LITMIR.BIZ

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job to Elliott this morning. It had almost been as though… as though he had expected Elliott to forbid her to take it, Beatrice realised on a sudden spurt of resentment. As though Elliott Chalmers had any jurisdiction over her. But why should Benedict do that?

      Before she could puzzle any further, Peter was continuing firmly, ‘Now, Bea, you mustn’t let that family of yours persuade you out of taking this job. It will be good for you, and besides, you’ve got a perfectly adequate housekeeper who…’

      ‘Had,’ Beatrice interrupted him him wryly. ‘Mrs Meadows has left.’ There was a brief silence from the other end of the line. ‘Don’t worry, though, Uncle Peter. I’m still taking the job.’

      She hadn’t realised until that moment just how determined to do so she was. Especially if by so doing she was in some way going against Elliott, she acknowledged, although what possible difference it could make to him whether she worked or not she did not know.

      They chatted on for a while about Jon Sharman’s musical talent until Peter announced that he had an appointment and rang off.

      The afternoons were normally the only time of day Beatrice could call her own, but today, because of Mrs Meadows’s defection, she had to drive to their nearest supermarket and stock up on food. When she came back she felt drained and tired, and there was still the rest of the housework to tackle, she remembered as she unlocked the front door. She was dreading ringing the agency and reporting yet another failure.

      The telephone rang just as she finished putting away her shopping. She picked it up wearily, tensing as she heard Elliott’s clipped tones.

      ‘Are you due out anywhere this afternoon?’ he demanded crisply.

      ‘No.’ Cursing herself for telling him the truth, she asked warily, ‘Why?’

      ‘I’ve arranged for someone to come round. She used to be my nanny before your mother married my father. She’s been living in semi-retirement for some time, but she’s agreed to see you.’

      ‘She’s agreed to come round and see me?’ Beatrice was both ragingly angry and baffled. How dare Elliott make these sort of high-handed arrangements without discussing them with her first! What was he playing at?

      ‘Thank you, Elliott,’ she responded with a crispness that nearly rivalled his own, ‘but unfortunately I have no need of a nanny right now!’

      ‘Unfortunately?’ She heard him chuckle. ‘If that’s really what you think, the situation could soon be remedied, Bea.’

      The laughter threading through the words, the picture immediately conjured up by his mocking comment momentarily stunned her as she fought against the refined cruelty of his words. Surely a man like Elliott, a connoisseur of women if all she heard about him was true, must see how remote was the possibility of her ever having her own child or children. He might not know in all its detail the paucity of her love life, but she suspected he had a pretty good idea. She might not actually be the only twenty-seven-year-old virgin in the western hemisphere, but there were times when it felt suspiciously like it.

      And it wasn’t even by choice, she thought indignantly. She’d like to have seen him trying to conduct a passionate affair surrounded by four inquisitive and highly interested younger siblings!

      ‘Come on, Bea, the thought of being a mother can’t be that shocking, although to be honest with you that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.’

      No, she could just imagine it wasn’t, Beatrice thought bitterly.

      ‘Then perhaps you’d be kind enough to explain exactly why this… this person is coming to see me,’ she demanded in frigid accents.

      He laughed again, the disembodied sound making her shiver disturbingly.

      ‘Now, Bea,’ he chided, ‘don’t go all Sarah Siddons on me, it doesn’t suit you. I approached Henrietta to see if she’d be prepared to take over the post vacated by Mrs Meadows.’

      ‘Thank you, Elliott,’ Beatrice responded again with awful calm, once she had recovered from her shock, ‘but I think I’m perfectly capable of finding my own housekeeper.’

      ‘Oh, any number of them,’ Elliott agreed affably. ‘But finding them isn’t the problem, is it? And besides,’ he continued after allowing a telling pause for his comment to sink in, ‘I don’t think it’s a housekeeper so much that you need. Someone more along the lines of a warden from one of Her Majesty’s prisons would be more like it,’ he continued reflectively, ‘or perhaps an ex-public-school matron…’

      As she slammed the phone down on him, she was sure she could hear him laughing.

      Odious… horrible… detestable, interfering man! she raged, scrubbing the kitchen table with a sudden upsurge of vigour; and if he thought for one moment that she would seriously entertain employing his ex-nanny…

      An hour later, feeling rather bemused, Beatrice had the suspicion that the boot was rather on the other foot.

      Henrietta, as her visitor firmly informed her she wished to be addressed, appeared to be a martinet of the old school, who, as she told a dazed Beatrice, was very particular about those for whom she worked.

      ‘Of course, when Master Elliott asked me to consider coming to work for you…’ She paused, but the expression on her face was a revelation to Beatrice. ‘Such a delightful little boy he was! But you have rather a large household here,’ she continued briskly.

      ‘Yes… but… Well, what we need is a housekeeper rather than a nanny,’ Beatrice told her as gently as she could. Against her will she had found herself drawn to this small upright woman with her plain face and forthright views.

      ‘Oh yes, I know that, but when I was first a nursery maid they taught us properly, housework included, although I’m only a plain cook. To be honest with you, looking after small children is too much for me these days; I get a touch of rheumatism in the winter and I can’t run after them the way I once could.

      ‘Three brothers and a sister you’ve got, so Master Elliott said…’

      Her decision had nothing to do with Elliott at all, Beatrice told herself defensively later; it was the appeal in those words, the faint wistfulness in the other woman’s smile, and her own imagination as she compared the empty lonely life that had unwittingly been described to her with the hustle and bustle of her own.

      It was perhaps just as well that she didn’t see the light in her new employee’s eyes as she walked briskly down the road.

      If there was one thing she liked, Henrietta Parker reflected happily as she went home, it was a challenge. That dear boy Elliott had been quite right. She was far too young and active to retire. The Bellaire clan was exactly what she needed.

      Totally unaware of what she was unleashing on her family, Beatrice started her preparations for their supper.

      Mirry’s dress, washed and ironed, hung upstairs in her room. All the bathrooms had been cleaned and supplied with fresh towels. The discarded clothes she had found in every room but Elliott’s had been washed and put back in their rightful places.

      She had noticed that Lucilla’s clothes were still in her room, so presumably she had not yet made up her mind about leaving. If Elliott must meddle in their affairs, why couldn’t he confine his meddling to where it was most needed? Beatrice thought waspishly. In other words, why couldn’t he confine it to his own half-sister?

      Mirry was the first to arrive home, lifting an eyebrow when she saw her elder sister’s untidy state.

      ‘You’re going to have to get your skates on if you’re going to be ready for Elliott.’

      Turning away so that Mirry wouldn’t see the slow burn of anger reddening her skin, Beatrice said as calmly as she could, ‘Oh, that’s all off now.’

      ‘I suppose he only wanted to talk to you about paying you rent or some such thing while he’s living here. On the way to town

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