Jill Mansell: Sheer Mischief

I’m afraid I can’t employ someone who is dishonest.’

Maxine felt her cheeks burn. He was bluffing, he had to be. Stiffly, she replied, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Don’t you?’ This time he actually smiled. ‘In that case, wait here. I’ll just go and find my son.’

He returned less than two minutes later with the boy in tow Although nine-year-old Josh Cassidy had straight, white-blond hair in contrast to his father, Maxine was struck by the similarity of their extraordinary dark blue

‘Hello, Josh,’ she said, dredging up a brave smile and wondering why he was staring at her in that odd way.

But Guy was handing his son a large brown envelope. ‘Here,’ he said casually. ‘I developed that film you gave me earlier. Take a look at these prints, Josh, and tell me how you think they’ve turned out.’

Maxine spotted the offending item a fraction of a second before Josh. Having tipped the photographs out of the envelope and spread them across the coffee table, he was still studying them intently, one at a time, when she let out a strangled cry and made a grab for it.

Guy, standing behind her, whisked the photograph from her grasp and handed it, in turn, to his son.

‘Golly,’ said Josh with a grin. Staring at Maxine, who was by this time redder than ever, he added, ‘I thought I knew you from somewhere!’

‘And the moral of this story,’ she muttered sulkily, ‘is never trust a member of the paparazzi.’

‘You look different today.’ Studying the glossy ten-by-eight at close quarters and looking pleased with himself, he said, ‘I think I prefer you in the white dress. It’s a good photograph, isn’t it?’

It was a bit too good for Maxine’s liking. No wonder Guy Cassidy had been able to recognize her. There she was, captured for posterity in that stupid wedding gown, laughing as she clambered out of the panda car and not even realizing that her skirts had bunched up to reveal white stocking tops and a glimpse of suspender. And the expression on Tom-the-policeman’s face, she observed with resignation, didn’t help. He was positively leering.

‘Hang on a minute.’ Josh was looking puzzled again. ’If you got married yesterday, why aren’t you on a honeymoon?’

‘I wasn’t getting married,’ said Maxine impatiently.

‘Or arrested. It was a fancy-dress party, that’s all. Then I ran out of petrol on the way home and the policeman gave me a lift.’ Fixing Guy with a mutinous glare, she added, ‘It was nothing sinister, for heaven’s sake.’

He shrugged. ‘Nevertheless, I’m sure you understand why I can’t consider you for the job.

I’m sorry, Miss Vaughan, but I do have the moral welfare of my children to take into account.’

‘At least I’m not dowdy and prim,’ she muttered in retaliation.

‘Oh no.’ This time, as he drew a slim white envelope from his shirt pocket, he laughed. ‘I’ll grant you that.

But I’m afraid I have work to do, so maybe I could ask my son to show you out. And Josh, I’ve written out the advert. If you run down with it now, you’ll just catch the last post.’

‘Well?’ said Guy, when his son returned twenty minutes later.

‘She gave me five pounds and a Cornetto.’ Josh looked momentarily worried. Was that enough?’

Amused by his son’s concern, Guy ruffled his blond hair. ‘Oh, I’d say so. Five pounds and a Cornetto in exchange for a first-class stamp and an empty envelope. It sounds like a fair enough swap to me.’

Chapter 4

The response to the advertisement when it eventually appeared the following week wasn’t startling, but it was manageable. Guy preferred to do his own hunting as a result of the futile experiences he’d had three years earlier when he’d tried using an agency. Having also learned to expect applications from star-struck girls and would-be second wives, he had omitted his name from the advertisement.

But last time he had struck lucky. Berenice, profoundly unimpressed by his celebrity status, had fitted the bill to perfection. Stolid, hard-working and not the least bit glamorous, what she lacked in sparkle she’d more than made up for in dependability. Guy, whose work required him to travel abroad at short notice, was able to do so without a qualm, safe in the knowledge that his children would be competently looked after by someone who cared for them and who would never let him down.

It had come as something of a shock, therefore, when Berenice had shyly informed him that she was shortly to be married, and that since her future husband had been offered a job in Newcastle, she would be leaving Trezale.

Guy hadn’t even been aware of the existence of a man in her life, but discretion had always been one of Berenice’s major attributes — as he had himself on numerous occasions had cause to be thankful for. The courtship, it appeared, had been conducted on her days off. And although she was sorry to be leaving, she now had her own life to pursue. She hoped he wouldn’t have too much trouble finding a replacement.

Interviewing the half dozen or so applicants, however, was both tedious and time-consuming. What Guy wanted was a clone of Berenice with maybe a sense of humour thrown in for good measure.

What he got, instead, was a succession of girls in whom it was only too easy to find fault.

Josh and Ella, dutifully trotted out to meet each of them in turn, were equally critical.

‘She smelled,’ said Ella, wrinkling her nose in memory of Mary-from-Exeter.

‘She laughed like a sheep,’ Josh observed bluntly when Doreen from Doncaster had departed.

Neither of them could make head nor tail of Gudren from-Sweden’s singsong accent.

‘She’s all right, I suppose.’ Josh, referring to another contender, sounded doubtful. ‘But why did she have a bottle of vodka in her handbag?’

They finally settled on Maureen-from-Wimbledon, a pale, eager-to-please twenty-five-year-old who was keen to move in and start work as soon as possible. Carefully highlighting her good points — she didn’t smell, possess an irritating laugh or an incomprehensible foreign accent — Guy prayed the children wouldn’t make mincemeat of her before she had a chance to find her feet. She barely seemed capable of looking after herself, but maybe she’d just been too nervous to create a dazzling first impression.

And at least, he thought dryly, recalling the very first candidate, she hadn’t fluttered inch-long eyelashes at him, surreptitiously edged up her short skirt and treated him to a flash of emerald-green knickers each time she’d crossed and re-crossed her legs.

Janey was working in the shop when Guy Cassidy and his children walked in.

‘I need some flowers,’ he said without preamble, removing his dark glasses and surveying the myriad buckets lined up against the wall. ‘For a wedding reception next Saturday. If ‘I place the order now, would you be able to bring them to my house on the Friday afternoon and arrange them?’

‘Of course I would.’ Janey was delighted. Men for whom money was no object were definitely her kind of customer. Reaching for her clipboard she said, ‘Tell me what type of arrangements you have in mind and which kind of flowers you think you’d like.’

Flowers, however, evidently weren’t Guy Cassidy’s strong point. Looking momentarily helpless, he frowned and said, ‘Well, blue ones?’

‘Berenice likes daffodils,’ supplied Ella, tugging his white shirt sleeve. ‘Remember? We picked her some for her birthday and she said they were her favourite.’

Janey had already guessed that the flowers were for Berenice’s wedding but now that Guy’s daughter had given her the excuse she needed, she raised her eyebrows and said, ‘You mean Berenice Taylor? Oh, I’m doing her bridal bouquet.’