Wife For Hire

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He gave her a leisurely, dangerous smile. ‘I suggest you tell yourself that every morning when you wake up,’ he said silkily, ‘because I can feel the heat radiating from you like a furnace. If I laid a finger on you right now, I bet you’d just go up in flames. Poof! Just like that. You’re even trembling, and don’t bother to deny it. But still, nothing personal. At any rate, I’m involved, in case you’d forgotten.’

He stalked across to the door and stayed there for a few seconds, looking at her, his hand resting lightly on the doorknob. ‘See you in a few weeks’ time, Rebecca. And I don’t expect you to back out because of our past little liaison. I’m sure you’re grown up enough to realise that it would be a vast disfavour to my daughter if you did. For the wrong reasons.’

With that, he was gone.

CHAPTER THREE

THE station was packed. Rebecca rarely travelled down to London. Year after year, she promised herself a treat—told herself that she would vanish to London for a week or two during the summer holidays and catch up on all those exciting things a girl of her age should be enjoying: theatres, shopping, mingling with the teeming crowds, perhaps even a nightclub, if she could drag a friend down with her. Unfortunately, whenever she tallied up the prospective bill for any such jaunt, she would feel the familiar shudder of horror at the thought of spending huge sums of money to stay in a hotel for a fortnight, eat out and go to the theatre, not to mention shopping.

And the idea always evaporated. Spain for two weeks during the summer holidays was a cheaper, more reliably hotter option. And Cornwall to visit her cousin and her three boisterous children held even more appeal.

So now, with swarming crowds around her, she felt hopelessly lost, as though she had wandered accidentally into another country.

She’d managed to commandeer a trolley and she pushed it along the platform, at which point she was obliged to abandon it so that she could lug her two hefty suitcases up the escalator and out of the station.

By the time she was outside, with a freezing wind gusting around her, she felt thoroughly deflated.

This was all a horrendous mistake. She had been manoeuvred into doing something she basically didn’t want to do. She had had the whole of Christmas to think about it in Cornwall, and, however much she had lectured to her cousin on what a splendid and altruistic gesture it had been to commit herself for an indefinite period of months to a private tutoring job, she couldn’t erase the niggling unease that had settled at the back of her mind like a heavy stone.

‘Why are you looking so worried if you know you’re doing the right thing?’ Beth had asked her one evening. ‘I can’t really see what’s bothering you. You’re going to be paid more than I could ever hope to get in a month of Sundays, and the school is going to keep your job open for when you return.’ Which had shamed Rebecca because Beth worked like a carthorse, looked after her three children in the absence of a husband, and rarely complained.

‘I don’t much like her father,’ Rebecca had said, omitting to mention that they had once briefly known one another several centuries ago.

‘Why not?’

‘He’s a bit autocratic.’

Beth had shrugged. ‘Humour him. Keep a low profile. Do your job and save all the money you earn. You’ll come out smiling.’ She’d grinned. ‘Then you can fling it all in my direction and buy me another car. Mine’s had it.’

She looked around her now, feeling like anything but smiling. There was a row of black cabs moving slowly forward and a queue of people shuffling in line, waiting their turn. His secretary had informed her that she would be met at the station. She was on the verge of abandoning hope, when she heard Emily’s voice from behind her, and she swung around to see her advancing gaily, confidently and designer-clad in a black coat, black boots, with a glimpse of jade beneath the swirling lapels.

‘Sorry I’m a bit late,’ she said breathlessly, and Rebecca gave her a quick, assessing once-over. This was not the Emily she had expected. She had expected to cope with the teenager’s ongoing despondency. Emily looked as despondent as someone who had just been told that they’d won the lottery.

‘The car’s parked on double yellow lines. We’ll have to hurry before poor old Jason gets a ticket. The traffic wardens are terribly officious around here.’ She grabbed Rebecca’s arm and appeared oblivious to her attempts to move quickly with two suitcases in tow.

‘So,’ Rebecca finally said, catching her breath and sitting back in the plushly upholstered chauffeur-driven Jaguar, ‘how are you, Emily?’

‘Oh, you know.’

‘If I knew, I wouldn’t have asked,’ Rebecca said. Without the school uniform, Emily could have passed for a girl in her early twenties. She was tall, strikingly pretty, with long black hair and very blue eyes, and with the self-assurance of someone who had learned to grow up before her time.

‘Coping,’ Emily said with a careless shrug. ‘Glad you’re here, actually. Christmas was a nightmare.’ She made a face. She had been staring out of the window and she swung around to look at Rebecca. ‘Most of my friends were away doing wonderful things in hot places, and I was stuck at home with Dad and that dreadful, hideous, awful woman of his. I hate her. Yuk.’

She had stopped looking like a young woman in her early twenties and reverted to teenager with an axe to grind. ‘She spent the entire fortnight forcing everyone to be jolly. Thankfully, Dad was away most of the time so I only saw her now and again. When I was dragged out of my bedroom. Do you know what she gave me for a Christmas present?’ Emily didn’t pause to let Rebecca answer. ‘A giant stuffed toy! Can you believe it? A giant stuffed panda!’

‘Maybe she thought that it would come in useful for the baby.’

‘I don’t want to talk about that.’ She had turned away again and was looking out, her shoulders hunched in defiance.

‘You can’t hide from it, though, can you?’ Rebecca said gently.

‘It’s all my father talked about the whole time. My stupidity. I don’t know why I had to come and live with him. He’s worse than Mum. At least all she nagged me about was how much she hated him. He just nags me about everything: the clothes I wear, the way I look and my stupidity. That’s when he’s around. Most of the time he’s not. I think he finds it easier not being around me. I get on his nerves.’ There was such childish, bewildered self-pity in her voice that Rebecca felt her heart lurch. She had to remind herself that this was not about taking sides, it was about educating Emily. Her problems with her father would have to be resolved between the two of them, and possibly the panda-giving stepmother-to-be.

‘I don’t suppose you managed to get any work done?’ Rebecca asked, changing the subject, and Emily looked at her.

‘Course not. I told you, I spent most of the holiday hiding away in my room, listening to music and watching television. Anyway, I was waiting for you to arrive.’

‘We’ll do as much as you feel up to doing.’

‘So if I can’t be bothered, you won’t force me?’ Emily asked with adolescent optimism, and Rebecca shook her head and grinned.

‘Sure I’ll force you, but I’ll make sure to do it gently.’

‘And what if I refuse to do any at all?’

‘I’ll pack my bags and head back home.’ The car had cleared the slow-moving traffic and was picking up a bit more speed as they headed away from the city centre to the leafy suburbs of North London.

‘You can’t do that,’ Emily said quickly. ‘You can’t leave me alone with those two!’

‘One of whom happens to be your father, your own flesh and blood, whether you like it or not.’

‘You mean a complete stranger who doesn’t like me and would rather he’d never been saddled with my presence,’ Emily returned sulkily, and she then spent the remainder of the trip staring vacantly out of the window, leaving Rebecca to nurse her ongoing misgivings at what lay ahead.

On the plus side, she liked what she heard about Nick not being around a lot. At least she wouldn’t have to contend with him and her suspicions that he probably remembered her as the lust-crazed teenager who had made no secret of how she had felt.

On the minus side, Emily was going to be a handful. The fact that she wouldn’t discuss the pregnancy rang alarm bells in Rebecca’s head. It smelled of denial, which meant that she probably hadn’t dealt with the shock of the situation. Nor would she have mentally resolved the considerable consequences it entailed. She had shoved the pregnancy to the back of her mind. Did she think that by avoiding the topic it would simply go away?

She was frowning and thinking about this when Emily said, after her prolonged silence, ‘Nightmare Hall approaches.’