Emma Richmond - The Boss's Bride

‘He’s investigating,’ Adam drawled. ‘He won’t come to any harm. Lydia’s watching him, and you’re late.’

‘Traffic was bad,’ she said mildly. Checking to see that the housekeeper really was watching him, she walked on. Some days were better than others. Some days she could get through all their working hours without actually wanting to touch him. And some days she couldn’t. With a determination she sometimes found quite frightening, she firmly dismissed the matter.

Reaching the side door of the house, which stood open, she walked quietly inside. A feeling of age enveloped her, of centuries past, and she breathed in the heady aroma of polish and musk and antiquity. A baby-gate was fixed incongruously across the bottom of the beautiful staircase.

‘I love this house,’ she murmured.

‘You can’t afford it,’ Adam said from behind her.

‘Yet,’ she said softly, and he laughed.

Turning, she watched him wiping his hands on an oily rag. She wasn’t quite sure which was doing the best job of transferring the grease. ‘I forgot to take the device to open the front gates,’ she informed him, ‘and so I had to leave my car in the lane and walk round the back.’

He grunted.

‘But if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have found the secret garden. It’s beautiful.’

‘It’s a mess.’

She smiled again. ‘You have no soul.’ Her heels clipped on the tiled floor as she walked into the room on the left, and then she halted. Boxes littered the floor; files were stacked on the desk, the chair, and on one of the filing cabinets. Paper spewed from the fax machine and the computer was buried beneath the pink sheets of the Financial Times. Turning, she gave Adam a look of admonishment.

‘Neville sent down the rest of the papers I needed,’ he told her indolently as he leaned in the doorway. ‘I’ll clear them away later.’

‘Your accountant knows very well that the information is on disk,’ she countered mildly. ‘We don’t need paper.’

‘I do. What did they say?’

‘Two weeks.’

He waited, eyes amused.

She gave a slow smile. ‘You know me too well.’ In fact, he didn’t know her at all. There was a clunk from behind him, and they both turned to look. With a little tsk, Adam bent down to remove the radiator cap from the baby’s fist. ‘No,’ he said firmly.

Nathan beamed at him and crawled energetically towards Claris. Using her legs as an aid, little fingers pinching into the flesh, causing her to wince, he climbed to his feet and stared up at her. His scrutiny was as intense as hers. And then he laughed and tugged on her skirt. Dropping her large handbag, she bent to scoop him up and into her arms, and then gave a little grunt of pain as he dug his feet into her waist and proceeded to try and climb higher. All attempts at restraint failed.

‘You’re a pickle,’ she told him. ‘And don’t pull my hair.’

‘Dib, dib.’

She grinned, and he suddenly lunged forward, mouth open to reveal a row of tiny teeth. Quickly jerking backwards, she gently placed him back on the floor. ‘Piranha,’ she scolded.

‘How well do I know you?’ he prompted.

‘Well enough to know that your replacement printer will be here tomorrow.’

‘And if it wasn’t?’ he asked softly.

‘Then the order would be cancelled and we would go somewhere else.’ There was a slithering sound and she turned quickly to see the pile of files on the chair slowly topple.

Adam was faster, and scooped the baby out of the way of the avalanche just in time. She took Nathan from him before he could get grease all over the baby, and put him down the other side of the desk. Like a needle to a magnet, he headed straight for the bookcase.

‘And?’

‘And I would make very sure that their reputation suffered,’ she added as she headed in the same direction. ‘I’m a very good—negotiator.’ The bookcase wasn’t fixed to the wall, and she held it steady as the baby hauled himself upright and put one foot on the bottom shelf—from where the books had all been removed. Yesterday. In haste. ‘Did you really expect me to fail?’

‘No. You’re a very resourceful lady.’

‘Clever,’ she corrected with a grin. ‘The word is “clever”. No,’ she added softly.

Nathan looked at her, looked at the bookcase, thumped to his bottom and went to investigate the wastepaper basket instead.

‘We’ll have to—’ she began.

‘We?’

Pursing her lips, eyes alight with self-mockery, she corrected, ‘I will have to get someone to screw it to the wall. I called in at the hospital,’ she added quietly. ‘No change. I said you’d be in later.’

He nodded.

Her eyes on the baby, she said, ‘He’s adjusted very well, hasn’t he? It’s only when he wakes up…It breaks my heart,’ she added softly, ‘to see the look of expectancy on his face, as though this time it will be his mother, but then he smiles…He’s such a happy baby.’

‘I thought you didn’t like babies?’ he mocked softly.

‘I didn’t say I didn’t like them; I said I didn’t know anything about them. Has he had his lunch?’

He nodded again.

‘Then I’ll take him up for his nap.’ Scooping up the baby, she walked out. Hitching up her skirt, she climbed over the baby-gate and walked slowly upstairs. And, almost against her will, the feel of the warm, squirmy body in her arms woke something inside that she thought would never again entirely sleep. She’d never had very much to do with babies, and would have said, even as little as a week ago, that she wasn’t maternal. And yet this energetic little scrap was beginning to tug on her heartstrings as no one else ever had.

Gently stroking his hair, she walked into his bedroom and laid him in his cot. ‘Go to sleep,’ she ordered softly as she bent to give him a kiss. Putting a light blanket over him, she smiled into the big blue eyes staring up at her. He was beautiful, and appealing, and he made her want to smile. Even Adam wasn’t immune, though he tried to pretend he was.

Walking across to the window, she drew the curtains. Picking up the baby alarm, she went quietly out. Back in her own room, she changed out of her suit into a loose skirt and top, shoved her feet into flat, comfy sandals, clipped the alarm to her belt, and went down to the kitchen to beg a cup of coffee from Lydia.

The housekeeper wasn’t a great one for chatting, but then neither was Claris. Accepting her coffee with a smile, she walked back to the study. Adam still stood in the centre of the floor, wiping his hands, a look of distraction on his strong face. And the phone was ringing.

Picking up the receiver, she listened, nodded, then agreed quietly, ‘That will be fine.’ Replacing the phone, she scribbled a note in the diary and then glanced at her employer. He had moved to stare through the door into the side garden. ‘Mackenzie will come and see you about the land on Friday afternoon,’ she told him.

He gave an absent nod and began to walk out, no doubt to continue tinkering with his old car. The old car that was entered in the endurance rally to be held the following month. The rally he would now have to miss.

Seconds later he was back.

‘That woman’s out there,’ he informed her, almost accusingly.

Her lips twitched. ‘Which woman?’

‘Puce.’

‘Puce?’ she asked in bewilderment as he headed towards the hall, and then realised who he meant. ‘Oh.’

‘I’m going to have a shower.’

‘Adam,’ she warned.

Ignoring her, he continued out, and she heard his soft footsteps as he ascended the stairs.

Moments later Lydia appeared, to tell her that a Mrs Staple Smythe was here.

With yet another invitation? Claris wondered. Tempted to tell Lydia to get rid of her, she opened her mouth to do so, and then changed her mind. Perhaps she ought to see her, try and get things onto a warmer footing. Alienating neighbours was never a good plan. ‘Show her into the lounge, would you, Lydia?’ she asked resignedly.