His Rags-to-Riches Bride: Innocent on Her Wedding Night / Housekeeper at His Beck and Call / The Australian's Housekeeper Bride

‘Thanks for the assurance,’ he said. ‘But I already know the limits you impose on your gratitude, along with all your other warmer emotions. So let’s leave this favour as the first and last—shall we, my sweet?’

And he stepped back into the room and closed the door, leaving her standing outside, staring at the closed panels, her arms folded almost protectively across her body.

As if, she thought with bitter self-mockery, she was still attempting some useless defence against a threat that clearly no longer existed. If indeed it ever had.

But as she went slowly back to her own room she found herself remembering that note of anger in his voice. Anger, she realised, mixed with something else much less easy to define. And she shivered.

CHAPTER SIX

THE wheel comes full circle …

Daniel’s words seemed to echo and re-echo in her mind as she lay on the bed staring up at the ceiling. And, as she reminded herself, she could hardly defend her decision, or deny its irony. Not to him, at any rate.

She wondered if he too was thinking of the day two years ago when, ten weeks after Si’s funeral, he’d walked into the drawing room at Abbotsbrook and found her standing on a rickety pair of steps, struggling to hang the new curtains that had arrived that morning.

‘What the hell are you doing up there?’

She hadn’t heard him enter the house, let alone the room, and the furious demand from behind her made her jump, and sent the steps into a further paroxysm of wobbles as a result.

‘Come down.’ The peremptory note brooked no argument, so he didn’t actually need to grasp her round the waist with strong hands and lift her bodily from the steps. Yet that was what he did, setting her down to face him, flushed and breathless.

‘Dan?’ She allowed herself to sound surprised, but braked hard on the instinctive overwhelming delight of seeing him again after all these endless weeks. Of noting almost wistfully how gorgeous he looked. The way the white shirt with the turned-back sleeves emphasised his tan, how the casual charcoal pants enhanced his lean hips and the length of his legs. How that random strand of dark hair always seemed to fall over his forehead, making her always long to smooth it back. Which was impossible.

And then she realised the danger of standing, gaping at him like this. Felt self-conscious too, in her working gear of ancient cut-offs and faded T-shirt, not to mention hot and grubby because she’d just washed down the high window frames.

And hurried into speech. ‘My—my mother never mentioned you were expected. Are you staying with us? Because I’ll need to see about your room—’

‘Your mother has no idea I’m here.’ He cut across her incisively. ‘I’m staying at a hotel a few miles away, and I’ve come, having failed to find you at Randalls. What’s going on, Laine?’

She shrugged, standing with yards of brocade trailing awkwardly over her arm. ‘I left. Didn’t Mrs Hallam tell you?’

‘Indeed she did, and at some length too,’ he said grimly. ‘What she couldn’t say was why?’

‘Because we no longer have a housekeeper, and I’m more use at home.’ She spoke with deliberate brightness. ‘At least I may be one day. I’m still struggling a bit at the moment.’

There was a silence, then Dan said softly, ‘My God, this is unbelievable. What happened to Mrs Evershott?’

‘She—left too. We couldn’t really afford her any more.’

‘So you’re doing her job instead?’ There was an odd note in his voice. ‘At the same salary, I presume?’

‘Heavens, no. That’s all part of the economy drive.’ She forced a smile. ‘Although I do get paid, of course.’

‘I can imagine. And just how long does your mother intend this situation to continue?’

‘Until Abbotsbrook is sold. It went officially on the market yesterday, so who knows?’ She held up the brocade. ‘Mother’s trying to make it seem less shabby to impress the potential buyers when they start flocking in, but I doubt whether a few yards of material will fool them.’

‘I don’t think so either,’ he said dryly. ‘And just when did she reach this momentous decision?’

‘As soon as I turned eighteen and the terms of the trust no longer applied—oh—and thank you for my gorgeous earrings and the flowers,’ she added hurriedly. ‘I was going to write, but I wasn’t sure where you’d be.’

‘Forget about it.’ His dark brows were drawn together in a cold frown. ‘So, where is your mother? I’d like a word with her.’

‘She’s at the golf club,’ Laine told him. ‘But she’ll be back around five, and she’ll expect to find these curtains up at the windows.’

‘Then she can attend to them herself.’ Dan took the heavy folds from her and flung them over the back of a chair. ‘Risk her own damned neck.’

‘But you don’t understand,’ she protested. ‘It’s part of my job.’

He said gently. ‘You’re wrong, Laine. I understand perfectly—apart from asking myself what on earth she’s doing at the golf club.’

‘She goes there nearly every day,’ Laine said, her voice subdued. ‘She started having lessons over a year ago, when the new professional first came. His name’s Jeff Tanfield.’ She paused. ‘He’s quite a bit younger than she is.’

There was a silence, then Dan said thoughtfully, ‘I could do with some strong coffee. Let’s go and make it.’

When they were sitting opposite each other at the big scrubbed kitchen table, steaming mugs in front of them, he said, ‘So what’s really going on, Laine? And I want to know all of it.’

‘We’re going to live in Andalucia.’ Laine struggled to keep her voice from deteriorating into a little wail of desperation. ‘At one of those holiday complexes built round a golf course.’

‘You as well?’

She nodded. ‘When Abbotsbrook is sold Mother’s going to invest in the Spanish place, buy into the consortium that owns it. Jeff will go on teaching golf, and Mother will do the administration—look after the guest bungalows. And I’m going to be her assistant.’

‘When did you discover this?’

‘A few days after my birthday.’ She shrugged. Tried to smile. ‘I was just—told.’

‘I see.’ He stirred some cream into his coffee. ‘And you agreed?’

She bit her lip. ‘I didn’t seem to have many other career options open.’

‘Tell me,’ Dan said, ‘is your mother planning to marry this Tanfield?’

‘I don’t know. Although I heard her having a row with Simon just before he left, and I’m almost sure I heard Jeff’s name mentioned. I didn’t mean to listen,’ she added hastily. ‘But she was rather talking at the top of her voice.’

‘Then Simon—knew?’ he said slowly. ‘Well, that makes sense.’ He paused. ‘What’s the age difference between them?’

‘Seven—maybe eight years. I’m not too sure.’

He gave her an enigmatic look. ‘And you feel that’s an insuperable bar to marriage?’

She sipped her coffee, burning her tongue. ‘Well, it’s usually the other way round—isn’t it? The man’s generally older than the woman.’

‘It can certainly happen,’ Dan agreed gravely. ‘So, what do you think of your potential stepfather?’

‘I suppose he’s—all right,’ she said slowly, trying to be fair. Then, in a burst of honesty, ‘I try not to think about him much at all. Or any of it, for that matter.’ She swallowed. ‘When Simon was killed I thought things couldn’t get any worse, but they have—they have. Everything’s suddenly—falling apart, and I don’t know how to stop it.’

There was a silence, broken by the sound of an approaching car.