CATHY WILLIAMS - Too Scared To Love

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

HERE at last. Dark, freezing cold, but for the first time in months Roberta felt some of that desperate unhappiness and awful, sickening sense of shame begin to lift from her shoulders.

She relaxed in the taxi, her eyes flickering interestedly over everything.

The taxi driver was chatting to her, capitalising on the fact that she was new to his city to boast about absolutely everything. And with good cause.

Toronto by night was marvellous. As the car weaved towards the heart of the city, there was something vital about the illuminated buildings that soared upwards, intent on reaching the stars.

In the distance, by the harbour front, he pointed out the magnificent CN Tower, the tallest free-standing structure in the world, and Roberta gasped in awe at the slender column, rising upwards to its distinctive bubble before narrowing to needle-like slimness as it stretched upwards. Look at me, it seemed to be saying; in this concrete jungle I am the undisputed king.

There was nothing like this in London. Roberta frowned. She didn’t want to think about London. It made her depressed. She had come here in the hope of clearing her mind. The last thing she needed was to find herself pursued across the waters by her unhappiness.

‘How long you over here for?’ the taxi driver asked, and she dragged her attention away from the striking city skyline.

‘A month,’ she said. Would four weeks abroad really do anything?

‘Funny time of the year to pick for a long vacation,’ he responded, curiosity in his voice, and Roberta replied noncommittally, ‘I don’t mind the cold. It’s refreshing.’

He smiled and fell silent, leaving her with her thoughts.

It still seemed an incredible piece of good fortune that she had managed to land this job, even though she was well qualified for it.

She had been doing au pair jobs for the past two years. It had started out as a way of earning money while she considered various other options, but she had enjoyed it so much that those various other options had gradually faded into the background.

She was, she supposed, suited to it. She was a calm, self-possessed person, and she had quickly found that her capacity for patience had a quelling effect on even the most brattish of her charges.

Her friends all thought that she was mad. Why, they had uniformly asked her when she had first started, do you want to waste your university education on looking after spoilt two-year-olds?

But now she was glad that she had done so. How else would she have ever got an overseas job?

Of course, this was a slightly different one from those she had previously had. Emily was no toddler. She was a fourteen-year-old girl and, from what Roberta had read between the lines at her interview at the agency, a rather lonely little girl.

No mother, father hardly ever at home. The sort of domestic background that bred problems. She was doubtless terribly shy and insecure.

She found herself drifting off into speculation, only realising that they had reached their destination when the taxi stopped outside the house.

Roberta absent-mindedly paid the driver and stepped outside, gaping at the massive edifice facing her as he carried her luggage to the front door.

‘Well, have a good time,’ he said cheerfully, and she nodded distractedly. She had known that her employer was wealthy, but she certainly had not been prepared for this degree of wealth. No wonder the child’s father had no time for her, she thought wryly. He would have to work all the hours God made just to maintain a place of this size.

She tentatively rang the doorbell, hearing it reverberate distantly in the bowels of the house, and hoped that they wouldn’t be too long because it was cold outside. A dry, biting cold which seemed to work its way through her layers of clothing until she could feel its fingers pressed against her flesh.

She shivered and was about to ring the doorbell once again when the door was opened by a middle-aged woman wearing an ill-humoured expression.

Roberta ignored it and smiled.

‘Good evening,’ she said as warmly as she could through chattering teeth, ‘I’m—’

‘Yes, yes,’ the woman said, ‘I know who you are. You’re late. We expected you two hours ago.’

She ushered Roberta through, helping her with her cases, grumbling under her breath.

‘I should have been home by now,’ the woman muttered. ‘I had to stay here with Emily.’

‘I’m awfully sorry,’ Roberta began. ‘Surely Mr Adams—’

‘Mr Adams works late most nights,’ the woman cut in with disapproval in her voice.

‘I see.’ She didn’t see at all. It was nearly ten o’clock, for heaven’s sake! Apart from anything else, had he no interest in meeting the woman employed to look after his daughter? Rude, Roberta thought. A workaholic with no manners.

‘I’m Glenda Thornson, by the way—the housekeeper,’ the woman introduced herself, slightly less ill-tempered now that she could sense departure imminent on the horizon.

‘Pleased to meet you.’

Mrs Thornson was already moving towards the staircase and Roberta followed her. ‘It’s a lovely house.’

‘Not when you have to clean it.’

Roberta laughed and got a grudging smile in response.

She looked around her, appreciating the warm golds and yellows of the large hallway, and the tasteful interspersing of mahogany-framed paintings on the walls.

‘Where is Emily?’ She directed the question to the strait-laced back ahead of her and Mrs Thornson responded without turning around.

‘Asleep. Thank God. I’ll show you to your bedroom and then, if you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way. Have you had anything to eat?’

‘Yes,’ Roberta said quickly, drily aware that any other answer would have met with a frosty reception. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t terribly hungry anyway, even though she had eaten hardly anything on the flight over.

‘Well, the kitchen is on the ground floor to the right of the house, and the fridge is well-stocked. There’s some salad stuff, cold meats, and bread in the bread bin.’

They had arrived at the bedroom and Roberta stepped in, her face lighting up at the sheer luxury.

A huge bed, framed at the back by magnificent flowered drapes that fell to either side, dominated the room. On the floor, a massive rug picked up the colours of the curtains and the rosy tints of the antique furniture.

Mrs Thornson had retreated to the door and coughed pointedly.

‘I’m just off, Miss Greene,’ she announced. ‘If you’re sure that there’s nothing that you want...’

Roberta smiled. ‘A few hours’ sleep might be a good idea,’ she replied, just as eager to be on her own as Mrs Thornson was to leave the house.

‘Fine. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, no doubt.’

With that she vanished, and Roberta carefully began unpacking, preferring to get it over with rather than be confronted with the task the following morning. Every so often she stopped to admire tiny details in the bedroom: the exquisite clock on the dressing-table, two small oval-shaped paintings on either side of the windows, the tapestry cushions on the bed.

Grant Adams clearly had taste, or more probably had paid someone who had to decorate the house.

The little touches, though, spoke of a female touch. Was this how Emily spent her time when she was not at school, perhaps? Trying to instil atmosphere in a place which, if left to her workaholic father, would have no doubt been an empty shell?