A Nanny for Keeps

by Liz Fielding

  Finally she faltered and he was the one offering her comfort, holding her close. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘Forget you ever saw it.’

  ‘No!’ She pulled back. ‘I want to see. Now.’ And without waiting, she began to unbutton his shirt. He grabbed at her hands to stop her but she kept hold of his shirt, looked up at him, held her ground until he lifted his hands free, let her do what she wanted. She leaned forward then, kissed him so sweetly that the urgent response from a body already overloaded with stimuli seemed…profane.

  Then, as he caught his breath, doing his best to cope with a need that left him utterly defenceless, she carried on unbuttoning his shirt, tugging it out of his waistband, pushing it back until it fell on the floor.

  And then she touched him.

  Tentatively at first, her fingertips outlining his shoulders, his arms, then bolder as she flattened her hands, sliding her palms over the mess of scar tissue.

  Finally she leaned into him, her arms around him, fingertips tracing each place where the blast had ripped the flesh from his back.

  ‘Does it hurt?’ she asked.

  Hurt? With her cheek pressed against his chest, her hair brushing his cheek, he was beyond feeling anything but the hard, heavy ache of his turgid penis pressing against his zipper.

  ‘Yes,’ he managed—not a lie; he was in pain, but it wasn’t his back that was hurting—and pulled his shirt back on.

  She sat back on her heels, a tiny frown puckering the space between those lovely eyes, and he abandoned his shirt buttons to reach out, smooth it away.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t frown. I’m fine.’

  She looked up at him, eyes huge and dark in the firelight. ‘Are you? So why is Maisie living with your cousin? And why are you so unhappy?’

  ‘Unhappy?’ He leaned back against the chair to put some distance between them. Took a sip of the lukewarm coffee, giving himself time to gather himself, time to think.

  ‘You’re not going to deny it?’

  ‘No, I’m not going to deny it, but it’s as you said. Life gets in the way. My injuries were too extensive to be treated locally but I refused to be shipped home without Maisie and that was a problem because she didn’t have any papers. I had no rights. I needed another miracle.’

  ‘And you got one.’

  ‘When it became a matter of life or death, the head of the medical unit sent for the consul to try and talk some sense into me. A truly compassionate man, he stopped me from explaining the situation, just produced his register of births and suggested it was time my little girl was registered. He didn’t ask me the father’s name, he merely asked me for mine and filled it in. By the time he’d got to the mother’s name, I’d caught up. I even gave Maisie my mother’s name, which he seemed to appreciate. And when that was done, he gave me a copy of the certificate and congratulated me on my new daughter.’ He met her gaze head-on. ‘She is mine, Jacqui. In every way that matters, and I’d have done a lot worse than lie to a consular official to keep her with me.’ And because, somehow, it was important to convince her, he said the words that he had never before uttered out loud. ‘I loved her, Jacqui. Love her. There was no way I could just hand her over to an orphanage, no matter how well-run.’

  ‘Of course you couldn’t. You brought her home, here to Hill Tops.’

  ‘I wish. The truth is that after I was medevac’d home, I spent a ridiculously long time in hospital. Skin grafts, that sort of thing. Sally stepped into the breach, took Maisie in, hired a nanny, had fun dressing her up in lovely clothes.’

  ‘Like playing dolls,’ Jacqui said. ‘But with a real little girl.’

  ‘Inevitably some newshound got wind of it, managed to take some photographs of her with this small black child, and within days the rumours were all over the papers like a rash. Not that anyone thought to tell me.’

  ‘So she pretended she’d adopted this little war orphan.’

  ‘The truth would have exposed the lie. She did it to protect me. To protect Maisie.’ He owed his cousin that. Then, ‘Besides, all the big stars were doing it at the time. It was good PR.’

  ‘You must hate her so much.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I just know her, that’s all. It’s why she avoids me at all costs.’

  ‘And Maisie?’

  ‘By the time I was fit enough to reclaim her, she had a new life. I didn’t like it much, but I couldn’t take her back overseas with me, into war zones, famine-stricken areas where her own life would be at risk.’

  ‘You could have stayed at home with her.’

  ‘Maybe I would have, if things had been different. But I’d been out of her life for so long that she’d forgotten me. Treated me like a stranger.’

  ‘She hadn’t forgotten you, Harry. She thought you’d abandoned her and she was punishing you for that.’

  He managed a smile. ‘Neat and tidy psychology, Jacqui, but just a little heavy on wishful thinking, don’t you think?’

  ‘Possibly. But you have to ask yourself one question. If she’s forgotten you, why did she tell me that she’s going to be a doctor when she grows up?’

  His heart lifted a beat. ‘When? When did she tell you that?’

  ‘On the way here. I asked her if she was going to be a model, like her mother, and she put me right in double-quick time. She was going to be a doctor, like…’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘She stopped, didn’t finish the sentence. Have you noticed how she does that? Half tells you things. I realise now that she once came very close to telling me that she knew her grandmother wasn’t here. The thing about Maisie is that you have to know the right questions to ask.’

  ‘She gets that from Sally, who certainly knew her mother wasn’t here.’

  ‘You’ve spoken to her?’

  ‘Earlier. She said something odd, too. She said you weren’t supposed to stay. Seemed quite irritated by your dedication to duty.’

  ‘Really?’ She smiled. ‘I wonder why that was? Let me see… Could it be that she wanted you to have a chance to get close to Maisie again? Re-establish the closeness you once had?’

  ‘Are you suggesting that she’s got tired of playing mother and wants to offload her so that she can play house, undisturbed, with the billionaire?’

  ‘You know her, I don’t. Is she really that shallow?’ When he didn’t answer, she said, ‘One thing I do know, Harry. Maisie really wants to stay here with you. Maybe Sally knows that, too.’ She reached out, laid her hand over his. ‘Maybe, despite all evidence to the contrary, in your cousin’s case beauty really is more than skin deep.’

  He looked at her, shook his head, as if he was lost for words.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was just wondering how you got to be so wise.’

  ‘I wish.’ And she wrapped her hand around the chain on her wrist, holding it against her heart.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me about him.’

  ‘Him?’

  ‘Not a him?’

  She shook her head and that was the moment he understood how utterly defenceless he was.

  He might, in time, be able to overcome the memory of a man, but how could he compete with a woman…?

  ‘I promised, didn’t I?’ she said, as if regretting it.

  ‘You did and I’ll bet you’ve never broken a promise in your life.’

  ‘Once. Just once. I promised Emma I’d never leave her but in the end I didn’t have a choice.’ She unfastened the bracelet, held it up. ‘I had this made for her birthday last month. I wanted her to know that it was all right to forget me, move on.’ She let it curl into her palm. Closed her hand over it. ‘Her family sent it back.’

  ‘Her family?’

  She looked up at him, her expression puzzled, and he suddenly realised what she was saying. Emma was not a lover, but a child.

  ‘How long were you her nanny?’ he said, quickly, before she caught up, worked out what he’d been thinking.

  ‘Years. Too long, perhaps.’ Then, gatherin
g herself, she said, ‘You asked why I dropped out of university. I did it for Emma.’ She looked up at him. ‘I think you’re probably the only person I know who’d understand why.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  ‘Believe me, it was meant that way.’ She turned away, as if it was too painful to continue, reaching for her untouched coffee, putting off the moment.

  He caught her hand, stopping her. ‘Leave it, it’s cold,’ he said, and, standing up, he pulled her to her feet. ‘I’ll make some more.’ Then, ‘Or are you going to give me another lecture about drinking coffee late at night?’

  She managed a smile. ‘I’m having enough trouble telling you the story of my life.’

  ‘Then I’ll add a little something to it to ease the pain,’ he said, picking up a bottle from the tray on the sideboard on the way out and handing it to her, so that he could open the door. There was no way he was letting go of her hand until she was safely in the kitchen.

  He shooed the hound off the sofa, lowered her into it and set about making not coffee, but chocolate, which with a touch of brandy was the ultimate in comfort drinks. She took the mug, sipped it and smiled. ‘Oh, that’s good.’

  ‘It’s what my nanny made for me when I needed some serious comfort,’ he said.

  ‘She gave you brandy?’

  ‘Just enough to scent the steam. Come on, snuggle up,’ he said, lifting his arm. ‘You might as well have the whole comfort experience.’

  She looked at him. ‘You know, when I first saw you I thought you were the big bad giant straight out of my childhood nightmares.’

  ‘Yes, I caught your description of me when you were talking to Vickie Campbell. I should have run then.’

  ‘Run?’

  ‘For my life. Everyone knows what Jack did to the giant.’ He gestured with his head and, grinning, she snuggled against him. They sat in silence for a while, drinking the chocolate, the house settling around them, and gradually he felt the tension leave her. He thought he could be happy just sitting there with her, his arm around her, for the rest of his life, but there were demons to face and the sooner the better, so he took her mug, set it on the floor and said, ‘Tell me about Emma, Jacqui.’

  And she must have been ready to talk, because she didn’t hesitate. ‘I always loved children. My sisters are older than me, were well into single-handedly raising the birth rate by the time I went to university. Vickie Campbell knew them, had seen me with the brood and offered me the chance to work for her as a temp, a flying nanny, during the holidays.’

  ‘How does that work? The flying bit?’

  ‘Oh, I ferried kids about, the way I was supposed to with Maisie. Took over in emergencies when a nanny walked out, or a mother had to go into hospital.’ She looked down into her cup. ‘Or died.’

  ‘That’s what happened with Emma? Her mother died?’

  She nodded. ‘A car accident. Absolutely tragic. Her husband couldn’t cope. She was so young, so angry because her mother had left her and she just didn’t understand why. I was with them the whole summer and she was just about accepting me, opening up, beginning to trust me when it was time for me to go back to uni. What was I going to do? If I’d left her, she’d be losing the one person she could rely on for the second time in her short life. She’d never have believed in anyone ever again.’

  He thought about how she’d been with Maisie. Standing her corner. Refusing to budge. And he said, ‘No. I can see that you’d never leave anyone who needed you.’

  ‘I never let her forget her mother, or tried to take her place, but she was just a face in a photograph, as insubstantial as an angel. In every practical way I was her mother. Her father, too, because he wasn’t a lot of use. I promised her I’d always be there, that I’d never leave her.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘David Gilchrist was an investment banker. A wealthy, personable man. I’d been Emma’s nanny for nearly four years when he brought home a woman he’d met on his travels and calmly informed me that they were married. And equally calmly told Emma that she had a new mother. Emma, confronted with a total stranger, declared roundly that I was the only mummy she ever wanted, at which point my feet didn’t touch the ground. I was out of there faster than you can say wicked stepmother and in weeks they’d moved lock, stock and barrel to Hong Kong.’

  ‘And the bracelet?’

  ‘It was returned with a brief note reminding me that I had only ever been an employee and asking me not to contact Emma ever again. No birthday or Christmas presents. No cards. Nothing. The new Mrs Gilchrist even sent it to the agency rather than directly to me, just to rub home the point.’

  ‘That was harsh.’

  ‘Yes, it was, but I suppose she thought that if she didn’t erase Emma’s memory of me she’d never have her love, and perhaps she was right. The truth is that I became so emotionally involved that I forgot the first principle of being a nanny. The child you care for is not yours. You have to be prepared to let go…’

  She blinked and a tear escaped, trickled down her nose. He wiped it away with the edge of his thumb. ‘There are no rules when it comes to children. You love them because you can’t help it and when you lose them it hurts.’

  ‘You’ve got another chance with Maisie. Don’t throw it away.’

  ‘Thanks to you.’

  ‘I think it was something of a combined effort, Harry.’

  ‘But you were at the sharp end, taking the flak. How many women would have stayed?’

  ‘Maisie was the one who wanted to stay.’

  Only Maisie?

  ‘So,’ he said, trying to keep his voice steady, ‘are you planning to fly away now you’ve done your Mary Poppins bit?’

  ‘How? You’ve had my car towed away.’ Then, looking up at him with the sparkle back in her eyes, ‘And Maisie did promise me that I’d have a good time if I spent my holiday here.’

  ‘And what did you promise her?’

  ‘Just that I’d stay while she needs me, Harry. I’ve learned my lesson. No more open-ended, forever promises.’

  ‘None?’

  She was tucked up against him, soft and yielding against his body, and her face was lifted towards him. He lifted his hand, not sure, desperately afraid, but he’d been running for so long. Now was the time to stand, say what he wanted.

  Maisie back in his life.

  A new way of living.

  Jacqui.

  ‘What if I was to say that I need you?’ he asked.

  ‘You don’t know me, Harry.’

  He touched her cheek, pushed her hair back from her face, fumbling like a boy trying to work out how to go about his first kiss. She regarded him with the steady look of a woman prepared to wait until he got it right.

  ‘Your character shines out in everything you do. I’m the risk here, but I’m asking you to take a chance. Will you stay?’

  ‘What are you asking?’

  He answered her with the gentlest brush of his lips over hers. ‘You know what I’m asking.’

  There was the longest pause, a silence that seemed endless. It was shattered by the kitchen door being flung open. ‘I’ve been shouting and shouting for a drink of water…’ Then, seeing them wrapped in each other’s arms, Maisie skidded to a halt and said, ‘Oops.’

  And that was it, the moment was over and Jacqui was already halfway across the kitchen, taking a glass from the cupboard, half filling it with water and handing it to Maisie.

  ‘Come on, sweetpea, back to bed with you,’ she said. ‘We’ve got an early start in the morning.’

  But Maisie refused to be hurried. She drank slowly, and then, when she’d finished, she looked directly at him, a tiny frown creasing her forehead, something clearly on her mind.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked. He hoped she wasn’t about to tell him she’d changed her mind about going to the village school. He’d begun to have this picture in his mind of them walking hand in hand through the school gates on her first day…

&
nbsp; ‘You’re my daddy, right?’ she asked.

  ‘Right,’ he said, fighting the catch in his throat. How could he ever have doubted it? ‘Right.’

  ‘So, if you’re kissing Jacqui, does that mean she’s going to be my mummy?’

  ‘You already have a mummy,’ Jacqui said quickly, clearly intent on saving him from the embarrassment of answering that one.

  ‘No.’ Maisie wasn’t so easily diverted. ‘I have a mother,’ she said. ‘It’s not the same.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘WHAT’S the difference, Maisie?’

  Harry leapt in before she could whisk Maisie upstairs and Jacqui felt as if she was walking on the edge of a precipice. One wrong step would mean disaster.

  She’d be lying to herself if she pretended that she hadn’t wanted Harry to kiss her, really kiss her. She’d wanted it since that instant of connection outside the stables when he’d been looking at her car. In that moment when all either of them could do was look…

  There had been a kind of recognition, a primeval tug of whatever it was that made men and women fall into bed without a thought for the future. Honesty compelled her to admit she’d wanted a lot more than a kiss even then, but she knew how easy it was to get carried away by her emotions.

  It would be so easy for her to imagine that what she felt, what Harry felt, was something more than a fleeting moment of attraction, desire. So easy to muddle her responsibility towards Maisie with what she felt for Harry.

  As for Harry…he had to be in turmoil right now. The child he loved, the child he’d lost, pitched back into his lap without warning.

  It would be so easy if a child’s well-being wasn’t involved, but she wouldn’t allow herself to confuse her roles again. Hurt another little girl with promises that neither of them were sure they could keep.

  Maisie, of course, had no such problem. She just lifted her shoulders in a shrug that reached her ears and said, ‘Mummies do stuff. Like finding the chicks, and cooking and having time to play. My mother is always busy. Always going away. Jacqui’s like a mummy in a story book.’

  Jacqui saw Harry’s jaw tighten ominously and leapt in with, ‘Well, right now Jacqui thinks you should be in bed.’ She looked up. ‘Right, Daddy?’