From Prim to Improper

by Cathy Williams

  ‘Well, I’m not, and there’s no chance of that.’

  ‘Do you know?’ Andreas drawled, pushing his chair away from the desk and then stretching out his long legs at an angle. ‘It never once occurred to me that you might not have targeted James as a potential sugar-daddy…’

  ‘I know—and what’s the point in talking about it if you don’t believe what I say?’

  ‘But there could be another explanation for your mysterious arrival in Somerset.’ He had mocked her for wanting to spend her Friday cooped up in front of a chessboard, but the truth was that his own plans for heading back to London for the weekend did not appeal. His headache was gathering force and the prospect of having to endure Amanda and her predictable sulks because he had cancelled their last date, due to work, was a turn off. Maybe he would join them at the chess board. Wouldn’t that put a spoke in her wheel?

  ‘Am I supposed to ask you what you’re talking about?’

  ‘Four weeks ago, you would never have dreamt of saying something like that—I approve! And there’s no need to ask me anything, since I’ll fill in the gaps for you. You might not have been running here so much as running away.’

  ‘Running away from what?’

  ‘Or…whom? Is that why you’re so happy to bury yourself down here? Because you’re recovering from a broken heart?’

  ‘I’m recovering from my mum’s death. When I was looking after her, I had little enough time for myself, never mind getting involved with someone!’

  ‘What about that ex-boss of yours? It’s easy to fall for someone who’s around all the time.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t, and none of this is any of your business anyway!’

  ‘True. But I thought it might be nice to get to know one another.’

  ‘I think I know you perfectly well enough, thank you very much,’ Elizabeth informed him, sotto voce so that he couldn’t quite grasp what she had said—although he knew from the mutinous expression on her face that it was nothing to his credit.

  Well, at least this verbal fencing was taking his mind off his throbbing head, something that the piles of work had not quite managed to do.

  ‘I take my personal assistant out once a month. It’s a chance for her to air whatever problems she might have and to recognise that she’s appreciated.’

  ‘That’s a normal boss-secretary situation, though, isn’t it? You haven’t forced her to work for you or else.’

  ‘Don’t tell me that you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, Elizabeth. You get a buzz working for me, whether you’re big enough to admit it or not.’

  ‘I don’t get a buzz thinking that you’re watching my every move waiting to see if I’ll crash and burn.’

  ‘Which isn’t much of an answer.’

  ‘This is silly. I’m going to head upstairs now and get changed for the evening. I’ll make sure that I do those reports for you so that you have them first thing on Monday morning. In fact, you can have them by tomorrow evening, but I expect you’ll be going back to London for the weekend.’ Because you haven’t taken dreary to the outer limits, she found herself thinking sourly.

  Andreas stood up, and the ache in his head that had been nudging him insistently for the past hour and a half exploded like a hand grenade suddenly detonated. He braced himself against his desk.

  For a few seconds, the only thing Elizabeth felt was blind panic. She was at his side before he could fully recover, although when she anxiously asked him what was wrong he typically waved her aside and bit out that he was perfectly all right.

  ‘No, you’re not. You’re white as a sheet. You need to get to bed.’

  ‘You need to stop fussing.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Andreas looked so shocked that she was tempted to laugh. Instead, she slung her arm around his waist to help support him.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Taking you up to bed.’ The weight of his arm around her shoulders carried the heat of a branding iron. Never before had she felt so conscious of her own unremarkable body. Her breasts were only inches away from his heavy arm, and her nipples tingled at the proximity so that she had to grit her teeth and focus her mind on the laborious task of helping him up the stairs—when he clearly didn’t want any help, and certainly not from her. Although he needed it, judging from his pained breathing and the glazed look in his eyes.

  ‘I. Am. Fine.’

  ‘You seem to have a fever.’

  ‘That’s impossible. Like I told you before, I’m never ill.’

  ‘Have you tried telling that to your body?’

  ‘Okay, maybe I could use a few minutes’ peace and quiet in the bedroom.’

  ‘What time did you say you got to bed last night?’

  Miraculously, and without him really noticing, they appeared to have made it to the top of the stairs. While her support was pretty non-essential, it still felt good to be shown to his room and to watch as she folded back his covers, her movements neat, precise and graceful.

  ‘Haven’t I heard the sermon about early nights already?’ His hands felt shaky as he began tugging off his shirt. Elizabeth, with her back to him, was only aware of this striptease when she heard the sound of his belt being pulled through its loops, and she spun round, her eyes wide.

  ‘You’re…getting undressed.’

  ‘I prefer to do that before I get into bed. It really works for me, not getting under the quilt with my trousers and shoes still on.’ He felt shattered now that the sight of a welcoming bed was in front of him. He reached to his trouser zip, hardly noticing that she had shied away towards the door.

  ‘I’ll…I’ll pop up with some paracetamol,’ Elizabeth babbled, torn between the need to avert her eyes from those trousers slowly dropping to the ground and the mesmerising sight of his long, muscular legs, the low-slung boxers and the lean, sinewy lines of his torso.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He turned around briefly and she hurriedly put her eyes where they should have been—on his face—concerned but in a professional way, the concern of an employee towards her boss.

  He was slipping under the covers as she scrambled down the stairs, delayed by James, whose mouth sagged open in astonishment when told that his godson was upstairs. In bed. At the ridiculous time of six-fifteen. Ill.

  ‘The boy’s never ill!’ he boomed. ‘Must be serious. Call the doctor! Number’s in that console thing in the kitchen, second drawer down. Name’s Stevens, and don’t give him a choice about whether he comes out for a house call or not. On second thoughts, I’ll make the call. Might have to remind him that his surgery got built in double-quick time thanks to my input. Never hurts to call in a favour!’

  They had been walking to the kitchen, and while Elizabeth filled a glass with water and hunted down the tablets James telephoned the doctor and managed to turn a simple case of overwork combined with a virus of sorts into a medical emergency.

  Andreas wasn’t going to be impressed with the fuss, she thought. He wasn’t the sort who enjoyed being vulnerable and he was so convinced of his own physical invincibility that she half-expected to find him out of the bed and fully dressed to return to his work.

  He wasn’t. In fact, he barely spared her a glance as she placed the tablets and water on the table next to his bed, just waving her away and rolling onto his side.

  ‘You should at least take these.’ Elizabeth tapped him on his shoulder and he rolled back to face her, dislodging the covers as he heaved his big body up.

  ‘Okay, Ms Nightingale.’

  ‘It’s for your own good,’ Elizabeth said stiffly. ‘I know you think you’re invincible, but you’re not, and these will help you to feel better.’ She watched the ripple of his muscles as he raised the glass to his lips and swallowed back b
oth tablets at once. ‘And I think I ought to warn you that James insisted on calling the doctor, even though I told him that there’s nothing wrong with you.’

  ‘How do you know that there’s nothing wrong with me? Are you a qualified doctor?’

  ‘Well, no, but…’

  ‘I feel terrible.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s probably just a combination of too much work, too little sleep and a bit of a bug.’

  Andreas gave a snort of scepticism at her diagnosis. ‘I think what I have is more than just a bit of a bug.’ He looked at her fidgeting by the door and frowned. ‘I’m burning up. You said so yourself.’

  ‘The tablets should take care of that.’

  ‘You’d better bring me my laptop. No, scratch that. For once I don’t feel up to reading reports.’ He lay back and closed his eyes while Elizabeth wondered whether this was her form of dismissal. ‘I think I need something to eat,’ he told her just as she was about to slip quietly away. ‘Nothing too heavy. And bring me my mobile. I need to make a few calls to cancel arrangements for the weekend. There’s no way I intend to head up to London when I’m at death’s door.’

  Elizabeth’s mouth twitched but she stifled her insane desire to giggle sufficiently to ask him what sort of not-too-heavy meal he had in mind.

  ‘Use your imagination, Florence Nightingale. And you’d better tell James to stay well away in case what I’ve got is infectious.’

  ‘So it’s okay if I catch it?’

  ‘You’ve spent the afternoon closeted in a room with me. If you’re going to catch it, then you already have, and anyway that’s a good thing. Means you can transfer operations to the bedroom if you have to.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘Of course I’m kidding,’ Andreas said irritably. ‘Now, run along. I’m going to grab a few minutes’ sleep.’

  This time, she recognised the signs of dismissal—namely the fact that she was faced with his broad, bronzed back and all signs of a man settling down for some shut-eye.

  ‘He’s being very dramatic,’ she grumbled to James, having made a hurried trip back up to the bedroom so that she could deliver his mobile phone, and then having spent half an hour making several calls to clients with whom social meetings had been arranged for the weekend. Scrambled eggs had been requested and had been put on hold while a frazzled doctor disappeared upstairs to conduct what she personally thought would be a pointless examination.

  ‘He’s never ill.’ James was comfortable in his favourite padded chair by the bay window of the small snug off the kitchen.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Elizabeth said tartly. ‘What germs would have the temerity to set up camp near him?’

  ‘Your colour’s all up.’ James’s blue eyes were shrewd as he took in her flushed face. ‘Hope you’re not about to pick up whatever damn fool bug he’s got. Go have yourself a bath, woman. Get changed into your comfy clothes. Can’t imagine what possessed you to start wearing fancy gear just because you’re taking a few notes for that godson of mine!’

  ‘It’s not fancy gear,’ she said awkwardly. ‘But, yes, I’ll go change. I’ll make it quick.’ She spontaneously dropped a kiss on the old man’s cheek, and he huffed and puffed to conceal his thrill at that passing gesture of affection.

  ‘And don’t forget that game of chess!’ he barked to her departing back. ‘Though I’ll quite understand if you want to put an old fool like me on hold in favour of a good-looking man upstairs. Don’t go thinking that I don’t know my place in life!’

  If only James knew, she thought as she very quickly showered and changed into a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved cotton top, just how secure his place in her life was. So secure that she had begun thinking that maybe she would never admit her real identity to him. Would it be such a sin to do everything within her power to avoid jeopardising what she had—a wonderful relationship with a man who only months ago she had not even known existed? Where would be the harm in just quietly destroying those incriminating letters? In no longer having to live with the fear of wondering how James would react to revelations that could destroy his faith in her and rock the foundations of his fragile existence.

  She put aside the nagging questions as she hurried downstairs just in time to catch the doctor’s final words, that Andreas was suffering from little more than a bad bout of the end-of-summer cold that was doing its rounds through the country.

  ‘There,’ she told James. ‘Didn’t I tell you? Nothing at all to worry about.’ This she said as she poured three beaten eggs into a frying pan and stuck a couple of pieces of bread into the toaster.

  ‘You seem to be the one pandering to his needs,’ James pointed out with his usual lack of diplomacy.

  ‘Just obeying orders,’ Elizabeth informed him loftily. ‘The Great One wanted something to eat.’

  ‘Go tell him that your secretarial duties are done for the day! Maria can take the food up.’

  ‘Well, it’s done now.’ She shrugged while an uneasy voice in her head told her that she wanted to take the food up to Andreas. ‘Besides, Maria will be busy, you know? Getting your supper ready.’

  She refused to look at James as she piled the food onto a tray, but she was keenly aware of his penetrating blue gaze on her. She exited the kitchen to exuberant exclamations about perhaps adding a flower in a vase to the picture-perfect tray in her hands.

  Thoroughly disgruntled, her first words as she entered the bedroom were, ‘Apparently you’re not at death’s door,’ followed quickly by, ‘Why on earth are the curtains drawn? It’s like a morgue in here!’

  She walked across to the curtains and pulled them open, allowing the weak light to stream through. The brilliant weather had culminated in the usual British summer of hazy sunshine interspersed with plentiful supplies of rain. Through the windows, she could see the lawns had not quite managed to shrug off the day’s earlier downpour, the grass glistened down below.

  ‘Where is that softly spoken, blushing, awkward girl who used to work here?’ Andreas squinted at the invading light. ‘When did she get replaced by a nagging harridan?’

  ‘I’ve brought you something to eat. As ordered.’

  ‘Requested,’ Andreas amended, watching as she went to fetch the tray which she had set down on the chest-of-drawers. He didn’t have to look at her at all. Not really. Somehow, the shape of her had become imprinted on his mind. Her breasts were big for someone who wasn’t very tall. In fact, bigger than Amanda’s, who had a good six inches over Elizabeth in height. Her eyes were luminous green, and refreshingly she didn’t bat them at him in a girlish attempt to get herself noticed. And that hair…always tied up and clipped into order, but rebellious tendrils held the promise of luxuriant abundance. He wondered what it would feel like to yank out those pins, clips and grips and curl his fingers into its burnished, coppery thickness.

  He pushed himself into a sitting position so that she could place the tray on his lap, but when she would have left the room he patted a space next to him, although he wasn’t looking at her as he dug his fork into the egg,

  ‘I’m not well,’ he said piously. ‘I really could do with the company.’

  ‘You have a cold.’ She eyed the vacant spot his hand had signalled and gingerly perched at the very edge of the mattress. ‘I don’t think it’s anything to get too worried about.’

  ‘More than just a cold,’ Andreas corrected.

  ‘But, thank goodness, your appetite’s not affected.’

  ‘It’s important to build up my immune system.’ He glanced at her with lazy interest. ‘You surprise me. I thought you might have been a little more sympathetic. You’re a self-proclaimed carer, after all.’

  ‘And I thought that the last person on the face of the earth who would succumb to feeling sorry for himself over a cold would be you!’ Bei
ng this close to him was making her feel jittery. The way he was looking at her was making her feel jittery as well; his dark eyes shuttered and brooding as he made short work of the food she had placed in front of him. ‘I guess, since your motto is “why put in one-hundred percent when you can put in one hundred and ten?” you maybe feel that you have to be extreme even when you’re a bit under the weather. You’ll just be more under the weather than anybody else!’

  Andreas gave it some thought. ‘You know me better than I know myself,’ he murmured, and she reddened, immediately lost for words. In truth the tablets had kicked in, but now that he was in bed, being brought food like an invalid, he was enjoying the sensation of just taking time out to stand still. When was the last time his brain hadn’t been on the move? When was the last time he hadn’t been firing on all cylinders at a pace that left everybody else trailing behind? The doctor had told him that his lifestyle had opened him up to a virus, that often times it was only when a person slowed down that the weight of constant stress and constant activity finally caught up. Working down in Somerset had been that slowing down, and, hell, it felt good not to be doing anything at all.

  He would never live it down with his godfather, who had always made it a habit to lecture him on his frenetic lifestyle. So, naturally, he would keep the doctor’s pearls of wisdom to himself.

  And in the meantime….

  ‘Maybe you’re right. I’m not equipped to deal with illness.’

  ‘At least not unless you’re hamming it up and behaving like a drama queen,’ she couldn’t resist qualifying. ‘Now, I think I ought to leave you to get some sleep.’

  ‘I don’t need sleep. In fact, it’s the last thing I need. I should really catch up on some emails.’

  ‘Work is the last thing you should be thinking about—as you’re bed-ridden.’ She couldn’t stop herself from smirking at his overblown response to a light fever and headache, although there was something stupidly endearing about it all the same.

  ‘You’re right,’ Andreas agreed with alacrity. ‘You’re going to fall off the bed if you get any closer to the side. Don’t worry—I won’t bite.’ He paused to consider that rider and gave a wolfish smile that sent a little tingling shiver through her. His keen eyes took in that automatic response, indicating an awareness to which she would never admit. From being nervous and on edge around him, she had slotted into her role of secretary, and her efficiency, her composure when involved in work, was so ingrained that a great deal of her edginess had been pushed into the background. Only at times like these, when she couldn’t call upon that ingrained composure to protect her, was he keenly aware of her awkward, very girlish and excessively feminine responses.