was probably expecting to pay rent for this hideaway accommodation that his assistant had ‘found’ for him, Beaumont assumed he was renting the whole house—and that included the study.
Varnie bought sufficient supplies to last a week, and took her purchases back to her car. She was loading up the boot while musing that her grandfather’s fridge-freezer would come in handy, when someone called her name.
She straightened up. ‘Varnie Sutton!’ exclaimed the wiry, fair-haired man standing there, a broad smile on his face.
‘Russell Adams!’ She smiled in return.
He caught a hold of her arms and bent and kissed her cheek. She had always liked Russell. He and his parents lived about a mile from Aldwyn House. He was the same age as Johnny, and they had spent some splendid childhood times together. Then he and Johnny had gone to university—Johnny had dropped out after a year—and they had seen less of Russell. She guessed it must be five years since she had last seen him.
‘I heard about your grandfather,’ Russell remarked. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t come to his funeral to pay my respects. Working away,’ he explained, but added quickly, ‘Have you time for a coffee? We could catch up. Is Johnny with you?’
‘I really should…’ Get back, she would have said, only she suddenly felt quite happy to think of Beaumont back at Aldwyn House, waiting for his breakfast. ‘Of course I’ve time,’ she said brightly.
And over coffee she learned that Russell was now a qualified civil engineer whose work took him all over the place. He now lived in Caernarvon, but was here visiting his parents for a day or two. In the space of fifteen minutes Varnie learned that Russell was unmarried, but had once ‘come close,’ and that there was no one else he was interested in. Russell liked his job well enough, but sometimes fancied working at something different.
‘How’s Johnny doing? I expect he’s married and settled down?’
‘He’s still single,’ Varnie replied, hoping that he was settled, and realising that perhaps she should make more of an effort on his behalf. Perhaps try to get Leon Beaumont to see what a good assistant he had in her brother. Which reminded her—she’d better head back. This was no way to make sure Johnny kept his job. She had to be the best ‘skivvy’ going—this skivvy that Johnny had organised.
‘And how about you?’ Russell asked. ‘Still breaking hearts, Varnie? Or do you have someone special in your life?’
Still breaking hearts? She was sure she never had. Though as she thought about someone special in her life it was Leon Beaumont and his need for sustenance that occupied her. And it was with quite a start that she all at once realised that thoughts of the person who yesterday had been the someone special in her life had been astonishingly absent!
‘No one,’ she answered, hiding her astonished feelings. ‘But I think I’d better be going. It was lovely bumping into you ag—’
‘How long are you here for?’ Russell cut in.
‘I’m not really sure,’ she hedged, and stood up. She really should be getting back.
Russell walked to her car with her, suggesting that perhaps he might call and see her the next day. Varnie liked him very much, but was unsure of how she was going to cope being head cook and bottle-washer for Johnny’s employer. And in any event Beaumont, who didn’t want anyone to know where he was, would probably be furious should she have ‘gentleman callers’ turning up at his hideaway. Though hadn’t Russell said he was only here for a day or so?
‘I shall be pretty busy sorting out my grandfather’s affairs,’ Varnie invented, and kissed cheeks with Russell on parting. But she drove back to Aldwyn House still feeling very much shaken that, when she had believed she thought enough of Martin Walker to go on holiday with him he should, in less than twenty-four hours, barely figure in her thoughts!
Though when she considered the depths of his deception—he was a married man, for goodness’ sake, deceiving his wife, the mother of his children—Varnie began to feel less astonished that he had killed stone-dead her feeling for him. No wonder he did not figure largely in her thoughts. She knew then that she had not loved him as much as she had thought. She had been stunned, and that was natural enough. Had felt sick and half a dozen other emotions. But any feelings she had thought she’d for him had died the moment he had acknowledged that he was married, yet had still thought she might go away with him when he lyingly told her he was getting a divorce.
She had thought she would find living with the knowledge of his deceit exceedingly painful, but in actual fact the only thing that was smarting was her pride that she had been so gullible. How could she have been so unworldly as not to smell something fishy when the only times she’d seen him had been when he was Cheltenham way on business? And that had always been in the week. True, she had worked peculiar hours too. But really—and dim wasn’t the word for it—only now did the fact that in all the months she had known him never once had they both had a weekend free at the same time. Even one time when he was supposed to be free, and she’d managed to swap duties and arranged to see him, he had rung at the last minute to say that something had cropped up. Of course it had—his wife and children!
Varnie put him from her mind, realising that perhaps she had Leon Beaumont to thank that Martin Walker hadn’t spent the whole of that morning occupying her head. For goodness’ sake, it wasn’t every day that she strolled naked into some man’s bedroom! That was certainly enough to block off all thoughts of some other man. And that was without his overbearing attitude and all that followed. The arrogant…
Varnie calmed down. Johnny. She must keep that clever brother, but—as his father said—often without a grain of sense, to the forefront of her mind. He did not deserve her consideration after what he had done; how dared he hand over his key to her property and invite his boss to use the place as his own? But Johnny did so love his job, and wanted desperately to keep it, and he was her brother and, as her brother, the rights and wrongs of it just didn’t come into it.
That being so, Varnie decided she must make the best of a bad job. She did not want Beaumont in her house, but since, she reluctantly faced, she could not throw him out if Johnny was to keep his job, she would allow him to stay—and only hope it wouldn’t be for more than a day or so.
She pulled up her car to the side of the house and started to extract the groceries while at the same time deciding that, since it looked as though she was going to have to put up with him, she might as well be nice to Beaumont. No, not Beaumont—Leon.
He came into the kitchen just as she placed her first three carriers down on the kitchen table. ‘You took your time!’ he opened curtly.
She felt her hackles go on the incline. Be nice. Be nice. She smiled. ‘I met a friend. We had coffee,’ she replied pleasantly, and was about to add that she’d have brunch ready in next to no time when he butted in—a habit of his she had noticed and didn’t very much care for.
‘You know someone here?’ he questioned sharply.
She very nearly slipped up and said of course she did, that she had spent all her childhood holidays here. In time, she remembered. ‘I did tell you I’d been here before,’ she stated quietly.
‘With Metcalfe?’
‘Naturally. He—um—rented this place before.’
‘How well do you know him?’ Leon Beaumont was interested in knowing.
Oh, you’d be surprised. She toyed briefly with the idea of confessing that Johnny was her brother, her stepbrother, but only briefly. Her being here, skivvying, was her attempt to prove to Leon just how very efficient his assistant was. How, when Mrs Lloyd could not make it, his resourceful and worthwhile assistant had speedily found a replacement to cook and clean for him. Besides, this man didn’t take favours. No, she definitely could not tell him that his assistant was her brother. So, in answer to his question of how well she knew him, she had to settle for, ‘Very well.’
‘You and he are an item?’
‘No!’ she answered, more sharply than she’d meant.
‘You’ve slept with him?’ he questioned shortly.
‘Do I ask you whom you’ve slept with?’ she retaliated. The sauce of it!
‘So you have?’
A childhood memory—a sweet childhood memory—of her being very upset one time. A stray cat had been run over just outside. She had been horrified and dreadfully tearful. She had been awake in the night, sobbing, and Johnny had come from his room—he’d have been about eight at the time. ‘Don’t cry, Varnie,’ he’d begged, and had climbed into her bed and cuddled her better. They had both dropped off to sleep. Who could help but love him? She smiled at the fond memory. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘I’ve slept with him.’
‘Obviously not a lasting experience,’ Leon Beaumont answered with a dismissive kind of a grunt—inferring, she felt, that his assistant had dumped her when he had grown tired of her.
‘Perhaps you’ll feel sweeter when you’ve got something in your stomach,’ she said nicely—lead shot came to mind.
He gave her a nasty look and wandered away, and in between stowing the shopping Varnie cooked him bacon, eggs and beans. In the hope that his arteries were clogging up, she added a piece of fried bread.
The meal was almost ready when she went to lay a place in the dining room. Beaumont came out of the study and saw her with the tray in her hands. ‘I’ll eat in the kitchen,’ he decided, and she was sure he only said it to be difficult. Still, if he wanted to eat with what he thought was the hired help, who was she to say he couldn’t?
She had thought the meal would be eaten with not a word being exchanged. But, sitting at one end of the scrubbed-top kitchen table, a cloth hastily thrown over it, he at the other end, she had barely cut into her bacon when to her surprise he enquired, ‘Where do you come from?’
Varnie popped a morsel of bacon in her mouth, and under cover of chewing it, and emptying her mouth before speaking, cogitated on her answer. Had Johnny, during the miles he had driven him around the country, told him anything at all about his family? Or had Beaumont been occupied with work the whole of the time?
‘Gloucestershire.’ She decided to risk it. Her brother had lived in London for some years now.
‘Where did you meet Metcalfe?’ he wanted to know.
‘He stayed at a hotel I worked at one time.’ And she’d thought she hated liars!
Though of course Johnny had stayed at the hotel. But why wouldn’t he? Their parents had owned it. Leon Beaumont opened his mouth to ask another question she was sure she wouldn’t want to answer either, but she butted in first. It made a change.
‘Talking of staying, how long were you thinking of staying on here?’ she asked, and felt herself go a touch pink. She saw his glance on her delicate colouring, saw his glance go to what had once been described as a very kissable mouth, and she hated him when he ignored her question and made an observation instead.
‘You’re looking guilty about something?’ he questioned grimly. ‘What have you done?’
‘Nothing!’ she denied hotly. ‘Honestly, you’re the most, most…’ she got stuck for a word ‘…most I’ve ever met!’ Oddly then, his lips twitched, as though she amused him. Though his smile never made it. Abruptly she dragged her eyes from his well-shaped mouth. ‘It was a quite innocent question,’ she defended. ‘I like to know where I am. If I have some idea of how long you intend to be here, then I’ll have some idea of what to do with regard to the catering arrangements.’ She was starting to feel a fool. ‘Just how long are you staying?’ she demanded. As if she expected an answer! She didn’t get one.
‘I’m on holiday,’ was as much as he revealed. And that annoyed her.
‘It’s November! Why can’t you holiday abroad like everybody else?’ she snapped, exasperated.
‘I’ve done the “abroad” bit,’ he answered, and while she was wondering what the penalty was for fratricide—she felt like murdering her brother—Beaumont went silkily on, ‘You’ve got something against my holidaying here?’
Who am I to complain? I’m only the skivvy! This was helping Johnny keep his job? ‘No, of course not,’ she swallowed her ire. ‘I feel very lucky that Johnny…’ Bother, she should have said John. Too late now. ‘Er—Johnny Metcalfe thought of me when he wanted emergency cover. It’s just that I should hate to let him down should a job offer come before your—um—holiday is over. Naturally I’d honour my contract with John Metcalfe first. He was insistent that I didn’t let you down…’ Oh, grief, was she laying on John Metcalfe’s efficient reliability too thickly? ‘There’s more bacon there if you’d like…’
‘You sound as if you’re fond of him, as if you’d do anything for him?’
Varnie had had quite enough of Beaumont’s observations. ‘Well, I’ve always found him to be a man of the highest integrity.’ She found she was spreading more on—grief, she was sounding like a talking reference.
‘You’re in love with him?’ Blunt, to the point.
‘No, I’m not!’ she denied, realising that perhaps she had been singing Johnny’s praises a little too highly. She tried for the middle ground. ‘He’s a very nice person, that’s all, and I’m very fond of him.’
‘But not in love with him?’
Varnie gave him an exasperated look. ‘I said not!’ she exploded. And, before she could stop herself, ‘And, contrary to your opinion that I might fancy you—I’m off men, quite severely, right now.’ And, with barely veiled innuendo, ‘In particular men to whom the state of marriage means nothing!’ There, pick the bones out of that!
He did. But to her further annoyance chose not to see her remarks as a dig at him for his disgraceful goings-on—that woman—what was her name?—Antonia King—was still living with her husband, for goodness’ sake. ‘Some man refused to marry you?’ Beaumont leaned back in his chair to enquire coolly.
Varnie sent him a filthy look for his trouble. She didn’t mean her! She meant him! ‘It didn’t get that far,’ she erupted. ‘I found out he was married!’ She looked away in disgust. Had she really openly just told Leon Beaumont that? For goodness’ sake! Okay, she accepted that to be a successful businessman probably meant having an investigative mind, an enquiring mind, a mind that determined to find out that which he did not know. But…
He proved it. ‘You dumped him?’
Honestly, this man! ‘Quicker than that!’ she snapped. And, having had quite sufficient of his company, thank you, she abruptly got to her feet. ‘If you’ve had enough to eat, I’ll wash these dishes,’ she said shortly.
He carried his own used dishes over to the sink, but wasn’t yet done with his questions, apparently. ‘This man, the one you had coffee with—is he the married one who…?’
‘I never said my friend was a man.’
Leon Beaumont looked loftily down at her. ‘You’re saying your friend was female?’
She felt a fool again. She did not like the feeling. ‘Do you give all your—your staff this—um—third degree?’ she questioned hostilely.
He smiled. He actually smiled. It did wonders for the mostly severe expression she was more used to. She wasn’t sure that her heartbeats did not give a little flip—utter nonsense, of course—but it did make her see, as Johnny had told her, why women fell for him like ninepins. Not her, of course. Heaven forbid.
‘Not all of them,’ he drawled. ‘But you’re so delightful to wind up.’
The pig! He was baiting her for his own amusement! While she admitted that there was not very much going on around here in the way of entertainment, she did not take kindly to the fact that he was amusing himself by getting her to rise—that she was the star turn! How she hid the fact that she would like to crack the plate in her hands over his head, she did not know.
‘Thanks a bunch!’ she told him huffily. ‘I’ll let you know when dinner’s ready.’
‘Your friend knows you’re here at Aldwyn House?’ he stayed to enquire, ignoring her hint that she hoped not to see him again before dinner.
‘I expect so,’ she answered carefully.
‘You didn’t say what you were doing here?’ Leon Beaumont’s tone had hardened, as he reminded her how much he wanted his whereabouts kept secret.
For about two seconds she played with the idea of saying that she had. Then thoughts of Johnny were there again. Perishing brothers! ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t think you’d like me to tell him.’
‘Are you having coffee with him again?’ he wanted to know, taking in his stride the information that her friend had been male, as he had thought.
She shook her head. ‘Russell is returning to his home in Caernarvon soon,’ she replied.
‘Good!’ Leon Beaumont grunted, and, taking up the newspaper from the top of one of the units, where she had put it, he went casually out from the kitchen.
Varnie did not mistake that that ‘Good!’ was anything other than good because it meant there was someone less for her to blab to about his whereabouts. The man did not care a jot how many men she had coffee with, that much was certain. His privacy was all that concerned him. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
CHAPTER THREE
SOMEHOW the weekend passed without Varnie putting rat poison in Leon Beaumont’s food. They were sparky with each other—she couldn’t always remember to be nice.
Well, who would? she thought mutinously on more than one occasion. He still did not seem totally convinced that she wasn’t there trying to make capital of the situation of them being under the same roof alone together. Huh!
She sat in front of her dressing table mirror on Monday morning and brushed her long blonde hair, then flipped it up into an elegant bun. She allowed her large sea-green eyes to study her dainty features and clear complexion, then took her eyes from the mirror to stare down at her well-kept hands and long fingers with their neat and equally well-kept nails. Then had to suppose that in all honesty she was not your general picture of an everyday ‘skivvy’.
Varnie left her room, never more grateful that her grandfather had thought to install a computer in his study. Not so far as she knew that he had used it for any business purpose, but she knew he had spent many a happy hour playing either bridge or chess on it. But the machine came in useful for getting Leon Beaumont out of her hair. What work he could do at weekends she had no idea, but the computer had been on when she had taken him in a cup of coffee yesterday morning. And he had been playing neither bridge nor chess, but had had a screen full of matter that was way past her comprehension. With luck the computer would keep him occupied for all of this day too.
She was always astir at six. He was downstairs before her and already in the kitchen drinking coffee. He wasn’t mean, she’d give him that, when, not bothering to ask if she wanted one, he poured her a cup of coffee.
‘Thanks,’ she said, and, remembering her place, ‘Good morning,’ she added pleasantly. Which turned out to be a bit of a wasted effort when he ignored her and went, carrying his coffee, out through the kitchen door. ‘Suit yourself!’ she addressed his departing back.
‘Good morning!’ sailed back to her—and, oddly, she had to laugh.
And so the day began. Leon Beaumont spent a great deal of his day working in the study and she barely saw him. He made several telephone calls and, when she rushed to answer the phone so that it should not disturb him, she found that he had answered the phone first and that the call was for him.
It would not have been for her anyway, she belatedly realised, because no one but Russell Adams knew that she was there. And Russell was probably back in Caernarvon by now. So Varnie got on with the job she was supposed to be there to do, and cleaned that which had to be cleaned, left fresh towels outside her ‘employer’s’ door, and cooked that which had to be cooked. She went to bed that night feeling not as satisfied with her day’s work as she should have been, and somehow feeling more than a little fed-up.
She was still feeling the same when she got up the next morning and went down the stairs, musing that her only reason for coming here had been so that her parents should enjoy the tranquillity of their retirement and not be upset that she was upset.
But, and she could hardly believe it, she did not feel as emotionally broken as she had supposed she would when the numbness of Martin Walker’s dreadful deceit had worn off. What she did feel was disgusted with him, and disbelieving of her own naivety. So—if there was nothing for her parents to be upset about—what in creation was she doing here? Suddenly she realised that—she could go home!
Leon was in the kitchen. He poured her a cup of coffee and, impulsively, before she could think it through, she blurted out, ‘Would it put you out too much if I left?’
He was standing by the draining board and studied her with cool grey eyes. ‘Good morning,’ he replied, and took a swig of his coffee. Her lips twitched, but if he noticed he paid no heed, but told her easily, ‘I wouldn’t be at all put out. You’re quite free to go whenever you wish.’
Truly, he didn’t give a light. But something, she knew not what, but something in the way he said it caused her to hesitate. And when she should have been skipping up the stairs to gather her belongings together, she stayed. Stayed to question, ‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’
‘I’ve said so,’ he answered curtly. ‘Though if you’re in touch with your friend Metcalfe before I am you might tell him to take my name off his CV.’
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