Читать книгу A Nanny For Christmas - Сара Крейвен, Sara Craven - Страница 6

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOUR favourite customer is back.’ Lynn shouldered her way through the swing doors into the kitchen with a tray of dirty crockery.

‘That little girl again?’ Phoebe glanced up, frowning, from her task of adding a salad garnish to a plate of egg mayonnaise sandwiches. ‘Is she still on her own?’

‘As ever was.’ Lynn began expertly to pack the dishwasher. ‘Odd, isn’t it?’

Phoebe’s frown deepened. ‘I think it’s downright irresponsible of someone,’ she said roundly. ‘She’s far too young to be wandering around the streets alone. I wouldn’t say she was much more than seven.’

‘She’s safe enough in here,’ Lynn pointed out fairly. ‘The Clover Tea Rooms isn’t exactly a meeting place for kidnappers and perverts.’

‘As far as we know,’ Phoebe said grimly, filling a milk jug and placing it on her own tray together with a teapot, a sugar basin and the sandwiches.

As she carried it through to the dining room she cast a worried glance towards the comer table by the window and its small occupant.

The child had been coming in for the past three days, at the same time each afternoon. On the first occasion Phoebe had assumed she was waiting for some adult to join her.

Instead, the little girl had asked for a menu.

‘Would you like me to tell you what there is?’ Phoebe had suggested, receiving a look of utmost scorn for her pains.

‘I can read it for myself, thank you,’ a clear, remarkably self-possessed voice told her, before placing an order for a sultana scone and a cup of hot chocolate.

Even then, Phoebe hesitated. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to wait for the rest of your family? Our food is quite expensive, you see.’

Scorn deepened into outrage in the child’s eyes. ‘I can afford to pay,’ she announced with immense dignity. She delved into her tote bag and produced a crisp five-pound note. ‘Will that be enough?’

‘More than enough,’ Phoebe allowed evenly, and went to get the order.

Her meal finished, the little girl paid, worked out a tip with frowning concentration and left. A pattern that had now become established, although it made Phoebe no happier.

This time, the child asked for hot milk with honey and nutmeg and some home-made biscuits.

‘You’re becoming quite a regular,’ Phoebe remarked, trying to sound casual as she placed the order on the table. ‘But, unlike most of our customers, we don’t know your name.’

There was a pause, then the little girl said doubtfully, ‘I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.’

‘And quite right too,’ Phoebe approved warmly. ‘But I’m hardly a stranger. For one thing I feed you every day, and, for another, my name’s pinned on my shirt. So...?’ She waited expectantly.

There was a pause, then the child said reluctantly, ‘I’m Tara Vane.’

‘That’s a pretty name.’ Phoebe gave her an encouraging smile. ‘Do you live in Westcombe?’

This brought a decisive shake of the head. ‘I live at Fitton Magna.’

Phoebe was silent for a moment, angry to realise that her heart was pounding suddenly. It’s only a place, she reminded herself. And what happened was six years ago. It has nothing to do with here and now.

‘I see,’ she said slowly. ‘Then you have a long journey home.’

Tara gave her a superior look. ‘It’s fifteen miles. It doesn’t take long in the car.’

‘Ah.’ Phoebe relaxed with an effort. ‘Then you go home with Mummy.’

She saw the small back stiffen. ‘I haven’t got a mummy. Not any more.’

Oh, God, Phoebe groaned inwardly. She said quietly, ‘I’m very sorry, Tara. It—it’s something we have in common, I’m afraid.’

Tara gave her an interested look. ‘Then do you live with your daddy too?’

Phoebe bit her lip as the pain of all too recent events slashed at her again. ‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘I expect he’s away on business,’ Tara said thoughtfully. ‘My daddy’s away all the time. That’s why I have Cindy to look after me.’

Oh, do you? thought Phoebe. Then she’s not making a very good job of it.

Aloud, she said gently, ‘Everyone needs someone, Tara. And it’s good that we’ve got to know each other a little. Now we can say hello if we meet in the street.’

‘I’m not in the street very often.’ Tara sipped her milk. ‘When I finish school, I have my piano lesson and then I come here and wait for Cindy.’

‘Found out all you wanted to know?’ Lynn asked with amusement when Phoebe returned to the kitchen.

‘Rather too much,’ Phoebe returned. ‘Her mother’s dead, her father’s never there and someone called Cindy fills in when she feels like it.’

‘Cindy,’ mused Lynn. ‘Someone called Cindy was at Night Birds the other Saturday. People were saying they hadn’t seen her around before.’

‘What was she like?’

Lynn shrugged. ‘Australian, tall, blonde, endless legs, a bit loud and altogether too keen on other girls’ blokes. Not that I noticed her much, you understand.’

Phoebe grinned. ‘Naturally. But she doesn’t sound the ideal person to be looking after Tara,’ she added thoughtfully.

Lynn put her hands on her hips. ‘For heaven’s sake, Phoebe, lighten up. Haven’t you got enough problems of your own?’

‘More than enough,’ Phoebe agreed ruefully. ‘But that doesn’t make me indifferent to what’s going on in other people’s lives.’

‘Then maybe it should for once.’ Lynn shook her head. ‘Listen, the kid is well fed, and extremely well dressed. All her clothes come from Smarty Pants, the boutique in Market Street where my sister works. She has a fiver a day to spend, which is about one hundred per cent more than I ever did at the same age. I’d say she’s doing all right.’

‘And that’s all there is to it?’ Phoebe’s tone was wry.

‘Whether it is or not, there’s no reason for you to be involved,’ Lynn said sternly. ‘Start thinking about yourself instead. Any moment now Debbie will be coming back to work, and you’ll be out of a job.’

Phoebe sighed. ‘I don’t need reminding about that. But I knew when I took it on that it would only be temporary, while Debbie got over her appendicitis.’

Lynn snorted. ‘Lazy little cow. If Mrs Preston knew what she was really like, she wouldn’t have her back, niece or not.’ She paused. ‘How’s the landlord from hell? Still giving you hassle?’

Phoebe grimaced. ‘As ever. He still hasn’t done anything about the tile that blew down last month, and now there’s a big damp patch on the bedroom ceiling.’

‘Does he still snoop around when you’re out?’

‘I’m sure he does, but I can’t prove it,’ Phoebe said with exasperation. ‘And if I caught him he’d quote his rotten lease at me, saying he has “right of inspection” at any time.’

Lynn shook her head. ‘Surely you can find somewhere else?’

‘Not until I find a real job as well to go with it. And the problem is there just aren’t as many library posts any more, because of all the cutbacks.’ Phoebe sighed again. ‘I apply for everything, and so far I’ve made three shortlists and one unsuccessful interview. Maybe I should train for something else.’

‘You could always be a teacher,’ Lynn suggested. ‘You must be good with children. People are always asking you to babysit.’

‘That doesn’t necessarily mean a thing,’ Phoebe said drily. ‘All the same, it’s an idea. It’s just—not what I had planned when I went to university.’

Lynn rolled her eyes expressively round the kitchen. ‘And this is?’ she mocked. ‘By the way, I think your customer’s ready to leave.’

It wasn’t simply curiosity that made Phoebe follow the child out into the gathering gloom of the November afternoon. It was wrong for Tara to be out on her own at that age, and especially at that time of year. It was growing misty, and the dank chill caught in Phoebe’s throat as she watched the small figure scamper up the street.

With a sudden roar, a motorcycle erupted round the corner into High Street and braked violently. Phoebe, shocked and with all her worst forebodings apparently justified, was about to run forward when she saw a tall figure uncoil herself slowly from the pillion seat, giving the child a casual wave. As she took off the helmet she was wearing and handed it back to the driver blonde hair gleamed under the street light.

Cindy, I suppose, thought Phoebe with relief but no particular pleasure. So this is what she does while her charge is roaming free.

The other girl stood talking to the motorcyclist for a moment or two, then blew him a kiss and turned away. Almost at once she and Tara had rounded the corner and disappeared from view.

Oh, well, Phoebe told herself. That’s all right, then. And wished she could feel more convinced.

The little house felt cold and damp when she let herself in a couple of hours later. As she switched on the light in the sitting room it flickered, nearly went out, then recovered.

Good, thought Phoebe. Because I don’t think I’ve got a spare bulb.

Unless of course it was the wiring, which would mean another unpleasant interview with her landlord.

I’ll worry about that tomorrow, Phoebe decided tiredly.

It wasn’t a very comfortable room. It needed decorating, and the square of cheap carpet didn’t match the hard two-seater settee with its spindly wooden legs. But she’d laid a fire in the narrow Victorian grate before she’d left for work that morning, and, once it was lit and the curtains drawn, there was a semblance of cosiness.

Not for the first time, Phoebe imagined having some of the things from home there. The rosewood corner cabinet, she remembered sadly, and the Pembroke table and the big winged chair from her father’s study. But, like the house itself, they’d gone, sold to pay unexpected and crushing debts.

‘I can’t believe you could be such a fool, Howard.’ She could hear her aunt Lorna’s bitter voice now. ‘The stock market indeed. Whatever possessed you?’

And her father, sounding quiet and sad. ‘I expect I was greedy, like a great many other people, my dear. None of us ever thought it would go wrong.’

‘Well, I hope you don’t expect Geoffrey and I to help you out of this mess. The recession has hit us too, you know. The most we can do is find you somewhere else to live while you get back on your feet. It will have to be modest, of course, but Geoffrey is prepared to pay a year’s rent in advance, and at least it will be a roof over your head. I’m sure one of his business contacts will be able to suggest something suitable.’

‘Modest’, Phoebe reflected drily, was not the word. Hawthorn Cottage, property of Mr Arthur Hanson, was positively retiring—and singularly lacking in hawthorns or, indeed, any kind of flower or shrub in its miserable strip of concreted-over garden.

‘Dad, we can’t live here,’ she’d whispered as Mr Hanson had grudgingly left them alone ‘to get the feel of the place’, as he’d put it. ‘It’s awful.’

‘To quote your aunt Lorna, “It’s a roof”, and it will do while we look round for something better.’ He’d hugged her.

Phoebe had been half-heartedly celebrating the end of her finals when her tutor had sent for her. He’d been very kind, very sympathetic, but there had been no way to soften the blow.

Her father had been taken suddenly ill while waiting his turn at the local DSS office. An ambulance had been called, everyone had done what they could, but he’d been dead on his arrival at hospital.

Phoebe, grieving and bewildered, had learned she could stay at the house until the lease was up—but only, she suspected, because Uncle Geoffrey had been unable to retrieve the rent from Hanson the Hateful, as her father had christened him.

She hadn’t wanted to stay there—or in Westcombe at all, for that matter—because that part of the country held few happy memories for her. But she’d realised she needed a breathing space. What she had not taken into account was the difficulty of finding work.

She knew how to operate a computer, so she’d managed to keep herself solvent with temping jobs in various offices. But, on the whole, she’d found working at the tea rooms the most congenial.

Mrs Preston might have a blind spot where her niece was concerned, but otherwise her standards were high. Trade was generally brisk, Lynn was down to earth and amusing company and most of the customers had soon seemed like old friends.

She would miss it all very much, but it had never been a prospect for life.

But what was? she asked herself now as she made toast and poached an egg for her supper. Her life had been turned upside down during the past year, and now all she was really sure of was her own uncertainty.

Did she want to be a librarian as she’d always intended? Or should she return to college and take a teaching degree?

I don’t know what I want, she thought. And, in those circumstances, Dad always said it was best to do nothing and see what life threw at you.

There was no television in the cottage—Hanson the Hateful claimed the weight of an aerial would damage the chimney—so she listened to the radio as she usually did, then went to bed.

And, for the first time in over a year, she found herself having the dream.

As always there was music playing, somewhere in the distance, and she was floating, weightless, on a bed of clouds, spinning slowly and gently in a gigantic circle, singing softly to herself. There were faces looking down at her, all smiling, and she smiled back, comforted by love and approval, until she saw that all the faces were masked and the smiles painted on, and she tried to run away, and they held her down, their laughter echoing thinly from behind the masks, drowning the music.

And then they all vanished, and he was there—the Dark Lord—staring at her with eyes so cold that they burned.

Shouting at her with words that made no sense, but she knew were full of hatred and contempt.

Threatening her, frightening her with his anger. His disgust.

And she suddenly realised that she was naked and tried to cover herself with her hands, but they were clamped to her sides, and she was spinning again, faster and faster, sinking backwards into some void, trying to hide from the ice and fire of the Dark Lord’s eyes. But knowing that there was no escape.

She awoke, sobbing helplessly as she always did, her whole body bathed in sweat.

When she’d regained control, she lay quietly, staring into the darkness, wondering what had prompted a recurrence of her nightmare.

Fitton Magna, she thought, wincing. Tara had said she lived there. That must have been the reason.

But why did it still have to happen? It was six years ago, after all, that devastating, humiliating night. Wasn’t it time she laid the memory of it to rest? Surely she wasn’t going to be haunted like this for the rest of her life?

The sooner I get away from this whole area and make a completely fresh start, she told herself, the better it will be.

The following day was Friday and market day, and the tea rooms were extra busy.

As the afternoon wore on Phoebe cleared the corner table by the window and put a RESERVED notice on it.

And won’t I look a fool if she doesn’t turn up? she thought.

But, sure enough, Tara made her appearance at the usual time, and seemed sedately pleased that Phoebe had kept a space for her.

‘What’s it to be today?’ Phoebe smiled down at her. ‘Hot milk again? And Mrs Preston’s made some chocolate muffins.’

Tara’s eyes sparkled. ‘Yes, please.’

For a child who seemed to be bringing herself up, she had lovely manners, Phoebe thought as she went to get the order.

After that there was another rush of customers, and it was an hour later that she finally had time to realise that Tara was still sitting at the corner table, staring forlornly through the window.

She checked beside her. ‘I’m sorry, poppet. Did you want to pay?’

The child shook her head, looking down and biting her lip. ‘I can’t. Cindy didn’t give me any money today. She said I had to wait here instead until she came. Only she hasn’t,’ she added on a little wail.

‘Don’t get upset.’ Phoebe passed her a clean paper napkin. ‘I’ll tell you what. I’ll pay the bill for you, and Cindy can settle with me. How’s that?’

Tara shook her head. ‘We can’t do that. I don’t know where she is.’

‘Well, she can’t be too far away. She knows you’re waiting.’ Phoebe tried to sound casual. ‘Is she out with her boyfriend again?’

Tara’s eyes looked very big in her small face. ‘You aren’t meant to know about him. No one is. She’ll be cross if she thinks I’ve told.’

‘Well, you haven’t,’ Phoebe said cheerfully. ‘So that’s all right. Now, you stay right there, and I’ll bring you another muffin. And by the time you’ve eaten it Cindy will be here for you.’

‘What’s going on?’ Lynn mouthed as she dashed past with a loaded tray.

‘Cindy—no show,’ Phoebe returned succinctly, and Lynn’s brows shot up to her hairline.

But, in spite of her optimistic forecast, no one tall, blonde and Australian arrived at the tea rooms, and it was rapidly approaching closing time.

‘Call the police,’ said Lynn. ‘That’s what Mrs Preston would say.’

‘I can’t,’ Phoebe protested. ‘She’s upset enough as it is, poor little devil. It could create all kinds of repercussions.’

Lynn sighed. ‘Then what are you going to do?’

Phoebe took a deep breath. ‘I’ll take her home myself. And hopefully give Cindy, and this absentee father of hers, a piece of my mind in the process.’

‘You can’t just walk off with someone’s child. Otherwise it will be you the police will be calling on.’

‘That’s a risk I’ll have to take.’ Phoebe looked at the clock above the kitchen door. ‘And why isn’t there a search party out for her anyway? No, I’ve got to do it, Lynn. I’ve got to see her home safely and talk to someone in authority about what’s been going on.’

Lynn shook her head. ‘Rather you than me.’

As Phoebe had expected, Tara was reluctant to accompany her.

‘No, I’ve got to wait for Cindy.’ Her bottom lip jutted ominously.

‘But the café is closing for the night,’ Phoebe told her gently. ‘If Cindy comes it will be all dark and locked up.’

‘Then I’ll sit in her car and wait.’

Over my dead body, Phoebe returned silently. Aloud, she said, ‘Let’s go and see if it’s still where she parked it, shall we?’

The main car park was emptying fast, and the white Peugeot 205 was standing in the middle, in splendid isolation. It was also securely locked, which Phoebe secretly regarded as a bonus under the circumstances.

However, she was getting more concerned about Cindy’s non-appearance by the minute.

‘Perhaps her boyfriend’s motorbike’s had a puncture,’ she suggested neutrally. ‘Whatever, there’s no point hanging round here in the cold and dark. We’ll go round to the bus station and find out when there’s one to Fitton Magna.’

But here too she drew a blank. Buses to Fitton Magna, she learned, were thin on the ground. There was one return trip mid-morning and mid-afternoon each day. And a market day special which she’d missed as well.

‘Right,’ Phoebe said breezily, thanking her stars she’d been paid at lunchtime. ‘We’ll get a taxi.’

Even if the people at the other end weren’t very pleased with what she had to say, they would at least reimburse the fare to her—wouldn’t they?

‘Do you know the address?’ she asked, fixing Tara’s seat-belt.

‘Of course.’ The outraged note was back, if a little wobbly. ‘It’s North Fitton House.’

‘Would that be on the Midburton Road?’ the driver asked as he started the engine.

‘I don’t know,’ Phoebe confessed. ‘I’ve never been there.’ At least, I hope I haven’t, she amended silently. ‘Is it, Tara?’

‘I think so.’ The little girl didn’t sound any too sure.

‘Well, Fitton Magna isn’t exactly big. Reckon we’ll find it,’ said the driver.

It was a placid drive through the dark lanes, but, all the same, Phoebe could feel tension rising inside her. Beside her, Tara was very quiet. Perhaps too quiet?

I don’t really know anything about her, Phoebe realised ruefully. Certainly not enough to go charging in and taking over like this. Lynn was right. I should have stayed out of it. Handed the whole mess over to the police or Social Services.

What do I do if there’s no one at her home either? Why didn’t I think things through?

There was a muffled sound beside her, as if Tara was choking back a sob, and Phoebe reached out and took a small, cold, shaking hand, squeezing it comfortingly.

‘Everything’s going to be all right,’ she whispered. ‘Trust me.’

Knowing, even as she spoke, that in truth she could guarantee nothing.

They were coming to a scatter of houses, lights gleaming behind curtained windows, and Phoebe felt an icy fist clench in her stomach.

Any moment now, she thought, and she might find herself back at the place where the actual scenario of her nightmare had been played out.

But maybe that was what she needed—to go back and exorcise this particular demon once and for all. Let herself see that it was all in the past. That, even if it was the same house where she’d been so bitterly humiliated, the people had changed. Because Tara’s name was Vane, and no one called that had been involved.

I would, she told herself, have remembered that.

Ashton, she thought. Dominic Ashton. That had been his name. No Dark Lord of her overheated imagination, but a normal man caught off-guard and reacting furiously to a shameful, tasteless joke.

Who was now somewhere else, living his perfectly normal life, and who had probably never given the incident another thought. Whose biting mouth would twist sardonically in disbelief at the possibility that she could still be tormented by her memories.

It doesn’t matter any more, she told herself, drawing a deep breath. I can’t afford to let it.

‘Well, this is it,’ the taxi driver announced.

Leaning forward, Phoebe saw NORTH FTTTON HOUSE inscribed on the gate pillar, and, glancing up, the stone gryphon which crowned it. Quite unforgettably.

‘Yes,’ she said tonelessly. ‘This is the place. Could you drive up to the door, please, and wait for me?’

Tara was reluctant to leave the taxi. ‘They’re going to be so angry.’ Her voice caught on a sob.

‘But not with you,’ Phoebe said bracingly. ‘Or they’ll have me to deal with.’

She walked forward up the two shallow steps flanked by stone urns, bare now with the onset of winter. On her last visit they’d been a vibrant, sprawling mass of colour which had matched the light and warmth spilling out of the house and her own inner excitement about the party she’d been going to. The man she’d been going to see.

‘Sweet Phoebe.’ She could hear his voice whispering to her persuasively, overcoming her scruples. ‘Promise me you’ll be there.’

And I went, Phoebe thought as she rang the bell. Like a lamb to the slaughter.

After a pause, the door was opened by a stout, white-haired woman wearing a dark dress and a neat apron.

‘Good evening.’ She sounded surprised. ‘Can I help...?’ Her gaze fell on Tara, clinging to Phoebe’s hand, and her hand flew to her mouth.

‘Oh, my God, it’s the little one. You should have been home hours ago, you naughty girl. I was just going to take your supper up to the nursery. And where’s that Cindy, may I ask?’

‘You may indeed,’ Phoebe said quietly, leading Tara into the hall. ‘I’ve brought Tara home from the café where I work. There seems to have been some mistake over the arrangements to collect her.’

‘Mistake,’ the other woman repeated. ‘And what was Miss Tara doing in a café, I’d like to know? From school to her piano lesson, and then straight home. That’s her routine.’

‘Apparently not.’ Phoebe gave her a level look. ‘You mentioned supper, which is a splendid idea. Tara’s had rather a trying time, as you can imagine.’

‘Well, yes.’ The woman looked helplessly from one to the other. ‘I don’t know what to say, I’m sure.’

‘If you could take her upstairs, and see to her.’ Phoebe urged the child gently forward. ‘Go on, poppet, and I’ll come and say goodbye once I’ve spoken to your father.’ She turned to the other woman. ‘I presume he’s here.’

‘Yes, miss, but he’s working in his study.’ The woman glanced uneasily at a door on the right of the large hall. ‘Left strict instructions he wasn’t to be disturbed.’

‘I’m sure he did,’ Phoebe said with a lightness she was far from feeling. ‘But I think this is an emergency, don’t you?’

And she walked past them both, opened the study door and went in.

It was a room she remembered only vaguely, with its book-lined walls and the large desk standing in the centre of the room.

He was standing with his back to her, intent on a fax machine delivering a message on a side table.

When he spoke, his voice was clipped with impatience. ‘Carrie, I thought I said—’

‘It’s not Carrie, Mr Vane.’ The anger which had been seething in Phoebe came boiling to the surface. ‘I’ve just brought your daughter back from Westcombe, where she’d been abandoned, and I’d like to know whether you’re just totally selfish or criminally irresponsible.’

He turned slowly. The grey eyes travelled over her without haste. Like ice that burned. She had thought it then. She knew it now.

She gave a gasp, and stepped backwards.

‘I don’t know who the hell you are, bursting in and abusing me like this.’ Every word was like the slash of a whip. ‘But you’ve made a big mistake, young woman.’

He paused, taking in every detail from the top of the smooth brown head, down over her working uniform of white shirt and brief black skirt, to her slender feet in their sensible shoes. Registering it all, then dismissing it with the contempt that she remembered so vividly from six years before.

He said softly, ‘My name is Ashton. Dominic Ashton. Now, give me one good reason why I shouldn’t throw you out.’