Читать книгу Sleeping With The Boss - Кэтти Уильямс, CATHY WILLIAMS, Cathy Williams - Страница 7

CHAPTER TWO

THE following week was a nightmare. The pace at work was frantic. It seemed as though hundreds of clients had all decided to descend upon them at precisely the same time. The phone hardly stopped ringing, and the meetings were endless. Victor could exist indefinitely on a diet of no sleep—his stamina was amazing—but Alice could feel her nerves shredding as she trudged to meeting after meeting, taking notes, writing up minutes and in between catching up on everything else.

Portugal and sunshine seemed like months ago. And it didn’t help matters that Highfield House hung over her head like a dark cloud, full of the promise of thunder.

Her capacity to remember amazed her. All those years ago, and still she could recall entire conversations with James Claydon, as though they had taken place the day before. And it seemed as though each passing hour added another little snippet of recollection, another small, bitter memory of the past she had spent four years trying to forget.

On the morning they were due to travel up, her nerves had reached such a point that she felt physically ill when she went to answer the door to Victor.

He had decided against having his chauffeur drive them and as she pulled open the door she saw, immediately, that he had not dressed for work. No suit. In its place, dark green trousers, a striped shirt and a thick cream woollen jumper over it. Alice looked at him, taken aback by his casual appearance, and after a few seconds of complete silence he said sarcastically, ‘I do possess the odd change of clothes.’

‘Sorry.’ She bent to pick up her holdall, which he insisted on taking from her, and then followed him out to his car—a black convertible Jaguar which breathed opulence.

‘There really was no need for you to wear a suit,’ he said as she settled into the passenger seat. ‘This is supposed to be a relaxing three-day break. We’ll stroll round the grounds—’ he started the engine and slowly manoeuvred the car out ‘—have an informal, guided tour of the house so that we know which rooms will lend themselves to the most flattering photographs, discuss the history of the place.’ He shot her a quick, sidelong look. ‘No power meetings. I’ll expect you to make some notes along the way, naturally, but that’s about it.’

‘I didn’t think,’ Alice said, glancing down at her navy blue outfit, the straight-cut skirt and waist-length jacket, and the crisp white shirt underneath. The sort of clothing that was guaranteed to make the most glamorous woman totally asexual. She had chosen the ensemble deliberately. She supposed that she would meet James at some point during their stay, very likely as soon as they pulled up, and she needed the sort of working gear that would put her in a frame of mind that would enable her to cope with the encounter.

With any luck, he might well not recognise her at all, though it was highly unlikely. She had changed during the past four years, had cut her hair, lost a fair amount of weight, but most of the changes had been inside her. Disillusionment had altered her personality for ever, but physically she had remained more or less the same.

She tried to picture him, after all this time and with so much muddy water stretching between them, and her mind shut down completely.

‘I hope you’ve brought something slightly less formal than what you’re wearing,’ Victor told her. ‘We don’t want to intimidate the client. Which reminds me. There’s a file on the back seat Read it. It contains all the background information you need on him. Might find it useful.’

Alice hesitated. She had debated whether she should tell Victor that she knew James, or at least had known him at one point in time. After all, how would she explain it if he greeted her with recognition, as he almost inevitably would? On the other hand, she had no desire to open that particular door because Victor would edge in before she could shut it, and then subject her to a barrage of questions, none of which she would be inclined to answer.

In the end, she’d decided that she would go along with the premise that she didn’t know their client from Adam, and if James greeted her like some long-lost friend, then she would simply pretend that she had forgotten all about him; after all, it had been years.

Years, she thought on a sigh, staring out of the window and making no move to reach behind her for the file. Four years to rebuild the life he had unwittingly taken to pieces and left lying there. Four years to forget the man who had taken her virginity and all the innocence that went with it and for three years had allowed her the stupid luxury of thinking that what they had was going to be permanent.

She could remember the first time she had ever laid eyes on him. It had been a wet winter’s night and she had been working for his father for almost a month. Despite that, she had still not seen most of Highfield House. There had been just so much of it. Rooms stretching into rooms, interspersed with hallways and corridors and yet more rooms. And of course Henry Claydon, wheelchair-bound, had not been able to show her around himself.

She could explore, he had told her, to her heart’s content, and had then proceeded to pile so much work onto her that she had barely had time to think, never mind explore the outer reaches of the house.

She had loved it, though. Sitting in that warm, cosy library, surrounded by books, taking notes as the old man sifted through files and documents, watching the bleak winter outside settling like a cold fist over the vast estate and beyond. So different from the tiny terraced house in which she had spent most of her life before her mother died. It had been wonderful to look outside and see nothing but gardens stretching out towards fields, rolling countryside that seemed to go on and on for ever.

She had grown up with a view of other terraced houses and the claustrophobic feeling of clutter that accompanied crowded streets. Highfield House was like paradise in its sheer enormity. And she’d loved the work. She’d loved the snatches of facts, interspersed with memories, which she had to collate and transcribe into a lucid format, all part of a book of memoirs. She’d enjoyed hearing about Henry Claydon’s past. It had seemed so much more colourful than her own.

She had been working on, alone, in the study, when James Claydon had walked through the door, and against the darkness of the room, illuminated only by the spotlight on the desk, he had appeared like a figure of the night. Long, dark coat, dark clothes. And she had fallen in love. Hopelessly, madly in love with handsome, debonair, swarthy James Claydon.

‘Do I get an answer to my question?’ Victor asked. ‘Or do you intend to spend the entire journey with your head in the clouds?’

‘What? What question?’

‘Oh, good heavens,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘you’re as good as useless like this. I hope you intend to snap out of it sufficiently to be of some help to me on the trip. I don’t want you drifting down memory lane when you should be taking notes.’

‘Well, I did ask whether I might be excused from this particular job.’

‘So you did. And you never gave me your reason. Is it the house? You lived around here, didn’t you?’

Alice looked at him, surprised that he would remember a passing detail on an application form from eighteen months back.

‘Well? Didn’t you?’

‘Not very far away,’ she admitted reluctantly. It had. been her first job after her mother died, and London the bolt-hole to which she had fled in the wake of her miserable affair. Still, the first she had seen of Highfield House had been when she had applied for the job of working alongside Henry Claydon, even though the name was well enough known amongst the townspeople. It was a landmark.

‘How close? Everyone knows everyone else in these little country villages, don’t they?’

‘No,’ Alice said bluntly. ‘The town I grew up in was small but it wasn’t that small. People who live in the city always imagine that anywhere fifty miles outside of London is some charming little hamlet where everyone is on first-name terms with everyone else.’

‘And it isn’t?’ Victor exclaimed with overdone incredulity. ‘You shock me.’

‘Ha, ha.’

‘Oh, dear. Don’t tell me that your sense of humour has gone into hibernation.’

Alice shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something had changed between them, almost unnoticeably. It was as though his sudden curiosity about her background had moved them away from the strictly working relationship level onto some other level, though what she couldn’t make out. Whatever it was, it made her uneasy.

‘So, what’s the town like?’ He glanced at her and continued smoothly, ‘Might be interesting if we’re to find out how saleable Highfield House is for visiting tourists.’

Alice relaxed. This kind of question she could cope with. ‘Picturesque,’ she said with a small frown as she cast her mind back. ‘The high street is very pretty. Lots of black and white buildings which haven’t been mown down in favour of department stores. There’s still a butcher, a baker...’

‘A candlestick maker...’

She smiled, almost without thinking. ‘Very nearly. Or at least, there was when I was last there.’

‘Which was...?’

‘A few years ago,’ she said vaguely.

‘Any historic sights nearby?’

‘Remains of a castle. I’m sure there must be quite a bit of history around it, but if there is, then I’m the last person to ask because I don’t know. Stratford-upon-Avon’s not a million miles away.’

‘Sounds good. Any stately home that’s open to the public can only benefit from having interesting surroundings.’

‘Yes, that’s true,’ she said, wondering for the first time whether the town would have changed much, whether her mother’s old house was still standing, whether Gladys and Evelyn who had lived on either side were still finding things to argue about. She had not given any of this much thought for years, but as the Jaguar ate up the miles she couldn’t help casting her mind back.

‘So Highfield House is close to the town centre...?’ Alice glanced at him and his face was bland. Interested, but purely from a professional point of view. Or at least that was what his expression told her.

‘Not terribly. At least twenty minutes’ drive away and not readily accessible by public transport.’

‘Set on a hill, though, from what I remember from the photos. Quite a commmanding view.’

‘Yes.’

‘And correct me if I’m wrong, but there was an old man there, wasn’t there? James Claydon’s father, I believe.’

‘That’s right.’ He had never known about her infatuation with his son. James had only appeared occasionally. She could remember anxiously looking forward to his arrivals with the eagerness of a teenager waiting for her first date. And he inevitably would arrive with flowers, or chocolates, or little trinkets which he would bring from London, or wherever else he had been. And there would be a few days of stolen heady passion, followed by weeks of agonising absence.

‘Died... Can’t quite remember when...’

‘After my time, I’m afraid,’ Alice said shortly. ‘I’d already left for London by then.’

‘Ah, so you did know at least something of what was going on at Highfield House. Wasn’t the old man a widower?’

‘Yes, he was.’

They had cleared London completely now, and she looked out of her window, marvelling at how quickly the crowded streets gave way to open space. It was still very developed, with houses and estates straddling the motorway, yet there was a feeling of bigness that she didn’t get in the heart of London.

Victor began chatting to her about one of their clients, a problem account, and they moved on to art, music, the theatre. She could feel some of the tension draining out of her body. He was good at conversing and could talk about practically anything. His knowledge stretched from politics to the opera and he spoke with the confidence of someone who knew what they were talking about. It was a valuable asset when it came to dealing with other people, because he was informed enough on most subjects to pick up on the slightest hint of an interest and expand on it. He could put people at ease as smoothly as he could intimidate them when the occasion demanded.

She rested her head back and half-closed her eyes, not thinking of Highfield House or James Claydon, or any of those nightmarish thoughts that had dogged her for the past few days.

‘What made you decide to come down to London to work?’ he asked, digressing with such aplomb that it took her a few seconds to absorb the change of subject.

‘I thought that I might get a more invigorating job in the capital,’ she said carefully.

‘So you swapped the open fields for the city life.’ It wasn’t a question. It was more said in the voice of someone thinking aloud. Musing, but with only the mildest curiosity expressed.

‘It’s not that unusual.’

‘Quite the opposite.’ He paused. ‘What exactly were you doing before you came to work with me?’

‘Oh, just a series of temp jobs,’ Alice said, dismissing them easily.

‘And before that?’

She gave him a guarded look. ‘I wasn’t working for a company,’ she said evasively. On her application form, she had not extended her work experience beyond her temporary jobs, all of which had earned her glowing references; and because she had joined the firm as a temp herself there had been no in-depth questioning about her work background. Her experience within the company and the fact that she had worked smoothly with Victor had been all that was necessary.

‘Still at secretarial school?’

‘No.’ The nakedness of this reply forced her to continue. ‘I worked freelance. Actually I was transcribing a book.’ Well, it was the truth, shorn of all elaboration, and Victor nodded thoughtfully.

‘Anything interesting?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘Was it ever published?’

‘I have no idea.’ She doubted it At the time, Henry Claydon had shown no real rush to finish his memoirs. It was a labour of love, something of a hobby. He’d certainly had no need of any money it might have generated. No, she was sure that it had remained incomplete.

‘Bit odd for you to take off for London in the middle of a job like that...’

She didn’t care for this line of questioning. She knew where it was leading, but she was wary of the circuitous route. This was how Victor was so clever at manoeuvring people into revealing more than they had bargained for.

‘The money wasn’t very good,’ Alice told him, truthfully enough, ‘and it looked as though it was a book that could have taken decades to write. I simply couldn’t afford to stay in the end.’ It was a sort of truth.

‘He must have been disappointed.’

‘He?’

‘He or she. Whoever was writing this mysterious book. You must have built up some kind of rapport, working in such intimate conditions.’

Alice shrugged. ‘I suppose so, although, to be fair, I did give him six months’ notice.’

‘Ah. So it was a him.’

‘That’s right.’ She could feel him testing her, trying to persuade confidences out of her. She had given him the irresistible—a shady past lying underneath the crisply ironed shirts and the sober working suits. When she thought about it, she realised that it had been a mistake to react to those photos. She should have agreed instantly to the trip up and then promptly cancelled at the very last minute, when it would have been too late to rearrange the whole thing. True, she would not have been thanked by any of the secretaries who might have found themselves replacing her, but then she would have been spared the ordeal that lay ahead. And, almost as important, she would have been spared Victor’s curiosity, which, once aroused, might prove unstoppable.

‘What kind of book was he writing?’ he asked casually, and Alice suddenly realised where all his questions were leading.

Victor Temple thought that she had been having some kind of affair with Henry Claydon. Except he had no idea that Henry Claydon had been her employer at the time. She could almost hear his brain ticking over.

‘Documentary of sorts,’ she said, thinking that this could be her way out, as far as revealing too much of her past was concerned.

‘Lots of research?’ He gestured to her to check the map, glancing across as she laid it flat on her lap and followed the road sequences with her finger. They had left London behind and she felt an odd stirring of nostalgia as the open spaces became more visible. Over the past two days the weather had cleared, and as the Jaguar silently covered the miles everywhere was bathed in sunshine. The sky was a hard, defined blue and everything seemed to be Technicolor-bright.

‘A fair amount.’

‘You’re not very forthcoming on this chap of yours,’ he said idly. ‘Can’t have been a very interesting job. How long were you there?’

‘Three years.’

‘Three years! My God, he must have been a methodical man. Three years on a book! And one that wasn’t even completed by the time you left.’

‘Oh, yes, he was terribly methodical.’ That was the truth. Henry had indeed been very methodical, despite a charming inclination to side-track down little paths, little reminiscences that brought his recollections to life. ‘And, of course, he wasn’t writing all the time.’ If Victor thought that she had been having an affair with this mysterious stranger, then let him. He should never have assumed that she was fair game as far as his curiosity was concerned anyway.

‘No, I guess he had to work occasionally? To pay the bills?’

‘He did work in between, yes.’ She paused, leaving his unspoken assumptions hanging in the air. ‘Do you mind if I have a quick look at the file on Highfield House?’

Victor glanced at her with a quick smile. ‘Sure. Good idea. You can tell me what you think. We never got around to that, if I recall.’

‘So we didn’t,’ Alice agreed. She stretched back, just managing to grab hold of the file, and began to leaf through it, grateful that Victor was driving and couldn’t read the expression on her face as she scanned the photographs of Highfield House.

It hadn’t changed. The grounds looked as immaculate as she remembered them. There was a picture of James, standing with his back to the house, leaning elegantly against the side of his Land Rover, and her heart gave a little leap of unpleasant recognition. It was difficult to define any sort of expression on his face, but he appeared to have changed very little. Some weight had settled around his middle, but it did very little to detract from the overall impression of good looks. Was he married now? Victor had said nothing to intimate that he was. No Mrs Claydon had been mentioned. On that thought, she snapped shut the folder and returned it to the back seat.

‘Well? What are your thoughts?’

‘It’s a large place. What does the owner expect to do if it’s opened to the public?’

‘Restrict his living quarters to one section of the house. Shouldn’t be too difficult in a house of that size.’

‘I can see why he might need the money,’ Alice said, injecting as much disinterested speculation into her voice as she could. ‘Must cost an arm and a leg running a place that big. The grounds themselves look like a headache. Heaven only knows how many gardeners he would need to employ.’

‘Not as many as in the past. I gather, from the covering letter that was sent, that quite a bit of the land has already been sold off. Still, there are still two formal gardens, including a rose garden, a miniature maze and a small forested area.’

Alice remembered the forested area well. She used to enjoy walking through it in the early evening, after they had stopped working. In spring it was quite beautiful, with the trees coming into bloom, and in autumn the leaves lay like a rich russet carpet on the ground. The three years she had spent there seemed as elusive as a dream, yet as clear as if she had been there yesterday.

She worriedly bit her lip and hoped that James would not overreact when he saw her. If she played her cards right, she might even manoeuvre to confront him on her own, when Victor was safely tucked away somewhere. That way, she could tell him to keep quiet about their relationship, that she had moved on from the past and she did not need reminding of it. He had always, she thought reluctantly, been a very decent sort of person. Things had ended on a sour note but in retrospect that had been mainly her fault. Reading too much into a situation. Not understanding that wealth preferred to stick to its own.

She felt faint with humiliation, even now, as she remembered the surprise and dismay on his face when she had mentioned marriage, commitment, a long-term solution, the apology in his voice as he’d stammered through his explanation. That he wasn’t ready to settle down. Oh, he liked her well enough, and he was basically too decent to say outright what had been written all over his face: that as a long-term proposition she simply was not suitable.

Alice rested her head back against the seat and could feel her heart hammering madly in her chest. She hadn’t thought of that traumatic conversation in years. At first, she had been able to think of nothing else. Every word had burnt itself into her brain until she had thought that she was going mad, but gradually, over time, she had made herself think of other things whenever the temptation to dwell on it had risen inside her.

She had learnt to reduce the entire episode to a philosophical debate. It was the only way that she could put it behind her. It had altered her whole approach to the opposite sex, she had sealed off her emotions behind locked doors, and that was how it would have stayed if fate had not intervened. If Victor Temple had been more sympathetic. She heard him dimly saying something to her and she murmured something in response.

‘What the hell does that mean?’ he asked harshly, breaking into her reverie, and she pulled herself up with a start.

‘For God’s sake, Alice! What turn-off are we supposed to take? That map’s in front of you for a reason!’

‘Sorry.’ She studied the map, not having a clue where they were, and eventually, when she asked him, he pointed out their location with an ultra-polite precision that only thinly veiled his irritation with her.

She was never like this at work. Usually, he had only to ask something once and she caught on, competently carrying out his instructions. But then, her head had never felt as woolly as it did now.

‘Look,’ he said, after she had stumbled out their route, frowning hard in concentration because her brain just didn’t seem to want to co-operate. ‘I don’t know what the hell happened up here, but it was years ago. Haven’t you managed to put it behind you by now?’

‘Of course I have,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m just a little rattled at coming back here after all this time.’

‘Must have been quite a miserable business if it’s managed to keep you away from your home for so long.’

Alice could feel her defences going into place. She had been a private person for such a long time that the ability to confide was alien to her. And anyway, Victor Temple, she thought, was the last person on earth she would wish to confide in.

She glanced across at him and wondered whether she would have been susceptible to that animal charm of his which other women appeared to find so irresistible, if experience hadn’t taught her a valuable lesson.

Hard on the heels of that came another, disturbing image. The image of him in bed, making love to her. She looked away hurriedly. Thank heavens she was immune to his charm, she thought. If James had been a catastrophic mistake, then the likes of Victor Temple would have been ten times worse. He was just in a different league, the sort of man destined to be a danger as far as women were concerned.

She licked her lips and put such silly conjecture to the back of her mind.

‘He probably doesn’t even live in the area any longer,’ she heard him say.

‘Who?’

‘The man you had your affair with. The one you were working for.’

She knew that he was taking a shot in the dark, and she opened her mouth to contradict him, then closed it. Let him go right ahead and think that. It suited her.

‘I can’t imagine you having a wild, passionate fling,’ he said with slow, amused speculation. He looked across at her and their eyes met for a brief moment, before he turned away with a little smile on his lips.

‘What sort of time scale do we have for this project?’

‘Not a very adroit change of subject, Alice.’

She could discern the laughter in his voice and was unreasonably nettled by it. Just as she had been earlier on. He had categorised her, stuck her on a dusty shelf somewhere. Another spinster-to-be, past her sell-by date. Age had nothing to do with it but, reading between the lines, she was, to him, so unappealing sexually that she disqualified herself from the marriage stakes.

‘I don’t have to explain my private life to you.’

‘Do you to anyone? Is there another man in your life now?’

‘No, and I’m quite happy with the situation, as it happens.’

‘Really?’ He was enjoying this conversation. She could hear it in his voice. ‘I thought all women wanted to get married, settle down, have children. Keep the home fires burning, as they say.’

Alice winced inwardly at that.

‘Not all, no. This is the twentieth century, in case you hadn’t noticed. There are lots of women around who prefer to cultivate their working lives.’ She had never spoken to him like this before, but then their conversations had never touched on the personal before. Or at least not this personal. On a Friday he might ask her, in passing, what plans she had for the weekend, but he had never shown the least interest in delving any further.

‘I think that’s something of a myth,’ he said comfortably. ‘I personally think that most women would give an arm and a leg for the security of a committed relationship.’

Alice didn’t say anything, not trusting herself to remain polite.

‘Wouldn’t you agree?’ he persisted, still smiling, as if pleasantly energised by the fact that her common sense was struggling to hold back a desire to argue with him.

She shouldn’t say anything. She knew that. She should bite back the urge to retort and, if she had to speak, should take refuge in something utterly bland and innocuous.

‘You seem to find ones who don’t want committed relationships,’ she was horrified to hear herself say.

‘What on earth do you mean?’

Alice wished that she could vanish very quickly down a hole. She had gone too far. There was nothing in his voice to imply that he was annoyed, but he would be. Cordial though he could be, he kept a certain amount of space around himself and barging in with observations on his private life was the most tactless thing she could have done. He was her employer after all, and she would do well to remember that. She could have kicked herself.

‘Nothing!’ She almost shouted it at him in an attempt to retrieve her remark. ‘I didn’t mean anything.’

‘Oh, yes, you did. Go on. Explain yourself. I won’t fly into a fit and break both your arms, you know.’

Alice looked warily at him, the way she might have looked at a tiger that appeared friendly enough for the moment, but could well pounce at any minute.

‘I—I was being sarcastic,’ she stammered eventually. ‘It was uncalled for.’

‘Right on at least one of those counts, but, before you retreat behind that cool facade of yours, tell me what you were thinking when you said that. I’m interested.’

Interested, she thought suddenly, and unlikely to be offended because she was just his secretary, and when you got right down to it her opinions would not matter to him one way or the other. She felt stupidly hurt by that.

‘Okay,’ she said with energy. ‘You said that most women want commitment. In which case, how do you feel about breaking hearts when you go out with them and refuse to commit yourself?’ This was not boss/secretary conversation. This was not what they should be talking about. They should be discussing the route they were taking, the weather, holidays, the cinema, anything but this.

‘I give them a great deal of enjoyment.’

Alice could well imagine what nature of enjoyment he had in mind, and more graphic, curiously disturbing images floated into her head.

‘Well, then, that’s fine.’

‘But would be more fine if I slotted a ring on a finger?’

‘Not for you, I gather.’

‘Or necessarily for them. What makes you think that they don’t tire of me before I have a chance to tire of them?’ He looked across at her and grinned at the expression on her face. ‘Well, now, I expect I should take that as a compliment.’ Which made the colour crawl into her face, because she knew that he could see perfectly well what she was thinking. That he was the sort of man a woman could not possibly tire of. When, she wondered in confusion, had she started thinking like that?

‘I recognise where we are now,’ she said. She closed the map on her lap. ‘We should be coming into the town in about fifteen minutes. Highfield House is on the other side. I can show you which signs to follow.’ She stared straight ahead of her, and before he could return to their conversation she began talking about the town in great detail, pointing out places she remembered as they drove slowly through, covering up the lapse in their mutual detachment with a monologue on the charms of the town she had left behind.

As they headed away from the town and back out towards the countryside, she began mentally bracing herself for what lay ahead of her.

The sight of Highfield House, rising up in the distance like a matriarch overlooking her possessions, made her feel faint with apprehension. Her voice dried up.

‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ he murmured, misreading her sudden silence.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘And you can breathe a sigh of relief. We’re out of the town now and I take it there were no sightings of your past...?’

‘No. No sightings.’ Breathe a sigh of relief? If only!