Margaret Way - Cattle Baron - Nanny Needed

“You’re free of him now.”

“So I am.” She couldn’t conceal the bitterness and the pain.

“So what about dinner?” He repeated the invitation bracingly, as if dinner would be a form of therapy. “Are you up for it? I think it might do you a lot of good to be seen out on the town enjoying yourself. Or making a good show of it.”

She felt a moment of turmoil, not knowing if it was a good or a bad thing. Was it possible she was getting into very deep water? Being with Sean, it had only come up to her ankles, she now realised. “Why are you being so kind?”

“I’m not being kind. Not at all.” He cast a quick look at the near-empty pews. “I just don’t feel ready to say goodbye to you, Ms Wyatt. That’s all. I fly home in a few days.”

“In your own little Airbus?” She lifted her high arching brows. “It’s so nice to be rich.”

“I assure you it’s quite an effort holding on to it. However, where I come from, having your own plane is a necessity, not a rich man’s toy. I have a couple of helicopters as well.”

“I’m terrified of those,” she said. “I was involved in a scare in the TV station’s chopper some months ago. Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be attending the reception? It will go on for hours and hours.”

“Not for me it won’t,” he said firmly. “Where do you live?”

She held up her hands. “Please…no. This is madness!” She wasn’t at all sure she could handle a man like this. Sean had been one thing. This man was really, really something else.

“Maybe that’s why I like it.” He smiled. “Address, please?” He checked again on the remaining number of guests. Maybe a dozen. The organist was still playing triumphantly, although the soprano, probably with perforated eardrums, had made her escape.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea.” Amber, who never dithered, dithered. How could a woman feel like jumping off a cliff one minute and be going out to dinner with a handsome stranger the next? But then she realized that it did happen.

“Just give me your address,” he prompted.

Bemusedly, she did so. She might need him to put in a good word for her with his Godzilla of an aunt by marriage.

“I’ll pick you up at nine,” he informed her briskly. “I’ll be able to make it by then. You’ll feel better if you’re out and about.”

“Just don’t alert the paparazzi.”

He laughed, lifted a hand in salute, then began moving lithely down the flight of stairs.

His grandfather, accompanied by Rosemary, lost no time in seeking him out. They looked an incongruous duo, propelling their way towards him like two ocean-going liners breasting the high seas. Rosemary was a big woman who had become ever more substantial over the years. She towered over her father-in-law. But whereas Rosemary had reduced her doomed husband, Ian, to a tiny planet in orbit around her, his formidable grandfather radiated power, authority and a kind of physical indestructibility.

It had always been like that. Cal’s mother, the bolter, Stephanie, was Sir Clive’s only daughter. Her brother, Ian, was Georgie’s father, the only son. Their mother, Rochelle, had been killed a week after her fortieth birthday when her high-powered sports car, a birthday present, had slammed into a brick wall, doing one hundred miles per hour. Ian had taken after his father in looks if nothing else; Stephanie had inherited Rochelle’s beauty, wit and high octane nature. Stephanie had been idolized by Sir Clive and endlessly indulged, whereas Ian had never been able to cope with a stern and exacting father’s expectations and demands.

Georgie, the Erskine heiress, had never worked a day in her life. But then she hadn’t lived a life devoted exclusively to the pursuit of pleasure either. Georgie, like her father, lived her life under Rosemary’s thumb. How then had a moral lightweight like Sinclair hoodwinked Rosemary, let alone his grandfather, into thinking he would make Georgie a good husband? Cal had believed them more than capable of sniffing out a rat. Well, they would know soon enough. Ms Amber Wyatt had made a very lucky escape. He didn’t doubt that for a minute.

His grandfather laid a steely hand on his arm. “I want to thank you, Cal, for getting that outrageous young woman out of harm’s way. What was she thinking of, coming to the church? Simply not done!” he huffed. “Especially not to me or my family. She’d behaved herself up until now. I had every intention of offering her a holiday. Anywhere in the world she cared to go. Certainly not now. That’s gone by the board.” He nodded his large balding head several times, then pulled his right ear lobe.

“Why not forget it?” Cal suggested. “Maybe she shouldn’t have turned out for the wedding, but she must have taken the public humiliation hard. A lot of women in her shoes might have been prepared to do a whole lot worse.”

“That was bad enough,” Sir Clive grunted, still red in the face. “You’re not defending her, surely, m’boy?”

“I suppose I am,” Cal admitted. He was in no way intimidated by his authoritarian maternal grandfather. Not even as a child.

“I can’t believe this!” Rosemary shook with rage. “Seeing that girl arrive was almost the death of me. To think she would try to spoil our Georgie’s big day!”

“It could have been a lot worse,” Cal said provocatively. “As I understand it, Ms Wyatt has drawn a lot of public sympathy.”

“Cheap! She’s cheap, cheap, cheap!” Rosemary glared back, shoulders shuddering. “Of course she’s very beautiful.”

“Dangerously so,” he suavely agreed. “But she didn’t intend to do anything too dreadful.”

“That’s your view, is it?” Sir Clive gave a sudden bark. He stared back at Cal as if he had suddenly gone mad. Worse—disloyal. “This was your cousin’s— my granddaughter’s—big day, might I remind you, Cal? A bloody fortune has gone into it.” Even he had been gobsmacked by the cost.

“You know it was well worth it, Grandfather, dear,” Rosemary appealed to her father-in-law, who had fronted the monumental bill.

That didn’t curb Sir Clive’s rage. “That young lady made one very big mistake today. It has turned me against her. The whole thing will be reported in the newspapers. I don’t take kindly to being made a fool of. What exactly did she intend to do?”

“Nothing really. She just took it into her head to attend.”

“You’re covering for her, Callum,” Rosemary said with fierce disapproval. “There’s only one explanation—she intended to cause a massive scene. You couldn’t let her do that.”

“No, of course I couldn’t,” Cal agreed quietly; he had known Ms Amber Wyatt was a bundle of trouble from the moment he had laid eyes on her. “But I’m defending her because she came quietly. Always a good sign. If she were as bad as you seem to think, she could have turned on quite a show. Instead, she let me escort her up to the organ loft.”

Rosemary showed her mean eyes. “I think it had more to do with the fact she knew she wasn’t any match for you. All through the ceremony my Georgie would have been frantic with worry. Sean too. Which brings me to why he said he had to be free of her.”

Cal kept his eyes fixed on Rosemary’s face. “Do tell, Rosemary. You’re dying to. Why did your son-in-law have to make the break? A physical description of Ms Wyatt would have to be glorious.”

“Be careful you’re not giving yourself away, Callum,” Rosemary retaliated, nostrils flaring. “You always were susceptible to a beautiful woman. Take Brooke now—”

“That will do, Rosemary,” Sir Clive sternly intervened. “Kindly remember this is my grandson you’re talking to. Brooke Rowlands wasn’t anywhere near good enough for Callum. Now, we have to go in to our guests. This is supposed to be a joyous occasion. I have to tell you I’m none too happy about Georgie’s new husband, but the deed is done. We would have had to admit her to a psychiatric facility if any of us had tried to stop her. That doesn’t excuse Ms Wyatt’s part in the day’s proceedings, however. She looks such a lady too. I’m disappointed. However, for this outrage she might find herself behind the cameras for a while. Give her time to reflect.”