LITMIR.BIZ

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But her mother, after many years of deep unhappiness, was only now starting to be happy again. Mallon wasn’t having a blight put on that happiness.

      Obstinately she glared at Harris Quillian. Equally set, he looked back. ‘The choice,’ he remarked, ‘is yours.’

      Mallon continued to glare at him. He was unmoved. What was it with him? she fumed. So he’d given her a lift, given her dry clothes to put on—she took her eyes from him. Her dress—albeit torn—would be dry by now. Her glance went to the kitchen windows, despair entering her heart—the rain was pelting down again with a vengeance!

      ‘I worked for him,’ she said woodenly.

      ‘Roland Phillips?’

      ‘He advertised for a live-in housekeeper, clerical background an advantage,’ she answered. ‘I needed somewhere to live—a live-in job seemed a good idea. So I wrote to apply.’

      ‘And he wrote back?’

      ‘He phoned. He works as a European co-ordinator for a food chain. He said he was seldom home, but…’

      ‘You agreed to go and live with him, without first checking him out?’ Harris Quillian questioned harshly.

      ‘Hindsight’s a brilliant tool!’ she exploded sniffily, and started to feel better again—it was almost as if this determined man was recharging her flattened batteries. ‘He said he needed someone to start pretty much straight away. Which suited me very well. He said he was married and…’

      ‘You met his wife?’ Quillian clipped.

      ‘She was abroad. She works for a children’s charity and had just left to visit some of their overseas branches. I didn’t know that until I’d arrived at Almora Lodge, but it didn’t bother me particularly. Roland Phillips works away a lot too. In fact I’d barely seen anything of him until this weekend.’

      ‘Is this the first full weekend he’s been home?’

      Mallon nodded. ‘He arrived late on Friday. He…’

      ‘He?’ Quillian prompted when her voice tailed off.

      ‘He—well, he was all right on Friday, and yesterday too,’ she added. ‘Though I did start to feel a bit uncomfortable—not so much by what he said, but the innuendo behind it.’

      ‘Not uncomfortable enough for you to leave, then, apparently!’ Quillian inserted, and Mallon started to actively dislike him.

      ‘Where would I go?’ she retorted. ‘My mother remarried recently—it wouldn’t be fair to move in with them. Besides which I hadn’t worked for Roland Phillips a full month yet. Without a salary cheque I can’t afford to go anywhere.’

      ‘You’re broke?’ Quillian demanded shortly, and Mallon decided that she definitely didn’t like him. It was embarrassing enough to have to admit to what had happened to her, without the added embarrassment of admitting that, since she couldn’t afford alternative accommodation, she had nowhere to rest her head that night. ‘He forgot to leave any housekeeping. I used what money I had getting in supplies from the village shop a mile away.’

      ‘You never thought to ask him for some housekeeping expenses?’

      ‘What is this?’ she objected, not liking his interrogation one little bit. But when he merely looked coldly back at her, she found she was confessing, ‘It seemed a bit petty. I thought I’d leave it until he paid me my salary cheque and mention it then. Anyhow,’ she went on abruptly, ‘Roland Phillips had too much to drink at lunchtime and—and…’ she mentally steadied herself ‘…and seemed to think I was only playing hard to get when I told him to keep his loathsome hands to himself. It was all I could do to fight him off. It didn’t occur to me when I managed to get free to hang around to chat about money he owed me! I was through the door as fast as I could go.’ Mallon reckoned she had ‘talked out’ all she was going to talk out. ‘There!’ she challenged hostilely. ‘Satisfied?’

      Whether he was she never got to know, for suddenly there was such a tremendous crash from above that they both had something else momentarily to think about.

      A split second later and Harris Quillian was out in the hall and going up the stairs two and a time. Mallon followed. There was water everywhere. He had one of the bedroom doors open and Mallon, not stopping to think, went to help. Clearly the roof was still in bad shape somewhere, and with all that rain—that crash they had heard was a bedroom ceiling coming down.

      ‘Where do you keep your buckets?’ she asked.

      An hour later, the mopping up completed, the debris in the bedroom confined to one half of the floor space, Mallon returned to the kitchen. In the absence of abundant floor cloths, she had used the towel from around her head to help mop up the floor.

      Fortunately her hair was now dry, and she was in the act of combing her fingers through her blonde tresses when Harris Quillian came to join her. Whether it was the act of actually doing something physical, she didn’t know, but she was unexpectedly feeling very much more recovered. Sufficiently, anyhow, to realise she had better assess her options more logically than she had.

      ‘Thank you for your help,’ Harris Quillian remarked pleasantly, his grey eyes taking in the true colour of her hair. ‘You worked like a Trojan.’

      Mallon couldn’t say he had been a slouch either, tackling all the heavy lifting, fetching and carrying. ‘It was a combined effort,’ she answered. For all she knew she looked a sketch—tangled hair, any small amount of make-up she had been wearing long since washed away, not to mention she was wearing Quillan’s overlarge shirt and trousers, and, thanks to paddling about in water upstairs, was now sockless. ‘I’d better start thinking of what I’m going to do,’ she commented as lightly as she could.

      ‘So long as you don’t think about going back to Almora Lodge!’ Quillian rapped, at once all hostility.

      Oh, did he have the knack of instantly making her angry! ‘Do I look that stupid?’ she flared. But, knowing she was going to have to ask his assistance, had to sink her pride and come down from her high horse. ‘I was—er—wondering—um—what the chances were of you giving me a lift to Warwickshire?’ she said reluctantly.

      ‘To your mother’s home?’ he guessed.

      ‘There isn’t anywhere else,’ she stated despondently.

      ‘But you don’t want to go there?’

      ‘She’s had a tough time. She’s happy now, for the first time in years. I don’t want to give her the smallest cause for anxiety. Especially in this honeymoon period,’ Mallon owned. ‘But I can’t at the moment see what else I can do.’

      There was a brief pause, then, ‘I can,’ he replied.

      Mallon looked at him in surprise—wary surprise. ‘You can?’

      ‘Smooth your hackles for a minute,’ he instructed levelly, ‘and hear my proposition.’

      ‘Proposition!’ she repeated, her eyes darting to the door, ready to run at the first intimation of anything untoward.

      ‘Relax, Mallon. What I have to suggest is perfectly above board.’ She was still there, albeit she was watching his every move, and he went quickly on. ‘You need a job, preferably a live-in job, and I, I’ve just discovered, appear to need—a caretaker.’

      ‘A caretaker!’ She stared at him wide-eyed. ‘You’re offering me a caretaker’s job?’

      ‘It’s entirely up to you whether you want to take it or not, but, as you know, I’m having the place rebuilt. I could do with someone here to liaise with plumbers, carpenters, electricians—you know the sort of thing. Generally keep an eye on everything.’ He broke off to insert, ‘Someone to mop up when the roof leaks. I’ve just witnessed the way you’re ready to pitch in when there’s an emergency. Later on, I’ll need someone here to oversee painters and decorators, carpet fitters, furniture arrivals.’

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