Husband-To-Be

‘But I am familiar with scientific technology. I—I studied biology at school,’ said Rachel. Perfectly true, as far as it went. If she went any further and told him about all her degrees and research papers she knew what would happen: she’d find herself standing thigh-deep in a swamp before you could say Jack Robinson.

‘He also needs someone with a rather different style of presentation,’ Olivia said sarcastically.

This was a subject dear to Rachel’s heart. ‘Well, naturally I wouldn’t dress like this for the office,’ she said. ‘I’d wear a suit. One like yours would be just right.’

Olivia’s eyes widened, and then she gave a rather malicious smile. ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ she drawled. ‘Karl is such a genius. I’ll give you the number of his showroom; maybe you can drop in next time you’re in Paris.’

Rachel flushed as the implication of this sank in. ‘Well—maybe I’d have to settle for a cheap imitation,’ she said gallantly.

‘Could be,’ Olivia said coolly. She glanced at Joyce. ‘Well, thanks for showing us round.’ Her eyes fell pointedly to the box in which William was once again immured. ‘I don’t think we’ll be needing those chairs, but I’ll let you know. Come on, Grant.’

Mallett gave Rachel a wink. ‘Chin up,’ he said. ‘I’m sure the right job will come along.’

The door closed behind them with a tinkle.

‘I’m awfully sorry; I lost you a sale, didn’t I?’ said Rachel.

Joyce shrugged. ‘Well, probably, but they’re lovely chairs—I’d hate to think of them wasted on her. The thing is, though, what on earth is Driscoll going to say?’

CHAPTER TWO

RACHEL knew what Driscoll was going to say. He was going to say she should apply for another research grant, and stand full-time in a swamp, or for a lectureship, and just stand in swamps doing fieldwork in the summer. He was going to say that if she didn’t want an academic career there was plenty of work in the private sector. He was going to bring up again his old idea of setting up an ecological consultancy together as part of an environmental assessment team.

Rachel knew she should be grateful. After all, you heard such terrible stories about men who didn’t like women to be their intellectual equals. Driscoll, to do him credit, took her career as seriously as he took his own.

He’d been thrilled by the prizes she’d won as an undergraduate, thrilled by the industry sponsorship she’d won for her doctoral research, thrilled by the awards her work had won. He’d collaborated with her lots of times when she’d been asked to help with environmental assessments relating to her area of expertise. He’d always insisted that she should be as dedicated and single-minded about her work as he was about his own, constantly developing a track record of publications, papers at conferences and consultancies.

Probably that single-mindedness was what she admired most about him. Driscoll was so mature about everything. He didn’t seem to mind the horrible boredom you had to put up with if you wanted to climb the academic ladder, or wanted to carve out a niche for yourself as a consultant. He just accepted mind-numbing specialisation as the price you had to pay for being a professional, whereas somehow Rachel never had got used to it.

She’d enjoyed her first research project, as an undergraduate, when she’d done a study of a bed of reeds and its inhabitants. Then it had won a prize, and then it had turned out that she was supposed to go on doing specialised population studies for the rest of her life, sometimes in a mangrove swamp, sometimes in the pampas, but always in a little area of research that she was supposed to make her own. All the other things she’d loved about zoology would be things of the past, unless she was lucky enough to teach a course on one some day. The main business of her life would be an expert on standing in swamps and counting what turned up there.

Rachel stared unseeingly down at the carrier bag in which William’s box was now concealed. Driscoll just didn’t seem to realise that she wasn’t cut out for a scientific career the way he was. She would be perfectly happy to go with him to whichever university gave him a permanent job—just as soon as he got a permanent job. Then she would find something interesting to do, and leave Meals on Wheels for Mosquitoes behind her.

Meanwhile she had to convince him that there was something else she was really cut out for, or he’d start nagging her to publish some more research, or, worse, actually do some more research. Confound Grant Mallett. He needed a secretary. She’d be perfect for the job. Why couldn’t he see that?

Still mulling over this problem, she sneaked into her aunt’s house by the back door, tiptoed upstairs to her room and put William’s box in the closet. Naturally she couldn’t keep him without consulting her aunt, but the subject was a delicate one; she just had to find the right moment.

That this was not the right moment was clear as soon as she’d traced her aunt to the kitchen. ‘Men!’ cried Aunt Harriet in disgust, chopping vegetables amid chaos. ‘Your uncle!’ she added darkly, ferociously dicing an onion. ‘Would you believe that he could decide to bring someone home for dinner on a Friday night, without warning, when he knows I do my weekly shopping on Saturday? What, I ask him, am I supposed to feed this guest? Dog food au gratin? “Oh, anything will do,” is the helpful reply. “He’s used to roughing it!” Roughing it!’ The blade smacked solidly down on the chopping-block.

Rachel devoted herself to putting together a salad. Perhaps this was not quite the time to mention another unexpected guest.

‘Who is it?’ she asked.

‘How should I know?’ Aunt Harriet asked belligerently. ‘I just cook here.’ She began morosely sautéing the onion in a skillet. ‘Some man who wants your uncle to do some renovations,’ she added dourly.

An hour later a respectable supper was on its way to being ready. Aunt Harriet seemed to want to brood over the finishing touches in solitude; Rachel retired to the front room to leaf through the fashion pages.

‘This spring, keep it simple,’ was the reassuring advice.

‘No fuss, no frills; perfect cut says it all. The shift, in bright white or fire-engine red, with a pair of strappy sandals...’

Rachel glanced gloomily down at her faded jeans, then back at the picture, where the model sat on a bar stool in a dazzling white shift—a snip at three hundred and fifty pounds. According to her magazine, you could wear it anywhere, but Rachel knew you couldn’t. That was what she liked about it. No one in her right mind would pay that kind of money for a dress, slip on a pair of strappy sandals and wade out into a stream to stain its hem with phytoplankton. It was a dress that demanded respect; wear it and no one would expect you to do anything more energetic than shop for another pair of strappy sandals.

Rachel was distracted from these wistful thoughts by the sound of two sets of footsteps approaching down the front walk. ‘Such a shame,’ said a familiar voice. ‘I’m afraid she wasn’t feeling well.’

Rachel sat up as if shot. If only she’d known! Another chance at the perfect job, and here she was, still in her Spiderman T-shirt...

But the door to the sitting room had opened. ‘Rachel, Mr Mallett will be staying to dinner,’ Uncle Walter explained. ‘Mallett, my niece, Rachel.’

Mallett stopped for an instant in the door, then came forward, his face alight with laughter. ‘We met earlier this afternoon,’ he said. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure.’ Polite, conventional words—but the brilliant blue eyes really did seem to be sparkling with delight. It occurred to Rachel that if she’d gone by his reputation she’d have expected someone hardbitten, cynical, world-weary. People had actually tried to kill him—yet he seemed to regard life as something arranged for his own amusement.

‘Isn’t that nice?’ said Uncle Walter. ‘Well, you’ll just have to entertain each other—Rachel’s fiance can’t be here either. I’ll just see if I can appease your aunt, dear—see if Mr Mallett would like a drink.’

‘Would you like a drink?’ asked Rachel politely.

‘Scotch and water. I didn’t know you were engaged,’ said Mallett, dropping into a chair and crossing impossibly long legs in front of him.

‘We’ve only just met,’ Rachel pointed out.

‘True enough. Who’s the lucky man?’

‘There’s a picture of him,’ said Rachel, handing him the drink.

Mallett took it. He glanced at the picture, which showed Driscoll, with black-rimmed glasses and black hair neatly parted, in a graduation photo, and burst out laughing. ‘You’re not marrying him?’ he exclaimed.

‘Of course I am.’ Rachel glared at him.

‘Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s mild-mannered Clark Kent. You can’t be serious.’

‘Driscoll is a first-rate researcher,’ said Rachel. ‘Not that it’s any business of yours. I applied for a job as your secretary; I did not ask for your advice on affairs of the heart.’

Mallett raised a preposterous eyebrow; he still seemed to regard the whole thing as a joke. ‘You seem to have the most extraordinary ideas of how to run your life,’ he commented. ‘I’ve only known you a couple of hours and even I can see this Driscoll isn’t up to your weight. And, as if that isn’t enough, you have the peculiar idea that you want to be a secretary. Can’t you find an opening as a liontamer?’

‘If I weren’t too polite,’ countered Rachel, ‘I might ask why you were planning to spend the rest of your life with a clothes-horse.’

He grinned. ‘But naturally you’re too polite. There’s a lot more to Olivia than meets the eye. Anyway, you’re just going by my reputation, which is highly exaggerated.’ The happy-go-lucky face was suddenly, unexpectedly serious. ‘But you’re right, of course—it is a departure. It’s time I settled down.’

He took a sip of his drink, then gave her a rueful grin. ‘The thing is, I’ve never settled to anything—something always comes up. I was going to be a scientist, you know—went off to Brazil to do an MA on sugar cane and soil erosion, suddenly this land-rights dispute blew up. Well, naturally I couldn’t sit on the sidelines. Finally I got kicked out of the country.

‘So my supervisor came up with another topic, and I went off to Malaysia—same result. Finally he got fed up with pretending I was going to finish a thesis. One thing led to another—I’ve made a fair amount of money over the years, and got a few people out of hot water, but you can’t go on that way indefinitely. That’s why this science park will be so great. We can give facilities to a lot of innovative inventors, see if they can’t come up with solutions to some serious problems.’

‘Hmm,’ said Rachel.

Mallett shook his head. ‘The thing I can’t get over is the way some people stay out of trouble,’ he said. ‘Everybody’s heard of me, but what does it all add up to? The man I really admire is someone you’ve probably never heard of—R. K. V. Hawkins. Amazing guy. No heroics—just an incredible record of solid research that no ecologically respectable company can afford to ignore.’ He finished his whisky and set it down. ‘Funny we never ran into each other, really—we’ve been in a lot of the same places.’

Rachel Katherine Victoria Hawkins opened her mouth and shut it again. She knew what would happen. She would tell Grant Mallett that he’d met the man of his dreams—and, next thing she knew, it would turn out he had a swamp he wanted her to go and stand in because the mosquitoes were looking run down.

‘I’m afraid I haven’t heard of him,’ she said truthfully.

Before Mallett could say any more about his hero, Aunt Harriet and Uncle Walter came in to announce dinner. The small group quickly filed into the dining room, and the discussion rapidly moved to the subject of the innovations to be introduced at the hall.

Rachel listened with gathering interest. The science park sounded a wonderful idea—she found herself positively drooling at some of the facilities Mallett wanted to provide. And the maddening thing was that she thought she probably would be perfect to coordinate and liaise at this end while Mallett travelled back and forth to London.

Meanwhile, Uncle Walter brought the conversation round to Mallett’s adventures. For the second time that day, Rachel had to give credit to Mallett for surprising niceness. You’d have thought he had nothing better to do in the world than repeat, for probably the five-hundredth time, a lot of stories for a middle-aged man of no influence or importance.

Uncle Walter and Aunt Harriet punctuated the stories with admiring exclamations of, ‘You don’t say!’ and ‘Think of that!’ Even Rachel was interested to hear some of the details that hadn’t made it to the Press—though naturally she was glad she wasn’t involved with the kind of man who let this kind of thing interfere with his research. Thank goodness Driscoll was more sensible.

‘Of course, Rachel has had quite an eventful career,’ began Uncle Walter. For a horrible moment Rachel expected her secret to be revealed. But Mallet came to her rescue.

‘I’ll bet she has!’ he exclaimed. ‘She’s quite a character, isn’t she?’ He grinned. ‘It’s not every girl, after all, that carries around a genuine Mexican tarantula as a companion. I met William this afternoon.’

There was a small silence.

‘William?’ said Aunt Harriet ominously.

‘Er...’ said Rachel.

‘I suppose,’ said Aunt Harriet, ‘that you were delivering him to a client?’

‘Er...’ said Rachel. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Do you mean to say,’ said Aunt Harriet, ‘that you have brought one of those frightful creatures into my house?’

‘I was going to ask you—’ began Rachel.

‘No,’ said Aunt Harriet. ‘I am not having one of those things under my roof.’

‘But it’s just till I find him a home,’ Rachel said pathetically.

‘Certainly not,’ said Aunt Harriet. ‘Driscoll wouldn’t like it. I can’t imagine what he’ll say when he finds out—’

And at this there was an unexpected interruption. ‘Well, if Driscoll wouldn’t like it it’s obviously out of the question,’ said Mallett, all wide-eyed innocence. ‘Tell you what, Rachel—you can keep him over at Arrowmead.’

‘How do I know I can trust you to look after him?’ asked Rachel.

‘Oh, you’d have to come and feed him,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Unless, of course, you think Driscoll would object.’

Rachel ground her teeth. ‘Of course he wouldn’t object!’ she exclaimed. Well, not once she’d explained, anyway. She paused, then added, ‘You know, if I’m going over there anyway, I might just as well be your secretary.’

‘A secretary!’ exclaimed Aunt Harriet, shocked. ‘Rachel, I don’t think Driscoll would like that at all!’

And now a look of pure devilry came into the brilliant blue eyes. ‘Do you really think so?’ said Grant Mallett. ‘Because I’m beginning to think Rachel is just the girl for the job!’

CHAPTER THREE

‘How could you?’ Rachel said accusingly. She stood by the Jaguar outside the house, William’s box in her hand, and glared at William’s future host, her new employer.

‘How could I what?’ Grant asked innocently. ‘Have seconds of dessert? Separate you from your favourite pet?’

‘You know perfectly well what I mean,’ said Rachel. ‘How dare you talk that way about Driscoll? You don’t even know him!’

‘I didn’t say a word!’ he protested. The brilliant eyes danced. ‘It was your aunt who thought he wouldn’t like William, remember? And how could I possibly disagree? As you say, I don’t even know him.’

‘So why did you give me the job just to annoy him?’

‘I think you’re imagining things,’ said Grant. ‘You kept telling me how good you’d be, and I do need someone down here fast. You convinced me you’d be a good thing. Of course, I have to admit that a man who’d even object to your working as a secretary sounds pretty Victorian. This is the twentieth century, after all, and women have just as much right as men to economic independence—but that’s for the two of you to discuss. I’m a complete outsider. It’s hardly for me to express an opinion, is it?’

‘No, it isn’t,’ Rachel agreed emphatically, but she gave up the argument as a bad job. ‘Do be careful with William, won’t you?’ She handed him the box.

‘I’ll make sure no one bothers him,’ he assured her. ‘And once you’ve started work you can keep him in your office, so he won’t feel lonely.’

‘When do you want me to start work?’ asked Rachel.

‘Well, if you could manage Monday that would be great, but I realise it’s short notice—’

‘No, Monday’s fine.’

‘Good.’ There was a short pause in which he seemed, uncharacteristically, at a loss for words. At length he set the box on top of the car and dug into a pocket. ‘Look, I hope you won’t be offended, but I’m still trying to raise some funding for this, so presentation actually does matter. I realise you weren’t planning to dress like this for the office, but you may still find an office job five days a week puts an unexpected strain on your wardrobe. Why don’t you go into town tomorrow and see if you can’t find a use for this? I don’t suppose they run to Paris couture, but I’m sure they’ll have something suitable.’

He took out a thick sheaf of banknotes and pressed them into Rachel’s hand.

‘Good, then that’s settled,’ he said hastily, snatched William’s box off the car, opened the door, and slid into the driver’s seat before Rachel could murmur a word of protest. The powerful motor roared into life—and the car disappeared down the street while Rachel discovered that she’d just had seven hundred pounds, in cash, thrust into her hand.

Rachel had qualms, at first, about actually spending the money she’d been given—but then a terrible, irresistible thought occurred to her. If she bought clothes with it she would have an ironclad reason why she couldn’t possibly give up the job—something Driscoll would otherwise be sure to insist on as soon as he heard of iL

She went into Canterbury and spent a day ecstatically buying separates. Previously, separates in Rachel’s wardrobe had consisted of T-shirts and jeans; now she acquired skirts in linen and silk, jackets, blouses, even a couple of waistcoats.

Maybe she didn’t look like Julie Andrews, she thought, admiring herself in a fitting-room mirror, but there was no doubt about it—the new clothes did make her look less like the drummer in a rock band and more like some sophisticated icon of the screen. It was just like Eliza being transformed into Miss Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, she decided. ‘How kind of you to let me come,’ she said to her reflection, trying to look like Audrey Hepburn. ‘The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain.’

Driscoll never seemed to notice how Rachel looked: even on very grand occasions, when she set out to dazzle, the only thing that ever interested him was who’d got tenure. She’d come to take it for granted. That was just the way men were. The reaction of her new employer came as something of a surprise.

‘Wow,’ said Grant, the brilliant blue eyes seeming to widen to twice their normal size, and to blaze at about fifty times their normal intensity. Rachel had been escorted by some kind of man-of-all-work down long, dusty halls, through rooms swathed in sheets, to emerge at last at a small, chaotic office at the back of the house. Grant was leafing through stacks of brochures, drinking coffee out of a plastic cup. He’d looked up and clutched ostentatiously at the table for support.

‘Catch me if I fall,’ he told her. ‘I don’t think I can stand the shock. Did I say wow? I always think understatement is so much more effective, don’t you?’ He gave a wolf-whistle, which was probably his idea of something subtle and understated.

‘Let me get a good look at you,’ he added, putting down the coffee and walking around her to get the full impact of the very pale pink suit, its skirt as short as was consistent with good business practice, and high-heeled pink sling-backs. Rachel had made her face up—the kind of thing that fieldwork did not leave much scope for—with very pale foundation and lipstick, and just the faintest touch of charcoal eyeshadow and black mascara on her lashes; she’d thought the extra formality of the look was needed to counterbalance the rather shocking haircut. Her efforts seemed to have paid off.

‘Just promise me one thing,’ Grant said very seriously as he came round to the front again.

‘What’s that?’ Rachel asked suspiciously.

‘Promise me you will never, ever again wear jeans. It’s a sin to cover up those legs.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Of course, I have to admit I miss the T-shirt, but I suppose I should try to keep my investors’ minds on business some of the time.’

‘I thought you were engaged to be married,’ said Rachel.

‘I am engaged to be married, but it hasn’t affected my eyesight,’ said Grant. ‘It was an expression of purely aesthetic appreciation.’ The blue eyes danced at Rachel’s sceptical look. ‘Which is more,’ he added with a grimace, ‘than I can express for this place. It’s pretty chaotic, I’m afraid—one reason I’m so glad you can start today.

‘There’s a desk you can use somewhere under that pile of papers by the window, the phone’s on the floor, there’s a fax machine in the corner and a PC in a box in the next room—we’ll be linked by network to the London office, obviously, but that’s run into a couple of hitches, so you’ll have to use it stand-alone for now. Sorry it’s not already up and running, but I’ll configure it for you as soon as you’ve got your desk sorted out so you can get down to work—’

‘Oh, I’ll take care of that,’ said Rachel. ‘And I’ll see if I can’t sort out the link with the network. Are you using a contractor? I can’t imagine what the problem could be...’

‘I know.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s someone Olivia recommended, supposed to be as good as they come—I’ll give you the details and you can see what you can get out of him.’ He turned back to the table piled high with brochures. ‘Oh, and I’ll just give you the general picture about this place.’

He picked up a brochure and glowered at it.

‘Basically, there are two stages to the project,’ he told her. ‘I’ve already got planning permission to use this place for conferences, so now we’ve just got to get it up and running—as soon as possible, obviously, so we can cover our costs and start turning a profit. The science park is a longer-term thing, because we’ve got to get clearance for something that’s bound to have a much bigger impact, whether good or bad, on the area. The provisional deadline for getting the house ready is May, believe it or not, and if we could get some bookings for the summer so much the better.’

He slapped the brochure absent-mindedly against a thigh, and gave Rachel a rather rueful smile.

‘The thing is, my main interest really is on the science-park side, specifically in getting a core of high-powered inventors who can bounce ideas off each other. I don’t know much about conferences, to tell the truth; the centre was Olivia’s idea. I think she’s absolutely right in a lot of ways—good to give the place a high profile to attract the right people to the park, help with cash flow, and of course it will give us a fantastic base when we get married...’

Rachel felt her encouraging smile stiffen on her lips. ‘Yes?’ she said.

‘But I don’t have much of an idea what to aim at,’ he confessed. ‘I look through these things and it all seems so unnecessary. I mean, I once made a million dollars out of an idea I got from talking with a couple of people over a campfire, eating baked beans and drinking tea out of the tin the baked beans came in. Does anyone really need overhead projectors and felt display boards with Velcro attachments? But even I see that I can’t offer people baked beans from the tin followed by bean-flavoured tea.’

He tossed a few catalogues to the ground and sat on the edge of the table, tossed a few more to the ground and gestured for Rachel to join him. ‘I thought maybe we could put our heads together.’

Rachel stared at him.

‘What is it?’ He raised an eyebrow.

‘You’re not at all my idea of a self-made millionaire,’ Rachel blurted out. It was odd the way she felt she could say anything to Grant. Somehow, she had to weigh every word when she talked to Driscoll, even if he was her fiancé.