Читать книгу Equal Opportunities - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 7

SEVERAL miles away, Camilla listened anxiously to the telephone call between her husband and his mother.

‘Dad’s been rushed into hospital with a suspected heart attack,’ he told her as he hung up. ‘Mum wants us to go down.’

‘I’ll pack a couple of overnight bags and we can leave straight away.’

Camilla loved her mother-in-law, but knew that she was quite incapable of dealing with an emergency.

It wouldn’t be for several hours that she remembered that she had never told Kate that Sue had rung to say Peter Ericson had already accepted a post with someone else. She would do her best to find a suitable alternative, she had promised, but men willing to take charge of small children were not easy to find.

Kate, meanwhile, in blissful ignorance, watched as Garrick bathed Michael. It was true that he was less skilled than the other nannies she had employed, but his lack of expertise was more than made up for in the way that Michael responded to him.

Perhaps she had been wrong, she reflected, watching them, perhaps it was possible, after all, for even such a small baby to miss a male influence in his life. Michael, normally wary with strangers, was laughing and clapping his hands as Garrick bathed him, dunking his toys, and generally behaving as though there was nothing he wanted more than to keep on playing with this man who had come to take care of him.

The bath had its own stand, but Kate preferred to put it on the floor, for reasons of safety. She also normally armed herself with protective clothing, knowing Michael’s propensity for soaking everything and everyone around him with water.

By the time Garrick had managed to fish Michael’s wriggling wet body out of the bath, he was almost as wet as the small child.

As he handed Michael over to Kate, after swaddling him in a warm towel, he asked directly. ‘First question. Do I get the job?’

He had removed his watch while he bathed Michael, and observing him strapping it on, Kate noticed that it was an expensive gold model that she knew must have cost several thousand pounds. Rather a luxury for a man who was prepared to work for less than a hundred pounds per week, all found. But then, perhaps he had bought it in better times, when he worked abroad.

She hesitated, and he gave her a frowning look. At that moment Michael managed to free his arms from the towel and stretched out towards him. Kate made up her mind, praying that she wouldn’t regret it.

‘Yes. Yes…you do,’ she agreed firmly, adding, ‘What was your next question?’

‘Do you have a dryer so that I can dry my shirt, and will it be OK if I bring my computer terminal with me?’