LITMIR.BIZ

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Before she could slam the door in his face, Jake wedged his foot against the jamb. He winced as the heavy wood thudded against his boot, but he held firm, and Emily was eventually forced to admit defeat.

      ‘Mummy’s not going to like this, you know,’ she exclaimed, tossing back her plait of dark brown hair. ‘You can’t tell me what to do.’

      ‘I can and I will,’ retorted Jake grimly. ‘Now, why don’t you stop behaving like a brat and tell your mother I’m waiting?’

      ‘I’ve told you, she’s not here,’ declared Emily, her voice wobbling a little now. ‘Who do you think you are, trying to force your way in here, frightening me?’

      Jake had thought it would take rather more than his not unfamiliar presence to frighten Isobel’s daughter, but perhaps he was wrong. In any event, he was suddenly reminded that despite the fact that she was tall for her age—and insolent, as he knew to his cost—she was still a child, and he regretted losing his temper with her.

      So all he said was, ‘I’m your mother’s husband. Now, where is she? She knew I was coming. Why the—why isn’t she here?’

      Emily pursed her lips. ‘She’s at Granny’s,’ she admitted after a minute. ‘I don’t know how long she’s going to be.’

      ‘At your grandmother’s?’ Jake felt his temper simmering again, and determinedly tamped it down. But he should have known that Lady Hannah would have some hand in this. She had never liked him, never approved of her daughter having anything to do with him. Never accepted that without his help she wouldn’t still own that mouldering pile she called the family seat.

      Now he took a deep breath. ‘You don’t mean she’s in Yorkshire, do you?’

      ‘No.’ Emily pouted. ‘She’s at a Granny’s flat.’

      ‘Right.’ At least that wasn’t a couple of hundred miles away. ‘What’s she doing there?’ he asked, proud that no evidence of his own frustration showed in his voice.

      Emily shrugged her thin shoulders and he thought how like Isobel she was. Her hair was lighter, of course, and at present her childish features only hinted that one day she might possess her mother’s beauty. But she was tall and slender, and her eyes were the same luminous shade of blue.

      ‘Granny sent for her,’ she answered at last. Then, as if compelled to make the compromise, ‘She’s not very well.’

      A curse slipped out before he could prevent it, but the only reaction Emily made was to arch her brows in a reproof that was uncannily like her grandmother’s. ‘So you’ve no idea when she’ll be back?’

      Emily hesitated. ‘Well—she said she wouldn’t be long,’ she muttered unwillingly.

      ‘Wait a minute.’ Jake had just had a thought. ‘Are you on your own?’

      ‘What’s it to you?’ Emily resumed her defiant attitude. ‘I’m not a baby, you know.’

      ‘Maybe not.’ Jake scowled. ‘But even a ten-year-old should know better than to open the door to a stranger.’

      ‘Actually, I’m almost eleven,’ Emily corrected him scornfully. ‘Not that I’d expect you to remember that. You’re just my father.’

      ‘I am not your—’

      Jake broke off abruptly. He refused to get into an argument with her about her parentage. He didn’t know why the hell Isobel had told her he was her father, unless it was her way of shifting the blame. It was certainly true that it had caused an unbreakable rift between him and her daughter. And any hope he might have had of making an ally of the child had been stymied by her lies.

      ‘Anyway, I knew it was you,’ Emily added carelessly. ‘I saw you out of the window.’ Her eyes surveyed him with a surprisingly adult appraisal. ‘You’re wet.’

      Jake’s jaw compressed. ‘You noticed,’ he said drily, glancing down at his rain-spotted jacket. ‘Yeah, you may have observed that it’s raining.’

      ‘Peeing it down,’ agreed Emily, with a calculated effort to shock. ‘I s’pose you’d better come in.’

      Jake hesitated. ‘Did your mother tell you I was coming?’ he demanded, suddenly sensing why she’d been looking out of the window. He wondered if it also explained Isobel’s willingness to leave her daughter alone while she travelled across London at the start of the rush hour. My God, did she expect him to stay until she got back? To act as Emily’s babysitter, no less?

      ‘She might have done,’ Emily responded indifferently, turning and walking away from him. She paused halfway down the hall and looked back at him. ‘Are you coming in or not?’

      Or not, thought Jake savagely, glancing at the narrow gold watch on his wrist and stifling an oath. It was already after five. He’d promised Marcie he’d pick her up from her hairdresser’s in Mayfair at six. Dammit, he wasn’t going to make it.

      He heard the sound of a door opening downstairs and looked hopefully over the banister. But it was only one of the other tenants, probably arriving home from work. Suppressing his anger, he stepped unwillingly into his wife’s apartment.

      Emily had already taken his acceptance for granted and disappeared into a room at the end of the hall. If Jake’s memory served him correctly it was the kitchen, and, shrugging out of his wet jacket, he shouldered the outer door closed and followed her.

      As he’d expected, Emily was in the kitchen, filling the kettle at the sink and plugging it in.

      ‘I expect you’d like some coffee,’ she said, her cool detachment reminding him again of her mother. ‘I’m afraid it’s only instant. Mummy says we can’t afford anything else.’

      Jake gritted his teeth as he slung his jacket onto a vacant stool. The casual aside had really got to him. Why couldn’t they afford anything else? He’d paid Isobel enough over the years, goodness knew.

      But it wasn’t something he wanted to take up with the child, and he watched from between lowered lids as Emily spooned coffee into a china mug. She was evidently used to the task. She cast a glance in his direction as she took a jug of milk from the fridge.

      ‘Do you take milk and sugar?’ she asked politely, and Jake blew out an exasperated breath.

      ‘I didn’t say I wanted anything,’ he said shortly. Then, unwillingly, ‘Ought you to be handling boiling water?’

      ‘Oh, please!’ Emily gave him a cynical look. ‘Don’t pretend you care what happens to me.’ The luminous blue eyes dismissed his concern. ‘And, as it happens, I’m perfectly capable of making tea or coffee. I’ve been doing it for ages.’

      Jake’s jaw compressed. ‘If you say so.’

      ‘I do say so.’ Emily braced herself against the counter, arms spread out to either side. ‘So—what do you want?’

      ‘Like I’m going to tell a precocious little girl like you,’ retorted Jake, resenting her tone. ‘When did your mother leave?’

      Emily shrugged. ‘A little while ago.’

      ‘How little a while ago?’

      ‘I don’t know.’ She put up her hand and pulled her plait over one shoulder. ‘An hour, maybe.’

      ‘An hour?’

      Jake felt slightly reassured. By his reckoning, it should take Isobel no more than an hour to reach the service flat in Bayswater. She’d spend—what?—maybe half an hour with her mother before coming back? Two and a half hours in all. Which meant he would be too late to pick Marcie up as he’d expected, but not too late to make their dinner engagement with the Allens.

      ‘You didn’t say how you liked your coffee.’

      While he’d been mulling over his options the kettle had

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