Tainted Love

Tainted Love

Alison Fraser

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS summer when Clare was released, but it might as well have been winter. The sun did not touch her. Nothing did. They’d called her cold-hearted and she’d become so.

The day of her job interview was especially hot. In Oxford, summer students paraded tanned limbs in white T-shirts and shorts. Clare wore black. Black jacket. Black skirt. Black court shoes. The only relief was a cream-coloured blouse. She’d aimed for respectability and succeeded to the point of drabness. She didn’t care.

Need alone had prompted her to go for the job. Her prison visitor, Louise Carlton, had a brother who needed a housekeeper. She believed Clare might suit the post. Clare didn’t. She didn’t think the brother would either, but Louise had badgered her into an interview.

She walked from the rail to the bus station, caught the two o’clock to Chipping Haycastle and got off at the Old Corn Mill as instructed. She walked for perhaps quarter of a mile, before she reached two iron gates set in a six-foot-high wall. ‘Woodside Hall’ was etched into the stone.

She peered beyond and saw only a tangle of woodland through which a tarred drive disappeared. She pushed at the gates. She’d been told they would be open. They weren’t. There was no chain on them and she wondered if they were electronically operated. She pushed again and they gave a little. She looked downwards to discover they’d been tied shut with string.

She bent down to untie the string and heard a sound. She glanced round her but saw no one. She started to unpick the string and heard the sound again. This time there was no doubt. It was the sound of a child’s laughter and she caught a glimpse of a head bobbing up from a clump of shrub on the far side of the gates.

‘Hello,’ she called out to tell the child he’d been spotted.

There was no response, just the rustling of bushes as the hidden figure made a getaway.

That, she assumed, would be Master Miles Marchand. A sweet boy according to his aunt Louise. Clare wondered if tying the gates together came under the category of ‘sweet’.

The string had been knotted many times and it took her about ten minutes to untie it. The next hurdle was waiting for her round a bend in the drive. She could hardly miss it—a piece of twine, a foot off the ground, running from a tree on one side of the road to a tree on the other. Presumably she was meant to trip up on it and take a flier.

Instead she stepped over it and called out, ‘Sorry. Too obvious, I’m afraid.’

This time there was no response, not even a rustle of leaves, but she was still sure he was watching her. She sensed it as she went up the winding drive to the house.

It was an early Georgian manor house of considerable size: six windows wide and three storeys high. She knew Louise was wealthy. It seemed her brother was, too.

She passed a Jaguar and a Mercedes saloon, and went up to the huge oak door. She pulled the bell at one side, and waited. And waited. And waited. Assuming it hadn’t been heard, she rang it again. By her third attempt, she decided it couldn’t be working.

She lifted the lion’s-head knocker on the door, and it came away in her hand. She was left wondering how the heavy lead object could possibly have unscrewed itself from the door. Then she heard the sound of childish laughter again.

It was clear that one member of the household definitely didn’t want a new housekeeper, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to volunteer for the post, either. It wasn’t as if she knew much about children. Just Peter, and that had been a long time ago—so long she could almost think of him without pain.

She felt this other boy’s eyes on her as she circled the house, searching for signs of life. She heard the drift of voices coming from an open French window, and came closer. She recognised Louise’s as the female voice. The other she assumed belonged to Fenwick Marchand, the eccentrically named master of the house.

Clare approached the doorway, intending to announce her presence, but got as far as lifting her hand to knock before the man’s voice arrested her on the spot.

‘Honestly, Lou, you don’t really expect me to give this woman a job,’ he declared. ‘Charity’s one thing. Ask me for a donation—fine, you’ll get one. But if you think I’m going to open up my home to some...some...whatever the hell she is.’

‘She’s a very nice girl who’s had a rough time of it,’ Louise Carlton replied in a soft, kindly tone that contrasted sharply with her brother’s. ‘If you knew what has happened to her—’

‘Well, I don’t, do I?’ Marchand jumped in again. ‘Because you refuse to tell me.’

‘Only because you’d get the wrong idea, Fen,’ his sister went on calmly, ‘and what she was convicted of is irrelevant.’

‘To you, maybe,’ the man countered. ‘But then you aren’t about to share your home with some thief or drug addict or murderer. Possibly all three, for all I know.’

‘I’ve told you. She was innocent,’ Louise said with utter conviction.

It drew a scoff of laughter in response.

Clare pursed her lips. She couldn’t see Marchand, because he was seated in a high armchair. But she saw Louise Carlton, standing before him, looking upset and flustered as she tried to appeal to her brother’s better nature.

Clare could have told her not to bother. The owner of that deep, sarcastic voice had no better side, and Clare felt no compunction about eavesdropping.

‘Clare has never discussed her case with me,’ Louise Carlton claimed in perfect truth. ‘She has never asked anything of me, either. I was the one who suggested this post to her, knowing she needs work and you need a housekeeper.’

‘Need, yes,’ he agreed, ‘am desperate for, no. And I’d have to be to employ this woman. I ask you, do you really want Miles exposed to her influence?’

‘He could do worse,’ Louise said, on the defensive.

‘He already has done,’ Fenwick reminded her. ‘I don’t think I fancy him adding lock-picking or safe-cracking to his list of other doubtful interests.’

This time Louise didn’t respond, but her face gave her away, colouring slightly at the reference to safe-cracking.

Her brother was quick to spot it. ‘So that’s what she is—a professional thief.’

‘No, don’t be ridiculous,’ Louise dismissed the idea hastily, before ruining Clare’s chances with the admission, ‘Stealing may have been one of the things she was accused of, but—’

‘One of the things?’ Fenwick’s voice rose in disbelief. ‘How many more are there?’

Louise shook her head. ‘I told you. It doesn’t matter. You have my word she’s a reformed character.’

‘Really?’ His voice became a sarcastic drawl. ‘I thought you said she was innocent.’

‘She is.’

‘Then she wouldn’t need to be reformed, would she?’

‘I...’ Louise Carlton frowned over her brother’s logic. ‘Stop trying to confuse me, Fen. We both know you’re cleverer with words—and pretty much everything else. But I do know people better than you.’

‘Possibly,’ he conceded. ‘At any rate, you saw through that bitch I married.’

‘Fen!’ his sister reproved in shocked tones.

‘What? I mustn’t call her a bitch, because she’s dead,’ he scoffed. ‘Is that it?’

‘Well, yes...’ Louise admitted that that was what she meant.

‘I called her such long before she drove off a cliff with her toy-boy lover,’ he pointed out. ‘I don’t see why she should be canonised now she’s dead.’

‘Maybe not,’ his sister agreed, ‘but you have to be careful. It wouldn’t be very nice if Miles overheard you.’

‘Miles isn’t likely to,’ he dismissed. ‘Having discovered there was another candidate for housekeeper, he took himself off to his hut in the woods and is no doubt scheming on how to get rid of the lady, should I be rash enough to employ her.’

‘You told him about Clare?’ Louise said in exasperation.

‘That she was coming, yes,’ her brother confirmed, ‘that she was an arch-villain, no. If I had, knowing Miles, he would probably have wanted me to hire her.’

‘And you won’t consider it?’ Louise’s tone switched to appeal.

But Marchand was adamant, responding with dry sarcasm, ‘Not unless I go barking mad, in which case I’d want you to have me committed first.’

‘Very funny.’ Louise pulled a face at her brother’s sour humour. ‘Well, I hope you’ll at least be polite and give her an interview.’

‘If I must.’ He sighed heavily, then apparently consulted his watch as he ran on, ‘Always assuming she turns up. It’s already twenty past the hour.’

‘Yes, I wonder where she’s got...?’ Louise trailed off, her question answered as she looked from her brother to the open French windows and caught sight of Clare.

Her face mirrored her shock, then dismay, but her brother didn’t notice as he went on, ‘Well, if she doesn’t materialise soon, I won’t even interview her.’

‘Fen...’ His sister tried to alert him to Clare’s presence, while casting an apologetic glance in her direction.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ Fenwick continued regardless, ‘if your pet safe-robber can’t be bothered to show up on time—’

‘Fen!’ Louise whispered his name fiercely, at the same time nodding towards the window.

He must have finally caught on, as Clare saw a figure rise from the chair a second before she decided to cut and run herself. She didn’t literally run, but walked quickly away, believing neither would be anxious to follow.

She was wrong. Marchand not only followed but, when his shouted, ‘Hold on!’ was ignored, caught up in a few strides and grabbed at her arm.

Forced to turn, Clare came face to face with Fenwick Marchand for the first time. It was a shock.

She had expected him to be of the same age as Louise—about fifty. But he was much nearer forty. She’d also expected him to look like his voice—bloodless, pompous and self-righteous. She couldn’t believe this tall, fair, beautiful man could be a scholarly professor of politics.

He mirrored her look of disbelief. What had he expected? A woman with a number stamped across her forehead?

In some ways Clare had changed little during her three years in prison. Now twenty-six, she still had the small, gamine features that made her look young for her age. And, though her once abundant mass of red hair had been ruthlessly cropped short, the boyish cut emphasised that youthfulness. But she was too thin and too hard-eyed to be considered a beauty any more.

Marchand continued to stare at her until he felt her pulling at his grip, then he muttered, ‘I’m not going to apologise, you know.’

‘No one asked you to,’ Clare responded coldly.

‘You shouldn’t have been eavesdropping,’ he went on. ‘It’s normal to come to the front door of a house.’

‘I did,’ Clare spat back. ‘Here!’

She shoved the lion door-knocker in his hand. He stared at it in puzzlement.

‘Where did you get this?’

‘From your front door, and no, I wasn’t pinching it,’ she said before he could suggest such a thing. ‘It came off in my hand.’

‘How odd,’ he commented, still frowning.

She retorted, ‘Not really. Someone had already unscrewed it from its plate.’

‘Ah.’ Enlightenment dawned on Fenwick Marchand. ‘I think I can guess who. I’ll see he’s punished.’

‘Don’t bother on my account.’ Clare shrugged. ‘He’s saved us both time.’

‘What do you mean?’ the man demanded.

‘You won’t have to go through the motions of an interview now,’ Clare explained, ‘and I won’t have to make a wasted effort to impress you. I’ll leave you to square things with Louise,’ she concluded briskly, and would have walked away if he hadn’t tightened his grip on her arm.

‘Hold on,’ he protested. ‘You can’t just walk off like this.’

‘Why not?’ Clare rallied.

‘Well...I mean to say...you have come for an interview, after all,’ he argued, somewhat inarticulately for a professor.

‘You’re not about to offer me a job, are you?’ Clare challenged point-blank, and, at his lack of response, added, ‘So, there’s not much more to say.’

Again she tried to walk away and again he stopped her, muttering, ‘You’re making me out to be very narrow-minded. I’m not.’

‘Really?’ Clare’s tone suggested she couldn’t care less what he was like.

His lips thinned slightly. ‘Look, if it were just me, I’d be willing to give you a chance, but I need someone who’ll also keep an eye on my son and, frankly—’

‘You don’t want me teaching him safe-cracking,’ Clare cut in abruptly. ‘Yes, I know. I heard.’

His lips thinned even more. ‘Actually, I was about to comment on your age. My sister led me to believe that you were in your late twenties.’

‘I’m twenty-six,’ Clare declared.

He was clearly surprised. ‘You don’t look it.’

‘I can prove it.’

‘I wasn’t saying you were lying...’ he sighed at her surliness ‘...merely that you seem much younger... Look, why don’t we go inside and discuss the matter over tea?’

Clare shrugged once more. ‘Is there any point, Mr Marchand? You’ve made your opinions clear enough. You won’t employ an ex-con and who’s to blame you? If it makes you feel any better, I wouldn’t employ me either,’ she admitted with dark humour.

Surprisingly it drew a smile from the man. ‘You’re honest, at any rate.’

‘That’s not what the judge thought,’ Clare said in the same flippant vein, showing the hardness that had got her through three years in prison.

‘Yes, well,’ Marchand continued, ‘my sister tells me you’re innocent... Are you?’

His directness was disconcerting but oddly it made Clare like him better. Not enough, however, to volunteer her life story.

‘Possibly,’ she replied on a cryptic note.

‘And possibly not?’ He lifted an enquiring brow, but she just stared back at him without expression. ‘You don’t give away much, Miss...what is your name?’

‘Anderson.’

‘Miss Anderson.’ He inclined his head as if they were just meeting, then, curling his fingers round her elbow, began steering her back towards the house.

A swift dig in the ribs might have secured her release but Clare had no taste for scenes. She’d already had more than enough drama for one day.

Louise Carlton was waiting for them at the front door. ‘I’m terribly sorry, dear.’ The older woman smiled in apology. ‘I’m not sure how much you heard, but you mustn’t take it to heart. It’s just Fen’s way. He doesn’t mean half of it. Do you?’ she appealed to her brother.

He contradicted her utterly. ‘I wouldn’t have said it if I hadn’t meant it, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. Miss Anderson isn’t a fool... Are you?’ he directed at Clare.

‘I try not to be,’ she answered drily, and it drew the merest flicker of a smile from him.

‘So, Lou,’ he continued to his sister, ‘if you could possibly have tea brought into the study, I’ll talk to Miss Anderson there.’

‘I...yes, fine.’ Louise’s eyes questionned Clare as to what was happening. Clare spread her hands in a gesture that said she didn’t know, before following him to the far end of the hall.

His study was a very masculine room, decorated in sombre dark colours and dominated by a large leather-bound desk covered in papers. He sat down behind it and waved Clare into the chair opposite. She sat reluctantly.

He slipped on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. They still failed to make him professorial. He had the looks of an actor, a hybrid of Robert Redford and Charles Dance. Clare thought it just as well he had neither man’s charm.

Pen in hand, he asked her point-blank, ‘Now, what experience have you of running a house?’

‘Not much,’ she admitted, then, before he could go on, said, ‘Look, I realise you’re giving me this interview because you promised Mrs Carlton, but I’d prefer not to bother. You don’t wish to hire someone with a prison record. I accept that. I’ll be able to catch an earlier train back to London.’

‘You’re very blunt, aren’t you?’ He leaned back in his chair and surveyed her, before asking, ‘Where do you live in London?’

Clare didn’t see the relevance of the question, but answered it all the same. ‘Kennington.’

‘In a flat?’

‘No, in a hostel...for ex-offenders.’

‘What’s it like?’ he enquired with passing curiosity.

‘A palace,’ she replied sardonically, resenting his interest.

He pulled a face. ‘Is there nowhere else you can go? Friends? Relatives?’

Clare shook her head.

‘How long have you lived there?’ he pursued.

‘Since I was released,’ she told him, ‘a week ago.’

‘And presumably you can stay there till you’ve arranged alternative accommodation,’ he concluded, wrongly.

Clare shook her head again. ‘There’s a three-month limit.’

‘So what happens if you haven’t found anywhere else?’ He frowned.

She shrugged. She hadn’t let herself think that far. ‘I’ll manage,’ she said on a defensive note.

But he wouldn’t let it go. ‘You won’t if you end up on the streets,’ he stated grimly. ‘No job, no home. It’s a vicious circle.’

Clare’s eyes narrowed at this little lecture. What did he know about it? ‘I’ll survive,’ she claimed with the hard confidence of someone who’d already been there.

‘I suppose you will,’ he said, giving her another measuring look that wasn’t entirely pleasant. ‘A good-looking woman never needs to starve.’

Arguably it was a compliment, but not the way he said it. Mr Fen Marchand clearly didn’t have a very high opinion of women.

Clare didn’t care enough to argue the point and remained silent. Let someone else deal with his hang-ups.

‘You certainly don’t seem too anxious to get this job, Miss Anderson.’ He switched back to his normal pomposity. ‘So far, you’ve said little to impress... You have no experience of running a house, and I don’t suppose you have any experience of handling wilful eleven-year-olds?’

Clare shook her head, then, recalling what Louise had told her, enquired, ‘Did your last housekeeper?’

‘As a matter of fact, she did,’ he announced crisply, ‘being a widowed lady with three grown-up sons.’

‘And how long was she with you?’ Clare already knew the answer.

‘I...well...I don’t think that’s relevant.’ He evaded the admission that the last incumbent had lasted a fortnight. ‘It seemed she had a weak heart and found the housework more of a strain than she’d anticipated.’

I bet, Clare muttered to herself, thinking of two reasons alone that might have hastened the woman’s departure: Marchand senior and his abrasive manner, and Marchand junior and his taste for pranks.

‘Anyway, Mrs Brown isn’t the issue,’ he said dismissively and rose from behind his desk.

Clare assumed the interview was at an end, but, when she made to stand, he waved her back in her seat. ‘I’m just going to see where Louise has got with the afternoon tea.’

Clare started to say, I think I should just go, but he’d left the room before she could get the words out. Rude man. She was left twiddling her thumbs and wondering if she shouldn’t give everybody a break and leave by the study’s French windows.

She was actually contemplating it when a figure blocked her escape route. He stood at the open window for a moment, staring at her, before deciding to enter.

‘Where’s my old man?’ he demanded in a manner so arrogant that his parentage couldn’t be doubted. The origin of his blond good looks was also fairly evident. The only difference between the two was one of accent—while Fen Marchand spoke with a perfect BBC accent, Miles had a slight American drawl.

‘I’ve no idea,’ Clare answered him offhandedly. She made no attempt to engage him in further conversation.

The young boy wasn’t discouraged. Instead he went round to sit behind his father’s desk. ‘Has he offered you the job yet?’

This time Clare didn’t answer, looking straight through him instead.

‘No? Well, I wouldn’t take it if he does,’ the boy advised. ‘The pay’s lousy, for a start, and my dad’s an even lousier boss. As for me, I can’t help it. I’m disturbed, personality-wise.’

‘You do surprise me,’ Clare said, irony in her tone.

It was lost on the boy. ‘I should have an analyst. All the kids in L.A. have an analyst, but my dad’s too mean to pay for one.’

‘Really?’ Clare sounded less than interested in this information. She didn’t have too much sympathy for poor little rich boys—not any more.

Miles Marchand frowned at her reaction. He was trying to shock, not bore his audience.

He tried again. ‘So, tell me, do you have the hots for him?’

‘What?’ Clare blinked at the leap in conversation.

‘My dad, do you have the hots for him?’ he repeated patiently. ‘That’s what they say in America. It means—’

‘I know what it means, and most certainly not!’ Clare denied, angered for the first time.

‘OK, OK. Keep your hair on.’ Miles Marchand shrugged off his suggestion. ‘I was only asking. Lots of women do. The last housekeeper but one was crazy about him.’

‘So, what did you do to her?’ Clare decided it was time to go on the offensive with this monster. ‘Frogs in the bed? Dead mice on the doorstep?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ he dismissed, ‘that’s kid’s stuff. I was much more subtle.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Clare lifted a sceptical brow. ‘Don’t tell me, you just concentrated on being as rude and obnoxious as possible, and that did the trick. Well, I wouldn’t bother wasting your talents on me, kiddo.’

‘Why not?’ he demanded.

‘Well, apart from the fact I’m tougher and meaner than you could ever hope to be,’ Clare claimed extravagantly, ‘it’s not likely your dad’s going to employ me.’

‘Why not?’ the boy repeated.

Clare was tempted to tell him. She was sure the boy would be thrilled to have a real live criminal in the house.

She eventually said, ‘I haven’t the right qualifications.’

‘Oh, that’s no problem,’ the boy replied airily. ‘He’s so desperate, he’ll take anyone.’

‘Thanks,’ muttered Clare and the boy grinned wickedly.

Marchand caught the grin as he returned to the study with a tray of tea things. ‘Miles, what are you doing in here?’ he asked rather sternly.

‘Nothing.’ The boy’s face changed to sullenness as he slipped from his father’s chair.

‘He hasn’t been rude to you, has he?’ Marchand directed at Clare.

Before she could answer, the boy put in, ‘I was just talking to her...wasn’t I?’

Clare nodded and volunteered, ‘About his life in America.’

The boy shot her a look, half-plea, half-threat, and a small smile played on her lips as she kept him on tenterhooks for a moment, before she gave a slight shake of her head.

The man’s eyes switched from one to the other, picking up messages but unable to interpret them.

‘Well, Miles, I haven’t finished interviewing Miss—er—yet,’ he finally said. ‘Your aunt has tea ready for you in the kitchen.’

‘OK.’ The boy shrugged, then said to Clare, ‘Catch you later, maybe,’ as he slouched from the room.

Clare wondered what he meant, what the grin on his face promised. Nothing good, she suspected.

Marchand looked bemused, saying with near wonder, ‘He seems to like you.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure.’ Clare suspected the boy liked noboby right at that moment—including himself. She didn’t know if he was disturbed, but he was certainly mixed-up and unhappy.