Bachelor's Family

by Jessica Steele

  'I jolly well-' she tried to get in-only he would not let her.

  'And that,' he clipped, 'includes their moral welfare!' He was suggesting that she was immoral! 'How dare you?' she shrieked.

  'I dare,' he roared, 'because I will not have you embracing your lovers, and God knows who else, in front of those two innocent children!'

  'Then you can go to hell!' she yelled straight back. 'I'm entitled to some free time-and, for that matter, callers!'

  His eyes narrowed, and she waited for him to tell her to pack. But, when she was sure it was in his mind to tell her to be out of her room and out of his house before he returned that night, he took one long and controlling breath, and when he spoke again it was to tell her in clipped fashion, 'I'd be obliged, Miss Preston, if you'd introduce your callers to me first.' He might have control of his fury, but her tongue was still on the loose. 'To see if they're suited to walk these hallowed halls?' she flared. He did not like that, she could tell by the look of dislike he tossed her way. 'Keep that up, and you won't be walking them yourself for much longer!' he threatened, and turned

  abruptly about to go striding out to his car. Fabienne watched him go, and damned him to hell. She might once have told him, 'So fire me,' but she knew precisely then that she just did not want to leave. While he, the moment it suited his book to do so, would throw her out on her ear.

  Damn him, she thought again mutinously and, even as she admitted feeling very close to tears, she'd be hanged if she would ever tell him that her 'caller'

  was her brother.

  CHAPTER SIX

  DAMN him, Fabienne fumed over the next couple of hours. Just because she and Alex had kissed cheeks in front of Kitty and John, she had had to put up with that! Moral welfare! The sauce of it!

  The phone rang; she picked it up. 'Is Rachel there?' grated the man she most liked to hate.

  'No, she's not!' Fabienne retorted bluntly-and slammed down the phone.

  Two minutes later the humour of the situation struck her. Had she really slammed the phone down on the great Vere Tolladine? A weak laugh escaped her-that really was a banging offence! '

  Perhaps, as a servant, she had been meant to go and look for Rachel?

  Mutiny was about her again, but she was spared having to make a decision about whether or not to go looking for Rachel when Rachel came looking for her. Were rang, asking for you,' she informed her.

  'I'll ring him back,' Rachel answered, and tentatively suggested, 'Fancy risking your neck with me at the steering-wheel? I need to go into Haychester for gifts for the children to take to this bun-fight this afternoon.'

  Half an hour later and Fabienne, delighted at the progress Rachel was making, was seated in the passenger seat of Rachel's car as they set out for Haychester.

  Nor did her progress end there for, when on other days a few hours of leaving her depression behind was as much as she could manage, Rachel stayed positive that day for far longer. Rachel it was who drove down to the school to collect the children, and Rachel it was who helped Fabienne wash and change them into, 'party clothes', and Rachel it was-admittedly requesting that Fabienne sit in the car with her, too-who drove them down to the village to the party.

  'Come in and join the madhouse,' Lyndon Davies urged Fabienne while Rachel asked his sister what time they should pick the children up.

  'I think, if you don't mind, I'll decline that one,' she laughed.

  'Yet another of my invitations consigned to the scrap-heap!' he sighed. 'I shall not be deterred,' he brightened to tell her. 'I shall keep on trying.'

  'Do that,' she answered automatically. 'That was a mistake,' she commented to Rachel as they returned to her car.

  'Was that the man who asked you for a date when you first took the children to school?' Rachel asked quietly-and, at the sudden dull change in her tone, Fabienne knew that Rachel had gone back to remember her own, now dead, fast-worker husband. 'I..' Fabienne began helplessly.

  'You drive,' Rachel said, and handed her the keys to her car. All the way back to the house Fabienne racked her brains to try and make Rachel feel better, but nothing she could think to say could minimise the strength of hurt that Rachel was feeling.

  'Rachel, I...' She tried anyway when she halted the car at Brackendale. 'I'm all right, Fabienne, don't worry,' Rachel quickly told her. 'In fact, I've-Seeing that man today, recognising him for a similar type to Nick-though perhaps a lot more sincere-well, it's just sort of shaken me to realise what an idiot I was to fall for that sort of a man in the first place. I must have been blind!' she ended in hushed tones. 'Oh, Rachel,' Fabienne commiserated gently.

  She was not surprised that Rachel went up to her room and stayed there.

  She would not, Fabienne was fairly certain, be down to dinner that night.

  Which, as the next few hours went by, gave her something else to worry about. Neither Kitty nor John were greedy children which, if the parties she'd attended when she'd been a child were anything to go by-and they could not have changed all that much-meant that both of them would be so full up with 'goodies' that they would not want any dinner. And, what was more, it would be plain cruel to insist they come down to the dinner table that night and sit there while she and-it had to be faced-Vere chewed their way through the evening meal.

  Oh, grief, this-to dine alone with Vere-was something she just did not need! It was with mixed feelings, however, that, glancing through her bedroom window when the time came for her to go and collect the twins, she saw Vere's car coming up the drive. As she watched she saw that he had parked it at the front. All too obviously he was dining somewhere that evening-she would have the dining-room to herself.

  Wondering what the dickens was the matter with her that she should at first be upset at the thought that she and Vere would be sole dinner companions that evening, and then should feel quite disturbed-for the want of a better word-that she would not after all have his company, Fabienne impatiently snatched up her car keys and went charging from her room.

  By her calculations, Vere should have been well clear of the hall by then, but somehow it turned out that he was neither in his study nor passing the time of day with Mrs Hobbs in her kitchen.

  Fabienne spotted him the moment she glanced over the landing rail. He was below in the hall, the sound of her bedroom door closing having, it seemed, halted him and caused him to look up.

  He stayed where he was and as her colour flared-God, she'd be glad when she grew out of that-she had no option but to carry on. Which she did at quite some pace. She was undecided as she drew level with the tall, dark-haired- and arrogant with it-brute, if she would speak to him or not.

  However when, unspeaking, she went to go past him, a hand shot out and grabbed her shoulder. Here it comes, she thought as she stopped dead in her tracks. Either he's going to give me a lecture on how one should answer the phone when one's employer is on the other end, or I'm going to get one on the courtesies required when passing one's employer in the hall. He turned her to face him and, as her heart chose that moment to give a wild flutter, she felt herself pinned by his fierce, direct gaze. But he took her to task neither about her telephone manner or anything else, but enquired curtly, 'Where are you off to in such a hurry?' And when, all large brown eyes, she just stared at him and obviously was not quick enough with her answers, 'Do you have some man waiting?' he grunted.

  Again she felt the urge to hit him. She managed to resist that urge, however, though could not resist replying with some of the anger he could so instantly provoke. 'It's not beyond the realms of possibility that I might see Lyndon Davies where I'm going!' she snapped, her glance drawn to Vere's mouth, magnificent still, even though there was presently a look of grimness about it. 'Lyndon Davies?' he barked.

  'He's the man I told you about. The one who asked me for a date when I took Kitty and John to sch-'

  'You're paid to look after the twins, not to flirt with all and sundry!' he snarled before she could finish-and again her right hand itched. 'For yo
ur information,' she flared, 'Lyndon Davies is the uncle of the child whose birthday party it is today. That's where the children are-I'm on my way to collect them!'

  Hostile grey eyes bored into smouldering brown ones as almost toe to toe they glared pugilistically at each other. Then, 'I'll save you the trouble.

  What's the address?' he rapped.

  She had no idea. 'It's the only house in the village with a cluster of balloons attached to the gatepost,' she hurled at him and, as one, they turned their backs on each other.

  Pig! Swine! she fumed, as she stormed back to her room. She wondered if she'd have felt better if she had belted him one. She doubted it, but oh, how she wished that she'd tried.

  Kitty and John were full of the super time they'd had at the party and burst enthusiastically into the playroom to tell her all about it. As expected, neither of them wanted anything else to eat, and when she had got them a little quietened down Fabienne took them to see their mother. Rachel was very subdued, Fabienne felt, though she made tremendous efforts to ask her offspring all the right questions about the party. And as Kitty climbed on to her mother's lap for a cuddle, Rachel made more efforts and suggested she would take care of the twins while Fabienne went and had her dinner.

  She had been right, Fabienne realised, in thinking that Rachel would not be dining downstairs with her that evening. But, when it had been in her mind to have something on a tray too, Fabienne, aware of the giant efforts Rachel was making to beat her depression, suddenly saw that there came a time when one had to back off. A time when she had to stop feeling protective, and leave Rachel to cope the best she could. She would only be downstairs anyway, and then for not much longer than about half an hour.

  'See you later, then,' she agreed, and returned to her own room to wash.

  For some reason, though-and she owned that her thoughts had been far away on her fiend of an employer-she discovered as she went to leave her room that not only had she washed her face and applied a dab of powder and lipstick, but that she had changed as well.

  Of which, as she walked into the dining-room a few minutes later, she was heartily glad. Not that her dress was the most stylish in her wardrobe, but it was long-length, of sage and cream silk, showed off her tiny waist to perfection-and was one Vere Tolladine had never seen before. 'Good evening,' she greeted him civilly, only by the skin of her teeth holding down the words. 'What are you doing here?' She had been positive he would be dining out that evening! To see him standing there over by the window as she went in had completely thrown her. 'Er-Rachel won't be down. She's had a bit of a tiny setback,' she stated hurriedly as she fought to get herself back together again. Really-what was it about this man?

  She saw his eyes flick over her figure without making a meal of it and saw the way he strolled back from the window and waited for her to take her

  seat before he took his own opposite her. That small courtesy was a mark in his favour but, if he was still in the same snarly, brutish mood of a short while ago, she might yet be deciding to eat in her room. But, to her amazement, Vere seemed now to be in the best of humours-either that or his inbred good manners decreed a halt to hostilities while they ate. For his tone was quite affable as he remarked, 'Rachel is otherwise making such excellent progress that an occasional hiccup along the way can only be expected.'

  My word! Add charm to good manners! Feeling a mite stunned, Fabienne took her seat. 'Um-the children,' she volunteered, 'they won't be down either.' She looked across at him, and saw that he wasn't a bit fazed by that piece of information. Indeed, there was a definite gleam of amusement in those direct grey eyes that stared into her large brown ones as he commented drily, 'It's just you and me, then.'

  Was he laughing at her? Was he daring to laugh at her? 'I can report sick if you like!' she assured him snappily, ready and able to be back in her room within a minute.

  But, 'Stop being so prickly,' he instructed her to her astonishment-her, prickly! And, while she was still gaping at that, he picked up his knife and began on his pate starter.

  She threw him a stubborn, mulish look, which was rather wasted because he was not looking, and then, feeling slightly exasperated by this man who, as ever, was adept at disturbing her equilibrium, she picked up her knife too and, quite in the manner of 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em', she tackled Mrs Hobbs' gorgeous home-made pate.

  Somehow, and she never knew exactly how-though she rather suspected it had something to do with the charm of her fellow diner when he forgot to be a bear-by the time they had progressed on to the meat and vegetables course she discovered that her Grossness with Vere had gone. What was more, when she had always considered herself something of a private person, she suddenly woke up to the fact that they had been discussing her for the past five minutes.

  'What about you?' she attempted to put that matter right straight away.

  'Me?' There was again that hint of laughter in his look-only, oddly, she found that she was no longer feeling 'prickly' about it.

  'I've told you my taste in literature and theatre and that, provided my listener's tone-deaf, I'm fantastic playing the piano, but-'

  'How many years did you say you had lessons?'

  'It 'seemed forever,' she laughed. 'Then, one superb, wonderful day, my parents finally cottoned on that they might just as well throw the tuition fees on the fire-their little one was never going to make the big time.' She halted and looked at him, all huge eyes and astonishment. 'How did you do that?'

  'Do what?'

  'You know,' she accused, but had to smile. 'You had me talking about me again!'

  He grinned, actually grinned, and she was fascinated. 'So they cancelled the music teacher and-'

  'Did you have piano lessons?' She refused to talk about herself any more.

  He laughed, and looked at her smiling mouth. 'You know you're beautiful, of course.'

  Her mouth fell open in surprise. There was nothing out of the way in his comment, nothing to get offended about or see as a pass. It was not a pass, just something that seemed to have fallen from his lips because, as he looked at her, that was what he saw-and he'd said so.

  'Why, thank you,' she said, trying desperately hard to take his compliment in the light way it was meant, and to ignore the ridiculous surge of joy she experienced to know that Vere thought her beautiful. 'Er... have you always been interested in finance?' she questioned lightly, in an endeavour to take his attention away from her and on to the subject he was manifestly good at-his work.

  'I seem to have an aptitude for it,' he commented without boasting, then saw that her plate was empty. 'Ready for pudding?' he enquired. Fabienne stacked their used dishes on the trolley for Mrs Hobbs to wheel out later, and accepted the helping of trifle that Vere served up for her. 'Thank you,'

  she murmured, and waited till he was back from the sideboard with the cheese and biscuits he favoured before she dipped her spoon into the first delicious mouthful.

  Then she became aware of Vere's eyes on her and flicked a glance to him to see that, while his expression was unsmiling, there was amusement lurking in the grey depths of his eyes.

  'I've a dab of cream on the end of my nose?' she suggested. He shook his head. 'It's a delight to watch a woman eat with such total disregard for her figure.'

  That brought immediately to mind the very beautiful women he must know and dine with-and she found she did not like such thoughts. 'I'm lucky,' she told him, 'I come from a long line of food-relishers who never have to diet.'

  'I think you come from a long line of people who enjoy work, too,' he commented, his eyes on her lively face. 'How do you know that?' she asked in surprise.

  He shrugged, his amused glance on her surprised look. 'It's fairly obvious. Your father's firm is doing well-that doesn't happen without some very hard work from both

  him and your brother.' She almost butted in to say, Ah, about my brother, it was him yesterday-but, she had to own, she was much intrigued by what he was saying. What he had been able to analy
se. 'The fact that where there was no need for your mother to work-from a financial point of view, she chose so to do.'

  'My word, your investigators certainly did their work well when looking into my background to see if I was a safe person to be with the children,'

  Fabienne put in a shade coolly.

  'Would you have it any other way?'

  A simple question. It did not take much thinking about. 'Galling though it is,' she confessed openly, 'you're right. I'm sorry.'

  Looking at him, she expected to see yet more amusement in his eyes. But, strangely, there was none. He was studying her, silently, as if-as if...

  arrested by something in her. She blinked, and then consigned that notion to the scrap-heap, because when she looked at him again the only studying of her she could tell was in her imagination. And his tone was totally matter-of-fact when, flicking a glance to her shiny dark hair, 'And then,' he continued, 'there's-you.'

  'I come into this?' she queried, suddenly feeling quite vague as to what they had been talking about. He really did have a most wonderful mouth-the rest of him was quite terrific, too.

  'We were discussing the working Prestons,' he reminded her, and she abruptly snapped out of it. Good heavens, what on earth was she thinking about?

  'Ah, yes,' she agreed.

  'There was no need for you to work, either, but you chose to.'

  'Well, that's true,' she allowed. 'It would never have suited me to stay at home twiddling my thumbs all day.'

  'To work in your mother's gown shop was what you wanted?'

  'I didn't know what I wanted when I left school. Though,' she quickly qualified, 'I did know what I did not want.' Vere poured her some coffee from the perspex container keeping warm on a very low burner, and glanced at her, clearly waiting to hear more. 'My father offered me the chance to train in engineering but, while my maths would have been up to it, I just didn't see myself as an engineer.'