His Pretend Mistress

‘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?

CHAPTER TWO

MALLON felt angry enough to bite nails in half. ‘You should have said!’ she erupted furiously. ‘You let me tell you everything I did, while all the time…’

‘It wasn’t the truth?’ he cut in sharply, entirely unmoved by her anger. ‘You’re saying now that you were lying?’

‘I wasn’t lying. You know full well I wasn’t lying!’ she retorted—did he think she went out walking in a cloudburst wearing only a cotton dress just for the fun of it?

‘Then what the blazes are you getting so stewed up about?’ Quillian demanded.

‘Because, because…’ She faltered. Then she rallied. ‘I wouldn’t have told you anything of what I had if I’d known you were related to him!’

‘Only by marriage!’ he gritted, the idea of being related by blood to that worm plainly offensive to him.

‘You won’t say anything to your sister?’

‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.’

Mallon stared at him angrily. ‘If you can’t see that to tell her might do irreparable harm to her marriage…’

‘Harm has already been done. My sister and that apology for a man separated three months ago.’

Mallon’s anger went as swiftly as it had arrived. ‘Oh,’ she murmured. ‘H-he never said. He let me think she, his wife, had only recently left on an overseas trip to do with her work.’

‘Did you see any evidence of Faye being around?’

‘We’re back to hindsight again,’ Mallon muttered wearily. ‘Now, now that I know, I can see that there hadn’t been a female hand about the Lodge for some while.’

‘It was in need of a clean and tidy-up when you arrived?’

Understatement. ‘Let’s say it was fairly obvious he hadn’t advertised for a housekeeper a minute too soon. Are he and your sister legally separated?’

Harris Quillian shook his head. ‘It’s a trial separation as far as Faye is concerned. She’s hoping that, once they’re through what she terms a cooling-off period, they’ll get back together again.’

‘Oh, grief!’ It amazed Mallon that anyone with a grain of intelligence should fall for, let alone want to marry and stay married to, a man like Roland Phillips. ‘It won’t help if you tell her about me,’ Mallon said.

‘You’re suggesting that I don’t tell her? You think it would be better for her to go back to him without being aware of what he’s capable of?’ Harris questioned grimly.

‘She may well know, but love him enough to forgive…’

‘What he tried to do to you is unforgivable!’ Harris chopped her off harshly.

Mallon let go a shaky breath. ‘I—w-wouldn’t argue that,’ she had to agree.

The subject seemed closed. ‘Ready?’ he said. ‘We’ll go and get your clothes.’

Mallon suddenly had an aversion to putting on the dress that Roland Phillips had tried to tear from her. She knew then that she would never wear it again. She wouldn’t have minded borrowing a comb, but Harris wasn’t offering, and she wouldn’t ask. ‘I look a sight,’ she mumbled.

‘Do you care?’

It annoyed her that he too thought she looked a sight! He needn’t have agreed with her. ‘Not a scrap!’ she answered shortly, and, delaying only to put on her sodden sandals, she joined him at the door.

The nearer they got to Almora Lodge, though, and nerves started to get the better of her. So that by the time Harris had pulled up outside the house, she had started to shake.

‘You’ll come in with me?’ she questioned jerkily when all those terrible happenings began to replay in her head, refusing to leave. Suddenly she felt too afraid to get out of the car.

‘I’ll be with you most every step of the way,’ he replied, his expression grim.

The front door was unlocked. Harris didn’t bother to knock but, tall and angry beside her, he went straight in. There was no sign of Roland Phillips.

‘I’ll be one minute,’ Harris said. ‘If you see Phillips before I do, yell.’

Mallon waited nervously at the bottom of the stairs while Harris headed in the direction of the drawing room. She waited anxiously when he went from her sight. Then she thought she heard a small short sound that might have been a bit of a groan, then a thud—but she had no intention of venturing anywhere to find out what it was all about.

And, true to his word, barely a minute later Harris appeared. He was with her every step of the way too as they went up the stairs. He stayed close by while she packed her cases and retrieved her handbag.

She had been all knotted up inside, certain that at some stage Roland Phillips would appear, if only to find out who was invading his property. But she was back in the car sitting beside Harris Quillian—and had seen nothing of her ex-employer. She started to feel better.

‘Thank you,’ she said simply as they left Almora Lodge behind.

‘My pleasure,’ he replied, and at some odd inflection in his tone, almost as if it had been a pleasure, Mallon found her eyes straying to his hands on the steering wheel. The knuckles on his right hand were very slightly reddened, she observed.

‘You saw Roland Phillips, didn’t you?’ she exclaimed as the explanation for that groan and thud suddenly jumped into her head. ‘It wasn’t very nice of him to mark your hand with his chin like that!’ The words broke from her before she could stop them.

‘Worth every crunch,’ Harris confirmed.

Mallon turned sideways in her seat to look at him. Firm jaw, firm mouth, steady eyes; she was starting to quite like him. ‘You didn’t need much of an excuse to hit him,’ she commented, guessing that because, at heart, his sister wanted to get back with her husband, Harris had previously held back on the urge to set about Roland for the grief he had caused Faye. However, Roland’s behaviour today had given him the excuse he had been looking for.

‘True,’ Harris answered. ‘Unfortunately he was still half sozzled with drink, so I only had to hit him once.’ She had to smile; it felt good to smile. By the sound of it, Roland Phillips had gone down like a sack of coals.

Harris carried her cases up the stairs when they arrived at Harcourt House. The two habitable bedrooms were side by side. He placed her cases in the room as yet without a bed, and showed her the other room.

‘Faye has seen to it that there’s plenty of bed linen, towels, that sort of thing, so I’ll leave that side of it to you.’ And, when Mallon stood hesitantly in the doorway, he went on casually, ‘I’ll arrange for locks to be put on both these bedroom doors tomorrow.’ Then, taking up what was obviously his overnight bag, he announced, ‘Now I should think about leaving.’

Mallon began to suspect he had a heavy date that night. She wished him joy. She went downstairs with him, looking forward to the moment when he would be gone and she could change out of his clothes and into her own.

‘You’ve been very kind,’ she began as he accompanied her into the kitchen. ‘I don’t quite honestly know what I would have done if you hadn’t done a circle round and picked me up.’

‘You’re helping me too, remember,’ he said, and, taking out his wallet, he handed her a wad of notes. ‘In view of your past experience, I think it might be as well if you accepted your salary in advance rather than in arrears.’

‘I don’t want…’ she began to protest.

‘Don’t give me a hard time, Mallon. I’ve an idea you’re going to earn every penny—if only by keeping an army of builders supplied with tea and coffee.’ He smiled then, about the second time Mallon had seen him smile. This time it had the strangest effect of killing off all thought of protest. ‘While we’re on the subject of sustenance, fix yourself dinner from anything you fancy in the cupboards. It’s there for your use, so eat heartily.’ His glance slid over her slender figure, her curves obvious even in her baggy outfit. Mallon stilled, striving to hold down a feeling of panic. Then her large, deeply blue and troubled eyes met his steady grey ones, and he was no longer smiling. ‘You have a beautiful face, Mallon, and a superb figure.’ He brought out into the open that which she was panicking about. ‘And you’ve had one hell of a fright today. But, trust me, not every man you meet will be champing at the bit for your body.’

She swallowed hard. This man, while sometimes being curt with her, sharp with her, had also been exceedingly kind. ‘As in—n-not in a million years?’

He laughed then, and suddenly she relaxed and even smiled at him. She knew he had recalled without effort that he had answered ‘Not in a million years’ when she had earlier delayed leaving his car in fear that he too might have wicked intent. ‘Something like that,’ he answered.

‘Then go,’ she bade him, but, remembering he was now virtually her employer, ‘Sir,’ she added.

And he, looking pleased that her spirit seemed to have returned, was unoffended. Handing her his business card, ‘Contact me if you need to,’ he instructed. ‘You’ll be all right on your own?’ he questioned seriously. ‘No fears?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ she answered. ‘Actually, I’m suddenly starting to feel better than I have in a long while.’

Harris Quillian stared down at her, studying her. Then, nodding approvingly, he took up his overnight bag and his car keys. ‘I may be down on Friday,’ he said, and was gone.

Her sleep was troubled by dark dreams that night. Mallon awoke a number of times, feeling threatened and insecure, and was awake again at four o’clock, although this time dawn was starting to break. And, with the light, she began to feel a little more secure.

She lay wide awake looking round the high-ceilinged uncurtained room. As well as not having curtains, the room was as yet uncarpeted, but there was a large rug on the floor and, against one wall, a large oak wardrobe.

Mallon could tell that, once the building work was completed, furniture and furnishings installed, Harcourt House would revert to what had once been its former glory. She liked big old houses—she had been brought up in one.

Her eyes clouded over. She didn’t want to dwell on times past, but could not help but think back to her happy childhood, her loving and loved parents and the plans they had made for her future—all of which had turned to dust nine years ago.

She had been thirteen when she and her mother were wondering whether to start dinner without waiting for Mallon’s father. He’d been a consultant surgeon and worked all hours, so meals had often been delayed. ‘We’ll start,’ her mother had just decreed, when there had been a ring at the doorbell. Their caller had been one of his colleagues, come to tell them that Cyrus Braithwaite had been in a car accident.

The hospital had done everything they could to try and save him, but they must have known at the start from the extent of his injuries that they were going to lose him.

Mallon had been totally shattered by her adored father’s death; her mother had been absolutely devastated and completely unable to cope. With the help of medication, her mother had got through day by day, but Mallon could not help but know that Evelyn Braithwaite would have been happier to have died with her husband—that perhaps it was only for her daughter’s sake that she’d struggled on.

Some days had been so bad for her mother that Mallon would not consider going to school and leaving her on her own. The first year after her father’s death had passed with Mallon taking more and more time off school. Her studies had suffered and, having been at the top of her year, her grades had fallen; but she’d had higher priorities.

Her father had been dead two years when her mother had met Ambrose Jenkins. He was the antithesis of Mallon’s father: loud where her father had been quiet, boastful where her father had been modest, work-shy where her father had been industrious. But, at first, he’d seemed able to cheer her mother, and for that Mallon forgave Ambrose Jenkins a lot. She’d found she could not like him, but had tried her hardest to be fair, recognising that because she had thought so much of her father she could not expect any other man to measure up.

So when, within weeks of meeting him, her mother told her that she and Ambrose were going to be married, Mallon had kissed and hugged her mother and pretended to be pleased. Ambrose had had a twenty-seven-year-old son, Lee. Mallon had found him obnoxiously repellent. But, for her mother’s sake, she’d smiled through the wedding and accepted that Ambrose would be moving into their home.