A Nanny for Keeps

by Liz Fielding

  At least he seemed disinclined to rush off for once. She wouldn’t get a better chance to talk to him. Nothing to threaten him—which was rather an odd thought under the circumstances; he was the ogre, not her—but just in the hope of finding common ground.

  They hadn’t, so far, had what could be described as a normal conversation.

  ‘Does that chicken actually live in the kitchen?’ she asked, saying the first thing that came into her head. Normal? ‘Or is she sick?’

  ‘The story is that one of the cats brought her in out of the rain when she was a chick and treated her as part of her litter.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that she thinks she’s a cat?’

  ‘That’s Aunt Kate’s theory.’ The look he gave her suggested otherwise.

  ‘You’re not buying that?’

  ‘I haven’t noticed any identity problem when the cockerel’s preening his feathers, but if the choice was a basket in front of the stove or slumming it with the rest of the birds in the hen house, which would you choose?’

  ‘That’s a deeply cynical point of view.’

  ‘And your answer is?’

  ‘She’s a smart hen.’ Then, ‘I’ll bet the eggs confuse the heck out of the cats, though.’

  There! She nearly had him with that one. He didn’t actually smile, but there was definitely a giveaway crease at the side of his mouth. What he did do, was pick up the cafetière and pour himself a mug of coffee.

  Classic distraction behaviour, she thought. She’d have done the same thing herself if she’d being trying to hide laughter. Or tears.

  Maybe there was hope for him yet.

  ‘Where were you going?’ he asked, glancing sideways and catching her watching him.

  ‘Nowhere,’ she said, slightly flustered. She hadn’t moved…

  He turned and leaned back against the worktop, still looking at her. ‘For your holiday?’

  Oh, that. She’d forgotten all about Spain. Besides, it was warm enough in here to toast her skin. Not that he was crowding her. There was clear space between them, but the plush, wrap-around robe was much too warm.

  And not nearly respectable enough.

  It was too short, of course. They always were, but she’d never actually thought of her ankles as something she needed to cover up. But now her bare ankles seemed to suggest bare legs, which suggested all kinds of other possibilities.

  And it felt much too tight.

  While it was supposed to be her size, it had obviously been washed often and she had the unsettling feeling that somewhere down around her thighs it might be gaping open, just a bit.

  She didn’t dare look down.

  To do so would simply draw attention to the fact. Not that he seemed interested in her legs.

  On the contrary, his gaze seemed to be riveted on the deep vee where the wrap crossed over her breasts.

  Not in any sense of the word leering. Just looking at her as if trying to remember something…

  Which was crazy.

  She was crazy.

  She was, she reminded herself, a picture of modesty beneath this barely adequate robe.

  When there was every likelihood that you’d have to turn out in the middle of the night, half-asleep, to tend to a disturbed child, it didn’t take long to discover that smart nannies wore sensible PJs.

  Not that it was a problem now, but she couldn’t afford to toss out perfectly good nightwear and there was nothing in the least bit flimsy about the jersey sleep shorts and vest she was wearing. OK, this one just happened to be a vest top with shoestring straps—she’d seen a pack of three in a sale and treated herself for the holiday—but even so she’d have been wearing a lot less on a Spanish beach.

  But then this wasn’t a beach.

  This was an isolated house with a man she didn’t know. And he was staring at her cleavage.

  Bad enough.

  But her cleavage was responding…

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘DO YOU want milk?’ she asked. She didn’t wait for his answer, but crossed to the fridge, taking her time about it, using the opportunity to wrap herself closer in the robe, pull the belt tighter while she had her back to him, before turning with the jug.

  ‘No, thanks,’ he said, when she offered it to him.

  She had the feeling that he knew exactly what she’d done, but there was no sign of a self-congratulatory smirk. He just stared into his coffee as, discarding the tea bag, she splashed milk into her own mug.

  ‘Isn’t it rather late for black coffee?’

  He didn’t answer, just gave her a look that suggested she was treading a very fine line, but then he’d been doing variations of it since she’d arrived. It was, she suspected, supposed to have her running for cover. It reminded her of an unhappy child, testing to the limits her resolve to love her. Testing her promise to stay…

  ‘Just my professional opinion,’ she added.

  ‘Keep it for Maisie, Mary Poppins.’

  If he wanted her to duck for cover, he’d have to do better than that. Mary Poppins was, after all, ‘practically perfect in every way’. One of the good guys.

  ‘Lack of sleep can turn anyone into a grouch,’ she said, not backing down, even though holding his gaze seemed to be having a detrimental effect on her knee joints. Turning them to mush as a small voice in her head whispered, ‘Touch him. He needs someone to hold him…’

  She cleared her throat to shut it up and said, ‘But you’re right, it’s absolutely none of my business. Just don’t blame me if you can’t sleep.’

  ‘Why not? I think we both know that you’ll be the one keeping me awake—’

  He paused, as if the image his words evoked had caught him by surprise and he’d forgotten what he was about to say. Time slowed and the air pressed against her, making her conscious of every inch of her skin as her mind filled with a picture of him in a dimly lit room, bare shoulders propped up against the pillow, arms behind his head, wide awake. Thinking about her.

  It wasn’t just her knees, but her entire body responded to this disturbing image with the heavy drag of sexual awareness, the ache of need. The swelling breasts, the taut, hard nipples almost painful against even the softest cloth. For so long immersed in a job that demanded everything of her, she’d forgotten how physical the demands of the body could be. How it could overpower the will, dominate all other thoughts…

  ‘Like a thorn in your mattress,’ she said, quickly, shattering the tension. Then, because she didn’t want to dwell on his mattress, she quickly reverted to his earlier question and, answering it, said, ‘Spain.’

  ‘Spain?’ Like her, he seemed to have come from somewhere deep inside himself. ‘Oh, your holiday.’ Then, ‘On your own?’

  She didn’t think he’d have asked that question before and, while it would probably be wiser to just pick up her mug, say goodnight and retreat to the safety of her room, she’d be missing an opportunity to get to know him a little better.

  For Maisie’s sake, obviously.

  So she sipped her tea, because her mouth seemed rather dry, and said, ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘If you were going with your boyfriend I’d imagine he’d be pretty fed up.’

  ‘If I’d been going with a boyfriend, believe me, I’d be pretty fed up, but you needn’t worry about some irate male turning up on your doorstep to add to the mayhem.’

  He didn’t look especially relieved, but then an irate male would probably have suited him very well. He was assuming he’d have an ally. She didn’t bother to explain that what he’d have would be one more house guest while they sorted out the Maisie situation.

  ‘At least there are plenty of flights to Spain.’ Harry Talbot seemed determined to keep her focused on what was important in life. ‘You’ll only have missed a day.’

  Well, she hadn’t really thought he was interested in her well-being, had she? It was like the car. Getting it fixed was not thoughtfulness. Getting it fixed meant she had no excuse to stay.

  ‘It’s not that
simple, I’m afraid. It was a cut-price last minute deal. If you don’t show, tough luck.’

  ‘You can’t reschedule?’

  What planet was he on?

  ‘Don’t bother your head about it. The agency will sort that out with your cousin. They’ve promised I won’t be out of pocket.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, but you won’t get the money back for a couple of weeks, will you?’

  She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m just doing temporary work at the moment so I can schedule my break to suit myself.’ And she could think anywhere, after all. The sun would just be a distraction.

  ‘That doesn’t seem fair. If it would help I’ll cover your losses and sort it out with Sally later.’

  ‘Good grief, you are desperate to get rid of me.’ A woman with self-esteem issues might have crumpled at this point, but she pulled a face in an attempt to suggest she found his persistence amusing. ‘Paying to have my car fixed and now offering to sub me for a holiday.’

  ‘I’m just doing my best to be reasonable.’

  Reasonable!

  Reasonable would be him saying—I’m sorry you’ve been put to so much trouble. Just make yourself at home while my useless family sorts itself out…

  Or words to that effect.

  ‘You really don’t get it, do you?’

  ‘Get what?’

  She sipped her tea, then risked a glance at him over the rim of the mug. He looked, she thought, not so much uncaring as, well, a bit desperate, but she firmly quashed any feeling of guilt. She had done nothing to feel guilty about. He was the one behaving like a jerk.

  ‘You must see that I can’t go anywhere until I’m sure that Maisie is settled and safe.’

  ‘Then I’ve got another suggestion, Miss Moore. Go to Spain and take Maisie with you.’ He waited and, when he didn’t get the ecstatic response he’d no doubt counted on, added, ‘That way you’ll get paid by the hour for lying in the sun.’

  She laughed. ‘You obviously have a very limited idea of what looking after a child entails.’

  ‘I’ll even pay for an upgrade.’

  ‘I’m truly sorry,’ she said. It was possible that she didn’t sound entirely sincere, but then she wasn’t. Despite what Maisie had told her, the man kept suckering her into thinking that he deserved some consideration. He deserved absolutely nothing. ‘Appealing as your offer sounds, there are two very good reasons why I can’t accept. One, I’d need her legal guardian’s written permission before I took Maisie out of the country—something that I’m sure even you’d agree is a basic essential. It’s not as if you know a single thing about me.’ And because, suddenly, she was really angry with him for being so completely lacking in family feeling, so irresponsible, she said, ‘Have you any idea how much cute little girls fetch on the illegal-adoption market?’

  ‘I have a rather better idea of the cost than you, I imagine.’ Then, while she was still trying to get her head around that one, ‘And because I’m not as stupid as you appear to believe, I called your agency this afternoon and the charming Mrs Campbell emailed me your CV along with all manner of glowing testimonials.’

  ‘She did?’

  ‘Why did you drop out of university in the middle of your second year?’

  ‘She did.’

  She left it at that. He didn’t want an answer to his question; it had simply been a power play, a demonstration that he did indeed know all about her. While she knew next to nothing about him. And what she did know was all bad.

  She wasn’t having a very good day.

  Little Princess, 2—Giant, 1…

  ‘So,’ he continued, ‘now we’ve cleared up that small problem and, assuming that, using the wonders of modern technology, Sally faxes her written permission to your agency, what’s your second objection?’

  Everything, she thought, comes to she who waits. Time for Dumb Nanny to break her duck.

  ‘Maisie wants to stay here,’ she said. ‘And my job—’ she decided this might not be a good moment to tell him that she wasn’t actually being paid for doing this ‘—is to keep her happy. Why don’t you phone your new friend, Mrs Campbell, and ask her if she’d be prepared to take a bet on me doing just that?’

  Despite the warm glow that putting a dent in his plans gave her, she anticipated a negative reaction to this challenge and, judging that this might be a good moment to leave, wasted no time about it.

  ‘Goodnight, Mr Talbot,’ she said, heading for the door. ‘Sleep tight.’ Actually, the ‘sleep tight’ was probably a mistake and it was just as well that she was carrying a mug of hot tea or she might have been tempted to make a run for it.

  Not cool.

  She’d managed to get in the last word and now she was leaving him—with dignity—to chew on it.

  But as she walked across what seemed like a mile of quarry-tiled floor between her and the door, for every self-conscious inch of it aware of his gaze locked on her back, she didn’t really expect to get away without some knife-edged parting shot.

  ‘It’s Harry,’ he said, just as she made the safety of the door. ‘Call me Harry.’ Which was totally unexpected and then, when he had her full attention, added, ‘I think we’ve traded sufficient insults to drop the formalities, don’t you?’

  Now that she’d had a chance to assess some of his finer points, Jacqui had to admit that she was tempted. No doubt about it, cleaned up, the man was six feet four inches of raw temptation. With a decent haircut and the serious application of razor to chin, she suspected he’d be dynamite.

  Such a pity that he didn’t have a heart to match his body.

  ‘Are you offering to surrender, Mr Talbot?’

  His jaw tightened, momentarily, and she had the uneasy impression that she was the one whose tongue was doing the cutting.

  Impossible that a man of his stature, his character, could ever feel vulnerable, but she wished she’d kept her mouth shut for once and responded to his invitation with an encouraging smile, giving him a chance to tell her exactly what he was offering.

  But then he lifted his massive shoulders in something that might have been a shrug, and said, ‘No, Miss Moore. I’m simply suggesting a truce for the night.’

  So that was all right, then. No damage done. He was just the same as ever.

  She might be trapped on a fog-bound hill with the little princess and the big bad giant, but this wasn’t a fairy tale. And while her coffee was good, it was going to take a lot more than one cup of the stuff to transform Harry Talbot into Prince Charming.

  But then a kiss was the traditional cure…

  ‘In that case,’ she said, quickly, ‘until the resumption of hostilities at dawn, goodnight. Harry.’

  He looked, for a moment, as if he was about to respond and she waited, her hand on the edge of the door, hoping for some indication that he was relenting. Offering something more.

  But all he said was, ‘Goodnight, Jacqui.’

  After that, she had no choice but to close the door and walk away, but she climbed the stairs to the second floor with a hollow feeling of regret. There was nothing that she could put her finger on, just the niggling certainty that she’d come close to something important but had been too busy defending her own position to see it properly.

  She looked in on Maisie, straightened her tumbled covers, watched her for a while before going to her own room.

  Harry did not move for a long time. The coffee cooled in his mug. In the pot. And still he waited for the air to still, settle, return to the way it had been until Jacqui Moore had stirred everything up.

  After a while, a cat stretched and moved to the door, a dark shadow heading out for the night’s hunt. The scruffy hound rose on long legs and padded across to nose at his hand, politely suggesting it was time for a walk.

  The animals seemed unaware of the eddies created by her presence still spinning through the air, disturbing the atmosphere, disturbing the emptiness, disturbing him.

  He moved swiftly, rounded up the rest of the
dogs, not stopping to put on the coat he grabbed from the peg as he set off across the hill. The old Labradors turned back after a while, but the hound stayed with him as he covered the miles in his determination to dislodge her from his mind. From his heart.

  Jacqui left Maisie deciding between pink taffeta and yellow silk and went downstairs determined to find something rather more practical for her to wear.

  She glanced in the small office, but there was no sign of Harry Talbot. No sign that he’d even been in the room, since the bag of mail she’d left on the desk was exactly how she’d left it.

  She had better luck in the kitchen, which was occupied by a motherly woman busy emptying the dishwasher.

  ‘Are you Susan?’ she asked, cheered by the sight of a possible ally. ‘I’m Jacqui. Maisie’s nanny. Temporarily.’ There seemed little point in confusing matters by trying to explain exactly what the situation was. ‘Did Mr Talbot explain about the misunderstanding?’

  ‘Mr Harry? No. But then I stay out of his way as much as I can,’ she said, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘I only come up here every day because the missus refused to go until I promised her I’d keep an eye on everything. Make sure he’s got something to eat.’ Then, with a shrug, ‘Of course, I did hear that someone turned up with Miss Maisie yesterday afternoon.’

  Since it was undoubtedly the hot item of gossip in the village shop, Jacqui wasn’t exactly surprised to hear that. They were, no doubt, panting for an update from their woman on the inside.

  ‘I was expecting to find Mrs Talbot here. The plan was for Maisie to stay with her while her mother’s away.’

  ‘Really? It’s news to me. She went to New Zealand, you know. To stay with her sister.’

  ‘Mr Talbot told me she was away.’

  ‘Paid for everything, he did. She went first class.’

  ‘That was generous of him.’

  ‘Possibly,’ she said, not committing herself one way or the other, although what doubt there could be, escaped Jacqui.

  ‘She didn’t say anything about Maisie coming to stay?’

  ‘Well, no. Miss Sally doesn’t make arrangements that far ahead.’