Cara Colter - His to Command - the Nanny - A Nanny for Keeps

‘You must see that I can’t go anywhere until I’m sure that Maisie is settled and safe.’

‘Then I’ve got another suggestion, Miss Moore. Go to Spain and take Maisie with you.’ He waited and, when he didn’t get the ecstatic response he’d no doubt counted on, added, ‘That way you’ll get paid by the hour for lying in the sun.’

She laughed. ‘You obviously have a very limited idea of what looking after a child entails.’

‘I’ll even pay for an upgrade.’

‘I’m truly sorry,’ she said. It was possible that she didn’t sound entirely sincere, but then she wasn’t. Despite what Maisie had told her, the man kept suckering her into thinking that he deserved some consideration. He deserved absolutely nothing. ‘Appealing as your offer sounds, there are two very good reasons why I can’t accept. One, I’d need her legal guardian’s written permission before I took Maisie out of the country—something that I’m sure even you’d agree is a basic essential. It’s not as if you know a single thing about me.’ And because, suddenly, she was really angry with him for being so completely lacking in family feeling, so irresponsible, she said, ‘Have you any idea how much cute little girls fetch on the illegal-adoption market?’

‘I have a rather better idea of the cost than you, I imagine.’ Then, while she was still trying to get her head around that one, ‘And because I’m not as stupid as you appear to believe, I called your agency this afternoon and the charming Mrs Campbell emailed me your CV along with all manner of glowing testimonials.’

‘She did?’

‘Why did you drop out of university in the middle of your second year?’

‘She did.’

She left it at that. He didn’t want an answer to his question; it had simply been a power play, a demonstration that he did indeed know all about her. While she knew next to nothing about him. And what she did know was all bad.

She wasn’t having a very good day.

Little Princess, 2—Giant, 1…

‘So,’ he continued, ‘now we’ve cleared up that small problem and, assuming that, using the wonders of modern technology, Sally faxes her written permission to your agency, what’s your second objection?’

Everything, she thought, comes to she who waits. Time for Dumb Nanny to break her duck.

‘Maisie wants to stay here,’ she said. ‘And my job—’ she decided this might not be a good moment to tell him that she wasn’t actually being paid for doing this ‘—is to keep her happy. Why don’t you phone your new friend, Mrs Campbell, and ask her if she’d be prepared to take a bet on me doing just that?’

Despite the warm glow that putting a dent in his plans gave her, she anticipated a negative reaction to this challenge and, judging that this might be a good moment to leave, wasted no time about it.

‘Goodnight, Mr Talbot,’ she said, heading for the door. ‘Sleep tight.’ Actually, the ‘sleep tight’ was probably a mistake and it was just as well that she was carrying a mug of hot tea or she might have been tempted to make a run for it.

Not cool.

She’d managed to get in the last word and now she was leaving him—with dignity—to chew on it.

But as she walked across what seemed like a mile of quarry-tiled floor between her and the door, for every self-conscious inch of it aware of his gaze locked on her back, she didn’t really expect to get away without some knife-edged parting shot.

‘It’s Harry,’ he said, just as she made the safety of the door. ‘Call me Harry.’ Which was totally unexpected and then, when he had her full attention, added, ‘I think we’ve traded sufficient insults to drop the formalities, don’t you?’

Now that she’d had a chance to assess some of his finer points, Jacqui had to admit that she was tempted. No doubt about it, cleaned up, the man was six feet four inches of raw temptation. With a decent haircut and the serious application of razor to chin, she suspected he’d be dynamite.

Such a pity that he didn’t have a heart to match his body.

‘Are you offering to surrender, Mr Talbot?’

His jaw tightened, momentarily, and she had the uneasy impression that she was the one whose tongue was doing the cutting.

Impossible that a man of his stature, his character, could ever feel vulnerable, but she wished she’d kept her mouth shut for once and responded to his invitation with an encouraging smile, giving him a chance to tell her exactly what he was offering.

But then he lifted his massive shoulders in something that might have been a shrug, and said, ‘No, Miss Moore. I’m simply suggesting a truce for the night.’

So that was all right, then. No damage done. He was just the same as ever.

She might be trapped on a fog-bound hill with the little princess and the big bad giant, but this wasn’t a fairy tale. And while her coffee was good, it was going to take a lot more than one cup of the stuff to transform Harry Talbot into Prince Charming.

But then a kiss was the traditional cure…

‘In that case,’ she said, quickly, ‘until the resumption of hostilities at dawn, goodnight. Harry.’

He looked, for a moment, as if he was about to respond and she waited, her hand on the edge of the door, hoping for some indication that he was relenting. Offering something more.

But all he said was, ‘Goodnight, Jacqui.’

After that, she had no choice but to close the door and walk away, but she climbed the stairs to the second floor with a hollow feeling of regret. There was nothing that she could put her finger on, just the niggling certainty that she’d come close to something important but had been too busy defending her own position to see it properly.

She looked in on Maisie, straightened her tumbled covers, watched her for a while before going to her own room.

Harry did not move for a long time. The coffee cooled in his mug. In the pot. And still he waited for the air to still, settle, return to the way it had been until Jacqui Moore had stirred everything up.

After a while, a cat stretched and moved to the door, a dark shadow heading out for the night’s hunt. The scruffy hound rose on long legs and padded across to nose at his hand, politely suggesting it was time for a walk.

The animals seemed unaware of the eddies created by her presence still spinning through the air, disturbing the atmosphere, disturbing the emptiness, disturbing him.

He moved swiftly, rounded up the rest of the dogs, not stopping to put on the coat he grabbed from the peg as he set off across the hill. The old Labradors turned back after a while, but the hound stayed with him as he covered the miles in his determination to dislodge her from his mind. From his heart.

Jacqui left Maisie deciding between pink taffeta and yellow silk and went downstairs determined to find something rather more practical for her to wear.

She glanced in the small office, but there was no sign of Harry Talbot. No sign that he’d even been in the room, since the bag of mail she’d left on the desk was exactly how she’d left it.

She had better luck in the kitchen, which was occupied by a motherly woman busy emptying the dishwasher.

‘Are you Susan?’ she asked, cheered by the sight of a possible ally. ‘I’m Jacqui. Maisie’s nanny. Temporarily.’ There seemed little point in confusing matters by trying to explain exactly what the situation was. ‘Did Mr Talbot explain about the misunderstanding?’

‘Mr Harry? No. But then I stay out of his way as much as I can,’ she said, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘I only come up here every day because the missus refused to go until I promised her I’d keep an eye on everything. Make sure he’s got something to eat.’ Then, with a shrug, ‘Of course, I did hear that someone turned up with Miss Maisie yesterday afternoon.’