Bachelor's Family

by Jessica Steele

  'So she said,' Alex replied solemnly, and asked, 'It's still only temporary, then, this job?'

  Fabienne realised that her parents had told him all there was to tell. 'It's only for the school summer holidays,' she confirmed.

  'What about when Rachel returns to her own home? She'll probably need-'

  'Her own ,:home?' Fabienne queried. While comprehending that Alex had seen that Rachel was not well, somehow she had never given thought to Rachel's living anywhere but Brackendale. 'I didn't know...'

  Alex gave her a superior-brother grin. 'You haven't been asking the right questions, kid,' he teased. Then, giving a quick glance to his watch, 'See you,'

  he stated, gave her a hug and kiss, and went on his way.

  Fabienne went back indoors, wondering that she had just assumed that Rachel had always lived at Brackendale with her husband and children, when it was much more natural that she and her family would have a home of their own.

  Not that it was important in any way other than to make her realise that Vere must have invited Rachel to stay for a while after the death of his stepbrother. Rachel had disappeared from the drawing-room when Fabienne returned. She guessed that she had gone up to her room, but Fabienne was not downhearted about that. In her view it had been a great step forward that she had got her out of the house at all that morning. And the way Rachel's inbred good manners had surfaced over how dreadful she must be feeling when Alex had been there was another bonus. As, too, was the fact that Alex-no doubt by the gentle probing that would be his way-had been able to get her talking. She doubted that Rachel had volunteered the information that she was widowed, but it said a lot for Alex's kindness of manner that he'd got her to open up sufficiently to reveal that much-and more.

  Rachel was still in her room when it came time to go and collect the children.

  Fabienne decided, as 'mother's help' took on a new meaning, not to push her luck with helping Rachel through her depression any more that day. So, instead of knocking on her door and asking her to come with her, she went alone to the school.

  She was much heartened, though, when Rachel joined her and the children as they went down to dinner.

  Vere was already in the dining-room and Fabienne saw his glance encompass them all as they went in and took their places at the dinner table.

  Had he noticed that Rachel had found sufficient will to wash her hair at some time that afternoon? she wondered. Did he see that she was making every effort she could? That she had even bothered to put on a little make-up?

  There was little he missed, she realised a moment later. 'I see you made it into Haychester,' he looked directly at Fabienne to remark. She was intrigued. 'How do you know that?'

  He shrugged and, with a glance to Kitty, whose feet were tucked under the table well out of sight, 'How else? My pretty little niece, here, is wearing a pair of socks the pink of which I would swear I've never seen before.' Kitty chuckled in delight, and Fabienne stifled a laugh. Her mild suggestion that another shade of sock might go better with her purple frock had met with a tearful expression, so she had not pressed it. Fabienne could do nothing about the merriment that lit her eyes, though. Eyes that all at once linked with cool grey eyes that held hers and which, to her mind, did not look cool at all. A moment later Vere took his glance from her to engage Rachel in conversation, and Fabienne was scoffing at any notion that there had been any warm look in his eyes. There was a warmer look in his eyes now, admittedly, but that was for Rachel, and not for her.

  Her breath suddenly and unexpectedly caught. Was that warm look in his eyes for his stepsister-in-law warm-encouraging, or warm-er-personal? With something of a jolt, Fabienne realised that she did not care for that last thought at all. She was never more glad than when the meal came to an end and she was able to leave the dining-room.

  She was going along the hall to the stairs when she heard a phone ringing and Vere went to answer it. She and Rachel were ambling past the study door, the children already halfway up the stairs, when Vere came from his study.

  'There's a call for you,' he announced. Fabienne looked to Rachel, but Rachel was walking on. 'For you!' Vere clipped.

  'Me!' she murmured, startled, and was nonplussed for the momentas much by the impatient look on her employer's face as anything. 'Shall I:..?'

  'Take it in here,' he instructed, and stood to one side.

  Fabienne entered the large, businesslike study musing on how she had given her parents this number but had not thought that they would use it.

  Particularly now that Alex had paid her a visit and had no doubt reported back that they had nothing to worry about. Besides, she would be seeing them at the weekend!

  She picked up the phone. 'Hello,' she said, and discovered that it was neither of her parents, but her old friend Tom Walton.

  'Hi!' he answered. 'I rang your home quite forgetting you'd said on Saturday that you were starting a Monday-to-Friday job in darkest Berkshire this week. Your mother gave me your phone number-how's it going?'

  'Great!' she replied enthusiastically, even with her back to the door very much aware of Vere Tolladine somewhere in the vicinity. 'Er--I'm just about to read the children a bedtime story, actually,' she hinted.

  'In other words, I haven't got time for a chat so goodbye until Saturday, Tom Walton.'

  She had to laugh. 'Saturday?' she queried.

  'I knew I was right to ring to give you a reminder. We're playing boule and you're in my team.'

  'Can't wait!' she laughed.

  She still had a pleased smile on her mouth when a minute or so later she ended the call and turned, to find Vere standing not two yards away. A little taken aback-clearly he must have been listening to her every word-she stared at him. And just could not believe her ears when, 'Who was that?' he enquired tersely.

  A friend!' she replied, her tone equally terse, and saw his lips compress.

  'Boyfriend?' he gritted.

  Good grief, if he'd said no male callers'-not that Tom Walton was a 'caller'-she would not have been surprised, for that was what his expression clearly said.

  'Of that gender,' she retorted spiffily and, uncaring that he appeared to care for neither her tone nor the fact that she might have a boyfriend, she went past him. Talk about Middle Ages, she fumed.

  By morning Fabienne had cooled down enough to be able to see that it was perhaps not the fact that she might have a boyfriend that had made Vere so disgruntled-looking, but that he was concerned to guard the twins. He was a wealthy man, so the security of anyone living in his home was paramount. Look at how quickly he'd had her checked out before inviting her to come and help with a pair of vulnerable children. It was obvious to her then that, since she and her background had checked out OK, it followed that he would need to know more details of any male friend who might take it into his head to pay her a visit.

  Fabienne had just decided that she had been an idiot not to have seen all this the night before when-very, very quietly-her bedroom door began to open, and a moment later John-shy, timid, and so very unsure of himself-stood there. 'Hello, treasure.' She greeted him with a smile and, because her heart ached for him, 'Got a hug for me?' she asked.

  In a second he had run over to her. She leaned over and put her arms around him, and he gave her a tight but swift hug, and as wordlessly as he'd come in he went out again, quietly closing the door after him. She had been here less than five days, she reflected, but already both the children had taken over a part of her heart. For, even though she tried to be so grown-up, Fabienne had caught Kitty so many times looking lost and sad, just like her twin.

  Fabienne determined as she got out of bed that she was going to do everything in her power to give the twins more confidence and all she could to take some of the sadness out of their little faces.

  In such determined mood she got them washed and school-uniformed and, aware by now that Rachel might surface only when the effects of her sleeping-pill had worn off, she took the children down to breakfast. Vere low
ered his newspaper as they entered the breakfast-room. 'Good morning.'

  Fabienne added her pleasant greeting to that of the twins-she was going to be pleasant in front of them, even if it killed her. But she found that she had no need to pretend a pleasantness when, a hint of a smile touching his mouth, Vere looked from the twins and rested his cool grey eyes on her. Still with his eyes on her-those eyes straying to her shiny, long black hair and back to her large brown eyes again-'Good morning, you three,' he answered genially. As the children took their places at the table and she too sat down, Fabienne could not help but wonder what it was about this man that his

  mood could-or should-so affect her own mood. She shrugged such unfathomable thoughts away and concentrated on the children's breakfast needs. Which did not take long because all either of them wanted was a small bowl of cereal, which they disposed of while their uncle asked them various questions about what lessons they were scheduled to do that day.

  He's kind, she couldn't help thinking. Well, he is to them, she qualified as she stared at the firmness of his jaw, that strength in his face that said while he might be kind to children and dumb animals, cross him and you would see a very different side of him. Without a doubt Fabienne knew that, if he had to be, he could be ruthless.

  Her eyes went to his and as their eyes met, so a sudden flush of colour stained her face-he had been watching her watching him! Hurriedly she glanced to see that both the children had taken all the breakfast they wanted. Damn him, damn him to hell, she thought in quite some confusion.

  She never blushed, yet twice she had done it with him there to see. 'Kitty, John, why don't you both go and see if Mrs Hobbs has your lunches packed ready for you?' she suggested as she fought desperately to get herself under control. What was it about this man? 'You know Mrs Hobbs likes to see you before you go off for the day.'

  Like the darlings they most often were they obediently trotted off and, having engineered the minute of private conversation she needed with her employer, Fabienne found herself pinned by his waiting look that plainly asked, since she had gone to the kitchen with the children for the last three mornings, what she had on her mind.

  Fabienne wasted not another moment but wished Vere had not caught her making a study of him, nor witnessed that cursed blush. It made her feel awkward when she had no need to. 'I was wondering,' she spoke up, 'does my weekend off start on Friday night or Saturday morning?' Oh, crumbs, she didn't like the sudden look of hostility that came to his face.

  'Weekend off?'

  'Grief, you'd think it was all news to him! 'We never-er-actually got around to discussing it.' She stayed in there, determined not to be put off by his attitude. 'Hrmph!' he grunted and, giving her the full blast of a piercing grey look, 'Last night's phonecall has nothing to do with your sudden desire to rush off?' he snarled.

  God give her strength, she prayed, as that sensation of wanting to thump him one took her again. 'I've a date tomorrow, if you could call it that,' she

  concurred sweetly. 'But the advert you put in the paper said weekends off.

  I merely want to know if I-'

  'You do intend to come back?' he grated.

  'Who could keep away?' she retaliated, and was on the receiving end of what she considered to be a most murderous look before Vere Tolladine angrily got up from the table.

  She was angry, too, but was in no way prepared for his curt, blunt and-to her mind-most nasty and uncalled-for, 'Go when the hell you like!' as he strode from the room.

  Swine! Perfect pig of a man! she fumed-then in a flash had the whole of her anger negated when a sound alerted her to the fact that she had company, and she turned to see a worried-looking John standing there.

  'Are you going to come back, Fabienne?' he asked, his gorgeous blue eyes on the brink of shedding tears, she could tell.

  'Oh, darling, of course I am,' she crooned, going over to him and putting her arms around him.

  It was on John's account that later that morning Fabienne rang her mother and told her not to expect her until the next day. So much for her determination to do all she could to boost the twins' confidence. Quite patently, little John had overheard enough of her conversation with his uncle to have his confidence that she would be there for him once the weekend was over shattered.

  In contrast to the day before, Fabienne found that Rachel was having such a down day that even to so much as leave her room was an effort. Which made it just as well that she was there for the children, Fabienne realised, for, having presented herself early at the school gates-and run the gauntlet of Lyndon Davies again trying to get her to go out to dinner with him-Fabienne found that, when she took the children to dinner that night, they had the dining-room to themselves.

  'Uncle Vere's probably meeting a lady,' Kitty opined, her mother's absence accepted without reference.

  'I expect he is,' Fabienne smiled-but oddly found she had never felt less like smiling.

  To her mind, Vere was still a swine. Though she felt she had enough evidence of his feelings of responsibility where the children were concerned to know

  that he must have covered the eventuality of neither her, nor Rachel, nor himself being there for dinner that night. No doubt Mrs Hobbs would have given the children their evening meal in her neat but cosy kitchen. Fabienne continued to supervise the children after dinner, and went with them, too, when they went to say goodnight to their mother. 'Anything I can do to help?' she stayed to whisper to Rachel as the twins left her. Rachel's eyes were red-rimmed and she was all too obviously having a bad time of it.

  Rachel shook her head. 'I can come back and chat, play cards, anything you like?' she tried again.

  'Please, no. Leave me,' Rachel answered. 'Are you sure?'

  'I'm sure. It's-I'm.. .I'll take a pill soon and have an early night.' Rachel did her best to smile as she looked at Fabienne's concerned expression. 'Don't worry.

  Although it may not seem like it, I care too much about Kitty and John-not to mention myself-to take more than the prescribed dose.'

  With that Fabienne had to be satisfied, and she had to leave her, feeling saddened that yesterday Rachel had seemed to be making a little progress.

  She pinned a bright smile on her face and went into the playroom where the children were making a half-hearted attempt to tidy up the paints they had been using after school.

  'I'll do that later!' she declared cheerfully. 'Now, who's first for a story tonight?' Fabienne finally went to her own bed in a restless frame of mind.

  She found she could not sleep and sat up in bed again, put on the light and tried to immerse herself in her paperback. But she could not settle. On the one hand thoughts of John and how he had seemed more anxious than ever bothered her. On the other-was Vere Tolladine coming home tonight, or wasn't he? Not that she cared, but...

  She tossed him irritatedly out of her mind and dwelt on young John, again feeling that his overhearing some of her conversation with his uncle that morning might have quite a lot to do with his present state of anxiety. With her limited knowledge of children it seemed to her that, having lost his father, stability in his young life was what the little boy needed. He had taken to her, it seemed, appeared to be trusting her more and more each day. But, thanks to overhearing his uncle's 'You do intend to come back?' that morning, the poor little scrap was taking some reassuring.

  Impatiently, Vere Tolladine back in her head again, she put down her book and put out her light. Damn the wretched man, she fumed, and tried for sleep. It was all his fault.

  Fabienne fell into a kind of surface sleep with dark, unhappy shapes and images in her head. Something awakened her, and at first she thought she was still asleep. Then she heard a cry, a distressed shout-and she was out of bed like a shot.

  On winged feet she went flying down the landing, illuminated by one wall-light left on in a far corner, and knew, even before that cry came again, which room that sound had come from. In a flash she had the door open and was in John's room. He was awake an
d much distressed.

  In moments she was over by his bed, sitting on the edge of it, an arm around his shoulders. 'What's the matter, darling?' she crooned softly, her face close to his in the dim glow of his nightlight as she looked into his deeply troubled, tear-drenched eyes.

  'I w-was falling over,' he hiccupped shakenly.

  'You've had a bit of a bad dream, that's all,' she soothed, though 'ghastly nightmare' seemed more aptly to cover it, she thought, and was in the middle of giving him a comforting cuddle when she realised they had company. 'Is this a private party or can anyone join in?' Vere queried in a low tone. Fabienne looked up to the shirt-and trouser-clad man who was now moving a chair near to the bed, and unexpectedly she felt her heart start to pound. 'John had a nasty dream,' she replied. 'What time is it?' Now why had she asked that?

  'Around two,' he replied.

  And he'd just got in! For goodness' sake-she pulled herself together. It was Friday night! What did she expect? That a man who worked as hard as he must would not play equally hard? She put her mind to finer things. 'Do you know where the kitchen is?' she questioned as John, no longer crying, snuggled up against her.

  Vere favoured her with a raised-eyebrow look. 'Did I volunteer for something?' He caught on quickly. 'One of us wants to make a small glass of warm milk.'

  'Then I'm sure it must be me,' he drawled, and left his chair, leaned over to ruffle his nephew's hair gently, and ambled out.

  For all he did not seem to hurry he was back, with a glass of warmed milk, in no time-and John was nodding drowsily. How to tell him he'd had a wasted journey? There was no need. As ever quick to catch on, Vere took one glance at the now comforted youngster and, without more ado, drank the milk. And Fabienne, all at once more light-hearted than she had felt for quite some hours, was hard put to it not to burst out laughing. Fear that she might disturb the almost-asleep boy if laughing made her body shake stopped her, and she gently eased him down the bed, placed a light kiss on his brow and let go her hold on him.