His Pretend Mistress

‘And he wrote back?’

‘He phoned. He works as a European co-ordinator for a food chain. He said he was seldom home, but…’

‘You agreed to go and live with him, without first checking him out?’ Harris Quillian questioned harshly.

‘Hindsight’s a brilliant tool!’ she exploded sniffily, and started to feel better again—it was almost as if this determined man was recharging her flattened batteries. ‘He said he needed someone to start pretty much straight away. Which suited me very well. He said he was married and…’

‘You met his wife?’ Quillian clipped.

‘She was abroad. She works for a children’s charity and had just left to visit some of their overseas branches. I didn’t know that until I’d arrived at Almora Lodge, but it didn’t bother me particularly. Roland Phillips works away a lot too. In fact I’d barely seen anything of him until this weekend.’

‘Is this the first full weekend he’s been home?’

Mallon nodded. ‘He arrived late on Friday. He…’

‘He?’ Quillian prompted when her voice tailed off.

‘He—well, he was all right on Friday, and yesterday too,’ she added. ‘Though I did start to feel a bit uncomfortable—not so much by what he said, but the innuendo behind it.’

‘Not uncomfortable enough for you to leave, then, apparently!’ Quillian inserted, and Mallon started to actively dislike him.

‘Where would I go?’ she retorted. ‘My mother remarried recently—it wouldn’t be fair to move in with them. Besides which I hadn’t worked for Roland Phillips a full month yet. Without a salary cheque I can’t afford to go anywhere.’

‘You’re broke?’ Quillian demanded shortly, and Mallon decided that she definitely didn’t like him. It was embarrassing enough to have to admit to what had happened to her, without the added embarrassment of admitting that, since she couldn’t afford alternative accommodation, she had nowhere to rest her head that night. ‘He forgot to leave any housekeeping. I used what money I had getting in supplies from the village shop a mile away.’

‘You never thought to ask him for some housekeeping expenses?’

‘What is this?’ she objected, not liking his interrogation one little bit. But when he merely looked coldly back at her, she found she was confessing, ‘It seemed a bit petty. I thought I’d leave it until he paid me my salary cheque and mention it then. Anyhow,’ she went on abruptly, ‘Roland Phillips had too much to drink at lunchtime and—and…’ she mentally steadied herself ‘…and seemed to think I was only playing hard to get when I told him to keep his loathsome hands to himself. It was all I could do to fight him off. It didn’t occur to me when I managed to get free to hang around to chat about money he owed me! I was through the door as fast as I could go.’ Mallon reckoned she had ‘talked out’ all she was going to talk out. ‘There!’ she challenged hostilely. ‘Satisfied?’

Whether he was she never got to know, for suddenly there was such a tremendous crash from above that they both had something else momentarily to think about.

A split second later and Harris Quillian was out in the hall and going up the stairs two and a time. Mallon followed. There was water everywhere. He had one of the bedroom doors open and Mallon, not stopping to think, went to help. Clearly the roof was still in bad shape somewhere, and with all that rain—that crash they had heard was a bedroom ceiling coming down.

‘Where do you keep your buckets?’ she asked.

An hour later, the mopping up completed, the debris in the bedroom confined to one half of the floor space, Mallon returned to the kitchen. In the absence of abundant floor cloths, she had used the towel from around her head to help mop up the floor.

Fortunately her hair was now dry, and she was in the act of combing her fingers through her blonde tresses when Harris Quillian came to join her. Whether it was the act of actually doing something physical, she didn’t know, but she was unexpectedly feeling very much more recovered. Sufficiently, anyhow, to realise she had better assess her options more logically than she had.

‘Thank you for your help,’ Harris Quillian remarked pleasantly, his grey eyes taking in the true colour of her hair. ‘You worked like a Trojan.’

Mallon couldn’t say he had been a slouch either, tackling all the heavy lifting, fetching and carrying. ‘It was a combined effort,’ she answered. For all she knew she looked a sketch—tangled hair, any small amount of make-up she had been wearing long since washed away, not to mention she was wearing Quillan’s overlarge shirt and trousers, and, thanks to paddling about in water upstairs, was now sockless. ‘I’d better start thinking of what I’m going to do,’ she commented as lightly as she could.

‘So long as you don’t think about going back to Almora Lodge!’ Quillian rapped, at once all hostility.

Oh, did he have the knack of instantly making her angry! ‘Do I look that stupid?’ she flared. But, knowing she was going to have to ask his assistance, had to sink her pride and come down from her high horse. ‘I was—er—wondering—um—what the chances were of you giving me a lift to Warwickshire?’ she said reluctantly.

‘To your mother’s home?’ he guessed.

‘There isn’t anywhere else,’ she stated despondently.

‘But you don’t want to go there?’

‘She’s had a tough time. She’s happy now, for the first time in years. I don’t want to give her the smallest cause for anxiety. Especially in this honeymoon period,’ Mallon owned. ‘But I can’t at the moment see what else I can do.’

There was a brief pause, then, ‘I can,’ he replied.

Mallon looked at him in surprise—wary surprise. ‘You can?’

‘Smooth your hackles for a minute,’ he instructed levelly, ‘and hear my proposition.’

‘Proposition!’ she repeated, her eyes darting to the door, ready to run at the first intimation of anything untoward.

‘Relax, Mallon. What I have to suggest is perfectly above board.’ She was still there, albeit she was watching his every move, and he went quickly on. ‘You need a job, preferably a live-in job, and I, I’ve just discovered, appear to need—a caretaker.’

‘A caretaker!’ She stared at him wide-eyed. ‘You’re offering me a caretaker’s job?’

‘It’s entirely up to you whether you want to take it or not, but, as you know, I’m having the place rebuilt. I could do with someone here to liaise with plumbers, carpenters, electricians—you know the sort of thing. Generally keep an eye on everything.’ He broke off to insert, ‘Someone to mop up when the roof leaks. I’ve just witnessed the way you’re ready to pitch in when there’s an emergency. Later on, I’ll need someone here to oversee painters and decorators, carpet fitters, furniture arrivals.’

He had no need to go on; she had the picture. But she had just had one very big fright with one employer and, while it would suit her very well to caretake for a short time—it would give her the chance to have a roof of sorts over her head while she looked for another job—she had been gullible before.

‘Where’s the catch?’ she questioned, trying not to think in terms of this being a wonderful answer to her problems. If she accepted this caretaking job it would mean that she wouldn’t have to go and intrude on her mother and John Frost at this start of their married life together. She…

‘Apart from the fact that this kitchen is about the most comfortable room in the house, there is no catch,’ Harris Quillian replied. ‘You and I have a mutual need…’

‘Where would I sleep?’ Mallon interrupted him suspiciously.

Grey eyes studied her for a second or two. ‘You don’t trust men, do you?’ he said quietly.

‘Let’s say I’ve had my fill of men who seem to think that I just can’t wait to get into bed with them!’

‘You’ve had bad experiences apart from Phillips?’

Mallon ignored the question. Her experience with Roland Phillips was the worst, but she had no intention of telling Quillian of her ex-stepfather, ex-stepbrother nor her fickle-hearted ex-boyfriend.

‘Where would I sleep?’ she repeated stubbornly, vaguely aware that she must be seriously considering the job offer.

‘At the moment there are only two bedrooms habitable—and they’re not yet decorated. One should be sufficient for you,’ Quillian stated. ‘Though at present only one of the bedrooms has much furniture. Obviously it’s my bedroom for when I stay weekends.’ Again she darted a quick look to the door. ‘But I’ll be returning to London this evening, so it would be all yours until I can get another bed sent down—probably tomorrow or Tuesday.’ She relaxed slightly, and he asked, ‘You wouldn’t mind being here on your own?’

‘I’d welcome it!’ she answered bluntly, truthfully, hardly able to believe this sudden turn of events.

‘Good,’ he said, and she warmed to him a little that he appeared not in the slightest offended that she had just as good as said that she wouldn’t mind if he left her on her own right now—that she’d rather have his space too, than his company. ‘Should you accept, I’ll get my PA to arrange some furniture first thing in the morning. By the end of the week you would be comfortably set up in your own bedroom.’

‘You’ll be—here again next weekend?’ she questioned stiltedly, and found herself on the receiving end of his steady grey-eyed look.

‘Are you always this cagey?’

‘Apparently not—or I wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in now!’

He took that on board, then documented, ‘So you’re worried about me staying overnight in the same house with you?’ Mallon made no answer, and after a moment he informed her, ‘The reason I bought this place was so that, eventually, I’d have somewhere away from London to unwind at the weekends. Harcourt House is obviously far from finished, but if you’d agree to stay on, ready to contact me or my PA with any problems—more ceilings coming down, builders needing chasing, that sort of thing—then, should I come down on a Friday evening, or on a Saturday, I’d undertake to drive you to a hotel and come and collect you shortly before I go back to London again. How does that sound?’

‘How long would it be for?’ she enquired, realising she should be snatching at his offer, but traces of shock from the terrible fright she’d had were still lingering. ‘When I get my head back together I shall want to look around for something more permanent,’ she explained.

‘I can’t see the builders being finished in under three months. Though I wouldn’t hold you to that length of time if you find the right job sooner.’

Mallon took a deep breath. ‘I’d like to accept,’ she said, before she could change her mind. And, the die cast, she suddenly again became aware of the way she was dressed. ‘My clothes!’ she exclaimed. ‘I can’t go around wearing your shirt and trousers for the next three months!’

‘Then I suggest I drive you to Almora Lodge to collect your belongings,’ Harris Quillian said coolly.

‘You’d come with me to…?’ she began fearfully.

His jaw jutted. ‘I wouldn’t contemplate letting you go on your own,’ he grated positively, and took his eyes from her to glance at his watch. When he looked at her again, Mallon could not help noticing that there was a steel-hard glint in his eyes all at once. Then, to her absolute amazement, he icily announced, ‘Apart from anything else, I think it’s more than high time I went and had a word with my brother-in-law.’

Mallon stared at him speechlessly, her brain refusing to take in what it was he was saying. ‘Brother-in-law?’

Harris Quillian moved to the kitchen door, all too obviously keen to be on their way. ‘Roland Phillips,’ he stated quite clearly, ‘happens to be married to my sister Faye.’

Mallon looked at him open-mouthed. She could not remember just then all that she had said to Harris Quillian. But what she did know was that she had told him, exceedingly plainly, that his sister’s husband had assaulted her with violating, adulterous intent!

Anger started to surge up in her—anger against Quillian. How dared he allow her to tell him all she had? He must have known that she would never have said a word to him about Roland Phillips had she know he was Roland Phillips’s brother-in-law!

More, she realised, Harris Quillian had deliberately kept that information to himself to get her talking. Must have! He’d purposely…He…How dared he?

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