Читать книгу The Millionaire's Baby - Diana Hamilton - Страница 6

CHAPTER ONE

CAROLINE FARR was afraid she’d made a terrible mistake.

As the taxi wove through the snarl of traffic on Prince Albert Road she was convinced of it. So utterly convinced she had to grit her teeth in order to stop herself from telling the driver to stop and allow her to walk off her agitation in the sun-drenched greenness of London’s Regent’s Park.

It was so, so tempting...Mary Greaves, her business partner, could phone through and apologise, explain to the Helliars that, unfortunately, Ms Farr was unable to attend the interview for the position of nanny to their baby daughter, suggest another applicant, another interview.

But she wasn’t that weak! Mercifully, the unaccustomed feeling of panic began to subside as the taxi made a left turn into one of the leafy Georgian streets that abounded in this area. She wasn’t going to back down at the last moment and prove Mary right It wasn’t in her nature to back away from her own decisions.

Mary had said, ‘Caro! Have you gone mad? You can’t do it! You’re not trained—you know nothing about caring for children! That’s my area of expertise, not yours. Think of the agency’s reputation!’

And for the first time ever she had pulled rank and reminded her partner of just who had built up that enviable reputation, adding, ‘I’ve worked all hours on the administration side for two whole years. Now I fancy some hands-on experience. Humour me, Mary!’ Her smile when she’d wanted to appear relaxed had been big and wide and winning. ‘Looking after a child can’t be all that difficult. Millions of women do it all the time—and if I get out of my depth I promise I’ll let you know. The Grandes Familles Agency is as much my baby as yours; I won’t do a thing to harm our good reputation.’

The bit about fancying some hands-on experience had been a downright lie, plucked out of the air as an excuse for what had to appear as sheer craziness, a totally uncharacteristic deviation from her normal level-headed approach to her work at the agency.

But was it so crazy to want revenge?

She’d been in the main office when Honor, their secretary, had shown Finn Helliar into the room Mary used for client interviews. The band that had tightened around her chest with the painful suddenness of a steel trap had kept her immobile until Honor had teetered back on her very high heels a few moments later, a pussy-cat smile on her pretty, pointed face.

Caroline hadn’t needed to ask who he was. She’d known. She had never met him but she knew all about him, had seen that photograph in the press a couple of years ago. Handsome as he had looked—his smile tender for the lovely new bride on his arm—the camera image hadn’t done him justice. In the flesh his impact was nothing short of stunning.

She’d asked instead, ‘Why is he here?’ and she’d thanked heaven her voice sounded normal, coolly interested and utterly professional.

‘Some hunk, huh?’ Honor had smoothed the fabric of her pale grey skirt over her hips. ‘He phoned first thing this morning before you arrived. It seems they flew in from Canada a couple of days ago and need a temporary nanny until they find a permanent home outside of London. Nice work for some lucky lady!’

It had been then, precisely then, that Caroline knew what she was going to do, and when Honor had mused, ‘I wonder what his wife’s like?’ she’d merely shaken her head and gone into her own office to wait until her partner had finished interviewing Finn Helliar.

She could have told her secretary exactly who his wife was, what she looked like, but had been afraid she wouldn’t be able to hide her anger and outrage if she did.

Now, as the taxi drew up in front of the hotel where the Helliars were staying, Caroline swiftly ran through a mental check-list.

A good nanny was quiet and subdued in her appearance.

Well, she had done her best in that respect.

The mandatory street-wear uniform of the Grandes Families nannies meant her slim body was successfully de-sexed by the severely plain, tailored dark grey linen suit, the desired touch of white at her throat given by the crisply starched cotton shirt she wore beneath it, her jaw-length bob of glossy, dark auburn hair hidden beneath the grey cloche-style hat, her five feet six inches played down by her sensible flat-heeled shoes.

A good nanny had received rigorous training and carried impeccable references. Caroline Farr had the benefit of neither and as soon as that was discovered she would be shown the door.

Which meant she would have to deliver her castigation right there and then. She would prefer more time to plot a more fitting retribution but only by her acceptance as the Helliars’ temporary nanny could she get that.

She would just have to keep her fingers crossed and hope that the gods of retribution were fighting her corner!

After paying off the driver she faced the hotel, straightening. She would have expected Finn Helliar, hot-shot financier, chief executive of an aweinspiringly successful international merchant bank, to choose something ultra-modern, trendily sophisticated. But maybe his wife had insisted on somewhere like this—restrained, comfortable, old-fashioned, even.

Caroline shrugged. It wasn’t important. And the niggle of anxiety she had been trying to suppress bubbled up to the surface of her mind, making her frown and sink her teeth into her full lower lip.

The trouble with knee-jerk reactions, as her impulse to present herself as a temporary nanny had been, was a built-in, fatal lack of forward planning. She was uncomfortable with that.

So far she had planned her life meticulously; she had known where she was going, what she wanted. And if, as was a distinct possibility, she was shown the door as soon as her lack of credentials became known she could only hope that Finn Helliar himself would show her to that door and not leave the chore to his wife.

If the worst came to the worst and she was asked to leave she would say she needed a few moments alone with him. No way would she say what needed to be said in front of his wife. Fleur Helliar wasn’t the guilty one.

She stiffly approached the revolving doors with their solid mahogany and brass fittings. It would work out. Fate had obligingly delivered the callous brute into her hands—it wouldn’t let her down at this last minute.

The sitting room of the suite she was shown into had all the comfortable, relaxed charm of an English country home and the receptionist she had announced herself to, and who had spoken for a few seconds into the house phone, now said, ‘Make yourself comfortable. Mr Helliar asked me to give you his apologies. He won’t be more than a few minutes.’

It was, however, much less than that. Just a few seconds, but time enough to note two silver-framed photographs of his wife, the French singer who had briefly blazed to stardom before marriage and imminent motherhood had taken her to apparent obscurity.

His sudden, silent emergence into the room was a shock. It shouldn’t have been, but it was. His appearance took her by the throat and shook her, dislodging all her famed composure, depriving her of her wits so that she could only stand and stare at six feet something of honed male power.

His soft dark hair was appealingly rumpled, sticking up in wayward tufts, making him look younger than his thirty-four years. The front of the white shirt he wore above narrow black trousers was decidedly damp, the sleeves rolled up to expose the tanned skin of strong forearms. And his hands, the hands that held the child so gently and held her unwillingly fascinated stare for longer than was sensible, were beautifully made, strong-boned yet sensitive.

‘Please excuse the delay, Miss Farr. Sophie got more lunch outside her than in. She and I both agreed—didn’t we, my pet?—that she’d look more presentable after a bath, though the same can’t be said for me! Won’t you sit down?’

The intent silver-grey, black-fringed eyes were bright with enquiry, yet they held a hint of mischief, too. Caroline didn’t like that because that, and his rumpled appearance, the loving way he held the baby, made him seem human.

Reminding herself that he wasn’t—only a coldhearted, selfish, inhuman brute could have done what he’d done to her young sister, Katie—she sat, feet neatly together, her features carefully blank.

As the interview progressed, Caroline realised he was more interested in what made her tick, as a person, than in references and credentials. He didn’t mention either and she found herself enjoying the experience of re-inventing herself, presenting him with a dedicated lover of children whose hobbies were knitting, making model castles out of matchsticks, collecting wild flowers and recipes for fairy cakes.

The twitching of his mobile, sexy mouth brought her back to reality with a thump. Aborting her flights of fantasy, she asked herself tartly what she thought she was playing at. She should be taking advantage of what fate had handed her and giving him a piece of her mind.

No sign of Fleur, his wife. She wouldn’t be out shopping or lunching with friends while something as important as an interview for a nanny was going on.

So she was probably back in her native France, recording an album, or whatever pop stars did when they wanted to make a come-back. Nothing had been heard of the singer since her short but meteoric rise to fame had been grounded by marriage and motherhood. No doubt she was re-launching her career—hence the need for a nanny.

But something held her back—the memory of what he’d done to poor sweet Katie...

Wait and see. If he offered her the job she’d have more time at her disposal to think up something more fitting than a mere tongue-lashing.

As yet she had no idea of what that something might be. But she’d get there. Hadn’t her formidable old grandmother repeatedly praised her for being strong and resourceful, a chip off the old Farr block?

‘Of course, if you enjoy the situation, if Sophie takes to you, and you don’t object to living out of town, then the situation could be permanent.’

It wasn’t a statement. More like a question, a probing question at that. Caroline shook her head and did her best to look regretful. No way. No way! This was a one-off. She was no nanny, she was simply the business brain behind the agency. She wouldn’t need long to find a way to pay him back and after that he wouldn’t see her for the jet-stream!

‘I’m afraid I only ever take temporary work, Mr Helliar.’ Earnestly said, with a tiny smile.

‘Can you tell me why?’ One sable brow slanted towards his hairline, the slight alteration in expression suddenly reminding her that he wasn’t the pussy-cat his relaxed pose, with the child perched on his knee, suggested. This was a formidable man.

Pulling an answer out of the air, she invented, ‘I get far too fond of my charges if I stay around for longer than a few weeks. It’s easier for all concerned if I take on temporary situations only.’

But he didn’t believe her. She could see he didn’t. The silver eyes had gone hard and flat. She could almost hear the scornful words, calling her a liar, clicking around in his brain.

She knew she’d been telling fibs, but she couldn’t bear that this...this wretch who had hurt and betrayed her sister should know it, too.

He was the one in the wrong, he was the one who had walked away, uncaring of the misery he left in his wake, not giving his broken-hearted victim a second thought. And the way he was looking at her, as if he knew she was telling a pack of lies, put her down on his contemptible level.

She couldn’t bear that, either. It made her feel squirmy inside, nauseous, even, and she was on the point of beating a dignified retreat, forgetting the reason for her being here in the first place, when he unexpectedly and mildly defused the situation.

‘Why don’t you and Sophie get to know each other?’ Gently but firmly, he put the little girl on her bare pink feet. Caroline huffed out her pent-up breath and relaxed her rigid shoulders. She had been on the point of walking out, her pride making her forget why she had come here, forfeiting her opportunity to somehow find a way to make him pay for what he had done.

She would never, ever let him get to her like that again.

‘Yes, why not?’ she concurred, smiling at the child. That was easy. Clad in a miniature pair of white cotton dungarees and an apple-green T-shirt, the round-eyed moppet was adorable. Caroline’s eyes flicked to the silver-framed photographs and back again to the baby.

Even at this tender age the resemblance was startling. The same fine, flaxen wavy hair—although of course the mother’s was much, much longer—and the same piquant features and enormous dark brown eyes. Unusual colouring, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to her father. Caroline’s smile widened as she saw dimples appear on either side of the rosebud mouth and then she sobered, wondering what the heck came next in the game of getting-to-know-you. Did fifteen-month-old babies walk? Did they talk? She had no idea!

Finn Helliar’s eyes were on her, contemplative, knowing, almost as if he was fully aware of the way she was floundering, out of her depth. She looked away quickly, feeling her face go hot. Any minute now she would blow the whole thing.

Trouble was, she had never had anything whatsoever to do with young children. None of her friends were married and producing babies. Should she go and pick the moppet up? Would it scream if she did?

Thankfully, Sophie solved the problem. She launched herself from her father’s steadying hands and toddled precariously across the few yards of carpet that separated them. Amber eyes widening with anxiety, Caroline leant forward and scooped the baby up before she could fall flat on her face. She plopped her down on her knees and, to counteract the feeling of being hot and bothered, said in what she hoped was a kindly yet authoritative nanny voice, ‘Baby’s walking very well for her age,’ and hoped the pronouncement wasn’t completely asinine.

No comment. A slight twitch of the mobile mouth. Caroline cuddled the baby defensively. The little body was warm and solid, a comforting shield against the clever, assessing eyes of the callous father.

‘There is one thing—’ Finn Helliar had unfolded his long, lean body from the armchair opposite the one she was using, walking with loping grace to lean against the sill of one of the tall windows. ‘I would insist that Sophie’s nanny wears mufti. Something pretty, feminine—’ He gestured with one languid hand. ‘I’m sure you get the picture. For a small child a starchy uniform could be off-putting.’

For a grown man, too, Caroline sniped to herself with a flash of cynicism. A man who could seduce someone as gullible as her sister Katie while getting another pregnant at the same time would want the females around him to look pretty.

And available?

That thought, coming out of nowhere, was repugnant. It was all she could do to keep quiet, to swallow what she wanted to say to him, to bide her time. And bide her time she must, if she were to find the very best way, the perfect way to force him to eat dirt and acknowledge the great, irreparable damage he had done.

‘Well, you’ve done it now!’ Mary Greaves said heavily.

Two years ago, Mary hadn’t been wildly enthusiastic at accepting the then twenty-three-year-old Caro as a partner. But her nanny agency had been going downhill and she’d needed new capital, new ideas.

She’d fully expected her new young partner to be like her mother. She’d been at school with the mother but had lost touch until just recently. Emma Farr was a darling, sweet-natured and gentle, she recalled. But timid. A dreamer, not a doer.

But Caro, the elder of Emma’s two girls, had proved to be just the opposite. Decisive, intelligent, a degree in business studies firmly in her pocket, she had turned the agency around, discarding the old name of Mommy’s Helpers with the tilt of a finely arched brow, the stroke of a pen, re-naming it Grandes Families and making it so, going straight for the wealthy, aristocratic French families because as far as they were concerned a British nanny was de rigueur.

And the partnership had worked; her own child-care experience, her ability to interview clients, discover exactly what they wanted, coupled with Caro’s business brain, was proving a winner.

Now only dedicated, professional nannies were on their books, those with the very highest qualifications, and only those who could afford to pay to acquire the services of the very best approached the agency. It had all happened without her, Mary, having to do anything. Sometimes she felt positively over-awed by the much younger woman’s sharpness of mind, her dedication to her work and breathtaking drive.

But now the high-flyer seemed to have flipped!

‘Mr Helliar phoned through as soon as you left him. You’re hired,’ she stated even more heavily as she watched the lovely face before her turn white, then pink. ‘For eight weeks. Starting tomorrow. He said, and I quote, “Though eight minutes in my daughter’s company would be enough to make anyone love her to bits, so she’s on a loser there.” I can’t imagine what you’ve been saying to him—and for the sake of my blood pressure I’d rather not know.’

‘Not a lot,’ Caroline said truthfully, feeling behind her for her office chair and sinking down on it, feeling as if the stuffing had been knocked out of her.

There was much she could have said to the louse, none of it fit to be voiced in front of his delightful little daughter. So she should be congratulating herself for landing the job, thus giving herself the time she needed to discover the perfect way to pay him back for what he had done to Katie, instead of feeling suddenly way out of her depth.

‘He asked for references but I thought I could stall him on that. Besides, I give you a week before you’re begging me to find a replacement. By then you’ll have had as much hands-on experience as you can take!’ Mary said, perching on the edge of the desk, crossing her arms over her bolster-like bosom. ‘I’ll go through the files and find someone to step in and do a bit of damage limitation when you decide you’ve had enough.’

‘I’m not a quitter; you know I’m not. And I won’t do any damage.’ Or only to his conscience.

She smiled warmly at her mother’s old school-friend. Widowed young, childless, the agency was her raison d’être, and she wouldn’t let her down. She was back firmly in control of herself again and knew she could handle the situation with Finn Helliar and emerge unscathed. The agency’s reputation would be unmarred because the louse wouldn’t dare say a word about having been landed with a nanny who knew nothing about the job, not after being made to understand exactly what a low-life he was.

She could understand Mary’s alarm. Had the situation been reversed she would have strenuously vetoed the idea. ‘Please don’t worry,’ she offered gently.

‘Now why would I do that?’ the older woman countered dryly. ‘But seriously, though, you must understand that the position of a nanny is subservient. You are used to being the boss, or one of them, and for the next two months you will have to do as you are told, spend practically all of your time with a demanding child. I hope, for both our sakes, that you can handle it. And another thing; had I been able to place the nanny of my choice with Mr Helliar, I would have looked for someone far less young and beautiful—someone middle-aged and preferably plain.’

‘Don’t be silly!’ Caroline pulled a sheet of paper towards her and began to make hurried notes of what she wanted Honor to attend to during her absence.

Mary grunted, ‘Don’t pretend to be stupid. Finn Helliar’s a staggeringly attractive man. Living under the same roof, a beautiful young woman in a subservient position to—’

‘I get the picture,’ Caroline inserted tightly. She’d got more than that—the information that Mary had instinctively known that Helliar was the type of man who’d make a play for any presentable woman, the little matter of having a wife no deterrent at all.

Finn settled Sophie down for her afternoon nap, his gaze lingering lovingly on her cherubic face, the huge brown eyes closed in sleep. ‘A nanny to play with tomorrow, my pet,’ he whispered softly, more to himself than to the child. ‘Won’t that be fun?’

He walked quietly from the room, leaving the door ajar so he could hear her when she woke. And fun it would be—intriguing to find out exactly why Caroline Farr had decided to work as a nanny, out of her own agency.

At one point he had considered asking her, had fully intended to. But after she’d given him that spiel about knitting and fairy cakes he’d known he wouldn’t get a straight answer.

It had quickly become obvious that she was unaware that he knew who she was—the go-getting half of the Grandes Families partnership.

Her grandmother, Elinor Farr, had never tired of boasting of her favourite grandchild’s intelligence, determination and spirit. She had even, on one of the rare occasions when he’d visited Farr Place—that almost laughably Gothic pile in one of the most secluded parts of Hertfordshire—brought out the family photograph album and pointed out the woman he was already beginning to regard as a pain in the neck.

‘Caroline’s the only one left fit to carry the Farr name,’ the formidable old matriarch had stated. ‘Her mother’s a simpering fool and as for her sister—well, Katie wouldn’t say boo to a fly—let alone a goose!’

Dragooned into staying on for the old lady’s eightieth birthday party, with which his visit had unfortunately coincided, he had felt sorry for the inhabitants of the lodge—Elinor’s browbeaten daughter-in-law and younger grandchild, Katie. It must be galling to be watched over with such fierce contempt by the old lady who held the purse-strings so tightly in her bony, heavily be-ringed hands, to be compared so unfavourably with the do-no-wrong Caroline. He had been glad that a dose of flu had prevented her turning up.

Sorry, in another kind of way, for Elinor herself. The daughter of a general, she had joined her considerable private fortune to that of Ambrose Farr on their marriage. A marriage which had produced only one child. She must have been devastated when her son was killed on the hunting field when Caroline was a mere five years old, the baby, Katie, not quite one.

The death of Ambrose, her husband, a few months later would have been another shattering blow. But she had recovered, ruled what remained of her family with a rod of iron and, with the advice of his father, then chairman of the family-owned merchant bank, had tied everything up in trust funds.

Since his father’s death he had taken his place as Elinor Farr’s financial advisor, for the sake of the link of friendship between his father and the deceased Ambrose. Not, on the whole, an onerous task, his contact with the old lady being rare, his personal visits rarer.

His London office had dealt with the transfer of monies from one of the funds to provide the capital to buy Caroline Farr into partnership, and the last time he’d spoken to Elinor she’d been full of how well the agency was doing now that Caroline was running the business side of things.

But was it doing well? Or was the agency in trouble? Why else should one of the partners, sketchily trained, or, more likely, not trained at all, leave her executive persona behind, put on a stiff and starchy nanny uniform and sally forth to change other people’s babies’ nappies if the outfit wasn’t desperately in need of the extra funds?

He picked up a pile of glossy estate agents’ brochures and grinned. One way or another, he’d find out why she’d been driven to look for temporary, extracurricular employment. And it would be no hardship, no hardship at all. Even in that smothering grey suit and awful hat she’d been lovely to look at, and he’d glimpsed an impish sense of humour when she’d listed her so-called hobbies.

He could live with that. For a few weeks. He’d given himself three months’ leave to settle permanently back in England, find the sort of home where Sophie could spend a happy childhood, so he’d be on hand at all times to oversee closely the new nanny’s doings.

And there was no danger he’d find himself in the same tricky situation he’d been plunged into with her sister, Katie.

Caroline was different. Older by five years, a mature woman, sophisticated, street-wise. She wouldn’t give him any trouble.

Not that kind of trouble.