Sara Craven - A Nanny For Christmas

Phoebe rose too. ‘It’s unlikely our paths will ever cross again, Mr Ashton.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that because I know Tara has her heart set on seeing you.’ He walked to the door, then turned. He said quietly, ‘Phoebe, please don’t allow your judgement of me to affect my daughter. That wouldn’t be fair. Good night.’

She heard the front door close behind him, and sank back onto her chair, aware that her legs were shaking under her.

‘And that’s not fair either,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘Oh, so clever, Mr Ashton.’

She couldn’t sleep that night, although she tried the usual anodynes of a warm bath and hot chocolate. She found herself tossing restlessly from one side of the bed to the other.

Dominic Ashton filled her mind, precluding all else.

She could hardly believe her own bad luck. On his own admission, he’d only been back at Fitton Magna a short time. If she hadn’t been offered that temporary job at the tea rooms, she might have moved away from West combe in complete safety, her peace of mind intact.

Peace of mind? a scornful voice in her head seemed to ask. You don’t even know what that means. For six years you’ve been torturing yourself over this man. Doing endless penance for something that wasn’t even your fault. Flaying yourself over a humiliation that he doesn’t even remember. Not even your name rang any bells with him. It was all far too trivial for that. You’ve been beating yourself to death for nothing, you stupid bloody idiot

And now you’ve seen him again. You’ve talked to him and the world hasn’t come to an end. In fact, this could just be the impetus you need to get you out of West combe and onto this new life that you want. If you’re not careful, you could end up feeling grateful to him.

‘Oh, no,’ Phoebe said aloud, and forcefully. ‘Not that. Never that’

She pushed the quilt away, got out of bed, put on her robe and trailed downstairs.

There were still embers glowing in the grate, and she added a few sticks and some lumps of coal, then curled up in the corner of the settee, staring at the flames.

Whatever she did, the bad dreams, the obsession with Dominic Ashton as the villain who had scarred her for life had got to end, she told herself. And that wouldn’t happen unless she went back to the beginning. Remembered, and placed in perspective, everything that had happened.

Up to now, she’d never really allowed herself to do that, telling herself it hurt too much. Finding it easier to focus only on the culmination of the whole wretched chain of events.

Now she made herself recall how it had all begun.

Which, of course, had been with Tony...

‘You fancy him, don’t you?’ asked Tiffany, laughing.

Phoebe blushed. ‘No, of course not’

They were in Tiffany’s bedroom, trying on clothes. Phoebe looked at herself in a tiny scarlet Lycra skirt and a black bustier. She’d never worn anything like them in her life. She’d never been allowed to. Her father was ultraconservative about clothes. When Phoebe needed anything, a personal shopper from one of the big department stores was employed and her instructions were clear.

In fact, it was amazing that her dad had allowed her to spend a few days at Tiffany’s. But then, as she admitted to herself, if he’d had any idea what a comparatively short time Phoebe had known her, he would probably have refused. The fact that Tiffany had only arrived at the school the previous term had been kept strictly under wraps.

Tiffany’s house was a revelation. It had been designed along the lines of an ante-bellum mansion of the American Deep South, because, as Tiffany’s mother had explained, she’d spent her honeymoon in New Orleans and felt it was her spiritual home.

The decor was lavish. Phoebe, more used to book-lined walls and faded chintzes, thought, a shade uncomfortably, that it was like a Hollywood movie set. Every bathroom gleamed with gold fittings. Every window seemed to droop under the sheer weight of swagged and festooned velvet. The kitchen seemed as elaborate as the control capsule of a space craft, and as sterile, because no one ever cooked in it.

Outside, there was a heart-shaped swimming pool, with an adjoining Jacuzzi, and a tennis court.

Partly because of this, but mainly through the totally casual welcome extended by the Bishops to anyone who turned up, the place was always teeming with people.

Tony Cathery was one of them.

He was at university, reading Fine Arts, because, as he’d said, he couldn’t think of anything more useful, and Tiffany, apparently, had known him ‘for ever’.

He was tall and blond, with blue eyes which crinkled at the corners, and a glossy Mediterranean tan acquired in the Greek islands earlier that summer. And, yes, he’d confirmed, grinning, it was all over, if anyone wanted to check. He was a marvellous swimmer, a terrific tennis player and an exuberantly sexy dancer.

Phoebe had never encountered anyone quite like him. Up to the time of his arrival, she’d been feeling very much the odd one out. There was no one else she knew there, and everyone else seemed so much smarter and streetwise than she did.

She was miserably aware that a couple of the girls had christened her ‘Feeble Feeb’ and laughed at her behind her back, and there had been times when she’d wondered if Tiffany was regretting that she’d ever invited her. Certainly she didn’t seem to want to spend much time with her. And, in a house virtually devoid of books, Phoebe often found herself at a loss.

Eventually, she discovered an elaborate onyx and ivory chess set on a table in the ornate conservatory which served as an extension of the drawing room.

She was hunched over it one day, half-heartedly working out a chess problem—and considering the more pressing dilemma of what excuse she could make to cut her visit short—when a voice behind her said softly, ‘My God, I don’t believe it. At last, a woman with a brain.’

Startled, Phoebe turned to find Tony Cathery smiling down at her.

‘Black seems to be in a hopeless position,’ he went on, pulling up a chair opposite her. ‘Let’s see what I can do.’

By the time the problem was solved, Phoebe was shyly hanging on his every word.

That night he sat beside her at dinner, and made her join in the dancing afterwards. Phoebe could see the surprise on the other girls’ faces, and revelled in it.

Not so Feeble Feeb, she thought joyously.

But she was also a little nervous. Her sexual experience, apart from a few kisses, was nil. She might be dazzled, but she was also wary, unsure what Tony wanted from her.

But Tony, oddly, seemed wary too—hesitant to push things too far or too fast between them—and she was grateful for his restraint, at first anyway. Then, as time went on, she began to wonder. To worry a little.

She was cheered, however, when he told her there was going to be a party the following Friday evening at a house some miles away.

‘You are going to come with me, aren’t you?’ he asked almost anxiously.

‘I haven’t been invited. Besides, I said I’d go home at the weekend.’

Tony groaned. ‘Oh, sweetheart, you can’t do this to me. Ring home. Say you’re staying on for a few days.’ He put his hand on the nape of her neck, under the heavy fall of brown hair, and stroked the slender curve very gently, making her body arch in delight.

He put his lips to her ear, and whispered, ‘I don’t want to part with you, darling. Not yet.’

The next day, she phoned her father, making some excuse, trying not to hear the disappointment in his voice.

Because she needed to be with Tony. She couldn’t bear to leave either. Not before...

Always, at that point, her mind closed off.