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

But then there was nothing ‘usual’ about Maisie.

Unfortunately the child knew what she was talking about.

The village itself was nearer ten miles than six from the motorway, but it was easy enough to find and it certainly lived up to its name. There was a village shop with a post office, a pub, a garage and a small school, where a group of children were playing a skipping game in the playground, and a scattering of houses huddled around an untidy patch of grass masquerading as a village green. It took all of five minutes to check them all out, but it didn’t come as a complete surprise to discover that High Tops was not among them.

The clue, of course, was in the name.

The village nestled in a small valley. Behind it rose a range of hills that were mostly obscured by low cloud. It didn’t take a genius to work out where a house called High Tops was likely to be.

‘So much for the “minor” in diversion,’ she muttered, pulling up outside the village shop. ‘You can forget the postcard, Vickie Campbell,’ she muttered to herself.

‘I told you we weren’t nearly there,’ Maisie said.

‘So you did.’

‘It’s miles and miles and miles. Up there,’ she added, pointing in the direction of the mist-covered hills.

‘Thank you for that, Maisie. Please don’t move while I ask for directions.’

‘I know the way. I told you, it’s up there.’

‘Lovely. I won’t be long.’

The child shrugged and clamped the headphones back in place.

‘High Tops? You’re going up to High Tops?’ The doubtful look she received from the woman behind the shop counter was not reassuring.

‘If you could just point me in the right direction?’ she prompted.

‘Are you expected?’

The city girl in Jacqui resisted the urge to enquire what possible business it could be of hers; this was, after all, deep in the country, where, according to folklore, everyone considered it their right to know everyone else’s business. Besides, she really needed directions.

‘Yes, I’m expected,’ she said.

‘Oh, well, that’s all right, then. Could you take their post for me?’

The woman didn’t wait for her to reply, just handed her a carrier bag full of mail.

‘Right, well,’ she said, ‘if you can give me directions. I’m running a bit late.’

‘All the same, you city folk. Just don’t go racing up that lane. You never know what’s on the road up there. I saw a llama once.’ She didn’t wait for an answer, which was just as well, since Jacqui couldn’t hope to top a stray llama, but led the way out of the shop to point her in the right direction. ‘It’s simple enough. Carry along here, take the first turning left past the school and keep going until you get to the top. It’s the only house up there. You can’t miss it.’

‘Thank you so much. You’ve been very helpful.’

‘Just be careful how you go. The cloud’s low today and that lane is so full of ruts and potholes it really isn’t fit for anything but a Land Rover.’ She gave the VW a doubtful look and then did a swift double take as she caught sight of Maisie sitting in the back. ‘Is that…?’ Then, obviously deciding that it was, ‘Proper little doll, isn’t she? Her mother was just the same at that age.’ Then, ‘Well, obviously not the same…’ Perhaps realising that she was treading a dangerous line, she said, ‘She always looked like a little princess, too. I swear if she’d fallen in a midden she’d have come out smelling of roses.’

Jacqui thought that extremely unlikely, but didn’t say so. Instead she smiled and said, ‘Well, thanks for the directions. And the warning. I’ll watch out for the potholes. And the llama.’

She was definitely watching. Easing carefully over another deep rut as the wipers swatted away the moisture clinging to the windscreen, she gritted her teeth and continued to inch her way up the lane in low gear.

‘Nearly there,’ she said reassuringly, although more to herself than Maisie, who was ignoring the jolting with as much composure as a duchess. A lot more composure than she felt, as the bottom of the car ground on the edge of a deep, water-filled pothole that stretched most of the way across the lane. A broken exhaust was the last thing she needed.

The torture continued for another half a mile, ratcheting up the tension and tightening her shoulders. Finally, when she was beginning to think that she must have missed the house in the mist or that she’d taken the wrong lane altogether, an old, lichen-encrusted gate that looked as if it hadn’t been opened in years loomed out of nowhere, blocking the way. On it were two signs. One might have once said ‘High Tops’ but was so old that only the odd letter was still clear enough to read. The other was new. It read ‘Keep Out’.

She climbed out, and doing her best to avoid the mud and puddles, lifted the heavy metal closure and put her weight behind it, anticipating resistance…and very nearly fell flat on her face as it swung back on well-oiled hinges.

Maisie didn’t say a word as Jacqui scraped the mud off her shoes and climbed back behind the wheel, apparently still totally enraptured by the CD she was listening to. But she was wearing a thoroughly selfsatisfied little smile that betrayed exactly what she was thinking:

Little Princess, 1—Dumb Adult, 0.

Jacqui put the car into gear and a hundred yards or so further on the shadowy outline of a massive, ivyclad stone house, towers at each corner, the crenellated roof suggesting a fortified stronghold rather than the home of someone’s grandma, appeared out of the swirling mist.

Despite the fact that she’d never been anywhere near High Tops before, it looked vaguely familiar and Jacqui felt an odd sense of foreboding. It was, doubtless, caused by the combination of mist and mud.

She might not be totally in the mood for sun, sand and sangria, but given the choice she knew which option she’d choose. She almost felt sorry for Maisie.

Totally ridiculous of course, she told herself. At any moment the vast door would be flung open and the child enfolded in a loving welcome from her grandma, who must surely be looking out for them.

The door remained closed, however, and rather than expose Maisie’s satin shoes to the elements unnecessarily she said, ‘You’d better wait here while I ring the doorbell.’

Maisie looked as if she was about to say something, but instead she just sighed.

Jacqui was enfolded in the cold, damp air as she ran up the steps to a pair of iron-studded front doors that offered no concessions to the twenty-first century. There was nothing as remotely modern as an electric bell. Just an old-fashioned bell pull.

As she lifted her arm the silver bracelet slid down and the heart caught the light and flashed brightly. For a moment she froze, then she tugged hard on the bell pull and a long way off she heard the jangle of an old-fashioned bell.

From somewhere a dog raised its voice in a mournful howl.

Jacqui looked around nervously, half expecting a near relation of the Hound of the Baskervilles to come bounding out of the mist. Ridiculous. This was not Dartmoor…But nevertheless she shivered and, grasping the bell pull rather more firmly, she tugged it again.

Twice.

Almost before she let go there was a thud as a stiff bolt shot back. Then, as one half of the door opened, she realised why the house seemed familiar. She’d seen it—or at least something very like it—in a book of fairy stories she’d been given as a child; the one with all those terrifying tales about witches and trolls and giants.

This was the house where the big bad giant lived.

He still did.

Half an inch short of six feet—without her socks—Jacqui was tall for a woman but the man who opened the door loomed threateningly above her. OK, she was a step lower than him, but it wasn’t just his height; he was broad, too, his shoulders filling the opening, and even his hair, a thick, dark, shaggy lion mane that clearly hadn’t been near a pair of scissors in months, was, well, big . Gold eyes—which might have been attractive in any other setting—and three days’ growth of beard only added to the leonine effect.