Tainted Love

‘No, well...he can be a handful,’ Marchand admitted in something of an understatement, before he poured tea into two cups and left Clare to help herself to milk and sugar.

Clare did so as he went on, ‘You see, Miles has been through a difficult time. His mother...she and I parted seven years ago. Miles stayed with me for the first three years, then he went to live with her... She died in an accident six months ago.’

Marchand relayed this information reluctantly, and Clare realised there was a whole lot more he wasn’t saying. But she showed no curiosity and didn’t invite him to continue. The truth was she didn’t want to know about Miles Marchand’s problems. She had enough of her own.

‘He’s not the easiest of children in consequence,’ Marchand concluded, ‘and needs careful handling. However, I should be spending much of my time round the house until autumn term begins and I intend to organise activities for the boy. I would expect a housekeeper to supervise him occasionally, along with the normal household duties... So, any questions?’

‘No.’ Clare saw no point in asking questions. He wasn’t going to employ her. Why should he?

‘None?’ He frowned at her apparent uninterest, and, when she remained silent, added shortly, ‘In that case, if you leave your address, I’ll let you know, Miss...’

‘All right.’ She stood up, placed her half-finished tea on the tray, and surprised him by offering her hand to shake.

‘I’ll show you out,’ he said, when she started to turn and walk from the room.

‘That’s OK.’ Clare would happily have found her own way to the front door, but he followed behind her.

They’d reached the doorstep before he asked, ‘How did you get here? By car?’

‘No, train, then bus,’ Clare answered him.

‘In that case—’ he took a set of keys from his pocket ‘—I’d better run you into Oxford.’

‘You don’t have to.’ Clare had decided that, all in all, she didn’t particularly like Fenwick Marchand.

‘I know I don’t,’ he responded, ‘but nevertheless I will. Wait here till I tell Louise.’

Clare wasn’t given the chance to argue as he retreated back into the house. She was left standing on the doorstep, wondering which car was his—the Jaguar or the Mercedes. She was putting her money on the Jaguar when Marchand junior reappeared.

‘Why didn’t you tell him?’ he asked with narrowed eyes.

‘Tell him what?’

‘That I was rude to you.’

‘Were you?’ Clare gave him a look of mock-surprise. ‘I didn’t notice.’

‘You must know some incredibly rude people, then,’ he threw back at her.

‘Incredibly,’ she agreed, her smile ironic as she thought of her companions over the last few years. It was true. Manners had been in short supply in Marsh Green Prison.

The boy smiled a little, too, before saying, ‘They’re arguing about you in the kitchen. Him and Aunt Lou.’

‘Really?’ Clare said flatly. It wasn’t an invitation for him to go on.

But he didn’t need one, taking pleasure in confiding, ‘They sent me to watch TV in the lounge, but I hung around and listened at the door. Aunt Lou says you’re really desperate for this job and he has to give you a chance. But he says you don’t strike him as especially desperate and that a girl with your talents will have much more luc—luc-ar-tive prospects lined up...I guess he means you’re too smart to just be a housekeeper,’ Miles interpreted for her.

But Clare could think of an entirely different interpretation, and it was nowhere near that flattering. Inwardly seething, she muttered at the boy, ‘Something like that,’ then told him to inform his father she had chosen to walk.

She left without waiting for a response from the boy but he caught up with her on the drive and fell into step beside her.

‘Are you mad with me?’ he enquired guilelessly. ‘I thought you’d want to know what they were saying. I mean, if you told Dad you were desperate, perhaps he’d change his mind.’

‘I doubt it.’ Clare decided that, for all the worldliness he affected, Miles Marchand had a boy’s outlook on life. She wondered if she might have liked him, had she been given the chance.

‘You could try,’ he insisted as they reached the gates.

Clare shook her head. ‘Don’t worry about it, kid. It’ll save you the trouble of scaring me off,’ she said with a wry smile.

‘But you wouldn’t be,’ Miles responded. ‘You’re not scared of me, are you?’

Clare shook her head again, saying, ‘No. Should I be?’

‘The rest were,’ he claimed. ‘Mrs Brown, the last woman, she told him I needed locking up. In a loony-bin, she meant.’

Clare frowned, not sure if the boy was exaggerating, boasting or just seeking her opinion. ‘What do you think?’ she asked in return.

The boy stared at her for a moment, deciding if she could be trusted, before he confided, ‘I scare myself sometimes. I feel so angry I want to hurt people. Him especially.’

‘Your dad?’ Clare drew a nod, then found herself admitting, ‘I used to feel that way at times.’

‘So what did you do?’ Dark blue eyes looked to her for an answer.

Clare had none to give. All the people close to her had gone, out of reach of hurting, and she’d resolved her anger with the world by retreating from it. But this boy still had a chance to come out of the shadows.

‘I’m nobody to take advice from, kid,’ she finally said, and felt a twinge of guilt when his expression became hostile once more. He’d opened up to her, just for a moment, and what did she do? Turn her back on him.

She did it literally, as she slipped out through the gates and started walking back along the country road to the Old Corn Mill. However, she didn’t get very far before the Jaguar drew up beside her.

The driver’s window slid down and Marchand senior’s dark blond head appeared. ‘If you’re intending to catch a bus, there isn’t one for a couple of hours. So, I suggest you get in,’ he said with a bored air.

It put Clare’s back up. ‘I’d sooner walk, thank you,’ she replied heavily.

He arched a brow. ‘Twelve miles? You must be joking. You won’t make three. Still, if you insist...’ He turned on the engine and put the car in gear, then waited for Clare to forget her pride and be sensible.

But she remained where she was, waiting in turn, until finally he put his foot on the accelerator and shot off down the road.

Clare felt triumphant until she reached the pub at the crossroads and saw the sign that indeed said it was twelve miles to Oxford. Then she wondered if she could walk all that way on new court shoes that were already beginning to pinch.

She was tempted to hitch-hike, but didn’t. A car stopped of its own accord while she stood there.

‘Going to Oxford?’ the young man driving the open-topped Morgan enquired, and, at her nod, invited, ‘Hop in.’

Clare hesitated, but not for long. The young man had Hooray Henry written all over him and she judged him—if not his driving—to be safe.

She was right. He drove like an idiot, chatted her up like mad, but made no dangerous moves. She earned her lift by listening, more or less attentively, to his bad jokes, suffered his laughter and thanked him politely for delivering her direct to the station.

She’d no sooner waved him goodbye than a car screeched up in his place. A Jaguar, green in colour, familiar in driver.

She was so surprised, she waited while Fen Marchand jumped out of his car and, with a face like thunder, came round to her side.

‘And who was that?’ he demanded without preamble. ‘A friend of yours?’

‘Well, no...’ Clare found herself on the defensive. ‘Not a friend, exactly. He just offered me a lift.’

‘I know,’ he grated back. ‘The question is what he imagined you were offering in return.’

‘I...nothing!’ Clare spluttered back. ‘Look, Mr Marchand, I don’t know what kind of girl you think I am—’

‘The stupid kind,’ he cut in rudely. ‘Forget the fact he was driving like a bloody maniac most of the way. Do you know how many places he could have turned off on that road? Do you?’ he demanded, grasping her roughly by the arms.

Unable to free herself, Clare threw back, ‘You tell me. You’re the one that goes creeping around, following people.’

‘I was waiting in the pub car park for you,’ he countered heavily, ‘when you decided to go off with a total stranger. What do you expect me to do? Leave you to get raped on some lonely farm track?’ he said brutally.

The words made Clare flinch, then relent slightly. ‘In that case, it’s kind of you to be concerned, but I can take care of myself.’

‘I bet!’ He scoffed at the idea, before coldly informing her, ‘It wasn’t kindness, Miss Anderson, it was self-preservation. I didn’t fancy being suspect number one had your lift decided to murder you in a post-coital rage,’ he declared with angry volume.

Clare’s face flamed like an over-ripe tomato, conscious of heads turning in their direction. ‘Would you keep your voice down?’

‘Why?’ he threw back at her. ‘I imagine you like people noticing you. Young men, at any rate. In fact, I wonder if I misjudged the situation. Perhaps you were hoping for a little adventure down some country lane—’

‘Why, you—’ Clare tore her arm free and cracked a hand against his cheek.

He touched his face, shocked for an instant, then rasped, ‘You bitch!’ as he made a grab for her again.

She backed off, hissing at him, ‘You want me to scream, Professor...? Do you?’

Fenwick Marchand looked angry enough not to care. He took a step towards her and she opened her mouth as if to scream. ‘All right,’ he growled at her, ‘you win. Don’t make a fool of us both.’

‘Oh, you don’t need any help for that, Professor,’ she retorted on a contemptuous note that drew his furious scowl.

‘Then presumably you don’t need my help either, Miss Anderson,’ he countered in a voice like ice.

‘If you mean your job—stick it!’ Clare suggested less than politely, and, having burned her boats, walked off into the rush-hour crowd.

She felt good. Buoyant. Triumphant. At least until she’d caught her train. Then she had time to think, time to count the cost of another failure. True, she’d never stood a chance. He had written her off before they’d even met. But he wasn’t going to be the only one. Few people wanted to employ ex-offenders.

And that was what she was. Clare Mary Anderson. Number 67904, C Wing, H.M. Prison, Marsh Green, Sussex. Category B prisoner. Convicted of a variety of offences.

Guilty of some, too.

CHAPTER TWO

‘LOUISE!’ Clare was taken aback at the sight of the other woman standing outside her room in the hostel.

‘I did telephone,’ Louise Carlton explained, ‘but there was no answer.’

‘No, the caretaker’s hardly ever there,’ Clare answered absently, still staring in surprise at her visitor.

It had been over two weeks since the interview. She hadn’t heard from Fenwick Marchand or Louise in that time, but then she hadn’t really expected to. She’d assumed Marchand would relay their quarrel and his sister would naturally take his side.

But here was Louise, saying in her kindly manner, ‘I meant to come last week, only I had a touch of flu... May I come in?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Clare waved her inside the room and cleared her only chair of a bag of shopping so that the older woman could sit down. ‘I was going to write to apologise, but...’

‘Apologise?’ Louise looked quizzical.

‘Well, I know I let you down.’ That had been Clare’s main concern over that fiasco of an interview. Louise had given her a chance, and she’d done her best to blow it.

‘On the contrary,’ Louise rejoined, ‘it’s I who should apologise. I hadn’t realised my brother could be so narrow-minded. I should have, though. He’s never been easy, even as a small boy.’

Clare could believe that, although she found it hard to imagine Fen Marchand as anything but fully grown and mean with it.

‘He was a late baby,’ Louise confided, ‘and tragically our mother died shortly after his birth. Fen’s upbringing was left to a series of housekeepers, before our father packed him off to prep school at the age of eight.’

Clare was struck by the similarity between Marchand senior’s childhood and Marchand junior’s. ‘Is Miles at boarding-school, too?’

Louise shook her head. ‘Fen has been educating him at home, but boarding-school is definitely on the cards. He’s at his wits’ end, you see. That’s why I’m here...’

Clare frowned, wondering what Louise was leading up to. Surely Marchand wasn’t considering employing her?

It seemed not as Louise ran on, ‘I might as well be frank. He took on another housekeeper last week when I was ill. He got her through an agency. Anyway...’ She hesitated mid-tale.

Clare misunderstood, saying, ‘It’s all right, Louise. I knew he’d never offer me the job. I don’t mind.’

‘Oh, but he is,’ Louise insisted, ‘offering you the job. Now. If you’ll take it... You haven’t got another, have you?’

‘Well, no, but...’ Clare had lost the thread of this conversation somewhere ‘...if he has someone else?’

‘Had,’ Louise corrected drily. ‘She lasted two days. I’m afraid Miles didn’t take to her and, well...I might as well tell you—he put a frog in her bed. A dead one. I know it sounds absolutely disgusting. Actually it was. But I can honestly say he’s never done anything quite like it before. Been rude, certainly, and answered back, but nothing quite like that. I don’t know where he got such an idea from.’

Clare did. She remembered giving it to him.

‘Fen was livid,’ Louise continued, ‘and duly announced that Miles was to go to boarding-school in the autumn, whether he liked it or not. Well, Miles obviously doesn’t like it because he’s been in a state of dumb misery ever since.’

‘Oh.’ Clare’s face clouded in sympathy with the boy.

‘Not that I blame Fen,’ Louise hastened to add. ‘What else can he do? He can’t work and look after Miles, and it’s too late for him to take a year’s sabbatical. He’s tried.’

‘Really?’ Clare didn’t hide her surprise. Because he was well-off and successful, she hadn’t seen Fen Marchand in the role of a single parent, struggling to do the right thing for his son.

‘He doesn’t say so, but I know he feels guilty,’ Louise confided. ‘He thinks he’s letting Miles down again, although what could he have done the first time?’

‘The first time?’ Clare echoed automatically.

‘When Diana won custody of Miles,’ Louise explained, before asking her, ‘Fen did tell you about his wife, didn’t he?’

‘Not really.’ Clare didn’t think Fen Marchand was the type for confidences. His sister, however, had no such reservations.

‘They met at Oxford. Diana was an undergraduate while Fen was working for his doctorate,’ she ran on. ‘She was very beautiful, Diana. Head-turning, you might say. Quite clever, too, I suppose. It was the first and last time Fen acted on impulse. He married her within six months of their meeting...’ Louise paused to shake her head over the fact.

Clare kept quiet, unable to visualise a Fen Marchand who acted on impulse.

‘Unfortunately Miles came along after a year,’ Louise added, ‘and motherhood was the last thing Diana was suited to. Miles was barely a month old when she disappeared on a cruise with her rich father, leaving Fen and Miles to look after themselves. That pretty much set the pattern for the next five years until she bowed out altogether.’

‘But she fought for Miles’s custody,’ Clare replied, frowning.

‘Only at her father’s insistence,’ Louise revealed. ‘A self-made man, he wanted a male heir to take over his electronics firm. He footed her legal bill, and, unbelievably, some idiot judge decided Miles would be better off with his mother. So, after spending eight years of his life at Woodside, the boy suddenly found himself living in South Kensington with his grandfather.’

‘Not his mother?’ Clare was a little lost.

‘Officially, yes—’ Louise pulled a face ‘—but, by that time, Diana was following her latest boyfriend round the polo circuit. Fen saw the boy more often on access visits. It was hell for him. He could see old man Derwent ruining Miles as he had ruined Diana, but could do little about it.

‘Then disaster really struck,’ Louise went on unhappily. ‘Derwent died and that left Diana with custody. She might have handed Miles back, only Derwent left the bulk of his fortune to the boy in trust, and where he went control of his trust went.’

‘So she kept him,’ Clare concluded, her heart going out to the boy caught in the middle.

Louise nodded. ‘Fen was disraught. He didn’t trust Diana to take care of him properly and immediately filed for custody. Diana countered by whisking Mikes away abroad.’

‘To America?’ Clare recalled Miles saying he’d lived in L.A.

‘Via Australia and South America,’ Louise recounted. ‘Diana spent six months country-hopping, with Miles as excess baggage, while Fen desperately tried to locate them long enough to get a court order implemented, forcing her to return the boy to the UK.’

Once more Clare was surprised. From their brief encounter, she’d thought Fen Marchand almost indifferent to his son.

Louise read her mind, and claimed, ‘They’d been so close, Miles and his father, but their years apart have done untold damage. Miles feel his father let him down, and, I suspect, Fen feels the same. He wants to make it up to him, but doesn’t want to spoil him in the process... Which sort of brings me to the point of my visit,’ Louise concluded finally. ‘As Miles plainly loathes the idea of boarding-school, Fen asked him what would make him happy? And you’ll never guess what he said!’

While Louise paused for effect, Clare guessed the truth. She just didn’t believe it.

‘Well...’ Louise could hardly contain her satisfaction ‘...it seems Miles took a real shine to you, Clare, and he’s promised that if you were to come and housekeep for them he’d be on his absolutely best behaviour. Can you credit it?’ The older woman smiled as if something miraculous had occurred.

Clare didn’t see it that way. If she held some appeal for the boy, it was a momentary thing and based on all the wrong reasons. He saw her as a fellow traveller, at odds with the rest of the world. She wouldn’t dispute that—but it hardly made her a candidate for the role of Mary Poppins.

‘How did the professor react?’ she asked point-blank.

‘Well...he was taken aback,’ Louise admitted carefully, and Clare’s lips spread in a thin smile as she imagined how taken aback Marchand would have been. ‘However,’ Louise added quickly, ‘he’s come round to the idea now.’

‘The idea?’

‘Of your being housekeeper.’

Clare still couldn’t take it in. Marchand was willing to give her the job to please his son?

‘He feels he may not have been very fair to you on the day of the interview,’ Louise relayed, ‘and he’s prepared to give you a month’s trial. What do you think?’

The older woman’s smile said she expected Clare to be grateful for the opportunity.

Because she liked Louise Carlton, Clare forced a smile in return. But inside she wondered how the other woman had managed to reach the age of fifty-odd and remain one of life’s innocents. Didn’t she realise that this was just a way of Marchand hiring her until the boy got over his ‘fancy’ for her? When that happened, she’d be out the door quicker than she could say ‘month’s trial’.

‘You’ll have your own little flat in the house,’ Louise went on persuasively, ‘with shower, kitchenette and television, and a salary of eight thousand pounds plus keep.’

‘Eight thousand pounds?’ Clare was shocked by the amount.

Louise misunderstood. ‘Yes, it didn’t seem much to me, either, but at least you wouldn’t have living expenses,’ she pointed out.

‘It’s fine,’ Clare assured her quickly. ‘In fact, it’s much more than I expected, with my not having any real experience.’

‘Well, don’t worry.’ Louise smiled again. ‘Fen can afford it. He has a considerable private income as well as his professor’s salary.’

‘Really?’ Clare wasn’t altogether surprised at this. Although the house was not ostentatiously large, the sheer understated elegance of Woodside Hall whispered money. Old money, if Clare wasn’t very much mistaken.

‘When does he want me to start?’ she asked Louise.

‘Oh, as soon as you can,’ Louise said with obvious relief. ‘I’m holding the fort at present, but I just have to return to London this week. There are so many things I should have done, only I was ill.’

‘You work too hard.’ Clare had some idea of Louise’s busy timetable of voluntary work from their conversations in prison.

Clare remembered how she herself had been unenthusiastic about her visits at first, but had come to like and respect Louise Carlton. She realised that it had been an act of faith for Louise to suggest her for this job.

‘I can start immediately,’ she declared resolutely, and drew a beaming smile in response. ‘I’ll just pack.’

‘Are you sure?’ Louise protested for form’s sake. ‘I’ll drive you up with your cases.’

‘It’s all right,’ Clare replied. ‘I only have the one. I can go by train.’

‘One case?’ Louise watched with concern as the younger woman packed all her worldly possessions into a single battered suitcase. ‘My dear girl, you’re going to need some more clothes. We’ll shop on the way.’

Clare shook her head, saying simply, ‘I have no money.’

‘Never mind. My treat!’ Louise announced with her usual generosity.

Clare shook her head again. ‘Thanks very much, but I’ll wait till I get my wages and buy something.’

‘Clare,’ the older woman pursued, ‘please let me get you something. I can easily afford it and I’d enjoy having someone young and pretty to dress for a change.’

‘It’s very kind of you, but I’d really prefer not. The only thing I might need is an apron or overall, for the housekeeping, and there’s probably one at the house.’

‘Possibly, but, going on Fen’s previous choices of housekeeper, any garment will go round you twice.’ Louise frowned a little as she assessed Clare’s extremely slim figure.

Clare shrugged in response. She knew how she looked—thin to the point of skinniness, shaped more like a boy than a woman. Once she would have cared. Once she’d been like any teenage girl, preening herself in the mirror, dressing to attract the boys—or at least one particular boy. And where had it led, all that wishing and hoping, believing her looks could get her anything?

Clare’s face hardened, reflecting her thoughts, and Louise added softly, ‘I wish you’d let me help...really help.’

‘You have. You’ve got me this job.’

‘I didn’t mean that. I wish you’d open up a little, tell me about yourself.’

Louise reached out a hand to touch her arm. It was plainly a gesture of compassion and understanding, but it took an effort on Clare’s part not to shrug off the gentle hand. She didn’t want to open up. She wanted to stay as she was, locked up tight, safe from thought or feeling.

‘You know why I was in prison,’ she responded evenly as she returned to her packing.

Louise Carlton dropped her hand away, recognising rejection, but persevered. ‘Yes, I know. I just find it impossible to believe you did such a thing. That’s why I haven’t told Fen yet...’ she finished in gentle warning.

‘But what if he asks me?’ Clare worried. ‘He’s bound to want to know why I was in prison.’

‘Yes, well...I did say you’d been convicted of stealing,’ Louise admitted, ‘but that was all. I feel we should wait to tell him the rest.’

‘If you think so.’ Clare left the decision to Louise, seeing no alternative. They both knew full well that, if the brother were to find out the truth, Clare would be shown the door.

As it was, she travelled up to Oxford with Louise Carlton that afternoon, almost positive that her stay at Woodside Hall would be brief and fraught enough, without the added complication of true confessions.