Читать книгу The Mistress Contract - HELEN BROOKS, Helen Brooks - Страница 8

THEY stopped on the way to buy flowers and chocolates for Madge—the flowers taking up the whole of the back seat of the car and the box of chocolates large enough to feed a hundred little old ladies for a week—and it was just after half past seven when the Mercedes nosed its way into the immaculate car park of the small, select private hospital on the outskirts of Harlow.

The dusky shadowed twilight carried the scent of the crisply cut lawns which surrounded the gracious building, and as Sephy nervously accompanied Conrad up the wide, horseshoe-shaped stone steps to the front door, her arms laden with flowers, the surrealness of it all was making her light-headed.

If anyone had told her that morning she would be spending part of the evening in the company of the exalted head of Quentin Dynamics she would have laughed in their face, but here she was. And here he was. All six foot plus of him.

She darted a glance from under her eyelashes at the tall, dark figure next to her and her heart gave a little jump. He exuded maleness. It was there in every line of the lean powerful body and hard chiselled face, and as her female hormones seemed horribly determined to react—with a life all of their own—to his own particular brand of virile masculinity it didn’t make for easy companionship.

Once they were inside the building the attractive, red-haired receptionist nearly fell over herself to escort them to Madge’s room, which—as Conrad had decreed—was the best in the place.

But Sephy didn’t notice the ankle-deep carpeting, exclusive and beautifully co-ordinated furnishings or the magnificent view from the large bay window over the lawns and trees surrounding the hospital. All her attention was taken up with the fragile, pathetic little figure huddled in the bed.

At a little over four foot ten Madge Watkins had always been tiny, but she seemed to have shrunk down to nothing since the day before and the effect was shocking.

Her grey hair looked limp and scanty, her skin was a pasty white colour, and the expression in her faded blue eyes stated quite clearly she was terrified. Sephy’s heart went out to her.

So, apparently, did Conrad’s.

The aggressive and ruthless tycoon of working hours and the mocking, contemptuous escort of the last forty-five minutes or so metamorphosed into someone Sephy didn’t recognise. He was quiet and tender with his elderly secretary, dumping the chocolates and the rest of the flowers he was carrying on a chair, before taking the shrivelled thin figure in his arms and holding her close for long moments without speaking.

Madge’s face was wet by the time he settled her back against her pillows, but then he sat by her side, talking soothingly and positively after he had drawn Sephy forward to make her greetings. After a while it dawned on Sephy that Conrad and his secretary had a very special relationship—more like mother and son than boss and employee. And it stunned her. Totally.

The receptionist brought them all tea and cakes at just after eight o’clock, and by the time they left, at ten to nine, Madge was smiling and conversing quite naturally, the look of stark dread gone from her eyes and her face animated.

‘You needn’t come again, lad.’

Once Madge had relaxed and understood Conrad had no intention of standing on ceremony in front of Sephy, she had referred to her brilliant boss as ‘lad’ a few times, and Sephy had realised that the special circumstances were allowing her to see the way they were normally when they were alone. Before this night she had never heard Madge give him anything but his full title, and even at the Christmas dances and such the elderly woman had always been extremely stiff and proper.

‘Of course I’m coming again, woman!’ His voice was rough but his face was something else as he glanced at the small figure in the bed, and Sephy was surprised at the jolt her heart gave.

‘No, really, lad. I know how you hate these places,’ Madge said earnestly.

And then she stopped speaking as Conrad laid his hand over her scrawny ones and said very softly, ‘I said I’ll be back, Madge. Now, then, no more of that. And you’re not rushing home to that empty house before you’re able to look after yourself either. You’re going to get better, the doctor’s assured me about that, but it’ll take time and you’ll have to be patient for once in your life.’

‘There’s the pot calling the kettle,’ Madge said weakly, her eyes swimming with tears again as his concern and love touched her.

It touched Sephy too, but in her case the overwhelming feeling was one of confusion and agitation and the knowledge that it had been a mistake—a big, big mistake—to come here with him like this. As the cold, ruthless, cynical potentate Conrad Quentin was someone she disliked, as the ladykiller and rake he was someone she despised, and as her temporary boss he was someone she respected, for his incredibly intelligent mind and the rapier-sharp acumen that was mind-blowing, at the same time as feeling an aversion for such cold, obsessional single-mindedness.

But tonight… How did she think about him tonight? she asked herself nervously as she watched him make his goodbyes to Madge. But, no, he was her boss—just her boss—and come tomorrow morning things would be back on a more formal footing and she would forget how she was feeling right now—she would; of course she would! She, of all people, knew that men like him—wildly attractive, charismatic brutes of men—were shallow and egocentric and could charm the birds out of the trees when they liked.

They had just reached the door when Madge’s voice, urgent and high, brought them turning to face her again. ‘Angus! I forgot about Angus. I can’t believe I could forget him. He’s had no dinner, Conrad.’

‘He could live on his fat for years, Madge, so don’t put on sackcloth and ashes,’ Conrad said drily, and in answer to Sephy’s enquiring face he added, ‘Madge’s cat,’ by way of explanation.

‘He’ll be wondering where I am—’

‘Don’t worry.’ Conrad cut short Madge’s tremulous voice, his own resigned. ‘I’ll pick him up on the way home and he can board with me for a while until you’re home again. Daniella loves cats, as you know—even Angus. She’ll look after him.’

Daniella? Who was Daniella? And then a prim voice in her head admonished, It’s nothing to do with you who Daniella is.

It was dark outside, the air a wonderful scented mixture of grass and woodsmoke and hot summer days after the sterile warmth of the hospital, and Sephy raised her head as she took several deep gulps of the intoxicating mixture.

‘Thanks, Sephy.’ His voice was unusually soft.

Surprised into looking at him, she became aware he was watching her closely from narrowed blue eyes, his hands thrust deep in his pockets and the brooding quality she had noticed about him more than once very evident.

‘Sephy?’ She stared at him, suddenly acutely shy without knowing why. ‘You said you didn’t intend to call me that.’

‘It seems the least I can do after you’ve helped me out so ungrudgingly this evening,’ he said with quiet sincerity.

It made her previous thoughts about him uncharitable, to say the least, and she could feel herself blushing as she said, ‘That’s all right; it killed two birds with one stone, actually.’

‘Yes?’ He glanced down enquiringly as they began to walk.

‘I’d been invited to a party that I didn’t want to go to but it would have been difficult to get out of it without a valid excuse,’ she explained quietly.

‘And there was me thinking you had succumbed to my irresistible charm.’

It was cool and light, but somehow she got the impression he wasn’t as amused as his smile would have liked her to believe, and something he had said earlier in the day—‘many a true word is spoken in jest’—came back to her. The male ego again. She mentally nodded at the thought. The male sex in general really did seem to believe they had been put on the earth to receive due homage.

‘Anyway, party or no, the least I can do is to feed you before I take you back,’ he said smoothly, for all the world as though she was a little lost orphan he had found wandering about the streets of London. ‘Come on, we’ll stop off for a bite to eat on the way home. I know I’m starving.’

She stared at him uncertainly, searching for the right words to refuse his invitation without appearing rude. Dinner with Conrad Quentin? She wouldn’t be able to eat a thing, she told herself feverishly as she stopped dead in her tracks. ‘But…’

‘Yes?’ He glanced down at her again and his eyes were cool.

‘What about Miss de Menthe?’ she said quickly. ‘I thought you were seeing her tonight?’

‘Cancelled,’ he said cryptically.

‘And there’s Madge’s cat.’ Thank goodness for Madge’s cat.

‘So there is.’ His gaze was distinctly cold now, and when she still didn’t move he made a quiet sound of annoyance and took her arm in one firm hand, guiding her along the winding path between bowling-green-smooth stretches of grass and into the car park.

His flesh was warm through the thin cotton of her cardigan, and it wasn’t the swiftness with which he was urging her along that made her suddenly short of breath. He was so big, so male, so much of everything if the truth be known. And knowing what he was like, all the women he had had, made her feel gauche and inadequate and totally out of her depth. He smelt absolutely wonderful. The unwelcome intrusion of the thought did nothing to calm the wild flutters of panic that were turning her stomach upside down.

He opened the car door for her when they reached the Mercedes, and as he leant over her slightly it took every ounce of her will-power to slide into the confines of the car with a small polite nod of her head, as though she was totally oblivious to his male warmth.

And then, as he walked lazily round the bonnet of the car, she took herself severely in hand. Conrad Quentin was one of those men who had everything—wealth, success and an alarming amount of sex appeal—and she’d better get it clear in her head now that she wasn’t going to let him intimidate her, consciously or unconsciously. If she was going to continue standing in for Madge, that was. Which she rather thought she was, crazy though that made her. Anyway, she had given him her word at the office earlier, so that was that. She couldn’t back out now.

‘You’re frowning.’

She glanced up to see a pair of very piercing blue eyes surveying her through the open driver’s door, and then, as she flushed hotly, he slid into the seat and started the engine with a flick of his hand.

Sephy waited for him to follow up on his terse statement, but when they had gone a mile or two and he still hadn’t spoken she swallowed drily, and then said quietly, ‘Mr Quentin—’

‘Conrad,’ he interrupted pleasantly.

She tried to ignore the long lean legs stretched out under the steering wheel and the delicious faint odour of what must be wildly expensive aftershave, and took another surreptitious swallow before she managed, ‘Conrad, there really is no need to buy me dinner. I’m sure you must be terribly busy, and I’ve masses of things to do when I get home—’

‘Don’t you want to have dinner with me, Sephy?’ he interrupted again, the even tone fooling her not at all.

She hesitated just a second too long before she said, ‘It’s not that. Of course it’s not that I don’t want to.’

‘No?’ It was very dry. ‘Well, we won’t labour the point. I take it you have no objection in calling in Madge’s place on the way back and picking up the terrible Angus? It is en route, so it makes sense.’

She wanted to ask, Why the terrible Angus? but said instead, ‘Yes, of course. That’s fine,’ her voice tight and stiff.

‘And it might be easier to drop him off at my house before I take you home; he doesn’t like travelling and it’ll be less stressful,’ he continued smoothly. ‘We don’t want to distress him.’

Put like that, she could hardly do anything else but agree. She had no idea where he lived, but somehow she didn’t feel she could ask him either. She just hoped it wasn’t too far from Madge’s.

Madge’s house turned out to be a small and awe-inspiringly neat semi in Epping, with a paved front garden methodically interspersed with miniature shrubs. The interior of the building smelt of mothballs and furniture polish and was as spick and span as the front garden. It was exactly Madge—which made Angus all the more of a shock.

The cat was an enormous battle-scarred ginger tom, with a shredded right ear, a twisted tail that looked distinctly the worse for wear and a blemished nose that bore evidence of numerous fights. He was the very antithesis of what Sephy had expected.

He was waiting for them in Madge’s gleaming compact little kitchen when Conrad opened the door from the hall, which had been firmly closed, and it was clear he was confined to that room of the house during the working day from the massive cat flap in the back door, which gave him access to the rear garden, and the big, warm comfortable basket in one corner of the kitchen, next to which were two saucers. Two empty saucers—a fact which the cat immediately brought to their attention by his plaintive miaows.

‘Oh, he must be starving, poor thing.’

Sephy was all concern as the enormous feline wound hopefully round her legs, but as she glanced anxiously at Conrad she saw him shake his head mockingly, and his voice was amused as he said, ‘He’d have you wrapped round one paw the same as he has Madge. If ever a cat could look after itself this one can, I assure you. Angus always has his eye to the main chance and he keeps everyone dancing to his tune.’

It takes one to recognise one.

For an awful moment Sephy thought she had actually spoken the words out loud, but when Conrad’s face didn’t change and he merely gathered up the cat basket and the saucers she breathed out a silent sigh of relief. She’d said more than enough already.

‘See if you can find a tin of cat food for tonight while I take these out to the car. Although once I get him home I dare say Daniella will be feeding him salmon and steak.’ Conrad shook his head again at the huge cat, who eyed him unblinkingly out of serene emerald eyes. ‘He boarded with us last year while Madge had a couple of weeks’ holiday with her sister, and he didn’t taste cat food once.’

‘Daniella?’ Sephy queried carefully as he passed her with the basket. She didn’t think it unreasonable to ask now.

‘My housekeeper,’ he tossed easily over his shoulder.

His housekeeper. As the kitchen door closed behind him Sephy stood staring into space as she pictured a nice, plump, middle-aged little body, and then, as she heard Conrad returning, quickly opened a cupboard or two for the supply of cat food.

Angus submitted perfectly happily to being carried out to the car, his two huge front paws resting on Conrad’s chest as he gazed solemnly at Sephy over Conrad’s shoulder when she followed them out. Once in the Mercedes, however, the calm composure faltered a bit as he crouched on the back seat and began to growl as Conrad started the engine. A low, heated and rather nasty growl.