by Jane Corrie
She looked away from the challenge in his eyes. `Of course not!' but she felt a tiny prick at the back of her eyes that had nothing to do with homesickness. Why did he have to be so hard on her? She knew it was tiredness that was making her weak, but all the same, he could have shown some understanding, couldn't he? she thought, as she stared down at the salad in front of her. She could no more eat that than fly straight back home, but chance would be a fine thing.
She heard Mr Leon tell Lily and Frank that they could manage from now on—in other words, they were to leave them to it. She heard the door close behind them, then there was a tiny silence before he addressed Rebecca. 'Look, it's obvious you're ready for bed. Leave that. Lily will understand. Ask her to bring you up a nightcap,' he added kindly.
Rebecca needed no second bidding and was out of her chair and heading towards the door. before Janus could put his oar in with another sarcastic remark and then she really would burst out in tears, but she wasn't going to get away that easily, as she found Janus beside her when she reached the door. `Lily's still busy with the dinner,' he said abruptly. `I'll show you up.'
If this was his way of apologising for his earlier remarks, Rebecca could have done without it, and she silently followed him up the grand staircase determined not to show him how wretched she felt. Tomorrow, she thought, she could take its but not tonight.
As if sensing her feelings, he left her at the door
of the small suite. Nine-thirty breakfast,' he said breezily, 'then work, my girl. You won't have time to moon,' and left her.
With barely a glance at the cosy little sitting room she had walked into from the hall, Rebecca went through to the bedroom, and passed a small toilet suite complete with shower on the way, cut off from the bedroom by a bevelled glass door, but she was too tired to appreciate the fact that she would have plenty of privacy. All she wanted now was to collapse into bed and sleep the hours away. Soon she was undressed and into her nightgown, and she never remembered climbing into bed; the rest was just automatic.
At nine o'clock the following morning, she was awakened by Lily, who had brought her morning tea and placed the tray down on the bedside table. There had been no need to actually wake Rebecca, for she was a light sleeper and had awakened at the almost apologetic light knock Lily had "given before entering the bedroom.
She sat up in bed and sipped her tea as she watched Lily draw the curtains back, letting the pale sunshine float in the room, and saw with relief that she had abandoned that stiff uniform she had worn the night before and now wore a flowered overall, and as she walked back ,towards the bed, and saw that Rebecca had finished her tea, she offered to pour her another, with a smooth comment that she had plenty of time. 'We say nine thirty breakfast,' she told Rebecca, 'but it's only a strict rule when Mr Leon or Mr Janus have to be in the city early, and there's no rush' today.'
When Lily had taken the tray away, Rebecca considered whether to take her time, or whether to be prompt at the table, in spite of what Lily had said, that implied that whatever she chose to do would be all right. That was Lily's view, she thought dryly, and it would not be her boss's view, not if she knew Janus Leon, she thought, and throwing off the bedclothes, she got out of bed and made for the shower.
Ten minutes later, refreshed, not only by a good night's sleep but an invigorating shower, Rebecca went down to the dining room to find Janus and his father just about to sit down, and thanked her lucky stars that she had made the right choice. She was a working girl, not a pampered guest as Lily had implied, and she answered their 'Good mornings' with just the right shade of deference, although Janus's had been an absentminded one, probably working out the next step in the plot, she thought, as she sat beside him at the table.
The smell of eggs and bacon drifting up from the cover of the serving dish Lily carried in as soon as they were seated reminded Rebecca that she was hungry and would do full justice this time to Lily's cooking.
The conversation was desultory at first, with Mr Leon waiting until Rebecca had finished her breakfast and was on her second cup of coffee before sounding her out about a sightseeing tour of the city at the earliest opportunity, which was agreeable from Rebecca's point of view, but not Janus's, who seemed to take umbrage at his father's arrangements for Rebecca's amusement. 'That will
have to wait,' he said tersely. 'We've some work to get through first. There's plenty of time for that sort of thing. It's not as if she was off next week,' he added firmly.
Rebecca caught Mr Leon's puzzled glance at his son, and saw the light shrug he gave as if to say it was beyond him, but he could not resist asking, `Weekends, too?'
Janus gave a shrug in reply, and his abrupt, 'Very probably,' showed his impatience at the question. Now that that subject was dropped, Rebecca was left alone with her thoughts, Janus and his father discussing the subject of the film to be made, during which she learnt that Guy Tindall had secured the leading role, something that Janus had omitted to tell her, and after his finding Daniel Dupre in Rebecca's company that evening, complete with the tiara, this was not surprising, for in spite of the plausible explanation Daniel had given, Rebecca was sure that Janus had had his reservations on the matter, and was taking no chances of Rebecca being encouraged to slip back into bad habits!
No sooner was this thought in her mind than another followed swiftly. Janus had made it quite clear that Rebecca was there in he capacity of a secretary only, and had no intention of things getting out of hand, such as her being mistaken for a likeable trustworthy person to be treated as one of the family, and recalling his harsh, 'Don't leave the hotel,' order in Madeira, she wondered what steps he would take to keep her under observation now that they were in his own home.
Rebecca studied her coffee cup with its fine gold band round the rim, but her thoughts were far away and the conversation between Janus and his father went on unheeded by her. It would not take long for the book they were working on to be finished, she told herself, and come what may, she was getting out. No way would Janus persuade her to stay, and in the present conditions he would surely be glad to see the back of her. He could not have thought things out properly, she argued silently. It was 'different in a strange country, when it was reasonably easy to keep a check on her, but it was different here, and as time went on could become positively embarrassing for both of them.
She felt better when she had made her mind up. She must have been living in cloud cuckoo land to have hoped for better things. There would be no trouble in getting away. Janus had given his word, and no matter how furious he was, he would keep it.
When she glanced up, she saw that both men were looking at her in an expectant fashion, and she realised that she must have been asked a question but had been too full of her thoughts to know what it was, and apologised swiftly, asking for it to be repeated.
`Sometimes it takes a couple of days,' Janus remarked with irony, meaning jet-lag, Rebecca knew, and she flushed. 'I asked if you were ready for off,' he said. 'I want that book finished.'
Rebecca wanted the book finished too, and she was only too pleased to follow him out of the dining room and up to the study.
During the morning there were several telephone calls. Word, it seemed, had got around that Janus was back, and the following day brought a lot of post, most of it invitations to this or that function.
There was another embarrassing interlude that morning at the breakfast table when Janus and his father took a hurried glance through the mail, with Mr Leon commenting lightly that Rebecca would get plenty of parties in—or didn't she go to parties? he challenged Janus.
This time Rebecca was alert, and got in quickly, `As a matter of fact, I don't. I'm not a bit social, I'm afraid. Give me a good book and I'm happy.'
Janus nodded his approval of this declaration, and abruptly changed the conversation to a lecture be was being asked to give to the Rotarian Society, and Rebecca drew a sigh of relief. That was one hurdle out of the way. It was a question of marking time until the boo
k was finished, and then it wouldn't matter.
It was going to seem odd, of course, with her making tracks for home after only a fortnight, when she envisaged the end of the book, but that was Janus's worry, he'd have to think up something, and with his imagination she had no doubt that it would not strain his brain power. It was a pity, she thought, that she had told his father that she had no surviving kinfolk back in the U.K., but there could always be a trusted friend who needed help, she told herself.
Now that Janus had declared his intention of settling down at home, his father had officially retired from the city, taking his doctor's advice that
it was time he eased up a bit, particularly in his profession, where constant vigilance was the keynote to success or failure, but until now he had made no final decision, because he had needed work to keep him occupied in what must have been a lonely private life.
So the days passed, with Rebecca fully occupied with work, but never forgetting her resolution to leave, once the book was with the publishers.
There was a slight difference now in her working area, in that meetings were confined to other venues, which Janus would attend, leaving Rebecca at the home base, ensuring that it stayed a home base and not an office address. This state of affairs suited her, since there was no point in her becoming envbroiled in other matters other than the book work. It also ensured that she would not be included in any social affairs resulting from the renewal of old business acquaintances, who would have felt obliged to invite her to various social functions.
She might have been, content to leave matters as they were, but it was plain to see that Mr Leon was not. He was not only perplexed, but exasperated by what he would have called their strange relationship. For Janus to bring Rebecca all that way, and then expect her to live the life of a recluse, solely for his own benefit, was an unthinkable state of affairs, and she knew he was keeping a watchful eye out for any indication which would explain such a state of affairs.
Had Rebecca been an older woman, or even a plainer one, an answer might have been forthcom-
ing, but she was young and, there was no denying, good-looking enough to have caused a stampede among the young bloods if let loose on the community. These thoughts inevitably pointed to only one conclusion, as Rebecca had known it would, hence the watchful eye kept on them during the evening meal, or when Janus had a spare evening at home, but all too often, sadly from Mr Leon's point of view, Rebecca would retire to her rooms leaving the men to their own devices, and this was right, she felt, since Janus was kept busy during the day, while Mr Leon pottered around the house, devoting his time to hobbies so long neglected, and such an evening provided both father and son with time to catch up on news and perhaps a few reminiscences that Rebecca could take no part in.
If she hoped that Mr Leon would leave well alone, she was due for a disappointment, for realising that his tactics of vigilance were getting him nowhere, he decided on another course of action, which he tried first on Janus, by hinting broadly one evening that as he had a free evening why didn't Janus take Rebecca to see a show? and Rebecca, after her first annoyance at Mr Leon's obvious tactics to get to the root of the matter, found Janus's bright blue stare on her challenging her to dare to accept, for his father's benefit only, she knew, and she went into her party piece about having to get down to writing back home—she had put it off long enough, she explained with a smile that took what might have been considered a snub out of the reply.
With one down, and one to go, Rebecca was not surprised during taking tea with Mr Leon the fol-
lowing afternoon, when Janus had gone to another business conference, to find herself on the end of what might be considered personal questions, such as how had a girl with her looks managed to escape the matrimonial net. Did she have something on the male of the species? because if she did, she must remember that one could not class them all in the same category—and a little more on these lines, showing Rebecca he had come to the conclusion that she had been badly hurt in the past and did not intend to trust another man.
He was partially right, she thought ironically. She did not trust men, and particularly his son, not that there was any fear of him getting in any way sentimental over her, for where she was concerned the damage had already been done. She would look at no other man, but that was nothing to do with his father.
She drew in a deep breath. There was no help for it but to get things straight once and for all, for in a matter of days the book would be finished and it would look odd if she suddenly announced her departure, without some explanation. 'I'm not intending to stay permanently, Mr Leon,' she said quietly, seeing the way his brown eyes showed his surprise. 'You see,' she added carefully, 'when your son first approached the matter, We were in the middle of this latest book, and he had no wish to change' secretaries at that stage. He was also hoping I would agree to work for him permanently,' she smiled. 'I'm a good secretary, you see,' she added bluntly, 'but however much I enjoyed working for him, I wasn't prepared to commit myself to per-
.
manent work so far from home. It was agreed that I should give it a try and should I decide to stay, all well and good, but if otherwise, then he was perfectly agreeable to my returning home.'
It was a long speech, and Rebecca saw that Mr Leon was having trouble in accepting the bare facts of the matter, let alone sending all his calculations up in smoke. 'You're homesick?' he asked bluntly.
Rebecca had a job to stop her feelings coming out into the open, but she managed it and nodded, then managed to smile. 'Stupid, isn't it?' she said in a light voice. 'I've no family, as I told you, but there's several good friends I've got left.' She met his sympathetic look squarely. 'Under the circumstances, I mean the terms I came under, I shall be leaving in about a week. When the book goes to the publisher,' she ended firmly.
But you've seen nothing of the country!' Mr Leon exclaimed in a shocked voice. 'Not even the city, and I'm going to see that you do. As soon as that book is off I shall arrange some tours for you—personally, that is,' he added grimly, 'as my son apparently hasn't the time. Don't worry about any business agreement. I feel it's the least we can do. Just promise me you won't dash off on the first plane out,' he said emphatically.
`What have I done now?' Janus's smooth voice came from the door by which he stood. His voice was light, but his, eyes were sparks of fury as they met Rebecca's startled ones, and she wondered how long he had been standing there, certain that he had not just arrived.
`If you don't know, there's not much. point in
my telling you,' muttered his father, and I thought I'd got a bright son!' he went on in a hardly audible voice as he marched out of the lounge.
Janus looked at Rebecca. 'Study,' he commanded grimly, and turned towards the stairs with a purposeful step, confident that Rebecca would automatically follow him, which she did, but it was touch and go until she realised that she might as well get it over with. She was leaving, and there was nothing he could do about it, and she hoped his father would excuse her from keeping her word about staying for the sights!
On arrival in the study, she braced herself for the storm to come. Something on the lines of would she be good enough to inform Janus of any decision that concerned the office work, before discussing it with anyone else, etc, etc; but no such cutting statement was issued. He just pointed to her desk and sat down at his desk, to all intents and purposes ready for work, and this was another surprise for Rebecca, since he rarely dictated in the afternoon, not the book anyway, replies maybe to letters he had received that day, but after a three-hour session in the morning on the book, she had never known him do an afternoon session, certainly not as late as this.
`You want the story finished, don't you?' he said harshly, in answer to her look of surprise when he started dictating.
This produced an ardent nod from Rebecca. She had never wanted anything as much as that, at any time in her life.
`Right, then,' he said sarcastically. 'Let's get on with
it.'
After this rather abrupt order, Rebecca did not find it easy to concentrate. Her thoughts were racing about in her head, personal thoughts that had nothing to do with the story. He was making sure she did not change her mind, she told herself, he had wanted her to go and was not going to miss this chance offered him
All through these speculations, her pen was as busy as her mind, but she did not miss a word, she was too well trained for that, and her query when given a word she had never heard before was spontaneous, and what she had done on countless occasions, and Janus had taken time off to confirm it and usually to spell it out to her, but this time he showed no such politeness and snarled, 'What the hell does it sound like?'
Rebecca's brows raised at this uncalled-for remark, then she considered it, determined not to let him rile her into a fight, not when things were going the way she wanted. 'A sort of boomerang?' she suggested hopefully.
`I should have thought that would have been obvious,' Janus sneered, 'considering where we've got to in the plot.'
Still she did not take the bait. 'Only you could have said boomerang, couldn't you?' she asked patiently, 'and not used the native word.'
Janus gave her a look through narrowed blue eyes, then ran a hand through his chestnut flair in a distracted manner. Now I've lost the trend of the story!' he shouted. 'See what you've done!' he accused her.
`Never mind,' Rebecca replied mistakenly sooth-
ingly. 'With a local secretary this kind of thing won't happen.'
`And neither will anything else!' Janus exploded, then slammed down the book he had made some notes in. 'It's no go!' he said furiously. `And how the hell I'm expected to concentrate under these conditions is beyond me. With this pressure it will take another six months,' he darted a sidewise glance at Rebecca. 'You promised to stay until it was finished, didn't you?' he demanded.
