Jessica Steele - A Pretend Engagement

Looking at Leon Beaumont, Varnie saw that he didn’t appear to believe it either. He cast an eye over her trim figure, in her casual but obviously good clothes, and bluntly, scepticism rife again, questioned, ‘You’re here to do domestic work?’

Varnie, used as she was to looking out for her brother, couldn’t see what other choice she had. ‘Yes,’ she confirmed.

His answer was to take hold of both her delicate hands. She immediately wanted to snatch her hands back, but by effort of will managed to stay still. She did not often have a manicure, but she had been going to go on holiday, for goodness’ sake, with someone she had up until yesterday thought of as someone a bit special. So why wouldn’t she go the whole hog and have her hands and nails professionally attended to?

‘These hands have never known hard work,’ he stated, tossing them disgustedly away from him.

‘Yes, they have!’ she argued.

‘You’ve skivvied?’ So absurd did the notion seem to appear to be to him, he looked as though he might burst out laughing. He didn’t.

‘I have!’

‘It looks like it.’

‘I was in the hotel trade!’ she defended, while hardly knowing why she was bothering. ‘I’ve worked all areas when required—chambermaid, cleaner, chef, secretary, accountant,’ she enumerated.

‘You were learning the hotel business?’ He seemed to reconsider. ‘So what happened?’ he wanted to know.

‘The—er…’ Oh, heavens, how much had Johnny told him? ‘The hotel sold out to a bigger chain,’ she lied. ‘There were two of us doing the same job. I—er—sort of lost out.’

‘You were sacked!’

Oh, how she would like to poke him in the eye—both eyes, come to that. ‘Not sacked. They’ve said they’ll give me a splendid reference.’ She had been in charge of that sort of thing; she could write herself a super reference if need be. Though of course a reference wouldn’t be needed for casual work.

‘So when this Mrs Lloyd told Metcalfe she couldn’t come, he rang and asked you to come and help out?’ he asked, looking not taken in for a second.

‘That’s about it,’ Varnie answered. What on earth was she doing? While she wanted to stay on at Aldwyn House, no way did she want to stay here with him! And no way did she want to stay and, worse, work for the wretched man.

‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ He declined an offer that she was not altogether sure she had made anyway.

‘Why not?’ Why was she arguing? Johnny—must keep Johnny to the forefront of her mind. Part of being a sister meant looking out for one’s sibling—no matter how infuriating that sibling could be at times.

For a moment it did not look as though Leon Beaumont would deign to answer. Then, abruptly, ‘I don’t take favours,’ he said curtly.

Good! Johnny! Damn. ‘It’s you who’ll be doing me a favour,’ she said in a rush—Johnny Metcalfe, you owe me, big-time. ‘I’m out of a job and I’ve nowhere to live until I hear from my live-in job applications,’ she lied sorrowfully.

Leon Beaumont looked as if to say, Tough. Oh, how she’d delight in kicking him out. Did Johnny really, really want to keep his job? ‘You intend to “live-in”?’ Beaumont asked harshly. ‘You want to be a…’ he paused ‘…a “live-in” skivvy?’ he enquired deliberately.

Oh, to thump his head! ‘The nearest town is miles away,’ she controlled herself to explain.

‘You didn’t come here on your bike—there’s a car parked out there.’

Clearly this man did not miss much. She’d had it with him. I tried, Johnny, I tried. ‘So I’ll leave!’ she answered snappily—and with no little amazement. She had been going to throw this man out, for goodness’ sake, and here she was, saying that she was going to leave! Johnny, of course. A part of his job appeared to be to find this womanising swine a bolthole when his womanising backfired on him. Well, Johnny had been efficient—he had found him that bolthole—nobody was likely to find Beaumont here.

She sighed heavily, and was about to get out of there when she found that Leon Beaumont had misinterpreted the reason for her sigh. He thought she was sighing because she was homeless and had nowhere to go. She guessed it was that, but didn’t thank him for it when suddenly he seemed to relent in his tough stance.

But his tone was curt, nevertheless, when he stated abruptly, ‘You can stay and earn your keep—with certain conditions.’

Huh! Big of you! I own this place! Johnny? Always Johnny. She lowered her glance so Beaumont should not see the enmity in her eyes. ‘Anything you say,’ she answered meekly.

There was a moment of silence, as if he either didn’t care for her meekness or did not believe in it. But he was soon sharply itemising. ‘One, you tell anyone I’m here—just so much as a whispered hint—and you’re out. Got that?’

She knew he meant the press, if they came sniffing around. They must have been ‘doorstepping’ him to have got that picture of him decking Neville King. ‘You don’t want anyone to know you’re here?’ she asked innocently. ‘I saw a picture of you in the paper yesterday. Are you afraid of that woman’s husband…?’ She didn’t finish, and he didn’t bother to dignify her absurd question with an answer.

‘I want no company but my own,’ he told her forthrightly.

‘You’re off women too?’

‘In spades!’ he retorted, and she could see that he meant it. ‘Which leads me to the second condition. You stay out of my bedroom!’

Oh, the arrogance of it! How she managed to hold down some snappy comment she had no idea. But she did, to ask nicely, ‘You’ll manage to make your own bed?’

He gave her a speaking look. She waited to be hired or fired. ‘Get my breakfast!’ he ordered.

Get it yourself, sprang to mind. But by the look of it, whether she wanted it or not—and she did not—she had been hired. ‘Three bags full, sir,’ she retorted, her phoney meekness short-lived as, his instructions given, he strode out.

Varnie went to her grandfather’s pantry to see what, if anything, there might be there that would in any way do for his lordship’s breakfast.

As she had anticipated, unless he fancied canned mandarins followed by canned corned beef, there was nothing. She went to the drawing room, where she found her new and unwanted employer standing looking out of the window.

He was so not interested in her he did not even turn around. ‘I shall have to go to the shops,’ she announced bluntly.

He did turn then, favouring her with a brooding kind of look. ‘Get me a newspaper,’ he commanded, and, to her huge embarrassment, he took out his wallet, extracted some notes and, without a word, held them out to her.

She flushed scarlet. ‘I don’t want your money!’ she erupted indignantly.

He stared at her in some surprise—surprise not only at her high colour but at her genuine indignation too. He seemed about to make some comment about both, but changed his mind to tell her bluntly, ‘I don’t want you paying for my breakfast.’ And, ramming the money into her hand, ‘Bring receipts,’ he snarled, and, plainly fed up with her, left her standing there.

Varnie wondered if she would last the day without thumping him. Never had she met such a man. He could starve as far as she was concerned. But again her mutiny was squashed by thoughts of her dear—though not so dear at the moment—brother.

She knew then that she would do all she could not to, as it were, rock the boat for Johnny. She would, because he loved his job so well, and for once seemed settled in a career, try to put in a good word for him whenever she could. She would do a good job on his behalf too, as long as it lasted. She hoped it would not be for long. She looked at the money in her hands. Oh, grief, there was enough there to keep them in supplies for a month.