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Wife For Hire
“I’d just like to say that you’ve changed.”
Rebecca’s mouth fell open.
“I know you recognize me. It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it, Rebecca? Did you think I didn’t remember you?” His voice was as soft and smooth as melted chocolate. It made her dizzy, a response she immediately put down to confusion.
Nicholas gave Rebecca a slow smile that made her pulse race. “You haven’t the sort of face that’s easily forgotten. But I don’t expect you to back out of our arrangement because of our past little liaison.”
His dark eyes held hers unwaveringly and she finally realized what she’d let herself in for….
CATHY WILLIAMS is Trinidadian and was brought up on the twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago. She was awarded a scholarship to study in Britain, and came to Exeter University in 1975 to continue her studies into the great loves of her life: languages and literature. It was there that Cathy met her husband, Richard. Since they married, Cathy has lived in England, originally in the Thames Valley but now in the Midlands. Cathy and Richard have three small daughters.
Wife for Hire
Cathy Williams
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
FROM the very moment that Rebecca Ryan opened her eyes that morning, she knew that the next few hours were going to be the worst of her teaching career.
She was not, by nature, prone to dramatic flights of imagination, but for a few brief seconds she heartily wished that she could shut her eyes and make the day go away; then she climbed out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Normally, this was her most relaxing time of the day. That long, leisurely soak in the bath before she opened the door of her small but comfortable school quarters, and braced herself for the challenges confronting anyone courageous enough to teach in an all-girls boarding-school. Or, as Mrs Williams, the principal, once put it, to exercise skilful manipulation of the homesick, the prepubescent, the adolescent, the hormonal and the premenstrual, whilst trying to educate to the highest possible standard.
Rebecca loved every minute of it.
Except, she thought, settling into the bath water, for today. Today she wished that she had mulled over her career options a bit more thoroughly at the age of twenty-one, and decided in favour of something slightly less stress-inducing, such as copy typist.
She sighed deeply and allowed her mind to scuttle over the past thirty-six hours.
There should be a tablet you could take to get rid of unpleasant situations, she thought. There would be a huge market for it. Just swallow two special, new, improved paracetamol capsules and let your problems fade conveniently away.
In the absence of any such panacea, she mentally worked out how she would deal with the problem staring her in the face. Part of it had already been handled, and she had emerged shocked, bruised but, generally speaking, still in good working order.
Part two of the problem, which she estimated was probably a mere one hour’s drive away from the school, would have to be dealt with as pragmatically as possible. Parents, she knew from experience, were not particularly reasonable when it came to dealing with their children’s misdemeanours. They were prone, initially, to disbelief, then to self-recrimination, and finally, in a few instances, to complete denial of all blame by placing it squarely on whomever happened to be handy, usually the teacher.
Rebecca, whose height waged a constant battle with the dimensions of most baths, stuck her feet out at the bottom, wriggled her toes and decided that, if Mrs Williams refused to allow her the luxury of sitting through the uncomfortable interview in relative silence, she would be firm, practical, sympathetic and as implacable as a rock.
She would be very careful not to let her wayward tongue get the better of her. She would keep all personal opinion to herself. She would smile a lot, with more than a hint of compassion, and she would not presume to preach to someone she didn’t know from Adam on his methods of fathering. She would close her mind to every word Emily Parr had uttered to her on the subject of her father, because teenagers could be quite unreliable when it came to descriptions of their home lives, and she would do as little as possible to upset any apple carts.
That resolved, she contemplated what she should wear for the meeting. Normally, as a teacher, she invariably opted for the most comfortable clothing she could find. Loose skirts and tops, flat shoes, muted colours. From as far back as she could remember, she had always tried to wear things that diminished her size. Five feet ten inches was tall enough, but add to that a generous bustline and curves that never seemed appropriate for the role of teacher, and what remained was something, she considered, fairly Amazonian.
Today, she decided, she would take advantage of her height to ward off any attacks Emily’s father might have in store for her. She knew that she frequently intimidated men. There was nothing about her at all that begged for their protective instincts. If anything, with some of the men she had dated in the past, she had ended up feeling protective. She had long ago assumed that the only men she attracted were the ones who were turned on by a dominant female. Or at least by a woman they considered would fit the role of the dominant female. It was useless telling them that the last thing she wanted was to take command or, God forbid, mother them.
She slipped on a dark grey suit, which was as prepossessing on her as a cold sore but succeeded in making her look rather intimidating, and stuck on a pair of two-inch high-heel court shoes which she had to dust down from lack of use. Then she stood in front of the mirror and surveyed the net result with a critical eye.
Definitely the outfit for a potentially difficult situation, she decided. And, from what she had heard about Emily’s father from Mrs Williams, she would need all the superficial help she could get her hands on.
He was, she had worked out, not one of life’s easygoing characters. For a start, he had made only one appearance in the two years his daughter had been at the school, and that had been to complain about her grades. Mrs Williams, recalling the incident, had blanched at the memory of it, and it took a great deal for Mrs Williams to lose her legendary calm.
So how he was going to react to this major body blow he would be dealt in a little under an hour was enough to make anyone shudder with apprehension.
Rebecca gazed thoughtfully at her reflection and was, for once, grateful for what confronted her. A woman of imposing height and stature, face attractive but well played down so that the firm jawline and widely spaced blue eyes looked strongly determined, and with her shoulder-length auburn hair tortured into something she hoped resembled a bun at the back, she looked every inch the sort of person that other people should consider very carefully before antagonising.
And her curves were well concealed under the boxy grey jacket. Curves and grim-lipped severity did not make the best of companions.
Fifteen minutes later she was striding confidently towards the principal’s office, glancing in at the classes in progress and mentally hoping that her own class was being well behaved for Mr Emscote, the English teacher, who had a tendency to wilt when confronted with too many high-spirited teenage girls.
Mrs Williams was waiting for her in the office, standing by the window, and looking fairly agitated.
‘He should be here in a short while. Please sit, Rebecca.’ She sighed wearily and took her place in the chair behind the large mahogany desk. ‘I’ve told Sylvia to make sure that we’re not interrupted. Has Emily been to see you again?’
‘No.’ Rebecca shook her head. ‘I think she decided that I needed a bit of a breather after the shock. How did she react to your talk with her?’
Another weary sigh, this time more pronounced. ‘She didn’t. React, that is. Barely said a word and looked utterly pleased with herself in that insufferably insolent manner she has.’
Rebecca knew precisely the insufferably insolent manner to which Mrs Williams was referring. It involved a bored expression, stifled yawns and eyes that drifted around the room as though searching for something slightly more exciting to materialise from the woodwork. She was the perfect rebel and, because of it, had a league of adoring supporters who, thankfully, while admiring her antics, were not quite foolhardy enough to imitate them.
‘Did you mention anything to her father about…why he was asked to come here?’
‘I thought it best to do that on a face-to-face basis.’
Shame, Rebecca thought. He might have simmered down if he had had a day to mull over the facts.
‘I’ve gathered all the relevant school reports on Emily, so that he can read through them, and I’ve also collated the numerous incident reports as well. Quite a number, considering that the child hasn’t been with us very long.’ She sat back in the chair, a small, thin bespectacled woman in her forties with the tenacity and perseverance of a bulldog, and shook her head. ‘Such a shame. Such a clever child. It certainly makes one wonder what the point of brilliance is when motivation doesn’t play a part. With a different attitude, she could have achieved a great deal.’
‘She’s had a…challenging home life, Mrs Williams. I personally feel, as I said to you before, that Emily’s rebelliousness is all an act. A ploy to hide her own insecurities.’
‘Yes, well, I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself, Rebecca,’ the principal said in a warning voice. ‘There’s no point in muddying the waters with a post-mortem on why this whole unfortunate business happened in the first place. Aside from which, she’s not the first girl to have endured her parents’ divorce and all the fallout from it. And other girls do not react by…’ she looked down at one of the sheets of paper ‘…smoking through the window of a dorm, falsifying sick notes to the infirmary so that she can go into town, climbing up a tree and remaining there for a day just to watch us all run around like headless chickens looking for her… The list goes on…’
‘Yes, I know, but…’ Rebecca could feel herself getting hot under the collar of her crisply starched white blouse, which she had unearthed from the furthermost reaches of her wardrobe and now felt so uncomfortable that she was seriously regretting having put it on in the first place.
‘No buts, Rebecca. This is an immovable situation and it will do no good to try and analyse it into making sense. The facts are as they stand and Emily’s father will have to accept them whether he cares to or not.’
‘And Emily?’ Rebecca asked with concern. ‘What happens to her now?’
‘That will be something that must be sorted out between herself and her father.’
‘She doesn’t have a relationship with her father.’
‘I would advise you to be a bit sceptical about what she says on that front,’ Mrs Williams told her sharply. ‘We both know that Emily can be very creative with the truth.’
‘But the facts speak for themselves…’ Rebecca found herself leaning forward, about to disobey her first rule of command, which was to be as immovable as a rock and launch into a fiery defence of her pupil, when there was a knock on the door, and Sylvia poked her head round.
‘Mr Knight is here, Mrs Williams,’ she said with her usual gusto.
Mr Knight? Rebecca frowned. Why was his surname different from that of his daughter? References to him had always been as Emily’s father, and it hadn’t occurred to her that he might not be Mr Parr.
‘That’s fine, Sylvia. Would you show him in, please? And no interruptions, please. I shall deal with anything that crops up after Mr Knight has left.’
‘Of course.’ Sylvia’s expression changed theatrically from beaming good humour to grave understanding, but as soon as she had vacated the doorway they could both hear her trill to Emily’s father that he could go in now, and could he please inform her how he would like his coffee.
Rebecca wondered whether he would be disconcerted by the personal assistant’s eccentric mannerisms—most people who didn’t know her were—but his deep voice, wafting through the door, was controlled and chillingly assured.
Stupidly, because her role in the room was simply to impart information, she felt her stomach muscles clench as he walked through the door, then a wave of colour flooded her cheeks.
Mrs Williams had risen to her feet and was perfunctorily shaking his hand, and it was only when they both turned to her that Rebecca sprang up and held out her hand in polite greeting.
Emily’s father was strikingly tall, strikingly forbidding and strikingly good-looking. Even wearing heels, she was forced to look up at him. She didn’t know what she had expected of him. Someone older, for a start, and with the military bearing of the typical household dictator who had no time for family but a great deal for work.
This man was raven-haired, dark-eyed and the angular features of his face all seemed to blend together to give an impression of power, self-assurance and cool disregard for the rest of the human race.
And the worst of it was that she recognised him. Seventeen years on, she recognised him. At sixteen she had been as knocked sideways by the man he had been then as she was now by the man he had become.
Knight. Not the most run-of-the-mill name in the world, but even in those fleeting seconds when the principal had referred to him by name it had not occurred to her that the man she was about to meet was the same Nicholas Knight whom she had briefly known.
She could feel her hand tremble as he gripped it in his, then she pulled away quickly and sat back down, watching to see whether there were any signs of recognition on his face.
None. Of course. As she might have expected. She lowered her eyes and heard him ask, as he sat down facing them both, if they could kindly explain what was of sufficient urgency to bring him here.
‘I was due to leave for New York this morning,’ he said, crossing his legs. ‘This is all highly inconvenient. I don’t know what Emily’s done this time, but I’m sure it could have been dealt with in the usual way.’
He had a deep, lazy voice and watchful manner which seemed to convey the message that, however much you knew, he knew infinitely more. Rebecca suspected that her dress code would not be having the desired effect. Seventeen years ago, he would have been amused at the thought of female intimidation. Now, from what she could see, it would barely register.
She sneaked a glance at him from under her lashes and felt the same illicit thrill she had felt when she had first set eyes on him at the local charity function all those years ago. Even then he had had the sort of commanding presence that made heads swing around for a second look.
‘I’m afraid not, Mr Knight.’ The principal removed her spectacles and leant forward, resting both elbows on the desk. ‘Emily has quite surpassed herself this time, which is why we felt it wise to summon you immediately.’
‘Even though we realise what a very busy man you are,’ Rebecca said sweetly—a remark which was greeted by the merest thinning of his lips. She felt his dark eyes course over her and calmly refused to look away.
It was beginning to sting a little that he obviously did not remember her. True, their acquaintance had been short-lived—barely a fortnight from beginning to end—but she wasn’t that forgettable, was she?
Of course, she knew, deep down, why he didn’t recall her. Unimportant blips were hardly the foundations of solid, long-lasting memories, and her presence in his life had been an unimportant blip, even though he had remained in her head for many months afterwards. To him, she had been little more than the girl from the wrong side of the tracks with whom he had planned on having a bit of harmless fun before she pre-empted him by walking away.
‘What’s the problem this time?’ he asked in a world-weary voice. ‘What has she broken?’ He reached inside his jacket pocket to extract his cheque-book, and Rebecca gave an automatic grimace of distaste, which he caught and held.
‘Do you have a problem?’ he enquired politely, looking at her. ‘I take it from the affronted expression on your face that you disapprove of something?’
Rebecca decided that she would abandon her vow of silence on the grounds that keeping too much in was fine in theory, but in practice would probably give her irreversible high blood pressure.
‘Not everything can be sorted out with a cheque-book, Mr Knight.’ People like him thought otherwise. She was fully aware of that. He had spent his entire life cushioned by wealth and he would automatically assume that there was nothing that could not be rectified if enough cash was flung at it.
So his daughter misbehaved, or wrecked a few things, or stepped out of line—well, let’s just sort it out by adding a new wing to the school library, shall we?
He very slowly closed the cheque-book and slipped it back into his jacket pocket, not taking his eyes off her face.
‘Ah. I see where we’re heading. Before my daughter’s slip-up, whatever that might be, is to be discussed, I’m first to be subjected to a ham-fisted analysis of why she did what she did. Time is money, Miss Ryan, so if you’re bursting to get your prepared speech out, then I suggest you make it fast so that I can sort this business out and be on my way.’
‘We’re not in the business of lecturing to our parents, Mr Knight,’ Mrs Williams said firmly, before Rebecca could be tempted into taking him at his word and delivering a thorough, no-stone-unturned lecture on precisely what she thought of him.
‘In which case, you might pass the message on to your assistant. She looks as though she’s about to explode at any moment now.’
‘Miss Ryan,’ she said, throwing her a gimlet-eyed look, ‘is an experienced and immensely good teacher. There is absolutely no way that she would allow herself to voice her private opinions.’
Rebecca nearly grinned at that. They both knew that voicing opinions was something she was remarkably good at.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ she agreed demurely, and he raised his eyebrows sceptically at her tone of voice.
That particular tendency was still there, she noticed. The first time she had seen him, he had been lounging at the makeshift bar in the village hall. The dance floor had been packed to the seams with youngsters, and she had been standing to one side with a drink in her hand, miserably watching everyone have fun and thinking that she should have dispensed with her frock and her high heels which made her feel stuffy and over-large, rather like a sofa deposited at random in a china shop. All her friends were so petite, so feminine and so utterly unlike her.
Then she had caught his eye and he had raised his eyebrows very much as he had done just then, as though he could cut straight through to what she had been thinking, as though they had momentarily shared some private joke together.
‘Good.’ He reverted his attention to Mrs Williams now. ‘Now that I am to be spared an unnecessary lecture, perhaps we could stop beating around the bush and you could just tell me why I’ve been summoned here at such short notice. What has my daughter done this time?’
‘Perhaps you could explain, Miss Ryan?’
Thanks very much, Rebecca thought wryly to herself.
‘Two nights ago Emily came to see me, Mr Knight.’
‘She came to see you?’ He frowned, perplexed. ‘She left the building at night to pay you a visit? Is this normal procedure? For a child of sixteen to be allowed out on her own into the town so that she can visit a teacher? Aren’t there certain rules and regulations in operation around here?’
Call me a fool, Rebecca thought to herself, but I smell a very difficult situation ahead. She wished she were a million miles away, lying on a beach somewhere, recovering from the stress of the copy-typing job she should have gone for.
‘If you could let me finish, Mr Knight, without butting in?’ She made sure not to look at the principal when she said this, but even with her eyes strenuously averted she could easily imagine the look of warning that would have crossed Mrs Williams’s face.
‘I happen to live on the premises.’
‘We have what are called house mothers here,’ the principal explained. ‘Each dormitory section is manned by one. They basically live here and supervise the children out of school hours, make sure that everything is running smoothly. It’s not uncommon for them to have visits during the night, especially by the younger ones who are new and perhaps a little homesick.’
‘You’re a young woman. Why on earth would you choose to live in a boarding-school?’
‘As I was saying, Mr Knight,’ Rebecca carried on, overriding his question with the single-minded intent of a bulldozer, ‘Emily came to see me to talk about a rather…unfortunate situation.’ She glanced at Mrs Williams for support and the other woman nodded encouragingly.
Emily’s father, on the other hand, looked slightly less encouraging. His face was grim, unreadable and frankly terrifyingly forbidding.
‘I’m waiting,’ he said at last, when an uncomfortable silence had begun to thicken around them as Rebecca searched for the most tactful way of saying what she had to say. ‘Is she on drugs?’
‘No.’ She inhaled deeply, adopted her sternest expression and clasped her hands on her knees. ‘I’m sure you’ve been made aware, Mr Knight, over the past couple of years, that your daughter has been…’
‘Bloody difficult. Why don’t you just come right out with what you have to say, Miss Ryan? The facts don’t go away, however much you try and sugar-coat them. Yes. I have been all too aware of what she has managed to get up to. It hasn’t made pretty reading and I needn’t tell you that I’ve been losing patience fast.’
Charming attitude to adopt, Rebecca thought, directing a meaningless smile at him and suppressing the urge to clout him over the head.
‘To be honest, I was a little stunned when she knocked on my door at two in the morning. Emily isn’t one for confiding in her teachers. She enjoys being a law unto herself, doesn’t like anyone to glimpse her vulnerabilities, and before you object to what I’m saying I can assure you that all girls of sixteen are vulnerable, whatever air of bravado they might choose to wear.’
‘I’ll take you at your word, Miss Ryan. I have no experience of teenage girls.’
‘Including your own,’ Rebecca countered before she could censor her thoughts, and he shot her a hard, cold look.
‘Just carry on with the facts, Miss Ryan, and keep your thoughts to yourself.’
‘I think that what Miss Ryan is trying to say,’ Miss Williams took up hastily, ‘is that we are quite accustomed to dealing with unruly girls and we tend towards leniency in most cases. A stern talking-to usually does the trick. Boarding-school can seem restricting to some of our girls, at least initially. They are disoriented, and they react, occasionally, without thinking. These problems are by no means frequent, but they do occur, and we all recognise how to deal with them.’
‘Fine.’ He had not glanced in the direction of the principal. His eyes had remained focused on Rebecca the whole time. She began to feel hot and uneasy. She could also feel her ridiculous bun beginning to slip out of place, and she wondered whether she could halt its progress downwards by keeping her head very, very still.
