Shadow Of Desire

‘His offer is a real blessing,’ Aunt Mary said happily. ‘It couldn’t have come at a better time either. The first quarter’s bills will soon be arriving, and there’s Tim’s trip to consider.’

‘Trip?’ Ginny queried, trying to make herself think coherently.

‘Yes, dear. A school visit to France at the beginning of the summer holidays. He deliberately didn’t mention it to you because he knew how little money there was even for essentials, but nearly all his classmates will be going, and I thought that if I contributed towards the cost as well, perhaps we would be able to send him.’

‘But I don’t want to work for Max Hendrick,’ Ginny burst out, dismayed. ‘I told you, Aunt Mary, I don’t like the man. If I take this job I’ll have to see him every day. I’ll have no choice—unless he uses a dictaphone, and I haven’t seen one around.’ She broke off despairingly, seeing Aunt Mary’s lips tighten in incomprehension and disapproval. ‘You think I’m being ridiculous—hysterical.’

‘I can’t understand you, Ginevra. You need work—exactly the sort of work that Mr Hendrick has offered you. Can you be sure that any other potential employer would be any more to your taste?’

‘No,’ Ginny admitted. ‘But at least I’ll be sure that they won’t be offering me work out of some misplaced sense of charity.’ She was angry now, both with herself for having told Max Hendrick so much about their personal circumstances and with him for having regarded her unthinking outburst as a cry for help. She said, ‘Max Hendrick and I are better apart, believe me.’

‘After your behaviour this morning, he may well share your sentiments,’ said Aunt Mary, her back very straight. ‘It was kind of him not to withdraw the offer.’

Kind, thought Ginny. Is that how it seems to her? But he’s not a kind man. She remembered how his hands had hurt her, the coldness of his eyes and mouth, his insulting assumptions about her motives for being in his bedroom, and her relationship with Toby. There’d been no kindness about him then. Nor was there now, she thought. This offer had been made with a kind of exasperated pity, dredged out of him because she’d been fool enough to inflict her problems upon him. He’d made it, no doubt, out of a sense of unwilling obligation, but honour was satisfied now, and her refusal could only be a relief to them both.

She rose determinedly. ‘I’ll go and see him now,’ she said.

She was disgusted to find that she was trembling a little as she knocked at the study door, and the note of impatience in his voice as he told her to enter did nothing to restore her composure.

The study wasn’t nearly as tidy as she had left it. The desk top was Uttered with papers and documents and Max Hendrick was studying a thick file which was open in front of him. The typewriter, she noticed, had been moved to a side table under the window. So she would have been expected to work in the same room. The knowledge hardened her resolve.

‘Well, go on, Ginevra.’ He tossed the file down on the desk and leaned back in his chair. ‘Turn me down.’

She was nonplussed for a moment. ‘How did you know?’

‘It didn’t need clairvoyant powers,’ he said coolly. ‘Apart from the look of apprehension as you came in, you’re very predictable. But I did think that expediency might triumph over your natural desire to tell me to go to hell and take my job with me.’