LITMIR.BIZ

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her to a gibbering wreck. Fear lodged like a physical presence in her chest; she could smell it and taste it. She glanced at the baby-sitter who had collapsed onto the sofa. She couldn’t lose it now; one incoherent wreck was enough! Her fingernails gouged small half moons in the soft skin of her palms, but her expression stayed composed.

      ‘It w-wasn’t my fault!’

      ‘I didn’t say it was. Charlie is very…resourceful. Did you say something, Nigel?’ she enquired icily as a disparaging sound emerged from his throat.

      ‘Resourceful is one word for her; I could think of others…’ He’d been goaded by the frustrating events of an evening which he had planned so meticulously into forgetting his usual tactful reticence.

      ‘At another time I’d be only too delighted to hear your opinion…’

      ‘Rachel, darling, I’m—’

      ‘In the way,’ she supplied, her urgency making her brutal as she shrugged off the unwanted protection of the arm he had draped across her shoulders. ‘Susan, what time was it when you last actually saw Charlie? Not just heard the music in her bedroom, actually saw her. I know you’re upset, but it’s very important.’ She stifled her natural impulse to wring the information out of the girl and forced herself to sound calm and reasonable. It took every ounce of her will-power. ‘We need to know how long ago she left.’

      ‘I…I’m not sure,’ the girl sniffed. ‘I was revising…the finals are next week.’

      Rachel bit back the scathing retort that hovered on the tip of her tongue. To say her interest in this young woman’s academic future was tepid would have been an exaggeration.

      ‘You were being paid to look after the child, not study.’ Nigel’s accurate but ill-timed observation reduced the young woman to incoherent sobs once more.

      ‘Nigel,’ Rachel snapped, ‘will you be quiet?’ The loud and continuous sound of the doorbell interrupted her. ‘Charlie!’ she breathed, hope surging through her body.

      ‘Will you stop that and go away?’ The door opened a crack. ‘I didn’t want Susan to know I’ve been—’

      ‘Charlie!’

      ‘Mum!’ The child released her hold on the door and Benedict took the opportunity to push it open. The source of the first cry stood at the other end of the hallway. A slim-fitting lavender-coloured floor-length gown was gathered in one hand, a mobile phone in the other. She let go of both; one slithered around her shapely calves and the other hit the big, distinguished-looking man with the silver-grey hair directly on the nose.

      ‘I’ll kill you, you little wretch,’ the low, intriguingly husky voice that evoked a response like fingers gently moving up his spine announced lovingly.

      Benedict didn’t think this was likely, unless you could hug a person to death. The woman had dropped onto her knees and the child had walked straight into her arms.

      ‘Are you all right? How could you?’ Rachel was torn by equally strong desires to berate and kiss her daughter. ‘Hush, it’s all right now,’ she murmured as the slender frame was shaken by silent sobs.

      Rachel noticed the man standing behind her daughter for the first time. How sad—the lights were on but there was definitely nobody home! It instantly struck her as tragic that someone so sinfully beautiful was lacking the intelligence to lighten those heavy-lidded, almost black eyes. She pressed her daughter’s damp face into her bosom and looked briefly into the blank face. Jaw slack, eyes glazed and vacant, he stared back dully. Latin extract, she decided; there was nothing Anglo Saxon about his olive-toned skin and glossy black hair.

      ‘Who’s this, Charlie?’

      ‘That’s…Steven. He fetched me home. I thought I’d get back before you were home, Mum. How did you know…?’

      ‘Susan rang us, of course.’

      ‘Susan doesn’t usually look in after John arrives. Just my luck!’

      ‘John?’ Rachel turned her attention to the baby-sitter who hovered nervously in the background.

      ‘My boyfriend. He sometimes comes to keep me company. He had to go home early tonight.’ Her tear-stained young face turned an unattractive shade of red as she studiously avoided Rachel’s eyes.

      ‘How fortunate for us he had a prior engagement.’ Rachel pushed the wing of soft brown hair that had escaped her smooth chignon from her face and the sparkle of anger faded from her eyes. She could afford to be magnanimous now she had her daughter back. Her fingers slid down Charlie’s silky, jaw-length blonde hair and she felt weak with relief. Things could have been so different.

      Her eyes returned to the magnificent hunk in the doorway. A very unlikely Samaritan, she thought, gratitude misting her eyes.

      Benedict hoped the groan was only inside the confines of his skull—incredible eyes! Pale skin that had an almost translucent quality and slightly slanted almond-shaped eyes that made the onlooker overlook the fact that her features weren’t strictly symmetrical.

      ‘I’m sorry, Miss French; it’s just John and I don’t get to see one another much. We’ve both got part-time jobs to supplement our grants and—’

      Rachel’s weary voice cut through the young woman’s babble. ‘I’ve no objections to you having your boyfriend’s company, Susan. I just don’t like you neglecting Charlie. It’s been a long night. Perhaps you should be going home.’

      ‘Right…sure, I’ll get my things.’

      She turned her attention back to her daughter, noting the sure signs of exhaustion in the delicate young face. ‘Well, young lady, was it worth it?’ The post-mortem and the chastisement would come later.

      ‘You know where I went?’

      ‘It didn’t take a genius, love.’ The argument they’d had over her standing with hordes of equally youthful, adoring fans in front of a theatre in the hope of catching a glimpse of her favourite boy band as they arrived at an awards ceremony had dragged on for two days. Charlie had capitulated rather too easily, which ought to have set the alarm bells ringing.

      ‘Actually there was such a crowd, I couldn’t see a thing,’ Charlotte confessed. ‘The taxi driver overcharged me and there were these nosy people…’

      ‘Quite a little adventure,’ Rachel murmured with great restraint. She knew it didn’t do any good to dwell on what might have happened, but it was hard to control her wayward imagination.

      ‘Is that all you’re going to say?’ Nigel asked incredulously.

      Mother and daughter turned with identical frowns to look up at him. Although there was little physical similarity, at moments like this their relationship was very apparent. Rachel straightened up gracefully, her arms around her daughter’s shoulders, the two of them unconsciously presenting a united front.

      ‘At this precise moment, yes,’ she said quietly.

      ‘The child needs punishing; she needs to know what she did was wrong.’

      ‘It’s none of your business!’ Charlie flared, pulling out of her mother’s arms.

      Rachel sighed. ‘That’s no way to speak to Nigel. He was very worried about you.’

      ‘No, he wasn’t! He doesn’t even like me.’

      Rachel winced as her daughter slammed the sitting-room door behind her. ‘Sorry about that, Nigel.’ She noted with dismay the pinched look around his nostrils.

      Even though she knew Nigel’s ill-judged comments stemmed from the best possible intentions, Rachel couldn’t help but sympathise with her daughter’s viewpoint. It had been just the two of them for so long, she couldn’t help but resent his well-meaning efforts to share the burden of responsibility herself at times. Do I want to share the responsibility? a tiresome voice in her head piped up.

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