Nothing Left to Give

God knows, she thought. She whipped the curtains shut. Involvement with another family man was the last thing she needed right now, even if he was widowed and his tiny daughter had felt so absolutely right in her achingly empty arms…

She spent the weekend moving things up from London and writing endless letters changing her address. The flat was rented, so she gathered all her meagre belongings and took them to Suffolk, storing them easily in the huge cupboards in the coach house flat.

At six o’clock, just as she realised she was starving and was wondering what she could find to eat, she heard footsteps on the gravel and her doorbell rang.

She went down to find William there, lounging casually against the wall, a lazy grin on his face.

‘Dad says would you like to join us for supper? He’s got something he wants to ask you about. He would have come but he’s had a bit of a crisis with the Yorkshire puds and Sophie’s spilt the gravy all over the table.’

She controlled the smile, but apparently not well enough.

‘I should get that out of your system here,’ Will told her with a grin. ‘He’s like Queen Victoria at the moment—definitely not amused.’

She laughed. ‘Poor Gideon. Yes, I’d love to join you—am I OK or should I change?’

Will ran an eye over her jeans and sweatshirt, and raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ll do fine. Dad’s probably changed, but then he had gravy down his front, so he didn’t have a choice.’

She ran back up for her keys, flicked off the lights and followed William back to the house. They went in through the back door this time, straight into the heart of the chaos.

It was a quieter sort of chaos this time, Beth realised, but still fairly hectic.

The vegetables were boiling over, and while William dealt with them Beth scooped Sophie off the worktop just as she tried to reach the top cupboard.

‘I want a biscuit!’ the indignant child yelled, but Beth was not impressed.

‘No. It’s supper-time, you’ll spoil your appetite. Let’s go and see if we can help Daddy.’

‘He doesn’t want to see me in there again until I’ve learned not to be a windmill,’ she told Beth dolefully.

She just managed to stop her lips from twitching. ‘Oh, dear. Never mind, you come with me and keep your hands down and you’ll be all right.’

She went out into the hall and found Claire sitting on the floor, the flex of the phone wound round her arm and hand, rolling her eyes. ‘Well, don’t do it, then! I can’t believe how you let them rule your life. Tell them no, you don’t want to practise—oh, Annie, what do you mean you can’t?’

Beth walked past her into the dining-room just as Gideon walked out yelling to Claire to put the damn phone down.

They both slammed to a halt, nose to nose, and Gideon ran his fingers through well-tousled hair and shot her a fraught grin. ‘Hi, Beth. Glad you could make it—I could do with a little sanity round here.’

She smiled back. ‘Anything I can do?’

He shook his head. ‘No, it’s as good as it’s going to get. Let’s eat and forget it.’

Together they brought the last of the food through and Beth watched as he deftly slivered the rare beef and piled it on the plates.

He might have had the odd crisis en route, but there was nothing wrong with the end product at all—if one discounted the absence of Yorkshire puddings and the small amount of gravy that had escaped Sophie’s wind-milling arms.

They all tucked in, and after it was finished and they had cleaned up a huge chocolate gâteau from the bakery in the village, Gideon sent Beth into the drawing-room while he put Sophie to bed and William and Claire cleared up the kitchen.

A few minutes later he reappeared, two mugs of coffee in his hands, and pushed the door shut behind him with his hip.

‘Peace,’ he said with a sigh, and dumping the coffee on the table, he dropped into the other end of the settee and smiled weakly. ‘Sorry it’s always so chaotic when you come round.’

‘It must be very difficult coping,’ she told him honestly, and he laughed.

Oh, God, you aren’t joking! Actually, that’s one reason I wanted to see you. My housekeeper’s not well—she’s got angina, and she’s been getting worse gradually over the past few months. She had a TIA, a transient ischaemic attack, like a temporary stroke, over the weekend, and I think the time’s come for her to stop. And that, as you can imagine, leaves me with a problem.’

‘Gosh, yes, I can imagine it does!’

His next words caught her completely by surprise.

‘I don’t suppose you’d consider helping out? Just a couple of hours every afternoon after Sophie comes out of school until I get back? The odd bit of shopping—I can do most of it at the weekend or one evening, but I can’t expect Will or Claire to cook a meal or look after Sophie when they’ve got homework of their own to do. I’d pay you what I pay you at the surgery—we could offset the rent against it or something, and of course you’d eat with us.’

He fell silent, and she stared at her feet, unsure what to say.

‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled into the silence. ‘Of course you don’t want to do it—I don’t know what possessed me to ask you.’

‘No—no, please—can I think about it? I mean, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to look for another job, but I was wondering what I could do to fill in the time. I hate being idle—can I let you know?’

He looked relieved, she thought, that she hadn’t given him an outright refusal. She wasn’t sure, in fact, why she hadn’t, because she was very torn. The trouble was, she realised later as she lay in bed thinking it over, she wanted to do it too badly.

Sophie had carved a little niche in her heart, and watching Will and Claire with Gideon just made her aware of how much she had missed with her own parents.

So working for him would be very bitter-sweet.

Maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea after all.

Which was ridiculous, because she had nothing better to do, and some frightful creature might end up looking after Sophie and she could become very unhappy as a result.

No, she would do it, she decided—and refuse house-room to the mocking voice that questioned her motives. Of course she wasn’t doing it to be near Gideon! After all, she was near him all day at work!

But it wasn’t quite the same, and in her heart she knew it.

Monday dawned bright and clear, one of those lovely late September days that made you wonder why you lit the fire the night before.

Beth dressed carefully in her uniform, made her bed and let herself out of the flat. A brisk two-minute walk was just what she needed to blow away the cobwebs.

A scrunch of gravel behind her made her turn her head in time to see Gideon coming down the drive towards her.

She waited for him, deciding to give him her decision straight away.

His smile was distracted.

‘Problems?’ she asked.

‘Claire—she said she wasn’t feeling very well and refused to go to school.’

Oh. Well, if it helps I’ll go over as soon as I finish and see how she is.’

He shot her a curious look. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve given my suggestion any further thought, have you?’