Читать книгу SOS: Convenient Husband Required / Winning a Groom in 10 Dates - Liz Fielding, Cara Colter - Страница 11

ADAM took a long, slow breath as the bathroom door closed behind him.

The rage hadn’t dimmed with time, but neither had the desire. Maybe it was all part of the same thing. He hadn’t been good enough for her then and, despite his success, she’d never missed an opportunity to make it clear that he never would be.

But she wasn’t immune. And, since a broken engagement, there had never been anyone else in her life. She hadn’t gone to university, never had a job, missing out on the irresponsible years when most of their contemporaries were obsessed with clothes, clubbing, falling in and out of love.

Instead, she’d stayed at home to run Coleridge House, exactly like some Edwardian miss, marking time until she was plucked off the shelf, at which point she would do pretty much the same thing for her husband. And, exactly like a good Edwardian girl, she’d abandoned a perfect-fit marriage without hesitation to take on the job of caring for her grandfather after his stroke. Old-fashioned. A century out of her time.

According to the receptionist who’d been raving about the garden design course, what May Coleridge needed was someone to take her in hand, help her lose a bit of weight and get a life before she spread into a prematurely middle-aged spinsterhood, with only her strays to keep her warm at night.

Clearly his receptionist had never seen her strip off her skirt and tights or she’d have realised that there was nothing middle-aged about her thighs, shapely calves or a pair of the prettiest ankles he’d ever had the pleasure of following up a flight of stairs.

But then he already knew all that.

Had been the first boy to ever see those lush curves, the kind that had gone out of fashion half a century ago, back before the days of Twiggy and the Swinging Sixties.

But when he’d unbuttoned her shirt—the alternative had been relieving her of Nancie and he wasn’t about to do that; he’d wanted her to feel the baby clinging to her, needing her— he’d discovered that his memory had served him poorly as he was confronted with a cleavage that required no assistance from either silicon or a well engineered bra. It was the real thing. Full, firm, ripe, the genuine peaches and cream experience—the kind of peaches that would fill a man’s hand, skin as smooth and white as double cream—and his only thought had been how wrong his receptionist was about May.

She didn’t need to lose weight.

Not one gram.

May would happily have stayed under the shower until the warm water had washed away the entire ghastly morning. Since that was beyond the power of mere water, she contented herself with a squirt of lemon-scented shower gel and a quick sluice down to remove all traces of mud before wrapping herself in a towel.

But while, on the surface, her skin might be warmer, she was still shivering.

Shock would do that, even without the added problem of the Adam Wavell effect.

Breathlessness. A touch of dizziness whenever she saw him. Something she should have grown out of with her puppy fat. But the puppy fat had proved as stubbornly resistant as her pathetic crush on a boy who’d been so far out of her reach that he might as well have been in outer space. To be needed by him had once been the most secret desire shared only with her diary.

Be careful what you wish for, had been one of Robbie’s warnings from the time she was a little girl and she’d been right in that, as in everything.

Adam needed her now. ‘But only to take care of Saffy’s baby,’ she muttered, ramming home the point as she towelled herself dry before wrapping herself from head to toe in a towelling robe. She’d exposed enough flesh for one day.

She needn’t have worried. Adam had taken Nancie through to the sitting room and closed the door behind him. Clearly he’d seen more than enough of her flesh for one day.

Ignoring the lustrous dark autumn gold cord skirt she’d bought ages ago in a sale and never worn, she pulled on the scruffiest pair of jogging pants and sweatshirt that she owned. There was no point in trying to compete with the girls he dated these days. Lean, glossy thoroughbreds.

She had more in common with a Shetland pony. Small, overweight, a shaggy-maned clown.

What was truly pathetic was that, despite knowing all that, if circumstances had permitted, May knew she would have still succumbed to his smile. Taken care of Saffy’s adorable baby, grateful to have the chance to be that close to him, if only for a week or two while her mother was doing what came naturally. Being bad by most people’s standards, but actually having a life.

Nancie began to grizzle into his shoulder and Adam instinctively began to move, shushing her as he walked around May’s private sitting room, scarcely able to believe it had been so easy to breach the citadel.

He examined the pictures on her walls. Her books. Picked up a small leather-bound volume lying on a small table, as if she liked to keep it close to hand.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets. As he replaced it, something fluttered from between the pages. A rose petal that had been pressed between them. As he bent to pick it up, it crumbled to red dust between his fingers and for a moment he remembered a bunch of red roses that, in the middle of winter, had cost him a fortune. Every penny of which had to be earned labouring in the market before school.

He moved on to a group of silver-framed photographs. Her grandparents were there. Her mother on the day she’d graduated. He picked up one of May, five or six years old, holding a litter of kittens and, despite the nightmare morning he was having, the memories that being here had brought back into the sharpest focus, he found himself smiling.

She might have turned icy on him but she was still prepared to risk her neck for a kitten. And any pathetic creature in trouble would have got the same response, whether it was a drowning bird on the school roof—and they’d both been given the maximum punishment short of suspension for that little escapade—or a kitten up a tree.

Not that she was such an unlikely champion of the pitiful.

She’d been one of those short, overweight kids who were never going to be one of the cool group in her year at school. And the rest of them had been too afraid of being seen to be sucking up to the girl from the big house to make friends with her.

She really should have been at some expensive private school with her peers instead of being tossed into the melting pot of the local comprehensive. One of those schools where they wore expensive uniforms as if they were designer clothes. Spoke like princesses.

It wasn’t as if her family couldn’t afford it. But poor little May Coleridge’s brilliant mother—having had the benefit of everything her birth could bestow—had turned her back on her class and become a feminist firebrand who’d publicly deplored all such elitism and died of a fever after giving birth in some desperately inadequate hospital in the Third World with no father in evidence.

If her mother had lived, he thought, May might well have launched a counter-rebellion, demanding her right to a privileged education if only to declare her own independence of spirit; but how could she rebel against someone who’d died giving her life?

Like her mother, though, she’d held on to who she was, refusing to give an inch to peer pressure to slur the perfect vowels, drop the crisp consonants, hitch up her skirt and use her school tie as a belt. To seek anonymity in the conformity of the group. Because that would have been a betrayal, too. Of who she was.

It was what had first drawn him to her. His response to being different had been to keep his head down, hoping to avoid trouble and he’d admired, envied her quiet, obstinate courage. Her act first, think later response to any situation.

Pretty much what had got them into so much trouble in the first place.

Nancie, deciding that she required something a little more tangible than a ‘sh-shush’ and a jiggle, opened her tiny mouth to let out an amazingly loud wail. He replaced the photograph. Called May.

The water had stopped running a while ago and, when there was no reply, he tapped on the bedroom door.

‘Help!’

There was no response.

‘May?’ He opened the door a crack and then, since there wasn’t a howl of outrage, he pushed it wide.

The room, a snowy indulgence of pure femininity, had been something of a shock. For some reason he’d imagined that the walls of her bedroom would be plastered in posters of endangered animals. But the only picture was a watercolour of Coleridge House painted when it was still surrounded by acres of parkland. A reminder of who she was?

There should have been a sense of triumph at having made it this far into her inner sanctum. But looking at that picture made him feel like a trespasser.

May pushed open the door to her grandfather’s room.

She still thought of it as his room even though he’d long ago moved downstairs to the room she’d converted for him, determined that he should be as comfortable as possible. Die with dignity in his own home.

‘May?’

She jumped at the sound of Adam’s voice.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, but Nancie is getting fractious.’

‘Maybe she needs changing. Or feeding.’ His only response was a helpless shrug. ‘Both happen on a regular basis, I understand,’ she said, turning to the wardrobe, hunting down one of her grandfather’s silk dressing gowns, holding it out to him. ‘You’d better put this on before you go and fetch your trousers.’ Then, as he took it from her, she realised her mistake. He couldn’t put it on while he was holding the baby.

Nancie came into her arms like a perfect fit. A soft, warm, gorgeous bundle of cuddle nestling against her shoulder. A slightly damp bundle of cuddle.

‘Changing,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he said, tying the belt around his waist and looking more gorgeous than any man wearing a dressing gown that was too narrow across the shoulders, too big around the waist and too short by a country mile had any right to look.

‘You knew!’

‘It isn’t rocket science,’ he said, looking around him. ‘This was your grandfather’s room.’

It wasn’t a question and she didn’t bother to answer. She could have, probably should have, used the master bedroom to increase the numbers for the arts and crafts weekends she hosted, but hadn’t been able to bring herself to do that. While he was alive, it was his room and it still looked as if he’d just left it to go for a stroll in the park before dropping in at the Crown for lunch with old friends.

The centuries-old furniture gleamed. There were fresh sheets on the bed, his favourite Welsh quilt turned back as if ready for him. And a late rose that Robbie had placed on the dressing table glowed in the thin sunshine.

‘Impressive.’

‘As you said, Adam, he was an impressive man,’ she said, turning abruptly and, leaving him to follow or not as he chose, returned to her room.

He followed.

‘You’re going to have to learn how to do this,’ she warned as she fetched a clean towel from her bathroom and handed it to him.

He opened it without a word, lay it over the bed cover and May placed Nancie on it. She immediately began to whimper.

‘Watch her,’ she said, struggling against the instinct to pick her up again, comfort her. ‘I’ll get her bag.’

Ignoring his, ‘Yes, ma’am,’ which was on a par with the ironic ‘Mouse’, she unhooked Nancie’s bag from the buggy, opened it, found a little pink drawstring bag that contained a supply of disposable nappies and held one out to him.

‘Me?’ He looked at the nappy, the baby and then at her. ‘You’re not kidding, are you?’ She continued to hold out the nappy and he took it without further comment. ‘Okay. Talk me through it.’

‘What makes you think I know anything about changing a baby? And if you say that I’m a woman, you are on your own.’

Adam, on the point of saying exactly that, reconsidered. He’d thought that getting through the door would be the problem but that had been the easy part. Obviously, he was asking a lot but, considering Saffy’s confidence and her own inability to resist something helpless, he was meeting a lot more resistance from May than he’d anticipated.

‘You really know nothing about babies?’

‘Look around you, Adam. The last baby to occupy this nursery was me.’

‘This was your nursery?’ he said, taking in the lace-draped bed, the pale blue carpet, the lace and velvet draped window where she’d stood and watched his humiliation at the hands of her ‘impressive’ grandfather.

‘Actually, this was the nanny’s room,’ she said. ‘The nursery was out there.’

‘Lucky nanny.’ The room, with its bathroom, was almost as big as the flat he’d grown up in.

May saw the casual contempt with which he surveyed the room but didn’t bother to explain that her grandfather had had it decorated for her when she was fifteen. That it reflected the romantic teenager she’d been rather than the down-to-earth woman she’d become.

‘As I was saying,’ she said, doing her best to hold onto reality, ignore the fact that Adam Wavell was standing in her bedroom, ‘the last baby to occupy this nursery was me and only children of only children don’t have nieces and nephews to practise on.’ Then, having given him a moment for the reality of her ignorance to sink in, she said, ‘I believe you have to start with the poppers of her sleep suit.’

‘Right,’ he said, looking at the nappy, then at the infant and she could almost see the cogs in his brain turning as he decided on a change of plan. That his best move would be to demonstrate his incompetence and wait for her to take over.

He set about unfastening the poppers but Nancie, thinking it was a game, kicked and wriggled and flung her legs up in the air. Maybe she’d maligned him. Instead of getting flustered, he laughed, as if suddenly realising that she wasn’t just an annoying encumbrance but a tiny person.

‘Come on, Nancie,’ he begged. ‘I’m a man. This is new to me. Give me a break.’

Maybe it was the sound of his voice, but she lay still, watching him with her big dark eyes, her little forehead furrowed in concentration as if she was trying to work out who he was.

And, while his hands seemed far too big for the delicate task of removing the little pink sleep suit, if it had been his intention to look clumsy and incompetent, he was failing miserably.

The poppers were dealt with, the nappy removed in moments and his reward was a great big smile.

‘Thanks, gorgeous,’ he said softly. And then leaned down and kissed her dark curls.

The baby grabbed a handful of his hair and, as she watched the two of them looking at one another, May saw the exact moment when Adam Wavell fell in love with his baby niece. Saw how he’d be with his own child.

Swallowing down a lump the size of her fist, she said, ‘I’ll take that, shall I?’ And, relieving him of the nappy, she used it as an excuse to retreat to the bathroom to dispose of it in the pedal bin. Taking her time over washing her hands.

‘Do I need to use cream or powder or something?’ he called after her.

‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, gripping the edge of the basin.

‘Babies should come with a handbook. Have you got a computer up here?’

‘A what?’

‘I could look it up on the web.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ She abandoned the safety of the bathroom and joined him beside the bed. ‘She’s perfectly dry,’ she said, after running her palm over the softest little bottom imaginable. ‘Just put on the nappy and…and get yourself a nanny, Adam.’

‘Easier said than done.’

‘It’s not difficult. I can give you the number of a reliable agency.’

‘Really? And why would you have their number?’

‘The Garland Agency provide domestic and nursing staff, too. I needed help. The last few months…’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think.’ He turned away, opened the nappy, examined it to see how it worked. ‘However, there are a couple of problems with the nanny scenario. My apartment is an open-plan loft. There’s nowhere to put either a baby or a nanny.’

‘What’s the other problem?’ He was concentrating on fastening the nappy and didn’t answer. ‘You said there were a couple of things.’ He shook his head and, suddenly suspicious, she said, ‘When was the last time you actually saw Saffy?’

‘I’ve been busy,’ he said, finally straightening. ‘And she’s been evasive,’ he added. ‘I bought a lease on a flat for her in Paris, but I’ve just learned that she’s moved out, presumably to move in with Nancie’s father. She’s sublet it and has been pocketing the rent for months.’

‘You’re not a regular visitor, then?’

‘You know what she’s like, May. I didn’t even know she was pregnant.’

‘And the baby’s father? Who is he?’

‘His name is Michel. That’s all I know.’

‘Poor Saffy,’ she said. And there was no doubt that she was pitying her her family.

‘She could have come to me,’ he protested. ‘Picked up the phone.’

‘And you’d have done what? Sent her a cheque?’

‘It’s what she usually wants. You don’t think she ever calls to find out how I am, do you?’

‘You are strong. She isn’t. How was she when she left the baby with you?’

‘I’d better wash my hands,’ he said.

Without thinking, she put out her hand and grabbed his arm to stop him. ‘What aren’t you telling me, Adam?’

He didn’t answer, but took a folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket and gave it to her before retreating to the bathroom.

It looked as if it had been screwed up and tossed into a bin, then rescued as an afterthought.

She smoothed it out. Read it.

‘Saffy’s on the run from her baby’s father?’ she asked, looking up as he returned. ‘Where did she leave the baby?’

‘In my office. I found her there when I left a meeting to fetch some papers. Saffy had managed to slip in and out without anyone seeing her. She hasn’t lost the skills she learned as a juvenile shoplifter.’

‘She must have been absolutely desperate.’

‘Maybe she is,’ he said. ‘But not nearly as desperate as I am right at this minute. I know you haven’t got the time of day for me, but she said you’d help her.’

‘I would,’ she protested. ‘Of course I would…’

‘But?’

‘Where’s your mother?’ she asked.

‘She relocated to Spain after my father died.’

‘Moving everyone out of town, Adam? Out of sight, out of mind?’

A tightening around his mouth suggested that her barb had found its mark. And it was unfair. He’d turned his life around, risen above the nightmare of his family. Saffy hadn’t had his strength, but she still deserved better from him than a remittance life in a foreign country. All the bad things she’d done had been a cry for the attention, love she craved.

‘She won’t have gone far.’

‘That’s not the impression she gives in her note.’

‘She’ll want to know the baby is safe.’ Then, turning on him, ‘What about you?’

‘Me?’

‘Who else?’ she demanded fiercely because Adam was too close, because her arms were aching to pick up his precious niece. She busied herself instead, fastening Nancie into her suit. ‘Can’t you take paternity leave or something?’

‘I’m not the baby’s father.’

‘Time off, then. You do take holidays?’

‘When I can’t avoid it.’ He shook his head. ‘I told you. I’m leaving for South America tomorrow.’

‘Can’t you put it off?’

‘It’s not just a commercial trip, May. There are politics involved. Government agencies. I’m signing fair trade contracts with cooperatives. I’ve got a meeting with the President of Samindera that it’s taken months to set up.’

‘So the answer is no.’

‘The answer is no. It’s you,’ he said, ‘or I’m in trouble.’

‘In that case you’re in trouble.’ She picked up the baby and handed her to him, as clear a statement as she could make. ‘I’d help Saffy in a heartbeat if I could but—’

‘But you wouldn’t cross the road to help me.’

‘No!’

‘Just cross the road to avoid speaking to me. Would I have got anywhere at all if you hadn’t been stuck up a tree? Unable to escape?’

That was so unfair! He had no idea. No clue about all the things she’d done for him and it was on the tip of her tongue to say so.

‘I’m sorry. You must think I’ve got some kind of nerve even asking you.’

‘No…Of course I’d help you if I could. But I’ve got a few problems of my own.’

‘Tell me,’ he said, lifting his spare hand to wipe away the stupid tear that had leaked despite her determination not to break down, not to cry, his fingers cool against her hot cheek. ‘Tell me about the world of trouble you’re in.’

‘I didn’t think you’d heard.’

‘I heard but you asked where Saffy was…’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, May, I’ve been banging on about my own problems instead of listening to yours.’ His hand opened to curve gently around her cheek. ‘It was something about the house. Tell me. Maybe I can help.’

She shook her head, struggling with the temptation to lean into his touch, to throw herself into his arms, spill out the whole sorry story. But there was no easy comfort.

All she had left was her dignity and she tore herself away, took a step back, then turned away to look out of the window.

‘Not this time, Adam,’ she said, her voice as crisp as new snow. ‘This isn’t anything as simple as getting stuck up a tree. The workshop ladies have returned to the stables. It’s safe for you to leave now.’

She’d been sure that would be enough to drive him away, but he’d followed her. She could feel the warmth of his body at her shoulder.

‘I’m pretty good at complicated, too,’ he said, his voice as gentle as the caress of his breath against her hair.

‘From what I’ve read, you’ve had a lot of practice,’ she said, digging her nails into her hands. ‘I’m sure you mean well, Adam, but there’s nothing you can do.’

‘Try me,’ he challenged.

‘Okay.’ She swung around to face him. ‘If you’ve got a job going for someone who can provide food and accommodation for a dozen or so people on a regular basis, run a production line for homemade toffee, is a dab hand with hospital corners, can milk a goat, keep bees and knows how to tame a temperamental lawnmower, that would be a start,’ she said in a rush.

‘You need a job?’ Adam replied, brows kinked up in a confident smile. As if he could make the world right for her by lunch time and still have time to add another company or two to his portfolio. ‘Nothing could be simpler. I need a baby minder. I’ll pay top rates if you can start right now.’

‘The one job for which I have no experience, no qualifications,’ she replied. ‘And, more to the point, no licence.’

‘Licence?’

‘I’m not related to Nancie. Without a childminding licence, it would be illegal.’

‘Who would know?’ he asked, without missing a beat.

‘You’re suggesting I don’t declare the income to the taxman? Or that the presence of a baby would go unnoticed?’ She shook her head. ‘People are in and out of here all the time and it would be around the coffee morning circuit faster than greased lightning. Someone from Social Services would be on the doorstep before I could say “knife”.’ She shrugged. ‘Of course, most of the old tabbies would assume Nancie was mine. “Just like her mother…”’ she said, using the disapproving tone she’d heard a hundred times. Although, until now, not in reference to her own behaviour.

‘You’re right,’ he said, conceding without another word. ‘Obviously your reputation is far too precious a commodity to be put at risk.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ she protested.

‘Forget it, May. I should have known better.’ He shrugged. ‘Actually, I did know better but I thought you and Saffy had some kind of a bond. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll call the authorities. I have no doubt that Nancie’s father has reported her missing by now and it’s probably for the best to leave it to the court to—’

‘You can’t do that!’ she protested. ‘Saffy is relying on you to get her out of this mess.’

‘Is she? Read her letter again, May.’