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‘It’s what I’m employed to do!’
‘To the extent of going on long walks with your employer?’
‘Not so very long.’
‘To the extent of taking him to the pub?’
‘He took me!’ she exclaimed, unsure how she suddenly came to be defending herself. ‘Excepting for once, when it was pouring with rain and he was getting a little fed up being stuck indoors. Anyway—’
‘From what I hear, you’ve even introduced him to the iniquities of playing darts?’ he cut in.
Taryn almost laughed at that. In fact, had she not known better, she would have said that there was a twinkle of laughter in Jake Nash’s eyes. But she didn’t believe that for a second. ‘Just what is this—?’ she began. But suddenly, and with shock, what he had said about the phone lines between here and New York being full of her began to take on a startling meaning. ‘His daughter—Beryl—she’s been in touch with you, hasn’t she?’
Jake Nash studied her, and seemed, she thought for one absurd moment, to be a little taken with her dainty features and dark blue eyes. ‘She rang my mother,’ he agreed.
‘She wanted you to come and check me out?’ Taryn couldn’t quite believe what her intelligence had brought her.
‘It’s Taryn this, Taryn that. Can you blame her?’
‘She thinks I’m after his money!’ Taryn exclaimed, aghast. ‘That—that he’s somehow sm-smitten with me!’ Appalled, she could hardly get the words out.
‘Beryl has met Mrs Ellington,’ he responded evenly. ‘She has never met you. You can’t blame her for having a daughter’s natural concern.’
‘So the minute she rang, you hared down here to make sure I—’
‘I had business this way today,’ he cut in. ‘It was no problem to make a detour.
‘Jake!’ A glad cry from the doorway rent the air. Taryn looked over to where her refreshed temporary employer had just come in, and was grateful in this instance that he was slightly hard of hearing. ‘How good to see you!’ he exclaimed, as the two men met in the middle of the kitchen and shook hands. She did not want him upset by the unpleasantness of Beryl keeping her eye on her. ‘You’ve obviously introduced yourself to Taryn,’ he went on beaming. ‘I just can’t believe that I’ve been so lucky with not one housekeeper but two.’
‘Would you like tea now?’ Taryn asked, feeling Jake Nash’s eyes on her, but deciding to ignore him.
‘Shall we have it out in the garden?’ Osgood Compton asked.
‘Perhaps you’d like to carry this tray out?’ she addressed Jake pleasantly without looking at him, not seeing why he shouldn’t make himself useful. Picking up the tray she had laid earlier, she took it to him, and was glad to have the kitchen to herself when, Mr Compton chatting away, they departed.
Taryn busied herself making a pot of tea, and as she did so began to see that perhaps, in all fairness, Beryl-nee-Compton—she had no idea what her last name was—was only acting as any daughter worthy of the name should. What with her father by the sound of it singing the praises of his temporary housekeeper with every phone call, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising she should want to know that he wasn’t, as it were, being taken for a ride—offensive to her father though that might be.
‘You’ve forgotten the extra cup,’ Mr Compton reminded her when she carried a tray of tea and extra hot water out to them.
That he intended she should join them was kind, and had his great-nephew not been there she would have been pleased to have kept him company. But his nephew was there and, while she didn’t give a button that he might report back on how the housekeeper had joined them for tea, she thought Osgood Compton might enjoy some male company for a change.
‘I’ve got something in the oven I want to keep my eye on,’ she stated, though the casserole in the oven she was making ready for the freezer was able to cook quite well on its own, without her watching it.
‘If you’re sure?’ he answered, and then, as she paused a moment to check cake, cake knives, napkins, and that they had everything they would need, ‘Taryn’s normally in engineering too,’ he informed his nephew. ‘It was my good fortune that she wanted a break from it when Mrs Ellington had to go…’
‘You’re an engineer?’ Jake Nash asked, every bit as if he was interested.
This time she could not avoid meeting his grey eyes. ‘PA,’ she replied briefly, and left it at that.
She was on her way back across the lawn when she heard Osgood Compton informing his great-nephew, ‘Taryn was a PA at Mellor Engineering. You know them, of course?’
He would know from that too, Taryn realised as she sipped her own tea, why she had been in the building that day. It would not explain, though, why she had given him such short shrift in the lift when he had seen that she was upset. But, from his uncle’s comment just now that she had wanted a break from her more normal line of work, it was something of a whopping clue to anyone with a degree of intelligence that the reason she had been upset was because her employment had just been terminated.
It was fairly obvious to her that Jake Nash had much more than a degree of intelligence, but she cared not that he might think she had been dismissed from her post. And she saw no reason whatsoever to tell him that, when it came to terminating her employment, she had been the one to do it.
Taryn all at once realised that she was feeling quite anti. Quite worked up. Quite, quite…Words failed her. She did not like the man. Life here with Mr Compton had been tranquil. This man—Jake Nash—had strode in and shattered that tranquillity—and she did not like that either.
She made herself scarce when from the window she saw that her temporary employer and his nephew, carrying the heaviest tray, were heading for the kitchen. In her view he was Mr Compton’s visitor. There was no need at all for the housekeeper to be there to bid him farewell. She escaped to her room.
She left it a few minutes after she had seen his car go down the drive before she went down the stairs again, and was in the kitchen scraping new potatoes for the evening meal when Osgood Compton came looking for her.
‘Jake’s gone,’ he announced needlessly.
‘It must have been nice to see him,’ she replied. No need for the dear man to know that she knew the true reason for his visit—or for him to know how antagonistic she felt towards the man.
‘It was. Especially when he’s always so busy,’ Osgood agreed.
‘He mentioned he had business this way,’ Taryn commented non-committally.
‘Jake always has business somewhere,’ he answered proudly. And added, with yet more pride, ‘He heads the Nash Corporation. I expect you’ve heard of them?’
Taryn stared at him in amazement. Everybody who knew anything about engineering had heard of the Nash Corporation. Not that they dealt only in engineering. They were well known in the design, development and manufacturing world—a corporation that was involved in electronics, engineering and aviation, to name but a few. And Jake Nash headed that corporation!
‘I didn’t know he was that Nash,’ she answered with a smile. It did not make her like Jake Nash any better, but his uncle need not know that she was a touch anti-nephew just then.
‘He’s done well,’ he commented—a modest understatement, she felt. Mellor Engineering was quite a large outfit, but it was just not in the same league as the Nash Corporation. ‘Jake liked your cake, by the way.’
‘Oh, did he?’ she replied sunnily.
‘He said that if you’re half as good a PA as you are a cook, you’ll be snapped up the moment you put yourself back on the PA market.’
Too kind! She changed the subject. ‘I thought we’d have a chicken salad for dinner.’
‘Are you going to make some of that special potato salad you made the other day?’ he asked appreciatively. He was a joy to spoil.
Over the next few days Taryn felt her equilibrium start to settle down again. She had wanted that tranquillity back, and by about Wednesday morning she reckoned she had found it. It was not to last.
For all she took care of all the chores, Osgood Compton treated her more like a house guest than a housekeeper. They had enjoyed a shared lunch and, having left him to take what he called ‘a little zizz’—his usual afternoon nap—she was in the kitchen preparing vegetables for the evening meal when, to her astonishment, the kitchen door opened and none other than Jake Nash walked in!
Feeling fairly staggered, she asked, ‘Where did you leave your car?’ craning to see the whole semi-circle of the drive. Where had he sprung from? She rinsed her hands and grabbed up a towel and, turning to face him, began drying them.
‘I’ve walked up from the road. I didn’t want to disturb my uncle.’
Didn’t want…? Was she to take it from that that he did not want to disturb his uncle’s nap—or did she gather that Jake Nash was there to see her? Familiar feelings of hostility butted away tranquillity. ‘Come to check I haven’t run off with the family silver?’ she bridled, dark blue eyes flashing violet sparks.
For answer he gave her a smile of such sinking charm that she almost forgot that she didn’t like him. ‘We got off on the wrong foot,’ he suggested pleasantly, and held out his right hand.
Taryn stared at him, refusing to shake hands. ‘You want something?’ she said warily.
‘We both do,’ he acknowledged, his hand dropping back to his side.
‘We—do?’ She was cagey still.
‘Are you going to make me a cup of tea?’ he requested.
Taryn turned away to set the kettle to boil, knowing without having to ask that he had not been referring to a cup of tea when he had said he wanted something.
‘You’ll join me, I hope?’ he invited, when he observed she had taken out only one cup and saucer.
No need to be antagonistic just for the sake of it, she decided, taking out another cup and saucer and, since he was not yet ready to go and see his uncle, inviting him to take a seat at the kitchen table.
‘Cake?’ she offered.
‘You heard?’
Her lips twitched. He knew his uncle had passed on his compliment about her cake. She glanced at Jake Nash and saw he had his eyes on her nearly smiling mouth, perhaps noting he had reached her sense of humour. She sobered straight away, and busied herself taking two cups of tea over to the table. Against her sudden better judgement, she took him a slice of cake too.
Since he had invited her to join him, she sat down at the table with him, this good-looking, steady grey-eyed man. ‘So,’ she challenged, ‘if the phone lines from New York haven’t been buzzing again, what do you want that I might possibly want too? Presumably you believe there’s some sort of connection?’
‘You have a sharp intelligence, Taryn,’ he commented.
She fixed her dark blue glance on him. ‘So I can make a decent cake and I’m not too dim. So?’
‘You’ll be leaving here soon?’
‘Mrs Ellington phoned to say she will definitely be back by the end of next week.’
‘When you’ll be looking for a job?’
Taryn collapsed back in her chair. ‘You’re never offering me the job of your housekeeper!’ she exclaimed, bringing out that which her ‘sharp intelligence’ had brought her.
‘I’m quite adequately catered for in that department,’ he replied smoothly.
‘Of course,’ she murmured. ‘Your good lady will see to all your domestic arrangements.’
‘I don’t have a “good lady” in that sense.’
‘You’re not married?’
‘Nor living with anyone,’ he answered coolly. ‘I do have a kind soul who comes in and tidies up and cooks a bit most days.’ He shrugged, and challenged, ‘You like housekeeping so well that you want to continue with it when your stint for my uncle is done?’
She shook her head. ‘I needed a break from PA work—I’m now ready to go back to it.’
‘Back to Mellor Engineering?’
Subtle question. ‘No,’ she replied coldly. ‘And, to answer your next question, no, I was not dismissed on the spot,’ she informed him defensively.
He eyed her silently for long interminable seconds—and she was sure she was not going to say another word to the wretched man. ‘But you did leave—on the spot?’ he enquired, with that sharp intelligence he had. She refused to answer. ‘Care to tell me why?’ he persisted.
‘No!’ she retorted. ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’
‘You—had a small breakdown?’ he fished.
‘No, I didn’t!’ she exploded. Honestly, this man! If it was her house she’d chuck him out. She counted to ten, felt calmer and, since he had witnessed for himself that she had been upset that day in the lift, conceded, ‘I was—upset—at the time. But now I’m looking for a job I can well and truly get my teeth into.’
‘You want a career?’ he enquired mildly. But she had a feeling, as steady grey eyes held hers and he took in her every word, look and nuance, that this seemingly mild-at-the-moment man missed not a thing.
‘To have a career is paramount to me,’ she agreed. ‘My first priority.’
‘You have a second priority?’
‘I could do with finding somewhere to live.’
‘Where do you normally live when you’re not here in Knights Bromley?’
‘At home. In London.’
‘With your parents?’
‘My parents are divorced.’
‘You live with your mother?’
‘Honestly!’ she gasped. ‘Is there no end to your questions?’ He smiled, totally unperturbed. And, to her own surprise, she found she was telling him, ‘My mother lives in Africa. I live with my father and stepmother, actually.’
‘Ah!’
‘Ah?’ she queried.
‘I take it your stepmother is of the wicked variety?’
Her lips twitched again. What was it about this man that even when she was annoyed with him he could make her want to laugh? ‘So?’ she queried, determined again not to smile.
‘So,’ he replied, ‘while I’ll leave you to deal with the second of your problems, I might be able to help with your first.’
Keep up, Taryn, she urged, and realised he must be referring to her first and her second priority. Second was fresh accommodation; first was a PA career job.
She looked at him, seeking more of a clue. He looked back, saying nothing. ‘You’re saying you have PA vacancies at the Nash Corporation?’ she asked, bringing out slowly the only thing she could think he must be meaning.
‘From time to time,’ he replied, accepting that his great-uncle had told her of his company. ‘Though as secretaries are upgraded they are more usually filled internally.’
Taryn was not at all certain that she wanted to work for the Nash Corporation. Even if it was true that, as career moves went, she would be hard put to it to do better. ‘But you have one vacancy that you can’t fill internally?’ she guessed, while at the same time she could hardly credit that Jake Nash, the head of the whole shoot, should be talking to her about it—if indeed this was the case—when it went without saying that he must have a very efficient Human Resources department within his organisation who took care of all that.
He did not answer her question but instead asked her, ‘Tell me, Taryn, how long were you working for Mellor Engineering?’
He was interviewing her for a job! She stared at him wide-eyed, and not a little disbelieving. But she saw no harm in answering. ‘Five years.’
‘Has it been your only job?’ he wanted to know.
