Secretary Wife

Secretary Wife Page 3

by Rachel Lindsay

  At three o'clock Carl Anderson returned to the office alone, saying that Rosemary had a headache and had gone to her hotel to rest. 'How many other decorators do I have to see?' he asked.

  'Three.'

  'You'd better come and stand in for Rosemary.'

  'I don't know her tastes,' Laura protested.

  'You're a woman, aren't you?' he smiled. 'You're bound to know more of her likes than I do.' He saw Laura's look of disagreement and added: 'Her taste is exactly the way she looks. Light and delicate. She goes for pastel colours and softness, nothing stark or simplistic'

  Remembering the dramatic yet spartan simplicity of his own apartment, which she had seen when she had gone there to deliver documents for him to sign, she marvelled that he was willing to let his own preferences be completely submerged. She glanced at her book.

  'Your first appointment is with a Mrs Eda Foster. She's an American and was highly recommended to me. I'll come in as soon as she arrives.'

  'Come in now,' he said. 'I'm tired of seeing you behind your desk.'

  Surprised at the comment, she complied, and as she sat down in front of him, he spoke again.

  'You haven't reconsidered about leaving me, have you?'

  'I'm afraid not.' She did not look at him but knew he was sitting motionless, his hands spread out on the top of his desk. More than any man she knew, he had the ability to relax. Even at times of great pres­sure she had never seen him smoke or fiddle with his hands. Yet his tension must go somewhere; he would not be human otherwise.

  'Where do you intend going?' he asked.

  'Australia, I think.'

  'Would you like me to introduce you to some of the people I know out there?'

  'It would be a great help.'

  'Good. I'll give you some letters of introduction and write to a couple of people myself. If you do decide to work for any of them, you'll be able to fill me in on the business scene when I'm in Aus­tralia.'

  The pleasure his offer had engendered faded into nothing. So he still wanted to utilise her services even when she was no longer working for him! Would he never see her as a young woman with a life of her own outside of business?

  'I may not want to do secretarial work once I leave here,' she stated flatly.

  'What else can you do?'

  'Cook, look after children, keep house.'

  'You?'

  'I'm quite domesticated, Mr Anderson.'

  'I'm sure you are,' he said hastily, 'but I can't see you standing at a kitchen sink.'

  'It will probably be a dishwasher!'

  Before he could reply, Mrs Eda Foster arrived. She was an ageless American with beautifully coiffured grey hair and shrewd eyes. She had a drawling Southern accent, though there was nothing languid about her manner as she displayed photographs of the houses she had decorated—and then followed this by setting out coloured sketches of the way she envisaged the furnishing of the Hampstead house.

  Had it been her decision, Laura would have im­mediately engaged Mrs Foster, but though she had been told to act on Rosemary's behalf, she had no intention of doing so, and stared poker-faced at the desk.

  'What do you think, Laura?' her employer asked.

  'What do you think?' she countered.

  'There's no point in prevaricating,' Mrs Foster spoke briskly. 'Either you like my style or you don't. I believe in mixing the old and the new. If you want a house that's strictly one period, don't come to me. Kitchens and bathrooms I keep strictly functional, but all other rooms should fit the per­sonality of their owners—not stand out like picture frames.'

  'What a marvellous way of putting it,' Laura ex­claimed, and then stopped, determined not to give herself away. But she obviously had, for her em­ployer's mouth twitched as he hid a smile. Drat the man for always getting his own way!

  'I agree with you, Laura,' he said. 'I don't want a house of any fixed period but a home with char­acter.'

  'You'd give character to any home!' Mrs Foster said so promptly that he laughed, showing his strong white teeth.

  'How long will it take you to do the job?' he de­manded. 'Bearing in mind that I'll be able to exped­ite delivery of all kitchen and bathroom fixtures.'

  'That would speed things up enormously,' Mrs Foster replied. 'Then it will only be a matter of agreeing on colour schemes and fabrics and then deciding on the furniture. I've already seen half the things I would like for the house, so it depends on how much time you and Miss Pearson can give me.' She turned to Laura. 'If you're prepared to hike around London with me five hours a day, I can furnish the house in six weeks. But if I had to bring you the things for approval, it will take twice as long.'

  Red-faced, Laura made a disclaiming gesture. 'I'm Mr Anderson's secretary, not his fiancée.'

  'My fiancée wasn't well this afternoon,' Carl Anderson said smoothly, 'but I'm sure she'll be de­lighted to go around with you.' He looked at the sketches again. 'I don't want gold taps and fittings, Mrs Foster, but apart from that, you have carte blanche.'

  'I get that from all my clients, Mr Anderson.'

  He smiled and rose to indicate the end of the meeting. 'I want to make the house a beautiful setting for my wife. If she has any special prefer­ences, please follow them.' He escorted the Ameri­can to the door. 'You really can get it done in a month?'

  Mrs Foster nodded. 'Provided your fiancée does her part.'

  'Don't worry, she will.'

  To begin with, Carl Anderson was proved right. For the first week Rosemary Carlton wandered happily round antique shops and fabric showrooms, but during the second week her interest began to flag and, when she came to the office to wait for her fiancé late one afternoon, she told Laura that she did not have the energy to continue at such a pace.

  'The woman's a slavedriver,' she pouted. 'She's at my hotel before I've finished breakfast and we're on the go until five-thirty. Sometimes we don't even stop for lunch!'

  'Mr Anderson has given her a deadline,' Laura explained.

  'The house won't be much use to me if I'm dead!' Rosemary cried. 'Carl has no idea how ex­hausting it is to rush from shop to shop. My head is simply spinning with colours.'

  'I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you told him you wanted to take things more slowly.'

  'I daren't do that.' Rosemary looked like a frightened child. 'The poor darling is counting the days until we're married. He'll be heartbroken if it's delayed.'

  It was hard for Laura to see Carl Anderson as the eager lover of Rosemary's imagination. In the years she had worked for him she had only known him eager to finish a building ahead of schedule. As for being heartbroken over a woman, the nearest he had come to this had been a passionate pursuit of a new mistress and his abrupt dismissal of her when her sexuality had ceased to excite him. But how different he was when real love came into his life.

  'That's why you're the only one who can help,' Rosemary said.

  Laura looked up to see pale blue eyes watching her and hastily confessed that her thoughts had been elsewhere.

  'I was asking you to go with Mrs. Foster instead of me.'

  'Me?' Laura said in surprise.

  'Why not? You can do it just as well as I can. All you'd have to remember is that I like soft colours and feminine-looking things.'

  'I'm Mr Anderson's secretary,' Laura said crisply. 'I can't take time off to furnish your home.'

  'I'm sure Carl will let you go.'

  'No!' Laura's voice was high and with an effort she lowered it. 'I wouldn't like to take on such a responsibility, Miss Carlton. It's more than a ques­tion of choosing colours. It's—'

  'You're frightened!' Rosemary Carlton inter­rupted, and gave a beaming smile. 'Honestly, Miss Pearson, you have nothing to worry about. Just go around with Mrs Foster and let her make the de­cisions. She knows my taste as well as I do.'

  'Then why not let her go alone?'

  Rosemary's long lashes lowered. 'Because Carl doesn't want to move into a house that's been fur­nished by a decorator. He wants it
to be my taste. And you can stand in for me.'

  With a whirl of silken-clad legs the girl dis­appeared into the inner office. She might be soft and feminine in her appearance, Laura thought wryly, but she had a steamroller's capacity for driv­ing relentlessly over other people's wishes. There was no doubt that Rosemary would make her fiancé do as she wished, and no doubt that she herself would be forced to join Mrs Foster on her daily excursions.

  The order came as she was putting the cover over her typewriter, when her employer buzzed her to come into his room. He was behind his desk with Rosemary perched on the arm of his chair, her pale golden head close to his. Laura felt a stab some­where in the region of her heart and furiously chided herself for behaving like the heroine in a third-rate novel.

  'I understand Rosemary has already talked to you about the furnishings?' he said.

  'Yes, but I—'

  'I'm sure Miss Jackson can manage perfectly well while you're out of the office,' he interrupted. 'You're always telling me how capable she is, and now I'll have the chance of finding out for myself.'

  Rosemary Carlton was not the only one with steamroller tactics, Laura thought crossly, and nodded agreement to his suggestion.

  'I've left Mrs Foster's home telephone number on the pad,' Rosemary drifted across to the door on a cloud of 'Femme'. 'It will be better if you call her yourself and arrange where to meet her tomor­row morning.' She blew her fiancé a kiss. 'I'll see you at my hotel in an hour, darling. Don't be late.'

  She left behind a momentary silence, broken by the man as he leaned forward to sign his mail.

  'Mrs Foster is the sort of woman who could tire me out, let alone Rosemary,' he murmured. 'It was stupid of me not to realise it. And of course she's not used to making decisions.'

  'Nor am I,' Laura said.

  Silver grey eyes widened. 'You can't make me believe that!'

  'I can make decisions for myself,' she stated, 'but I don't see how I can make them for you and Miss Carlton.'

  'Rosemary has enormous trust in your taste.'

  'She doesn't know it.'

  'She says—and I agree with her—that anyone who had the sense to find Holly Grove has the sense to furnish it.' He signed the last letter and closed the folder. 'There you are, Laura, everything is done. Have a word with Miss Jackson and push off home.'

  Laura had no option but to obey and, leaving an ecstatic Miss Jackson—who saw herself elevated to Laura's position ahead of time—she set off for home.

  What irony that she should be asked to furnish the house in which Carl Anderson would live with his wife. It would make it doubly difficult for her to forget him when she left. Not only would she have to contend with imagining him making love to Rosemary, she would also know the intimate de­tails of the bedroom in which he was doing it!

  With a great deal of trepidation she met Mrs Foster the next day. More quickly than she antici­pated, she established a rapport with the woman, and this made it easier for her to reach her decisions on colour and style. The more decisions she made the less aware she became of doing it, and the more distant grew the thought of Rosemary. This was her own home she was decorating; her own bedroom she was helping to prepare; her own kitchen for which she was choosing the newest design in cooker, refrigerator, freezer and washing machine. Only when it came to the question of linen did reality return and, with it, a strong repugnance to make herself responsible for the covers and coverlets that would go on the bridal bed.

  'That's something Miss Carlton must do,' she said, her voice ragged.

  'I'll have a word with her,' Mrs Foster agreed, the quickness with which she replied making Laura wonder whether she had given herself away to this woman. But if she had, the American was too diplo­matic to show it.

  At the end of her third week's absence from the office, Laura received a call from Miss Jackson who needed help with a report. It was pleasurably pain­ful to return to familiar surroundings and to know that at any moment the door might open and the man she so desperately longed to see would appear.

  'He's working like a demon,' Miss Jackson said. 'He's in the office hours before I arrive. Sometimes I get the impression he's been here half the night.'

  'Surely not?' Laura protested.

  'He is,' Miss Jackson said vigorously. 'Miss Carl­ton drops in at all hours and takes him off, and the only way he can catch up with his work is to do it at night. If he doesn't put his foot down with her, she'll send him to an early grave!'

  Any belief that Miss Jackson was exaggerating was dispelled by Laura's first glimpse of her employer. He looked ten years older: his eyes red-rimmed and with a crêpy look about the lids; his bronze colour unhealthily yellowed by tiredness. Yet he still exuded the same animal magnetism that always made her weak at the knees.

  'Hello, Laura.' His voice was as calm and con­trolled as ever. 'I'm just off to the Lambeth build­ing site.'

  'So I gather.' She eyed his denims and saw him smile.

  'You never approve of me when I dress casu­ally,' he commented.

  'I don't disapprove of your clothes,' she said at once, 'only of your scrambling all over the scaffold­ing.'

  'I used to be a lumberjack, remember. That's far more dangerous.' He ran his hand over his hair. It needed to be cut, but the extra length made him look even more attractive. 'How are things going with you and Mrs Foster?'

  'We've nearly finished.'

  'Rosemary is delighted with everything you've chosen.'

  'Really?' Laura forbade telling him that his fiancée had not been in touch with Mrs Foster since she had opted out of the daily shopping rounds.

  'Yes,' he went on, 'she really loves the house. She's always there.'

  'She's always there sunbathing,' Miss Jackson added scathingly when Carl Anderson had left. 'One of the drivers collected parasols and deck-chairs from Harrods and took them up to Hampstead for her. I'm glad we're having a good summer, but sometimes I wish we'd have a cloudburst!'

  Thinking of Rosemary sunning herself on a Hampstead lawn while workmen busied themselves in the house behind her and she and Mrs Foster scurried round London and the Home Counties like beavers, Laura echoed the thought, but was too well versed in office diplomacy to give it utterance. 'Miss Carlton is used to a different life from the one we lead,' she placated.

  'I'm not knocking the life,' Miss Jackson sniffed, 'merely the way she manages to do it while you do her job.'

  'Since you're doing mine, I don't see that it mat­ters.'

  'Don't you ever get tired of being loyal?' her assistant demanded. 'I'm used to you defending Mr Anderson, but do you have to defend his fiancée too?'

  Laura favoured Miss Jackson with a cold stare and wondered whether the girl was suitable to work for Carl Anderson. In his personal life he was not answerable to anyone who worked for him, and if he wanted to make a fool of himself over Rosemary Carlton it was no one's business but his own.

  'Give me the report you want me to check for you,' she said. 'I'll do it here and you can return to your own office for the day.'

  'Relegated again!' Miss Jackson said.

  'Only until I leave permanently.'

  'You're definitely going?'

  'Definitely,' Laura said, and meant it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LAURA was still working on the report when Carl Anderson returned to the office. There was a faint film of sweat on his face and the red rims round his eyes seemed to have melted into the eyes them­selves, making the whites bloodshot.

  'You look as if you could do with a bath and bed,' she said crisply.

  'I only have time for a shower.' He went through his office to the blue-tiled bathroom that lay beyond it.

  It was here that he usually freshened up when he went directly from the office to a dinner engage­ment, and to this end his valet always saw that his wardrobe here held sufficient clothes and linen. Because of this, Laura was not surprised when he emerged a half-hour later, crisp and clean in a fine wool suit.

  'I
suppose Miss Jackson made the booking?' he asked and, as Laura looked ignorant, gave a shake of his head. 'I told her to get me a table at the Henley House Club. Rosemary likes dining by the river.'

  That explained his rush to leave promptly. He was crazy to be going on an hour's drive out of town when he was so exhausted. 'What about supper at the Griffin?' she suggested, naming a London rest­aurant famous for its flower-filled terrace and view of Hyde Park.

  'Call the Henley House Club and book me a table,' he said in gentle tones, 'and show Miss Carl­ton in as soon as she arrives.' He retreated into his office, closing the door with a quietness which told Laura he was angry with her for letting him know she was aware of his fatigue.

  But why was he ashamed of being tired? And what on earth was the matter with Rosemary that she could not see it for herself? Surely any girl in love with a man would do so. But then Rosemary was not in love with him.

  The thought sprang from nowhere and too late, Laura tried to stifle it. But it remained vibrant in her mind. Rosemary did not love Carl Anderson. If she did she would never have wanted him to find a house and buy it without her approval. Nor would she be content to sunbathe her day away while two strange women decorated the home that was going to be hers for the rest of her life. Whatever feelings the girl had for the man whose ring she wore, genuine love was not one of them.

  Laura was still trying to absorb these most in­digestible thoughts when the originator of them wafted in on a bouquet of musky fragrance. Blue eyes widened as they rested on her and the soft pink lips parted in a charming smile.

  'I didn't expect to see you here, Miss Pearson. Don't tell me you and Mrs Foster have finished already?'

  'Almost.'

  'I adore everything you've chosen. You really are a wonder.'

  'I'm glad it meets with your approval. I wasn't sure if you would like blue for the drawing-room.'

  'Oh, I do,' Rosemary gushed, and Laura had to forcibly resist reminding her that the final colour scheme chosen was lemon and white.

 

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