His to Command: the Nanny: A Nanny for Keeps

‘That’s a very good question, Jacqui. It suggests your brain is still in good working order.’

Oh, good grief, that had to mean the answer was no…

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said. ‘Do you have an equally good answer? Or am I to accept from the fact that you evaded giving me one that you are, in fact, a doctor of philosophy? A scholar of some deeply obscure subject such as Babylonian cuneiform, perhaps? Or the breeding habits of natterjack toads? Or even…’

‘Relax, Jacqui. Your head is safe in my hands.’

It didn’t feel safe. He might know what he was doing, but his careful probing of the damage was sending very unsafe tingles skittering down her spine. But that was what a bang on the head would do for you. Knock things loose. Especially sense; he was the big bad giant who lived at the top of the mountain, she reminded herself…

‘Medicine is the family business. My greatgrandfather was the local doctor.’

‘Really? The village doesn’t look big enough to support its own surgery.’

‘It used to be in the days when farming was done by men rather than machines. It finally closed about ten years ago when my cousin was lured away to a large practice in Bristol that has its own dedicated team of support staff.’

‘Nice for him. Not much fun for the locals. What do they do now?’

‘Drive ten miles to the nearest town like most people in rural communities.’

‘Definitely no fun if you’re old or have a sick child.’

‘They should try living in a place where you have to walk for a week…’ His jaw clamped down on the words, cutting them off.

So, when he disappeared to foreign parts for months or years, he was working. Africa? Walking for a week to the nearest clinic sounded like rural Africa.

She didn’t press him for more details, just stored up the information to take out and examine later.

‘So,’ she said, verbally tiptoeing around the danger zone, ‘that was your great-grandfather. What did your grandfather do?’

‘What?’ He was back on the defensive, eyes shuttered, expression forbidding, and for a moment she quailed.

‘You said it was the family business,’ she reminded him.

For a moment she thought he was going to tell her to go to hell and take her busybody nosiness with her.

‘He’s a heart specialist,’ he said, abruptly.

‘Present tense?’

‘He still takes an active interest in his field,’ he said. Then, ‘My father is an oncologist and my mother is a specialist in paediatric medicine. Is there anything else you want to know?’

He sounded vaguely surprised to have said so much, she thought. As if he was unused to talking about himself or his family and couldn’t quite work out why he was doing it now, and she wondered where all these incredibly clever people were when he so obviously needed them.

‘They’re all, as you can see, very busy people.’

Like Selina Talbot, then. Obviously putting career before family ran in the family, too.

‘And you?’ she asked, again leaning back to look up at him.

‘I’ll just check your vision again.’ He took her chin in his hand before she could argue, so that she was forced to keep her head still as he moved his finger across her sight line while she followed it with her eyes. Then, her face still cradled in his hand, he finally answered her. ‘I’m a doctor who’s satisfied that you’ve done no serious damage on this occasion but who, if asked for his advice, would suggest taking rather more care when crawling about beneath furniture.’ Then, ‘And while I’m at it, to avoid walking backwards.’

‘That’s not what I asked, Harry.’

‘I know.’

His palm was cool against her neck and chin, his thumb, fingers gentle against her cheeks. And everything that was female in her responded with a powerful surge of longing. She wanted him to kiss her, she realised with a shock that left her dizzier than any bang to the head. To touch her. To enfold her in arms that were strong enough to hold off the entire world. Were holding off the entire world…

Maybe the blow to her head had done more damage than he thought, because she sensed an equally powerful response from him.

She could almost believe that if one of them didn’t speak they might stay like this forever, locked in some fairy-tale enchantment at the top of this misty mountain…

‘And?’ she persisted, shattering the spell. Fairy tales were for children.

He stirred, then released her. ‘I don’t have an answer to your question, Jacqui. I no longer know what I am.’

Before she could even begin to formulate a reply, he stepped back, letting his hand drop to his side, putting some space between them.

Now that he’d opened up—if as about as willingly as an oyster surrendering its pearl—she suspected that he felt exposed and vulnerable; that he needed to retreat into the protective shell he’d built around himself. Do some running repairs on the breaches in his defences.

As if to confirm her thoughts, he broke eye contact, looking over her head and out of the window at the safe nothingness offered by the blanket of mist. The distance, mental and physical, only served to demonstrate how close they’d been for that brief moment.

How cold it felt to be separated.

‘The mist is clearing. It seems as if you might get some sun after all, before you leave.’

‘I’ll have my camera ready,’ she said, heart sinking as she turned to follow his gaze.

Maisie and Susan were making their way back to the house. The mist was certainly less oppressive and as it swirled patchily she could almost have imagined she caught a glimpse of blue sky.

‘I’d better go and rescue Susan,’ she said.

And tackle Maisie about the phone. Vickie and Selina Talbot had to be tearing their hair out with frustration.

Not that she was behaving much more responsibly.

She really should have told Harry, but he’d be so angry with the child and a few minutes more or less wouldn’t make any difference. As soon as he went off to fiddle with the boiler, or do whatever else he did to fill his day, she’d have the phone plugged back in and Bob, as the saying went, would be her uncle.

She crossed the room, picked up the tray and Harry, as if regretting his earlier confidence and now anxious to be rid of her, crossed quickly to open the door.

‘It’s nearly lunchtime,’ she said. About to suggest he joined them, she thought better of it. She would do her best to bring Maisie and Harry closer together in what time she had, but if she was too obvious about it he’d see right through her. ‘Can I get something for you?’

‘You should be taking it easy.’

‘This is easy. I’ve spent the entire morning asleep in front of the fire while Susan’s been doing my job as well as hers.’

No! No…This wasn’t a job. She wasn’t getting paid. She was doing it because she hadn’t got any choice…

‘If it’ll put your mind at rest,’ she added, ‘I can assure you that it won’t be anything more exciting than something on toast or a sandwich. Which would you prefer?’

He regarded her through suspiciously narrowed eyes and she knew she’d been wise not to suggest he join them in the kitchen. Then, with something that might have been a shrug, or then again might not, he said, ‘If you’re making a sandwich, I’ll have one in here.’

He left her standing in the doorway, crossed to the desk and flipped open the laptop. Then, as if to demonstrate that he had no intention of moving for the rest of the day, he sat down, thus managing at a single stroke to scupper both her plans.

Double bedknobs, a broomstick and a dustpan and brush′

Harry turned on the laptop, determinedly not looking in Jacqui’s direction as she left the room.

But the softness of her skin clung to his fingers, the scent of her filled and renewed his body like the air on a soft spring day.

Scarcely appropriate thoughts for a doctor. But then he hadn’t thought of himself as that since he’d been shipped home six months earlier at the point of a breakdown. Could scarcely believe his own ears when he heard himself responding to Jacqui’s arch question with a ‘yes’. As if he’d wanted her to think well of him. He didn’t care what she thought of him.

But any more mishaps and he’d take her straight to A&E.

He pulled a face. So much for insisting on her leaving as soon as her car was fixed.

He could hardly insist that she drive back to London today even if the garage did come through with a spare exhaust for her car, the phone connection was restored and Sally could stir herself to make alternative arrangements for Maisie.

He dragged his hand over his face, felt the days-old growth of beard. Was it any wonder that when he’d opened the door to her, Jacqui had looked at him as if he were a monster?

He slammed down the lid of the laptop.

So what if she had.

Anything was better than the pity that had replaced it. He didn’t want her pity. He wanted…

The arrival of the garage pick-up rescued him from confronting what exactly he did want, but as he pushed back the chair, glad to escape his thoughts, he saw Jacqui’s bracelet lying on the floor beside the desk.

And then, as he bent to pick it up, he saw the telephone jack lying on the floor beside the socket.

CHAPTER EIGHT

AS HARRY approached the kitchen, he heard the sound of laughter. It stopped abruptly as he walked in.

‘Susan, a word,’ he said, rather more brusquely than he’d intended.

‘I’m just off,’ she said, taking a headscarf from her pocket. ‘I should have been gone half an hour ago.’

‘It won’t take a minute. I just wanted to ask you to take more care when you’re vacuuming.’

She bridled. ‘I do my best with the dog hairs. The dogs aren’t supposed to go into the library, or the drawing room. The missus won’t have it when she’s at home. Of course, if I had one of those new cleaners—’

‘I’m not talking about dog hairs, woman!’

Harry was confronted by three pairs of female eyes—one pair narrowed with disapproval, one pair dark and very round, one pair framed with slightly raised brows. He ignored the ‘could do better’ look and concentrated on Susan.

‘I know you work extremely hard cleaning up after Sally’s strays, but that isn’t the problem.’

He had the strangest impression of breath being collectively held behind him.

‘Quite the contrary,’ he went on. ‘In your effort to do a thorough job you appear to have knocked the telephone jack out of the socket in the library. It’s why we haven’t been able to make or receive calls all morning.’

She frowned. ‘But I haven’t…’

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a movement but by the time he’d turned to look at Jacqui she was doing nothing more suspicious than tucking her hair behind her ear.

She gave him that ‘What?’ look.

A question he didn’t want to answer and he turned back to Susan, who, with rare meekness, said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Harry. I’ll be more careful in future.’

‘No!’ Maisie, who’d been sitting at the kitchen table, leapt to her feet, knocking over her chair and sending the hen squawking for safety. ‘No!’ she repeated. ‘You mustn’t blame Susan.’ She glared at him. ‘It was me, OK?’ she said, sounding more like a belligerent teenager than a six-year-old. ‘I did it.’

Maisie?

It was deliberate?

He looked at Jacqui in a bid for some kind of sense and realised that she’d known. Her eyes were liquid, pleading with him to understand, to be kind…

Something that Susan, leaping to Maisie’s protection and taking the blame, clearly thought him incapable of.

‘What did you do, Maisie?’

‘I unplugged the phone.’

‘In the library?’

‘In the library,’ she said, with a touch of defiance. ‘In the office. In the kitchen…’

He walked across to the kitchen phone and traced the line to a socket hidden behind a sagging sofa, the plug lying loose on the floor. He didn’t ask how she knew what to do—he could well imagine Sally yanking out a plug when she didn’t want to take a call—he simply replaced it and stood up.

She might be a little demon, but at least she wasn’t prepared to let someone else take the blame for her.

He knew exactly why she’d disconnected the phones, of course. Jacqui kept telling him why. She didn’t want him talking to Selina or Aunt Kate and making other arrangements for her. She wanted to stay here. If he allowed Maisie to tell him that, he’d never be able to send her away…

‘Thank you for being so honest,’ he said. ‘That was very brave of you.’ Then, turning to Susan, ‘And you are a lot kinder than she deserves. Just leave a note about that cleaner on my desk and I’ll see to it.’

There was a sharp rap at the back door, a call of, ‘Anyone about?’

‘That’s the mechanic come to sort out your car,’ he said to Jacqui. A welcome distraction. ‘Can I trust you to call your agency while I talk to him?’ He didn’t bother to conceal his anger with her. She was a grown-up and didn’t deserve kid gloves. ‘They must be very concerned not to have heard from you. Or was the story about the missing cellphone fiction, too?’

He didn’t wait for her answer. He wasn’t interested in her answer.

She’d known.

She’d looked at him with those big grey eyes, held out the telephone for him to listen to the silence and all the time she’d known what Maisie had done.

As he walked away, he heard the telephone begin to ring. It did not, as anticipated, signal relief. On the contrary, it had a hollow knell-like sound.

‘Morning, Dr Talbot.’

The mechanic had loaded Jacqui’s car onto the back of his pick-up and was wiping his hands on a rag.

‘Mike.’ Then, concentrating on the car, ‘You’re taking her down to the garage?’

‘Better get her up on the ramp, have a proper look. Nothing worse than a job half done.’

‘No.’

‘Do you want me to hang on to it until your visitor leaves? She won’t want to be bashing her nice new exhaust to bits going back down the lane, will she?’

He hadn’t said anything about a visitor, or that the VW belonged to a woman. But then she’d asked directions at the village shop; the local equivalent of a tabloid headline.

‘When will it be ready?’

The sooner it was done, the sooner he could get her disturbing presence out of here. Get back to normal. Or the nearest approximation of it that he could manage.

‘Ah, well, I tried to ring earlier. Did you know your phone’s out? I did report it.’

‘Then your call must have done the trick. It’s back on now.’

‘Oh, right. Well,’ he said, gesturing at the car, ‘the problem is that this is an old model. It’s going to take a day or two to get hold of the parts, but since I had to come up to tell you, I thought I’d save a trip and take it back with me. Is the delay going to be a problem?’

‘Will it make any difference if I say yes?’

‘No, but I could organise a rental in the meantime. Something with a higher clearance. If the lady needs a runabout?’

He resisted the temptation. Even if he provided her with alternative transport, where would she go? He had considered suggesting she take Maisie home with her. If she declined, there was no way he could insist. Besides, she might not have room. And if she had, would she admit it?

‘We’ll manage. Just do it as quickly as you can. And Mike, you’d better ask your brother if he’ll fill and roll the potholes in the lane as a temporary measure.’ His purpose in neglecting it had been to keep people out, not have them stuck up here unable to leave. ‘I’ll talk to him about something more permanent as soon as the weather improves.’

‘Don’t leave it too long. He’ll be starting work on the new houses after Easter.’

‘New houses?’

‘Nice little development. Your Aunt Kate is a canny woman. Pushed through the planning permission on that bottom field by the road. The low-cost housing she insisted on did the trick. It’ll keep the youngsters here and save the village school. Mean work for all us.’ He nodded in the direction of the house. ‘Will you be sending your little girl there?’

His words, so casually spoken, struck like a knife wound straight to the heart.

‘No. She’s not staying. Give me a call when the car’s ready.’ And, not waiting for a reply, he turned and walked away. Not back to the house, but up the hill and into the mist.

Jacqui, replacing the receiver, caught sight of her precious car being loaded onto the back of the garage pick-up and, since Harry was nowhere in sight, went outside to find out what was happening.

The mechanic finished securing it and then looked up. ‘Morning, miss. This your little beauty?’

She smiled. ‘She is lovely, isn’t she?’

‘A credit to you. Shame you had to bring her up here.’

Unprepared to commit herself, she asked, ‘Where are you taking her?’

‘Mike’s Garage. I’m Mike, by the way.’ He extended his hand, then, realising that it was less than clean, thought better of it. ‘You’ll find us down the lane behind the village shop. I told Dr Talbot that it’ll be a couple days before we can get a part. It’s her age, you see. Not standard stock. I did offer him a rental in the meantime, but he said not to bother.’

‘He did?’ Her heart did a little flip-flop that she couldn’t quite decipher. Maybe because it meant he wouldn’t be bundling her out of the door at the first chance he got. After the way he’d looked at her when he realised she’d known about the phone she’d expected to be thrown out, bag and baggage, at the first opportunity.

‘If that doesn’t suit you, miss, you just say the word.’

‘What? Oh, no.’ Then, ‘No, really, if I need to come down to the village I’m sure Harry won’t mind me borrowing the Land Rover. And I quite understand about the spares. I’ve had problems in the past. There’s no special rush.’

For some reason that appeared to amuse him, but he just said, ‘Whatever you say, miss. Do you want to close the gate after me?’

‘Of course.’

She waited until he’d driven through then closed it after him before turning back to the house. The mist had thinned sufficiently for her to see how it nestled comfortably in a fold in the hill. No longer threatening, but a sturdy refuge from the worst of the weather.

Beyond it, a movement caught her eye and she saw the dark shape of a man moving swiftly in fierce, angry strides toward the summit.

He had every right to be angry. She should have told him about Maisie’s stunt with the phones.

And now she’d compounded her duplicity by encouraging Mike to take his time about fixing the car.

Not that it would make any difference one way or the other since all Vickie had been able to tell her in their brief exchange was that Selina Talbot hadn’t responded to her messages, but ‘not to worry’, she was ‘on it’.

Maybe she should make a thorough job of it, call her back and tell her to take her time, too, although she was rapidly coming to the conclusion that it wouldn’t make any difference.

Selina Talbot must have known her mother was in New Zealand since it wasn’t exactly a last-minute, off-the-cuff trip. She’d been there for five months, for heaven’s sake. It would take a desperately casual attitude to communications to miss that one.

Maybe it was paranoia, induced by the bang on her head, but she was beginning to get the strongest feeling that Selina Talbot had known exactly what she was doing. That Harry had been the only responsible adult available and rather than give him the opportunity to say no—and he’d certainly have said no—he’d been presented with a fait accompli.

Left holding the baby—nanny included.

Because once she’d come to that conclusion it was equally obvious that, in spite of all her protestations to the contrary, Vickie Campbell—who was not casual about anything to do with her business—must have known exactly what the situation was.

The only thing that completely flummoxed her was the fact that no one had thought to pack some sensible, mucking-about-in-the-country clothes for Maisie.

‘The rabbits now. You must come and see the rabbits.’

Jacqui was being given a tour of the menagerie. They’d said hello to the puppies and their mother. Given Fudge an apple and brushed his mane. Taken carrots to the donkeys, who looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, but, bearing in mind Harry’s trouble with them, she’d kept a tight hold of Maisie’s hand when she headed for the gate. She had no intention of chasing donkeys all over the hill.

Now she was being dragged into a small paddock behind the stables, where the rabbits and chickens had large and comfortable quarters.

Her reluctance was more to do with the chickens than an unwillingness to visit the rabbits. They were loose, a mix-and-match assortment, busily stalking any worm foolish enough to put its head above ground. She didn’t like their sharp little beaks, their beady little eyes or that head-jutting way they walked.

They made her nervous.

The rabbits, more dawn-and-dusk explorers, were taking their time about being tempted to leave the comfort of the hutch and venture into the run.

‘Try a carrot, Maisie. Rabbits like carrots, don’t they?’

‘Not as much as dandelion leaves.’

She jumped as Harry spoke from a few feet behind her. The soft grass had muffled his approach and she’d been so busy keeping an eye on the chickens that she hadn’t seen him. She turned round. It was impossible to tell if his hard walk had blown away his temper. His face was giving nothing away.

‘Why didn’t you tell me, Jacqui?’

Not wanting Maisie to witness what was clearly going to be an awkward conversation, she left her poking a carrot through the wire mesh of the run and walked across to the dry-stone wall at the bottom end of the paddock.

Harry, taking the hint, followed, turning his back to the wall and leaning against it. Waiting for her explanation.

‘I knew about the phone no more than five minutes before you. I apologise for not telling you but, having realised it must be Maisie, and aware how much you loathe having her here, I was hoping to save her from your anger.’ She looked at him. ‘I had intended to deal with it myself at the first opportunity. Would have done it straight away except that you decided to settle in the library.’

‘You thought I’d shout at her?’

‘It seemed a reasonable assumption.’ She glanced at him. ‘But actually you don’t shout, do you?’

‘Despite all appearances, Jacqui, I’m not an ogre.’

She reached out, touched his arm, very lightly as if this would somehow show him that she knew that she’d got it all wrong. Of course he wasn’t an ogre. He was unhappy. But then wasn’t that the case in most fairy tales?

‘I meant, you keep everything bottled up inside. It might be better if you did yell at Maisie. I’m sure she could deal with an emotional outburst a lot better than being frozen out.’ She shrugged. ‘Whether you can is something else.’

‘Amateur psychology I can do without,’ he said.

‘I’m just telling it the way I see it, but maybe next time you take off into the mist you should try just opening your mouth and letting rip. It’s supposed to be therapeutic.’

She held his mocking challenge, refusing to back down, and in the end he was the one who turned away, looking out into the misty void.

‘I can’t expect you to understand how desperately difficult I find it…’ He made a helpless gesture.

‘She’s just a little girl, Harry. That she’s adopted, a different colour from you, doesn’t make her different. She so much wants you to accept her—’

She was going to say ‘love her’, but thought that might be an emotion too far.

He was already frowning.

‘Colour?’

Jacqui swallowed, wishing she hadn’t chosen now, this minute, when things were going so well, to bring up the subject. But the words could not be withdrawn. ‘She told me.’

‘What?’ He looked genuinely perplexed. ‘What did she tell you?’